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Tom's Hardware Reviews Multi-Display Gaming
MikShapi writes "Most gamers out there today own a dual-head graphics card (most of us completely neglecting the second port), and games such as X2 are offering support for this already (at least on nVidia cards, due to the "span" driver feature). Tom's Hardware did a nice rundown on the technology, complete with screenshots and benchmarks."
Meh, Seriously..... People are saying how cool this is but multidisplay gaming was being done on my Mac Quadra 840av back in 1989 or 1990 with an application galled Hornet by Graphic Simulations. We had three displays hooked up that could dynamically display front and side views as you moved the plane throughout its axis making virtual air combat much easier. Hornet was apparently written for the Mac natively, but later, when Graphsim decided they were going to write for Windows first and then port the Mac version, we lost the ability to do multidisplays even though the Macintosh had been supporting multiple displays since 1987.
Granted, at the time, a Quadra 840av with three fast NUBUS video cards and three displays were decidedly not cheap, but my point is simply that this is nothing new and when the original Graphsim creators of Hornet included this feature, they knew this was the right way to do it just like the more sophisticated simulators that pilots use for their training.
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I'm sure that having a second monitor to provide extra game info is probably way cool, especially with games like flight sims and driving sims. But how many people really have two monitors?
:-(
My desk is not that big and because I care about resolution and sharpness I run a large 19" CRT. There simply isn't room on the desk for a second CRT.
Not to mention that extra monitors are quite pricey. I love games and gaming, but I can't see myself forking over several hundred dollars for the purpose of playing a game. At least if I were a graphic designer I could make money with the second screen, but gaming is only a money pit.
No second screen for me, I guess, no matter how cool it would be.
I have been pwned because my
You can't beat the "3-headed" Doom play if you had three networked machines. That was fun.
Now that monitors are dirt cheap perhaps it will start to catch on more.
My experience with dual monitors has showed me its use for multitasking, but I can't think of anything more horrid than trying to span a game across it.
Even my multitasking ends up dividing entertainment from work... My GAIM windows and media players go in monitor 2 while my real work stays in number one.
I just don't see how that would be any fun.
clifgriffin > blog
Zaphod Beeblebrox!
Left, centre, right. Ideal for flight simulators etc. Where do you look with dual head? I can see the practical problems with fitting 3 VGA outputs on the back of an AGP card though, as well as desk space issues.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I had multi-display gaming on my Mac ten years ago. Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. I set the second monitor to always show the rear view, so if any MiGs or Messerschmitts started tailing me, I'd see it immediately. IIRC, the game would let you put a different view on as many monitors as you had.
Hell, one of my friends managed to get DOOM working with three displays on his PC back then, too, though it took him a day or two to figure it out-- mine was just (as you'd expect on a Mac) plug and play.
This would work great for a game if you had a touch screen on one of the monitors.
Think MMORPG
One screen is first person view
The other is your inventory and chat screen
It's too hard to actively use 2 screens with one mouse.
I found that continually turning my head right to left to view both screens put a real strain on my neck.
I tried moving back from the screens but I really couldn't find a "sweet spot" and eventally gave up.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I've always hated how my second monitor becomes unusable during gameplay. I'd like nothing more than to be able to throw my TV app up on the second monitor so I could watch TV while waiting to respawn in Wolf: ET.
I like the idea he presents in the article, but I'd rather have FPS games have the action in a middle window and have auxilliary information on the sides. Of course, the problem there is that two screens would divide the picture and three screens get you head swiveling even more than the original layout.
Multi-display gaming will require a lot of these kinds of ergonomic decisions if they are to succeed.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
cross your eyes...it's cheaper.
With the nVidia drivers allowing you to span, games like EverQuest already support multi-monitor. I play EQ in 2560x1024x32 and it works out pretty well, letting me split the character information across the screens. And, honestly, you never really look directly in front of you that often, heh, so the screen split isn't that bad.
doom -devparm -net 3 -left
doom -devparm -net 3
doom -devparm -net 3 -right
Done this a few times, works best if you have 19" monitors, roomate got seasick playing it. But he couldn't play Descent without getting nauseas either.
