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State of Multi-Monitor Gaming?
xtal asks: "What's the current state of multi-monitor gaming? LCD panels are really dropping in price - I've seen a 17" panels for under $400cdn, bringing it into the ballpark where purchasing three of them for a much wider field of view becomes possible. The hardware to drive these displays in a LAN configuration (3 machines, 3 monitors) is also inexpensive, or at least attainable - so when I look around for the state of multi monitor simulation, I don't see much. The best candidates are flight sims, but my interest lies in racing. Are there any suggestions or sites I'm missing?" What games have you played that could have really benefited from a second (or even a third) monitor? Do you think that the games you normally play will be significantly enhanced by the use of multiple monitors, or is one enough?
I think games need to be designed with large monitors in mind for this to improve the gaming experience drastically.
I don't think that driving the displays in a LAN configuration would be good for the refresh rate, but I may be wrong.
Something I really want is a G5 with dual 30 inch Cinema displays. That's probably the best configuration as each of those two monitors supports the resolution of about 3 of your cheap 17" LCDs. We may have to wait for Intel Duo powermacs to get your windows games to work, however.
By the way, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory is fun on Dual displays and it is free for Linux, Windows, AND Mac, so that'd be a good option.
--
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Do you think that the games you normally play will be significantly enhanced by the use of multiple monitors, or is one enough?
Just ask any Nintendo DS fanboy ;-)
matrox has a list of games that support mutliple monitor modes:
http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/surrgame.cfm
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
I wouldn't mind having a EBMB feature where a secondary monitor will who/what's behind me.
I think any game will benefit from such setup, like RPG/Simulation/RTS/FPS won't hurt with dedicated displays for "stats" and "field".
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
I would imagine 3 monitor Quake4 or other FPS games would be good. I remember reading an article where an older version of Doom or Quake would support this.
Those with SLI/Crossfire/(Matrox tri monitor) support should be able to handle it on a single PC.
270 degrees of view would be a great advantage in those sort of games.
I believe FlightSim works quite well in multi-monitor with controls/gauges on one and
the 3d environment/world on the other.
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What if PC's were able to make the use of multiple monitors, like Nintendo DS does? I'd love for an extra screen to keep mini-map, server rank, ammo counts, etc on an always displayed screen. No more bringing it up on your main screen
So have this vague memory of a study done a few years ago. (Far too vague to be able to cite, sorry.) It was examining the "spacial" navigation skills of people in a rendered 3D environment, ala FPS games.
One of the surprising results was that women tested had much more difficulty learning the layout of complex spaces, and avoiding getting lost--when using a 4:3 display. But when a wider aspect ratio display was used (giving more gestalt context, one assumes), not only did testees of both genders do better, but this disparity disappeared.
Previous studies have shown that men and women tend to handle navigation differently, so this is not totally implausible. (And no, I'm not referring to men-asking-for-directions jokes. It seems that men tend to rely more on distance and direction, and women tend to rely more on landmarks.)
So this seems to suggest that not only is a three-across setup a great win for all gamers, but that it might be an interesting tool for narrowing the gender gap.
Hell, I'd settle for a game that lets me keep a desktop live on the other monitor so I can use IM and other apps at the same time without needing a second PC.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
If I recall correctly, Forza Motorsport on the original XBOX can be set up in a three-system, three-monitor mode. And I think a trio of XBOXEN and decent TVs will set you back a lot less than high-powered gaming rigs and monitors.
Supposed to be a good racing game, too.
I still have fond memories of setting up all three computers in my house to play doom with three monitors. It was an elaborate setup but I loved it. Unfortunatly they phased it out in one of the later patches. I was the envy of all my friends.
I think the main problem would be that you would be running a cluster. You'd have to do this because you wouldn't get the required data throughput at a sufficiently low latency to just shunt the video over the ethernet*. The difficulty with running a cluster would be that the game would need to be significantly rewritten - perhaps one of the biggest problems being synchronisation.
;-) you'd be better putting your pennies elsewhere...
Why not just by a dual-head video card? I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that at lease some of those allow you to create a single 'virtual' display from 2 physical displays. Doing this would be at the driver leve, and hence invisible to the game...
*maybe gigabit ethernet would do this, but that is hardly a low-cost solution!
