Multi-Head Gaming

Anonymous Coward writes "A new hosted site at PlanetQuake called Multi-Head Gaming has got pictures of Unreal Tournament running on 5(!) monitors and Quake and Quake III Arena running on 2. It has also got a small howto with details how to set it up yourself on Linux and Windows 2000."

Comments

Poor-Man's Multi-Head

[Cycon]

A couple of years ago I was doing something similar with Quake 2 - Before MultiHead was available for Windows/XFree86 (Yes, I know there's been multihead for commercial X-Servers for years, but that's not the point)

What you do is connect two separate Quake 2 Clients to the same server. You play normally with one of them, and act as a spectator with the second. I would spectate myself, 3rd-person perspective (on the CTF Servers that would support it), and zoom out and up, so that I'd be looking down at my own charater. It was a great way to see anyone that might be creeping up on me from behind, and watching myself get fragged was usually pretty cool too.

With a third client you could stick with 1st person perspective, and simply "zoom" in as much as possible -- creating a sort of permanent sniper view.

Note that this works far better on "local" games than it does for internet games. The way that I got around this was to use Microsoft Proxy (at the time I was running NT, nowadays I'd just use a linux IP/Masq box) on my main game station, and then hook up the client(s) through a second adapter. That way, your main machine will get all of the packets that it can handle, and the leftover bandwidth would get sent to the client machines. This probably works better with MS Proxy simply because Linux IP/Masq will split up the connection so much better than MS Proxy. Even if your "client" machines are getting 10 fps or less, you don't really need realtime updates to your "rearview mirror" -- it's not like you can look at it all the time anyway.

--Cycon

Re:Poor-Man's Multi-Head

[Azog]

Don't you think this is a little too close to cheating? You mentioned setting the second PC to a 3rd-person view of yourself.

Wouldn't it have been much more useful to have it chasecam on your opponents? I think that would definitely count as cheating - at least for a head-to-head game.

I know that when I would play my roommate, we would yell at each other "Don't look at my screen!" when we were head-to-head in the same room. We often did sneak peeks, though. There's a huge advantage in knowing where your opponent is, what weapon they have, and where they are going.

So... is it cheating?

Regardless, it's a neat trick getting it running.

I might stick that old Voodoo 1 card back in my spare machine and try it myself.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

Re:X?

[Mullen]

Ya, not only that, Win2000 sucks for games too! If your going to sell you soul, go all the way and use Win98SE and get all the bonus cool graphics and sound stuff.

Playing any game on Win2000 is like playing it on Linux.

Re:It also works in Windows Me and 98

[Ted Nitz]

and don't forget that with Microsoft's new lisencing plans you may need two copies of Windows.
-Ted

Problem with two monitors..

[xtal]

Using two monitors is a bitch because you're going to make yourself ill trying to target something in the middle of the screen (where the monitors merge).

Now, if you had three - maybe a 19" in the center and two 17"s for left and right 45 degrees, that would rock pretty hard. Or, I suppose, getting a widescreen view (it would be more useful IMHO to have the 45 degree views).

If I remember right, you could do this via network controls on DOOM in c. 1994? (the center screen one 486, and the two 45 degree displays powered by 2 more 486s).

Very cool, though. :)

Games, pr0n, and mp3s drive the industry

[xtal]

'nuff said.

Wasn't this in the original Doom release?

[Fross]

I seem to recall the original Doom shareware release (v1.0*) had a feature whereby you could run it on a network, using three machines as your own. each processor would drive one screen, and one would be center, one left, one right, etc, which you set up on the command line.

this would be a better solution than the multi-monitor one, as:

a) you have to have many video cards, using up lots of slots and hence making the machine useless for anything else.
b) it runs at very, very low res.

if you could play quake/unreal/strip-frag-poker 2000 on multiple machines that way, you could have each running at their max resolution, have your slower/lo-res machines doing your peripheral vision etc ;)

fross

Re:It also works in Windows Me and 98

[mattman]

>Not like too many people in slashdot uses Windows Me and 98 but I want to note that they
>support multihead/multi-videocards. I tried it in 2D but I'm not too sure about using it in 3D.

