Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey everybody.

This looks like it'll be my third thread up near the top of the first page. I apologize in advance if that's not kosher, or anything like that.

As I've said before in other threads, I am brand new to a widescreen desktop display.

Specs are:
i7-2600 (not unlocked)
3GB GTX 580x2 in SLI
25" Asus VE258Q LEDx3
Middle display hooked into its own GPU.
Left and right displays hooked into a shared GPU.

Getting everything installed and configured was pretty easy. After poking around the nVidia 3D Settings on the Control Panel, things seemed to get just a little intimidating. I'd like to speak with someone who's more familiar with the nVidia Control Panel and with widescreen desktops like mine in general to try and digest this whole big thing a little bit easier.

It's really uncomfortable how if I hit maximize on a window, it'll fill up on all three monitors. I'd like it to just maximize to the current monitor the window is in. That'd be awesome, and I stumbled over a program called Matrox Power Desk. The only problem is that when I looked on their site, I couldn't find a place to download it. Maybe it's late (4 AM) and I"m just really tired, but I didn't see it. Could someone tell me how else I can go about using it?

A few other things I'd like to do is move the Windows Start Button and Windows Start Menu into the left-hand side of the middle monitor. I've seen people use their quick launch toolbars for a collection of apps, and I'd love to do that too, so I wouldn't wanna totally get rid of the task bar on either side of the middle monitor. I've seen a couple of programs, but I'm looking for a clean little list of some nice ones.
--Also, it'd be cool if I could find a way to move the notifications bar from the far right to the right side of the middle monitor.

Also, I noticed that ever since starting SLI, the Windows Aero Window Preview has become disabled. Would really like to get that up and running again. Has that happened to anyone else? I mean, I tried enabling it and re-enabling it and it still doesn't do the trick. I suspect something deeper going on, but I don't know.

As far as gaming goes, I can only get World of Warcraft, Stone Giant, and Endless City to work well. With WoW there's this annoying fish eye effect, but I read that with games that doesn't support the proper FOV, there isn't much can be done. But even in WoW, I'm running two very powerful (or so I'm told) GPUs for a game that's not very graphically intensive and I'm not getting more than about 60 FPS. I've heard tales (legends?) of reaching FPS in the higher hundreds. I was told by a computer salesman today that it's usually Verical Sync that does this, but I turned that off in WoW and it still isn't ever higher than 60. Not that the game is unplayable, but now I'm thinking I'm not tapping into enough of my GPUs.

Are there many games that have no support for SLI? I keep reading about fixes and hacks that need to be downloaded. Is this more frequent than games that just work? I -really- want to play Mass Effect 3 on triple monitors! I've downloaded Widescreen Fixer for the ME3 Demo but I can't get that to work. I'll dedicate that to a separate thread later on, though.

Also, Bezels. Adjusting this is getting frustrating.

Also on that note, this might be an odd question, but what kind of desk configurations are recommended. Right now, I have a good, pretty wide desk of about four feet or so but my monitors are edging over it. What is the recommended view distance of the middle monitor? What are the recommended angles for the side displays?

I really hope you guys can help me. My friends were making me feel like widescreen gaming was stupid, and a waste of time, and that I was wrong for feeling like an enthusiast. I found this forum and I found faith in that if there's a whole forum dedicated to this stuff, it's worth it. Reaching out to you guys!

Thanks!

-Mneidig

i beleive its nview you need to keep windows onto a single screen its part of the nvidia control panel

nView seems kind of dated, and I don't see where in the control panel I can make any adjustments to how Windows operates.

I'll try to deal with your issues one by one... with luck, others will chime in soon, but it takes time (usually allow 24-48 hours) for people to see a post and, if they have the relevant knowledge, post a reply. ;)

1) I've never used desktop gridding software, even with Surround. I rarely, if ever, maximise a window if it's not a game... and my habits haven't changed with Surround.