I've recently upgraded from two mismatched CRTs (a 12" and a 19") to two widescreen 20" flatpanels. Most single-screen games can be spanned across two monitors with the nvidia drivers, but the one game I use often which natively supports multi-monitor is Flight Simulator. Main views and instrument panels can be placed on one screen, with GPS, radio stacks etc on the secondary screens. FPS games would really need an odd number of screens, otherwise the centre of the view (where the crosshairs will be) is split down the middle by the monitor frame. With two monitors and an FPS on one monitor, I prefer just to have system information (Temperatures, music playlist etc) on the other screen.
Nice weather for penguins...
i used to work at a company making multimonitor and huge multi projection screen games ;) we had a america's army scenario where you drove a hummer in a convoy and defended it from terrorists ;)
;) it was really awesome
it was pretty sweet, with 3 huge 8x6 projection screens it felt like i was driving the whole room around, we also have a M249 machine gun moded with lasers so we could pick up where you were aiming, so one guy would drive, and one guy would shoot as you drove thru terrorist infested streets
the company was www.lasershot.com
you didnt need 3 machines either, you could use multiple output video cards
I remeber reading many years ago about this man who did something similar with Descent. At the time, Descent was a game so 3D that it was nausiating to play for some. This man rigged up a headband with mercury switches and mounted a moniter behind him. So when he turned his head, the screens would switch to the rear view. Talk about sensery intergration!
Recently I researched benefits of Wide-screen gaming vs. standard 4:3 and came across an amazingly vibrant community (Wide Screen Gaming Forum). My wife plays WOW on her 15.1" WS Laptop and enjoys heaps of screen real-estate that I lack on my 19" 4:3 CRT even though my resolution is pumped way up. The reason? Your focus is on the center of the screen and all your buttons clutter the top, bottom and sides of the screen. Moving more clutter to the sides seems to improve the viewing area - maybe someone's done research into how we view things like that? But moving to two or three side-by-side monitors gives even wider viewing. There must be an optimal aspect ratio - is it the WideScreen 16:9, two 4:3's giving 8:3? When is wide screen too wide? Is that possible?
;)
I'd love to be in a CS research field where you could actually justify getting paid for an experiment like that
270 degrees would be more immersive. What's more intuitive for looking to the side: mouse right, or head right? It would be about as unfair as the advantage keyboard+mouse players have over joypad players. The cost of that makes it seem unfair now, but sooner or later it will be cheap enough that everybody has seventeen monitors and a telepathic controller, and they'll give you sideways looks when you say you've only got one screen on your gaming rig.
The definitive source: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/ There is tons of info there along with a database of proven configurations.
Personally, I recommend a Matrox Parhelia with three flat screens. UT2004 looks great and runs smoothly across all three screens.
When I was in Uni, the research lab had this station with a pretty impressive and expensive setup. It was basically a chair with a small table attached to keep your keyboard and this big plastic hemisphere in front of you that reached to either ends of you table. Under the table was a projector that was displayed whatever onto the hemisphere. So you basically had this image or video spanning either ends of you. It was pretty cool. I've never seen it been used for anything else except research students playing games on it. Yay for my tuition money.
I have been loving the use of 2 screens to play NeverWinter nights. You can almost see around corners with it.
What I would donate a kidney for is the ability to use 3 screens.
I have tried using Nvidia PCI & AGP cards in the same box, but I am never able to get past POST (all screens black).
If anybody has a suggestion I would love to hear it.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I can imagine what a good multiple monitor setup would do for crosses of RTS and FPS (think Sacrifice, if you've played that old, underrated gem). You could have your main screen be your FOV, while the other screen displayed the big picture strategy/battlefield map. It could really advance that type of genre.
What's more realistic? Viewing areas surpassing human abilities or simulating your head with a mouse?
And bringing up controllers vs keyboard+mouse is ridiculous as we're talking about computer gaming. Computers come with a mouse and keyboard, not controllers. PC games will be tailored to mouse+keyboard combos and console games will be tailored to their respective controller.
Who says that multiple displays have to be used to cheat? Can't the one that displays the rear view be behind you?