My biggest issues with this is that I need a monitor that allows me to place 2 more monitors on the left and right seemlessly. Such as, I want to extend the screen forward in the form of a lens and then slide the left and right monitors behind it hiding the plastic along the edge of the glass display. I can't have the 2 inches of break in my display when playing FPS games. Put it on both sides and it is twice as annoying. Remove the frame of the monitor and we have this working for games. Otherwise this is going to only slow me down. My desk has a 19 inch CRT, 14 Inch CRT, 17 inch CRT, and 2 laptops. Nothing new, but technology just isn't right.
Atari tried to put this technology into arcades, with Race Drivin' Panorama. There were 3 and 5 screen versions, but only prototypes existed. Check some nice photos and specs here and here
Some games I think a dual monitor setup would be awesome. Think any RTS game where the play field is shrunk because of the "instrumentation" or the like, with dual monitors, a lot of this could go to the second monitor. I think it'd be even cooler if you could decide what components went over to the second screen, and only keep those items most important to you on the play field screen. Or, have both the current and a completely non-instrumented view in the second.
I don't think that just spanning the entire screen shot across 2 monitors would be helpful in any way though. Even with LCDs, the break caused by the frames would be somewhat irritating, to me at least. Then again, even the mesh lines on Trinitron monitors are annoying to me, so I may be just a bit more sensitive to those types of things.
As for dual monitors in general, initially I thought why have duals? Just get one bigger better monitor. Now having worked with duals for about 2 years, I love this setup, and would rather have 2 slightly less capable monitors instead of one slightly bigger monitor. Being able to see a full web page and do something else in another screen related to it is way more helpful than switching between two window frames. There are many other instances where dual monitors are useful as well, and I even span both sometimes, although the application I use when doing that is amenable to doing that (eclipse).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yeah, we *may* have fried a $450 video card, but don't worry about that... on with the review!
I never understand why twin display never caught on.
Simple, it's a lot easier to hide the fact that you bought a kick-ass graphics card from your wife, than it is an extra monitor sitting on your desk.
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
You mean when I play Pong, I can have one paddle on one screen, and the other on another! That is dope!
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
but I can't see myself forking over several hundred dollars for the purpose of playing a game.
Then you're definitely no gamer.
"WOW! GEFORCE 5000! MOMMY CAN I HAVE $750 FOR A COMPUTER PART?!?! ALL THE OTHER KIDS MIGHT GET IT FIRST IF YOU DON'T HURRY!"
"No, Jimmy. Now take your medicine, go to your room and lie down. You know how your blood pressure gets when you're excited ever since you turned 40."
Seriously. If you're turning your neck to see 2 or 3 displays right up against each other, YOU'RE SITTING TOO CLOSE TO THEM! Move back a bit and use your eyes to scan, glasshoppah!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I'm sure that having a second monitor to provide extra game info is probably way cool, especially with games like flight sims and driving sims. But how many people really have two monitors?
I bought 3 Hitachi 17" Flat Panel displays just for that purpose. I powered them with a Matrox Parhelia. (Screenshots here, here, and here.
For Flight Sim'ing, the experience is just OK (at best). And that's only if you turn down the settings quite a bit. The video card simply can't handle 3840x1024 resolutions with all the settings maxed out and still manage 60+ frames per second. (Though in flight siming, since the graphics don't change nearly as much as they do in a first person shooter, you only need 25-30 to get a smooth playback.)
I noticed that in first person shooters the extra monitors didn't actually add to the emersion like I thought it would. You still focus all of your attention on the middle monitor. The side monitors ARE good for camping/sniping though. You have a wider field of view so it's harder for someone to surprise you from the side. But when you are running around constantly, the side monitors can almost be more distracting than useful. But it makes for a great demo for friends. Everyone you show it to will want it.
The real problem with triple head gaming right now is lack of graphic processing power. Don't buy the Matrox card for this purpose. You definitely WILL NOT be happy with the results. I most certainly wasn't. And I bought it knowing that for first person shooters it was going to suck, but I wanted it mainly for Flight Simulators. But even in that case it just doesn't have enough power.
Maybe when PCI Express is available I'll be able to buy 3 NVidia/ATI based graphic cards that actually have the kind of power needed for this intense of a workout.