Matrox hide Powerdesk away really well. To this day, I still have no idea how to actually get it from Matrox's site directly. It is available for download from a couple of the 'download aggregator' sites, but whether or not you trust those is up to you. There are a few other alternatives, however:

Acer GridVista bundled with Acer laptops for years, this allows you to 'grid up' your desktop - I've personally never used it, but people have reported success.

UltraMon is one of the two programs that reportedly work for taskbar management, etc. It does cost money, but there is a trial, so it might be worth a shot.

DisplayFusion is what I use to control my dual-screen system where I have one screen landscape and one portrait (nVidia drivers handle that abysmally). The free version is quite limited, the costly version better.

You'll probably better try GridVista first, see if that can solve your most significant issue - that of the stretch-maximise.

2) I don't think you have that level of control of the system tray etc on the taskbar in any application I know of. AMD (reportedly with Catalyst 12.2) allow forcing of the taskbar to the centre monitor in EyeFinity... if nVidia take Surround more seriously with the release of Kepler, we may see similar advances with nVidia Surround.

3) It's not SLI itself that breaks Aero Peek - it's Surround. The 'workaround' is to move your taskbar to either the right-hand side or left-hand side of the Surround array (so a vertical taskbar) but I hate that, so just live without Aero Peek. There is no other fix as far as I am aware.

4) Vertical Sync may be forced on in the nVidia Control Panel. Under the 3D Settings section of the Control Panel, go to Manage 3D Settings and check what is set in Global Options for Vertical Sync (should be the option at the bottom) - if it's 'Use 3D application setting' that's fine. Or you could force it off. I prefer to run with Vertical Sync forced on, because that eliminates tearing, which drives me insane when gaming. I'd rather live with the FPS hit than with tearing on the screen. ;)

5) Lots of games have support for SLI... far less have support for Surround. Surround is a 'niche', so even many of the big-name games won't support it - often, you're more likely to get an indie game working than you are a big-name game. It's a bit sad, but it's a lot like widescreen was a few years ago - when widescreens came on the market, almost no games supported them - even many developers said they would never support widescreen because it was "cheating"! Mass Effect 3, last I checked, ran on a modified Unreal Engine 3, which is the current bane of any Surround/EyeFinity gamers life. The engine was designed by Epic to only really cope with 16:9 aspect ratio (at least that's their excuse) and it treats any monitors narrower than that in a 'vertical plus' manner, and any wider (like Surround) in a 'vertical negative' manner. Which is a bad thing... a very bad thing. Thus, a lot of effort has gone into fixing these issues on popular games (like the Mass Effect series) but it takes time, and sometimes the fixes can be a bit... finnicky.

6) For bezel correction, monitor angles etc... it's going to all be your personal preference. I, personally, use a bezel correction of 152 pixels for each set of bezels. Any less (even by a few pixels) and I can detect that it's not lining up and I feel sick. I recommend getting a sheet of A4 paper or something similar that has a straight edge and is opaque(ish) and using that to help you line up the roads that calibrate the bezel correction during setup. Monitor angles... hm, I probably have mine at 20* off parallel to the centre monitor, with the centre monitor further away from my eyes than I do on a 'normal' single monitor setup. However, the distance is partly because the desk I use for Surround is very deep.

...

You have embarked upon a rewarding path for gaming, when you get it all to your liking. But it can be a bumpy road to get there. I'm sure the rest of the forum will help as much as possible. ;)

Just occurred to me that you say you've got monitor 1 on GPU 1, and monitors 2 and 3 on GPU 2. That's not how nVidia recommend you do it, but it appears to work, and you don't appear to have any issues that I don't recognise from my own experiences of Surround.

For the record, though, nVidia recommend monitors 1 and 2 on GPU1, and monitor 3 on GPU2. :)

This is fantastic stuff, Paradigm Shifter, and I'm grateful that you took the time to answer my questions.

I just tried the Mass Effect 3 demo, and I was able to play the game in Surround. Works well, but there's a teensy tiny little issue with fish-eye, but from what I hear, that's to be expected.