These days you can get great game pads for the pc. Some people prefer them--some people use them even when they're less efficient, because they like them. Point stands.
the suggestion is the Matrox Parhelia
d ucts/parhelia/256mb.cfm
t s+multiscreen
it's been around for ages
http://www.matrox.com/mga/workstation/cre_pro/pro
google is your friend :
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=neverwinter+nigh
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I always thought one of the best uses of multi-monitor gaming was when you could assign the other monitor as a dedicated map instead of having to bring up the map on your main screen. I think the Falcon flight sim used to have this functionality where you could assign various flight instruments to the other screen (particularly the radar screen).
allowed you to do this, with another PC and monitor, drive left & right views...
not a second monitor on the same pc, but a second pc, networked to the first.. I did it once, used it for about a week with a second pc, and had only a 'left' side view... it was more of a 'i read about it in the switches, I gotta see it' kinda thing..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Simulations like Rollercoaster Tycoon or Sim City. Put the finantial data, guest/peep/sim thoughts, overview maps and other things on one monitor and have the main game window in another window.
RTS games, put things like construction, resource management and things on one monitor and put the gameplay battlefield on another.
So, instead of having to go back to your base to build more tanks, you can just go over to the other monitor and do it. Then, when the tanks are ready, go back to your base and send them into battle.
Flight sims obviously would benifit from multiple monitors (put the instrument cluster on one monitor and the cockpit view on another)
Eyes in the back of your head on a FPS would give an very unfair advantage and therefore would not be supported in anything multiplayer.
I play now with Dual montiors... but generally teh second has only been used for IRC/Teamspeak maybe a web browser. But over the years I've championed for Dual Monitor Support for the Battlefiled games. And I found they had played with it (it sorta worked). But they didn't fully know what to do with it. I was pieved. I've always thought they could of put a map (or minimap) as well as stats and similar info on the side. Clear up the killing fields and still provide all the info.
Patrick Havens (Mr. 573333 to you.) Graphic Artist / Coder / Father / Journeler
Over the past year or so, I've had a few minor problems playing games on my dual-head setup. My main objective was to have my main monitor be for games, while the second would be for IRC (or occasionally, the Web).
The problems I can clearly recall encountering are:
Generally, I just try to only pick games which will run in windowed mode, and put up with the odd quirks that come up from task switching. I have yet to find a 3D game that runs in windowed mode, properly maximizes, and allows me to task-switch out and back into it without any annoying quirks; or a game which runs fullscreen and doesn't minimize when I task-switch out of it. I just hope as multi-monitor setups become more common, that they will be more thorougly QA-tested in this environment =)
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Stick a splitter on one of the outputs on a dual output card and then just plug 3 monitors in?
Against stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.
I've always wished that I could get a full-screen DVD to play back on my second monitor while I played on the first...
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Get one of those Voodoo5 PCI cards for the 3rd screen. It's almost as fast as a GeForce 3 and suffers little impact from being on the regular PCI bus.
...everything's bigger.
How about two nice projectors lined up seemlessly side-by-side on my wall... No pesky break in the screen. Say, you could make a regular double-wide monitor without a break but two inputs...
One big problem, is at least on ati cards/drivers, the second display does not have any 3d accelration features. Have yet to test on a newer nividia.
Also you ever see how long it takes to alt tab back to your windows display?
Is your windows display even in the right screen resolution?
Icons, wallpaper, etc displayed properly?
These are all problems dealing with weird video mods, bad directX code, bad video drivers, and just plain shoddy programming.
My 8 mhz Amiga did a better job here then my current ati/nividia 3000+ setup.
Developers need a good smacking. pulldown windows - multipule display resolutions on screen at once.
Alot of online games and single player games would benefit tremendously from an
optional second display.
Would love it for Eve to have a second display for information. Everyone I see with screenshots has the entire screen covered with windows.
Saw rumors that the next playstation will have dual outputs. maybe some hope there.
Just look at the current nintendo DS handheld.
- Gronk!
The thing is, I've not seen games that support 2048x768. Be nice if a game could detect two monitors and give you options for the other one, yeah.
I've got a video card that can output to Component so I can plug it into my HDTV... but no games support THAT resolution, either! 1600x1200 looks weird on a widescreen TV...
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I have frequently used 3 monitor setups with a dual output agp and single pci vidcards.