What Tom's Hardware is proposing in this article is a much more practicle use for a second (or third) monitor. Having the second monitor display map data, chat information, statistics, and so on. The second display wouldn't even have to be accelerated in that case. A spare PCI VGA card with 8MB or 16MB of RAM should be sufficient.
anybody remember these guys?
http://www.go-l.com/monitors/index.htm
last i recall, they had fraud rumors flying left and right, but then they showed up to some convention or other with an actual setup and made everyone eat their words. i still think a lot of their desktop descriptions sound like complete hogwash, but whatever. that grand canyon display still looks pretty badass.
education
That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
~a.bierce
What I want is two camera views one for each monitor. I would like to have an overhead camera and a front view camera when playing NeverWinter Nights. This way I can see the excellent fights and creatures and still have a tactical overview of the situation.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Not to mention that extra monitors are quite pricey.
Actually, they're quite cheap, if you had the space.
I have a triple-display setup at home. Three 17" CRTs. CRT monitors aren't very expensive these days. As for the video cards, I have one AGP Geforce2 on the center monitor, and I have two PCI Matrox Millenium II cards on the side displays. The Millenium IIs are $20/each on Ebay.
Now of course, given the hardware on the side displays they aren't very useful for running games, however this setup is incredibly useful for many other things (programming, web stuff). Also, I can have a game running fullscreen/accelerated on the center GeForce2 and have IRC or AIM or a web page or something running on the side displays.
I was suprised to find that Multiple monitors actually distracted from gameplay. As a previous poster mentioned, The time spent turning your head & refocusing on another screen was often long enough for your oponent to get a shot off. More significant, by adjusting the view to match the realestate of the display, I lost considerable vertical field of view. Leaving me prone to attacks from above & below. I used the Multi-heads for a month, making adjustments. But eventually reverted back to a single monitor and saw my frags increase imeadiatly.
We hope that multi-display gaming will get a lot easier with the introduction of the PCI-Express interface, as it allows the use of several graphics adapters.
This is actually incorrect - contrary to most people's assumptions, there is no technical reason why a motherboard cannot provide multiple AGP slots.
Whether software is built to handle it is another question, of course...
I currently run 2 monitors not for gaming but for webdesign and programming. One is a 19inch monitor the other is a 15 inch. I run the 19 at 1600x1200 and the 15 at 1024x768. No good for gaming but I can check how well a website works at different resolutions and program on the big screen then check out render on the 15. I'll never go back to a single monitor.
How much does a set of graphite shaft golf clubs cost? For that matter have you checked out the price of balls lately? Nevermind greens fees.
What does a single Orvis or Sage flyrod cost, never mind your reel, line, flies and wading equipment?
I've got several hundred dollars into just the radio gear of my R/C racing car, and it's another fourty bucks in tires every few times I race it. Not to mention entry fees.
Computer gaming is actually relatively cheap if one runs a generation or so behind the curve. Used 17" CRTs are about fifty bucks.
I'm a notorious cheap ass bastard who enjoys squeezing life out of as little money as I can. I'm a luftmensch. But I work to buy things I want and enjoy. A good book. A game. A nice flyrod. A Campy grouppo. Whatever.
Life is a money pit. I'm going to do what I can to enjoy it and use what little money I have in that pursuit.
I work to live, not live to work.
KFG
My second monitor at home is a 17" LCD and was pretty cheap. Indeed, two smaller monitors will give you more screen real-estate than a single large one, for a much lower price.
If you do go down the multi-monitor route in Windows, I'd highly recommend Ultramon which adds invaluable features missing in the OS (taskbar on second monitor, maximize to dual-screen, button to flip window from one monitor to another, turn on/off second monitor, multiple profiles, etc.)
Have you tried using HMD? I've tried the Sony iGlass displays and it made my eyes hurt after only a a minute or so. It's like trying to read with your nose pressed into a book (literally).
Besides HMDs pretty much suck as far as resolution goes. And don't believe the: Like a 50" screen 5 meters away, it's a lie. Maybe if you have a 50" screen running in 320x240 while you are jabbing glowing hot needles in your eyes.
Second question, how does linux do with a second monitor?
:-)
:-)
Like anything with Linux, the answer is, "it depends on your distro, your [insert hardware model here] and what version of [insert relevant software here] you're running".
does it take any further customization?
