Widescreen Gaming Forum

Ok so Im new to the world of multi-monitors and surround gaming I have put together a list of items from newegg that I think would work well together and have run into an issue... the TH2G seems like an expensive solution vs. just buying a second video card and hooking the third monitor to it... would that even work? I mostly play games like WOW or Warhammer online and I do play some FPS games but again mostly MMO's and would like a three monitor solution vs a 2 monitor solution as with 2 monitors I have seen issues where your toon is in the middle of the two monitors and makes it difficult to look infront of you with the monitor seperation in the way and was thinking three monitors would fix this by putting the main toon in the middle monitor and just adding to each side... so this is what I put together so far trying to do this as budget minded as possible yet with enough power to do anything I'd like.... BTW I have never overclocked and kinda fear doing so. These items are from newegg...

so primary question is if its worth adding the TH2G for the three monitors of if its better for me to just double up on my video cards to get the extra slot connection for my monitors(if this even works???) it seems insain to pay over 200 when for around 300 I can just get another vid card and sli or whatever is needed...

The things I haven't done yet is decide what monitors to buy... still trying to find some 20 inch widescreens (or larger) for a 150-180ish range dont really know anything about monitors if anyone had any newegg item #'s that they might suggest would love to peak...


COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail Item #: N82E16811119160

COOLER MASTER UCP RS900-AAAAA3 900W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Power Supply - Retail Item #: N82E16817171033

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Item #: N82E16813128374

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail Item #: N82E16819115202

COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail Item #: N82E16835103055

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM Item #: N82E16835100007

CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model HX3X12G1600C9 G - Retail Item #: N82E16820145235

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM Item #: N82E16822136319

PLEXTOR 22X DVD Super Multi Burner Black SATA Model PX-850SA SW - Retail Item #: N82E16827249042

Microsoft 4GC-00002 Silver/Black Wireless Ergonomics Laser Desktop 4000 - OEM Item #: N82E16823109048

Logitech S120 2.3 Watts (RMS) 2.0 Speaker System - OEM Item #: N82E16836121013

EVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail Item #: N82E16814130486

I forgot to mention I am gonna run vista ultimate or windows 7 not sure if this matters at all reguarding my newbish question(64 bit)

I think I answered my own question I found http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/10452 and believe I can indeed use two cards and three or four monitors vs using the TH2G and as long as I don't sli them I don't even think I need that SOFTH software

Hi

Unless I am mistaken, I don't believe you completely understand it, just yet.

TH2Go does support SLI.
SoftTH does not, even though it requires two cards to work.

You do not use both, only one or the other.
IMO, TH2Go is the better of the two. It supports more games. Yes it cost $300 or so where SoftTH is freeware, but overall it is probably worth buying, simply for the best supported games list.

I'm new to all this too, so I could be wrong.
I chose TH2Go very early in my research for a couple reasons. The main one being the supported games list and finding two games I play unsupported by SoftTH. The list of games for TH2Go keeps growing and many new games release with support for it. To me that is a big plus and I believe it will make a difference not only now but in the future too.

If you want to utilize all three monitors in playing games (e.g. WOW), you need the TH2go.

Thanks guys I think I understand now.... is TH2G compatible with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236051 ? the last question would be which TH2G should I order I see there are two different versions of the product on the newegg website

The highest resolution that TripleHead currently supports is 3x1680x1050, or 5040x1050. This is a limitation of the bandwidth provided by dual-link DVI rather than a limitation of the TH2Go device itself, so getting a screen that is higher res than 1680x1050 is... not a waste of time, certainly, but... might not be to your liking if you dislike TFT panels running at non-native resolutions the way I and some others do.

Unless you're running old monitors that are VGA (D-Sub) only, don't get the analogue TH2Go - get the digital one.

Check out this thread to find which monitors can and can't do 3x1680x1050 without issues - from what I understand the Dell 2209WA is well thought of. I seem to remember someone mentioning it was S-IPS as well, which is always a plus above TN Film type panels.

Chiming in a bit late, but I just built a 3-screen gaming rig to play WoW.

My specs are considerably lower than yours (my budget is much smaller than yours).

P45 Mainboard
8400 Dual Core 3.0MHz
4G Ram DDR2
nVidia 280 GTX
(3) Dell 19" 1909W widescreen monitors.
Windows 7 (build 7100)

My observations:

1) Read up on the mapmem.ccp errors being experienced by high level systems running WoW. Many people, me included are having problems with WoW crashing due to having too much RAM and too powerful a graphics card. As described on the WoW forums, WoW basically goes crazy when it finds more than 2G of RAM and 1G of graphics RAM. It loses control of memory allocation and crashes out with a mapmem.ccp error. So far, I can solve the problem by throttling back the graphics settings during memory intensive operations (flight zone changes, getting anywhere near Dalaran, etc.). I've heard pulling all but 2G of RAM also works to prevent WoW from crashing itself. If you don't have more than 2G RAM or a 512M graphics card, you WoW can't consume enough memory to crash itself.

2) The immersive effect of 3 screens is incredible. However, I am second guessing my choice of (3) 19" widescreen monitors (1440x900). Running (3)1280x1024 may be better -- you get 10+% more vertical resolution. I'm running at 4320x900 and my field of view is so massive that I'd be willing to trade some of it for more vertical resolution.

3) It's an immersive effect -- you get fisheye at the extreme sides of the outer monitors. But since you aren't focusing there, it isn't a problem. Also, I get horrible motion sickness with certain game(s) and don't have a problem with other game(s). WoW I can play indefinitely without getting sick. Fallout 3 makes me sick almost immediately (however, even on a single screen Fallout 3 makes me sick in about 10 minutes). I'd recommend checking out the motion sickness problem on someone else's system if you can. It's a ton of money to spend only to find out you can't play without vomitting all the time.

4) TH2G game support. My budget has limited me to just WoW and Fallout 3 for now. WoW has native support for TH2G, Fallout 3 doesn't. When I look at the SGU settings for Fallout 3, they seem to be all set for a screen resolution of (3)1280x1024. That means on my (3)1440x900 the FOV is kind of wacky and I have lots of problems with interfaces in the game (there is a thread on WSGF that shows you how to address these issues in Fallout 3). If you don't have the time/expertise/knowledge to seriously mess around with the config.ini files, you may have some problems. Again, my experience is just limited to two games, so I may be way off base.

5) TH2G is a bear to set up. That said, Matrox tech support is excellent. Response time is very fast (if not immediate) and the techs are knowlegable. However, Windows 7 RC1 is not supported but they will try to help. But if you're the kind of enthusiast willing to spec out and build a gaming rig, you should be able to figure out everything.

6) WoW specific. You're going to need a lot of addons to get the UI to a place where you can see it. My character portrait and mini-map are literally over 4-1/2 feet away from each other. I've got addons that have dragged everything back to where I can see them in my main field of view (rather than out in peripheral vision). I still can't get the exp. counter or chat bubbles reduced in size.

Good luck and have fun!