All you need is better nvidia drivers, SLI drivers that support multiple monitors. Currently they do not. I have one 7900gtx and i can span a lot of games across my two 20" lcds @3200x1200. but if SLI supported multiple monitors i would buy a third monitor and the display would be 4800x1200. Then Quad-SLI would be something to think about.
If nvidia would make better SLI drivers then matrox's "niche" would disappear.
nice, but until projectors come down in price and i can afford to have 3, i'll take my
sxga projector over 3 19" monitors anyday.
i'm using a 24"widescreen, 19" widescreen, and 18" regular monitors on my computer at work, and i must say its very nice programming on that kind of a setup, so this device has a lot of potential aside from gaming, especially since programming doesn't exactly take serious graphics power ;).
Interesting product. It wouldn't be that bad to feasibly set up such a system, since ideally you're going to want three 19" LCDs, which can be had for under $200 a pop. The price after adding in the TH2G will probably come in close to some who buy a 2407FPW.
The only thing that does stink is that half inch of space between the monitors. It does sound like a tempting DIY experiment to try and remedy that gap.
What I can't figure out is why some LCD manufacturer hasn't come out with LCD moniters that have the ability to sort of "snap" together, creating a more-or-less unified display. Do they really need the half-inch of plastic around the edges? Could this maybe be a DIY project to cut off the edges of these displays and get the viewable portions closer together?
ive akways wondered the same thing... I remember the guy that made a grid of displays (cant remember how many, i think it was 5x5 or something) and it looked dumb with the lines inbetween each monitor
1) works best with nvidia
2) no dvi
3) works with sli/crossfire? prob difficult to implement
4) limited resolutions (should support X x 1200 resolutions ideally)
5) few games supported
6) need to be able to hack FOV in other games - could be a pain
7) need 3 similar brand/model monitors ideally (for clean side-by-side setups)
8) again resolution - they were talking of being able to have a widescreen monitor in the middle and 2x 4x3 monitors at the side - that would be awesome but still not implemented
9) power - no cards/setup powerful enough to get good framerates at these huge resolutions
10) expensive
"and while the wide resolutions were nice, the split down the middle from the sides of the two monitors pressed together made it all but useless for most types of gaming."
With DualHead2Go, can you not hook up one graphics card output to it (and therefore 2 monitors) and then use the other output for a third monitor, creating a triple head setup using both the graphics cards outputs (one being double by the dualhead2go)?
Most games don't support multiple monitor spanning, though. TripleHead2Go makes the video card think it's working with a single high-res monitor and then does all the splitting itself.
And in nVidia driver properties, if you set 2 displays to "span" the computer makes them look like one display and everything runs spanned across 2 monitors. My point was can you not use the DH2Go to make one 2560x1024 monitor, and then span using a third monitor hooked up to the other output to make 3840x1024 without needing TH2Go. Games like Unreal TOurnament, or anything running on the Unreal Engine can have the FOV altered to it would look correct if it would work. The configuration of the game itself (adjusting resolution/FOV etc) can be done by the user.
Oh, nVidia's driver supports spanning in 3-D mode? This is the limitation I was talking about, the last time I checked it didn't work (going into 3-d mode blanked a screen).
Unless the game specifically support output to two (or more) seperate displays, you cannot run 3d spanned across monitors.
NVIDIA drivers will run 3d in only one display and leave the other in 2d mode (this is how we used to read temperature from the driver while we ran a benchmark before the neat temp logging feature was added).
There is no driver setting that can be used to make both outputs of either an ATI or NVIDIA card look like one display to a game.
Games will then run up to 2560x1024 across 2 LCD's, one plugged into each output of a graphics card. In 3D mode.
Games I have used with this include UT2004, Rome: Total War and Trackmania: Nations.
What I'm asking is can you use a DualHead2Go on one ouput, and then span with a single monitor on the outher output to effectively create a TripleHead2Go type thing with a DualHead2Go plus the graphics cards second output. Since you can make nVidia drivers span 3D across monitors connected to both outputs.
I always find Matrox's products... errr.. "Interesting"
I dont mean to diss them, I actually like Matrox quite a bit, in fact I was going to buy a Matrox Mistique way back but since I didnt see it at the shop I went to I bought a Rendition Verite 2-based video card that had a crappy non-working OpenGL ICD that I had to coax to work... those were the times.