Not all video cards will do this, but I used a 3dfx banshee and it worked fine. Some s3's might have problems but I *think* I used one of those before i got the banshee (the s3 ones had 4 megs vs. the banshee with 16, so make sure you have enough ram to drive whatever resolution you want). If it's a newer pci card (yes they still make them) then it should be no problem.
You might have to toggle the BIOS setting that's something like "First Place to check for Video Card AGP/PCI?" Some cards (older) need that to be set to pci.
Besides that, windows 98se and above should just be able to boot and get to the add drivers screen.
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
i build duel video card system's for clients in both the structural engineering and oil industries.... both of them usually have 3-4 moniter setup's....
of course we have to do testing to make sure none of the parts burn out... what better way then a game of quake 3.
all i can say is 4 moniters makes a big advantage.
How about any games / video drivers that would display the view for both eyes on it's own monitor? That way you could play 3D games without any glasses or helmet, simply by focusing so that the two images overlap. An 8-hour session of WoW on this setup might seriously screw up your eyes though ;)
Well, yes but you don't need another monitor to do so just because.
Games can have review without being obtrusive or crude. It's just that so few actually implement it. Go play System Shock. Your character ends up with a device that, for a bit of power, gives you snapshots of what's behind you all the way to car-like rearview mirror real time view. And this is from around the time DOOM was around.
So what? It's up to the person playing to go out, buy a controller, and set up the game to use it. They certainly don't have too. And what point is it anyway?
You don't need Matrox, Voodoo, or nVidia. You also don't need multiple machines. One of the big promises of PCI Express is the ability to run multiple graphics cards at full speed. There are plenty of mobos that have 2 x16 slots, and newegg has one that has three.
I fancy the the idea of driving one 19" panel from one card and two 15" panels rotated 90 degrees on the second. The 1024 on long side of a 1024x768 15" panel is similar length to the 1024 on the short side of a 1280x1024 19" panel.
I'm Abram Bender. You're not.
It's your Bios. I forget the exact details, but you need to toggle which bus the bios initialized video on. The bios can be set to look for video on PCI or AGP first. IIRC, most boards boot pci video first, and then AGP if there's no PCI. That confuses most OSs and even some bioses when you're doing multimon with AGP + PCI. At any case toggle it from PCI to AGP first or vis-versa and give it another go.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I've states something very obvious (yet utterly ignored) in a former thread on the subject exactly. I'll risk karma-whoring for the chance a game-developer will read it, So I'm re-posting it now:
... 40% FROM THE LEFT EDGE AND 60% FROM THE RIGHT (OR OTHERWISE ADJUSTABLE) OF THE DISPLAY. IT'S OUTRIGHT A NEUCANSE! TIA.
The card offers an humongous amount of horsepower, yet the vast majority of people have monitors that can do 1280x1024 (most mid-sized LCDs out there) or 1600x1200 (most CRT's). So most of the power your card can produce above what a mid-range last-generation card (or high-range 2-gen-old card) can produce is largely unused.
All of these new cards will give more than playable rates at either of these resolutions on most modern games without breaking a sweat, the heavier game engines requiring you to drop a notch or two on the FSAA or AF.
In fact, even my trusty OEM Radeon 9700 Pro bought December 2002 for 270$ does that just fine.
But where is all that horsepower needed? The answer is obvious, and yet promptly ignored. All these cards have two outputs (at least). Which can very well work simultaneously in a game, thank you very much. If one LCD can't go over 1280x1024, why not have two?
I run a two-monitor setup on my Rad (Dual Samsung 172X's). Both nVidia and ATI drivers support spanning (turning all outputs into one virtual very large screen). Three problems arise that require attention for this to work in gaming:
1. The game must support using SPAN. Many games (UT2k4, NWN, Fable, etc.) support this reasonably.
2. Unrelated to Issue #1 above, the game must support *weird* aspect ratios. Contrary to popular belief, unlike 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 - the 1280x1024 res, what our modern LCD's do best is not 4x3. It is 5x4. Do the math. The next 4x3 notch is 1280x960. The 5x4 aspect ratio aside, dual monitors give some very new AR's altogether - 8x3 for two 4x3 monitors, or 10x4 AR for two 1280's side by side. Fable, for example, while putting the rendered picture within my virtual 10x4 display area neatly, promptly puts the (quite essential) dialog subs and game choices outside the viewable area because it is unfamiliar with this aspect raito.