Heh. Would it be Linux if it didn't?
Seriously, though, check out this HOWTO. The HOWTO's title is slightly misleading in that it covers dual head configuration in addition to Xinerama (which is lucky for us).
FYI, the Xinerama extension is what allows XFree86 to support the use of multiple monitors with one desktop (e.g., you can drag your windows from one monitor to another or have them span both, etc.). In the old days, you used to have a separate X session for each monitor. Most modern session managers (GNOME, KDE, etc.) now have good support for Xinerama, but you'll need a relatively new version of XFree86 (if you have a newer version of most distros, you should already have this).
It will also help if your monitors are relatively new. If they're not, you may have to do some Googling to get the proper modelines (search for "[your monitor model] xfree86 modeline"), but for most newer monitors, this should be an issue.
Another point of recommendation: if you want hardware 3d acceleration, try and make sure all of your cards support it. Otherwise the contents of your OpenGL app windows will not display on monitors without it. Not a show-stopper, but sometimes a little confusing/annoying when you're running Blender.
moto411.com
Great posts. I had been thinking about the Parahelia just for flight sim, now that's pretty well nixed.
... if you have your weather setup for rainy on your primary machine, the other machines won't just automatically show rain. So your left/right view would be a clear, sunny day while your primary display is raining. Same problems with air traffic. The weather problem can be overcome with a third party software program that keeps the weather in sync between the machines. I'm not sure if it works with air traffic too or not. (I think it's dumb that Microsoft didn't think to make it so that you could setup some "listen" nodes on your network. Sort of a client/server config for multiple displays.)
I would definitely advise against it unless you know what to expect and are OK with that.
So if you swapped out to ATI, what are you doing to drive your third screen?
Right now I have the 3rd screen on my other computer. I originally planned on buying 2 inexpensive ATI or NVidia PCI cards with DVI out so I could have DVI on all 3 screens. But every configuration I've tried so far under Linux has failed in one way or another. (And perhaps even more frustrating, all the configurations work fine under Windows. sigh.)
Have you set-up the multiple-computer flight sim set-up? How painful is that?
Sort of. I set up a 1 node configuration just to see if I could do it. I wasn't happy with the results. There's enough of a delay in the network response time between the machines that it makes for a weird experience. For example, you bank right, and 1/2 second later the Networked machines bank right. I have a 10/100Mb Network so I don't think it should be an issue of latency or not enough network bandwidth. (Could have been the relatively crummy specs of the spare machine though. My primary machine is pretty decked out though.)
Plus there are issues with the weather and air traffic. Since each machine is running it's own copy of the Flight Simulator
Plus there is the custom configuration that has to be done on each machine. You have to edit the cockpit files for *each* plane on *each* networked machine and tell it what viewing angle you want. -15 degrees on the left, +15 degrees on the right (or whatever).
It's a big pain in the neck in my opinion. You'd have to be a lot more of an enthusiast than I am to want to deal with it.
I really want a three monitor setup - it's just so much more interesting to flightsim when you can see stuff to the left and right of the plane.
Yes definitely. It's just too bad computers don't have 3 AGP slots where you could drive each monitor with a dedicated graphics card. I'm thinking PCI Express will be ideal for a 3 monitor setup.
I'm not terribly excited by flight simming, but it's cheaper to practice instrument approaches in the sim than in the plane. In some respects, I think it's better too. The controls/feedback sucks (Even with a FF joystick) which makes overcontrolling almost unavoidable. But the overcontrolling just forces you to have a really good instrument scan - so it ends up being better for your practice.
I think you can learn a lot from the Flight Simulator. I prefer yoke and pedals myself. I think it's more realistic than a combat stick.
But my interest level falls off rapidly due to the tiny field-of-view. I've had a chance to try two views (excellent Dell 20001FP LCDs) and it was great. Now if only I could add that third display....
My interest waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon. I was really jazzed about it for a while and kind of went "all out" on buying these 3 monitors, the parhelia card, and a yoke and pedals. And it was great fun for a while. But then, it got a little old. I put away my pedals and yoke and haven't touched them in months. My true interest lies in computer technology in general. Networking, playing with Operating Systems, and so on. That never goes away.