$270 is dirt cheap if this thing can improve labor efficiency for a business, even if it's something as low as 5% or so. Labor costs are huge for most businesses, which is why they're willing to spend lots of cash to improve efficiency.
in most cases business apps don't have the limitation games do --
for games not designed to run on multiple displays (simultaneous rendering in different framebuffers), the matrox part makes multidisplay possible. some games still have problems with resolution or aspect ratio support, but many more games are able to take advantage of this than the two output available on almost all modern graphics add-in cards.
video does share this limitation in many cases as well. it is difficult to playback part of a video on one screen and part on another when they aren't rendered together and split on output.
if all you are talking about is improving efficiency for business users, two cheap graphics cards can offer more display and screen space for less money than one fast graphics card and the Matrox TripleHead2Go.
For instance -- with 2 7600 gs cards, I can run 4 monitors at 1600x1200 getting me a desktop that can either be 6400x1200 or 3200x2400. And the cost of both graphics cards (about $240) is less than the cost of one TripleHead2Go (about $270). Even if you just go with 3 monitors off the two graphics cards you get more screen space.
I certainly understand the argument, but even if Matrox succeeds at filling this niche, there are better and cheaper ways to do it.
"As we mentioned before, ATI hardware isn't able to achieve this resolution, so instead we tested one of the most powerful NVIDIA cards we had, the EVGA e-GeForce 9700 GTX (Factory overclocked to 690MHz/1.76GHz) with and without AA."
Should be "7900 GTX," no?
Also, it might be nice to have some "real-world" pictures of the setup you used in the lab to test this, showing the games you tested it on, instead of only the PR pictures from Matrox that look either simulated or edited.
Oh my, matrox did great job on this product. I could just imagine how it would look like if I had a 3 monitors configuration. It will be mind boggling.
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23 Comments
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blinkin2000 - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
All you need is better nvidia drivers, SLI drivers that support multiple monitors. Currently they do not. I have one 7900gtx and i can span a lot of games across my two 20" lcds @3200x1200. but if SLI supported multiple monitors i would buy a third monitor and the display would be 4800x1200. Then Quad-SLI would be something to think about.If nvidia would make better SLI drivers then matrox's "niche" would disappear.
R3MF - Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - link
3072x1280 on a digital pickup would rock.araczynski - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
nice, but until projectors come down in price and i can afford to have 3, i'll take mysxga projector over 3 19" monitors anyday.
i'm using a 24"widescreen, 19" widescreen, and 18" regular monitors on my computer at work, and i must say its very nice programming on that kind of a setup, so this device has a lot of potential aside from gaming, especially since programming doesn't exactly take serious graphics power ;).
Avalon - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Interesting product. It wouldn't be that bad to feasibly set up such a system, since ideally you're going to want three 19" LCDs, which can be had for under $200 a pop. The price after adding in the TH2G will probably come in close to some who buy a 2407FPW.The only thing that does stink is that half inch of space between the monitors. It does sound like a tempting DIY experiment to try and remedy that gap.
JNo - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
but a step in the right direction admittedly...Paladin165 - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
What I can't figure out is why some LCD manufacturer hasn't come out with LCD moniters that have the ability to sort of "snap" together, creating a more-or-less unified display. Do they really need the half-inch of plastic around the edges? Could this maybe be a DIY project to cut off the edges of these displays and get the viewable portions closer together?ksherman - Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - link
ive akways wondered the same thing... I remember the guy that made a grid of displays (cant remember how many, i think it was 5x5 or something) and it looked dumb with the lines inbetween each monitorJNo - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
1) works best with nvidia2) no dvi
3) works with sli/crossfire? prob difficult to implement
4) limited resolutions (should support X x 1200 resolutions ideally)
5) few games supported
6) need to be able to hack FOV in other games - could be a pain
7) need 3 similar brand/model monitors ideally (for clean side-by-side setups)
8) again resolution - they were talking of being able to have a widescreen monitor in the middle and 2x 4x3 monitors at the side - that would be awesome but still not implemented
9) power - no cards/setup powerful enough to get good framerates at these huge resolutions
10) expensive
Googer - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
I am wondering what the benchmarks would be like if the Triple Head to Go was used with a x1900xt or in SLi/Crossfire Modes?Lonyo - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
"and while the wide resolutions were nice, the split down the middle from the sides of the two monitors pressed together made it all but useless for most types of gaming."With DualHead2Go, can you not hook up one graphics card output to it (and therefore 2 monitors) and then use the other output for a third monitor, creating a triple head setup using both the graphics cards outputs (one being double by the dualhead2go)?