Windows98SE and presumably ME only provide D3D or OGL acceleration on the primary video card. A Voodoo3 can provide Glide compatibility when used as a second video card. This limits the fun for gaming with 3D acceleration.

I hadn't considered trying to run in SW mode with UT before. I'll try that tonight when I get home. I have a Rage128 AGP as primary and Voodoo3 3000 PCI as secondary on my home machine.

Multi-head gaming? What's Next?

[haystor]

Multi-Head Porn. All the porn, more head.

Kinda lame, really.

[Xzzy]

It doesn't increase the range of vision at all.. it just stretches the original pixels to something MUCH wider than it used to be. Notice how the gun the guy is wielding takes up most of two monitors? :P

Now see, if it actually gave you periphrial vision.. or even if you could turn around in your chair and see what was behind you, THAT would be cool.

Sure it's cool.. but

[trazom28]

Since I can only watch one monitor at a time, and the space between the monitors is just a touch distracting, I'll stick to one. It sounds like one of those things that is done, just to say it can be done, but long-term, the world asks.. "why?"

Re:One Monitor is better than N (assuming N 1)

[TheSteve]

One thing they should do is clip the edges of the images displayed on each monitor so that the relative edges of the images meet seamlessly between each monitor. When turning or moving, your environment shouldn't jump four inches in either direction as the view is changed!

If the displays were aligned in this fashion, the illusion of multiple window panes through which one can view a singular world would be experienced. More horizontal stretch would occur, but if a system were to be designed to take full advantage of multiple-monitor displays in providing peripheral vision and side views, the effect would be to allow you to view more of the displayed world, maintaining image aspect ratios and rates of angular movement when moving through the environment.

It's time for some games to start supporting multiple monitors for different displays. Mech games could take on new dimensions of realism. Flight and driving simulators and games would spring to life! How'd you like to be able to sneak quick glances at your wingman without shattering the reality of the evolving action?

Reality is simulated best when we move our heads to change the view of our environment - not when we move the view around in a window directly ahead, with us remaining perfectly still. Making sure we match view variations with what our brains expect from solid worlds will make our created worlds even more immersive and lifelike.

Time to have some fun!

On Our Way...

[tarsi210]

From the: Why-the-hell-can't-I-find-my-toes? dept.

I suppose that this multi-head phenomenon is a step in the direction of a VR type of setup, monitors all around and the person in the center. Which sounds cool......really cool.

The question is, do the architectures that we currently have do multi-head readily? Or will we start having such things as video servers? I can see a future where you have one computer whose sole job is to house 25 video cards and keep them powered. Its mobo would have the chips on it to communicate to the main gaming server via a gigabyte fiber connection, which it would take the signal and demultiplex it so it would run on all video cards, thus giving you awesome multi-head capabilities.

Why hasn't anyone come up with this stuff?

It also works in Windows Me and 98

[katmaikni]

Not like too many people in slashdot uses Windows Me and 98 but I want to note that they support multihead/multi-videocards. I tried it in 2D but I'm not too sure about using it in 3D.

And now can put two of everything in my gaming computer- 2 OS's, 2 Hard Drive (RAID 0), 2 CD-Roms, 2 floppy drives, 2 GeForce 2 GTS's, 2 Athlons, 2 SCSI cards (one's for raid), 2 power supplys... This my really hurt my two platnum cards. I'll need two jobs. :)

psh - play Quake Bingo.

[boinger]

The REAL hardcore players play Quake like they play bingo - with anywhere from 8 to 20 simultaneous keyboards and mice, as well as separate monitors. THAT is hardcore!

("B-16" "You sank my battleship!" "I-24" "You sank my battleship" "O-71" "You sank....")

1600x200?

[SuperKendall]

This doesn't look too great at the moment - the resolution UT was running at over the five monitors was 1600x200. Not 1200, 200. Each monitor is set to 320x200. And 20fps overall (it was only a AMD 500 though).

So, it's going to be plenty pixelated, though perhaps it would be nice with a wider FOV setting. Sniping would be hell, though.

Lot of good it does me.

[kwsNI]

I only have one head.

-Sorry.

kwsNI