Furen - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Most games don't support multiple monitor spanning, though. TripleHead2Go makes the video card think it's working with a single high-res monitor and then does all the splitting itself.Lonyo - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
And in nVidia driver properties, if you set 2 displays to "span" the computer makes them look like one display and everything runs spanned across 2 monitors. My point was can you not use the DH2Go to make one 2560x1024 monitor, and then span using a third monitor hooked up to the other output to make 3840x1024 without needing TH2Go. Games like Unreal TOurnament, or anything running on the Unreal Engine can have the FOV altered to it would look correct if it would work. The configuration of the game itself (adjusting resolution/FOV etc) can be done by the user.Furen - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Oh, nVidia's driver supports spanning in 3-D mode? This is the limitation I was talking about, the last time I checked it didn't work (going into 3-d mode blanked a screen).DerekWilson - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Unless the game specifically support output to two (or more) seperate displays, you cannot run 3d spanned across monitors.NVIDIA drivers will run 3d in only one display and leave the other in 2d mode (this is how we used to read temperature from the driver while we ran a benchmark before the neat temp logging feature was added).
There is no driver setting that can be used to make both outputs of either an ATI or NVIDIA card look like one display to a game.
Lonyo - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
YES YOU CAN. I HAVE DONE IT WITH MORE THAN ONE GAME.nView properties -> Display Wizard -> Custom setup -> Span mode.
Games will then run up to 2560x1024 across 2 LCD's, one plugged into each output of a graphics card. In 3D mode.
Games I have used with this include UT2004, Rome: Total War and Trackmania: Nations.
Unless I am misunderstanding you, you can make games see 2 monitors as one.
http://www.lonyo.co.uk/duals.JPG">http://www.lonyo.co.uk/duals.JPG
And that's how they look to a game as well.
Which looks remarkably similar to the TripleHead2Go display properties, only with one less monitor:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/matrox/t...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/vid...x/triple...
What I'm asking is can you use a DualHead2Go on one ouput, and then span with a single monitor on the outher output to effectively create a TripleHead2Go type thing with a DualHead2Go plus the graphics cards second output. Since you can make nVidia drivers span 3D across monitors connected to both outputs.
Furen - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
I always find Matrox's products... errr.. "Interesting"I dont mean to diss them, I actually like Matrox quite a bit, in fact I was going to buy a Matrox Mistique way back but since I didnt see it at the shop I went to I bought a Rendition Verite 2-based video card that had a crappy non-working OpenGL ICD that I had to coax to work... those were the times.
$270 is dirt cheap if this thing can improve labor efficiency for a business, even if it's something as low as 5% or so. Labor costs are huge for most businesses, which is why they're willing to spend lots of cash to improve efficiency.
DerekWilson - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
in most cases business apps don't have the limitation games do --for games not designed to run on multiple displays (simultaneous rendering in different framebuffers), the matrox part makes multidisplay possible. some games still have problems with resolution or aspect ratio support, but many more games are able to take advantage of this than the two output available on almost all modern graphics add-in cards.
video does share this limitation in many cases as well. it is difficult to playback part of a video on one screen and part on another when they aren't rendered together and split on output.
if all you are talking about is improving efficiency for business users, two cheap graphics cards can offer more display and screen space for less money than one fast graphics card and the Matrox TripleHead2Go.
For instance -- with 2 7600 gs cards, I can run 4 monitors at 1600x1200 getting me a desktop that can either be 6400x1200 or 3200x2400. And the cost of both graphics cards (about $240) is less than the cost of one TripleHead2Go (about $270). Even if you just go with 3 monitors off the two graphics cards you get more screen space.
I certainly understand the argument, but even if Matrox succeeds at filling this niche, there are better and cheaper ways to do it.
Guuts - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
"As we mentioned before, ATI hardware isn't able to achieve this resolution, so instead we tested one of the most powerful NVIDIA cards we had, the EVGA e-GeForce 9700 GTX (Factory overclocked to 690MHz/1.76GHz) with and without AA."Should be "7900 GTX," no?
Also, it might be nice to have some "real-world" pictures of the setup you used in the lab to test this, showing the games you tested it on, instead of only the PR pictures from Matrox that look either simulated or edited.
Lifted - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
A GeForce 9700 GTX? Where can I get one?!JarredWalton - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Fixed, thanks. About two more years for the 9700 I guess. ;)houe - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
spPowermoloch - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
Oh my, matrox did great job on this product. I could just imagine how it would look like if I had a 3 monitors configuration. It will be mind boggling.jkostans - Monday, July 31, 2006 - link
A racing simulation like live for speed with 3 screens and a 160 deg FOV would be awesome.