3. Not a showstopper, but very easy to work around if only the game devs would give it one ounce of thought:
Most action in almost any type of game (bar, perhaps, RTS's) happens dead in the center of your display. Which is good if you're playing with three displays, all important stuff happening flat in the center of your middle one, but with the simple solution 90% of people can affort and implement - purchase an additional monitor and hook it up to their existing dual-head-supporting graphics card - all the action happens right on top of the split between the two monitors. Things like your character in NWN (which properly gets split by 2cm (if you're lucky and chose your monitors wisely - 5cm if you're not) of space in the middle, looking somewhat 'fat') to that little pixel marking the business end of my sniper rifle in UT. VERY annoying (though I got used to it, to an extent, and it's very much worth the wider viewport).
GAME DEVELOPERS, PLEASE, PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE, PUT AN OPTION IN THE CONFIG TO OFFCENTER THE GAME HAPPENINGS SO THE CENTER OF THE GAME IS
Those issues aside (and with some, at least the former two issues definitely are), two monitors and a 2560x1024 resolution would give even the newest GPU (with FSAA, AF and shadow rendering cranked up to max of course) a very decent workout, and put all that unuseable horsepower on the fringes of the useable realm.
My two cents.
-
In truth, while multiple monitors is the pancea, if you want something that works today, you should take a look at Natural Point's Track IR product.
It's pointless for FPS games, but for flight and driving Sims it's wonderfully immersive.
Basically you wear a hat with three goofy reflectors on it... the Track IR shines an IR LED at you, and watches the movements of the reflectors. It then translates small movements of your head into larger movements on the screen. Sounds like a gimic, until you try it. Then you realise that you rely on your eyes a lot more for positional data than you do on actual motion.
I play Pacific Fighters and Enemy Engaged Comanche Vs. Havoc fairly regularly. EECH is truely beautiful with the Track IR... switch it into IHIDDS mode, and the chaingun shoots where you look =)
"42"
is to use the second and even third monitors to display supplimental information. this is especially useful in games when a manual is useful for statistics or hot keys. the additional viewing field would be nice but isn't standard and so i find different information is the easy and effective application.
-Tim Louden
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Are you serious? You want a multi-monitor gaming rig, but you'll use ethernet between them? Wow.
For under $1k(decimal) US, I'll set you up with an SLI or Crossfire rig with 4 DVI outputs. You can span displays to your heart's content.
Personally i'd like to get 4 of these in a 2x2 wall mounted configuration.
Also worthy of note is that one will be unable to run more than 2 of any 30" display as they require dual-link DVI to get the bandwidth they require.http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/02/16/dual_displa y_gaming_bigs_up/
When you have SLI of Crossfire modes enabled on those cards you can only have one display active. This is actually one of my big pet peeves about SLI. I have two Dell 2405 LCDs and I have to constantly switch SLI off/on to get the second one to work when not gaming.
Available as single screens, but I don't know what the specifics are of the cards required to run them - probably something "huge". :)
Pick your poison - I don't work for Go-L, I just go to their web site and drool occasionally. :)
Seriously, I think either a two or four screen setup would be good for driving games. Driver sits in front of the right (2), or middle-right (4), screen - or left (2), middle-left (4), depending on which country you want to pretend to be driving in, and if you can get the game to position the steering wheel in that position.
Flight games should be an odd number, unless you're in aircraft/spacecraft sim that have the pilot and co-pilot sitting beside each other - is the F111 the only fighter-bomber military airplane that have the pilot and co-pilot sitting side-by-side in their cockpit escape pod? The F111 is an old f-b compared to others flying these days - still flying in Australia at least - but I reckon it has a certain charm. Then again, I live barely a metric click-and-a-half from the RAAF base at Amberley, so I see these birds cruising around a fair bit. :)
FPS? Odd number of screens, probably three being best - forwards, and left-right peripheral vision.
What I'd really like to see available though is a VR headset that can be focused properly. The last one I got a good chance to look at didn't have proper focusing and it made my eyes hurt after only ten minutes of play. Not good.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Supporting wide 'oddball' resolutions is easy. Many games do it 'accidentally'. However, gameworld viewport is 99% of the time fixed as 'full screen' (or two or three) - so the 3D view is stretched across the screens, and with even number of screens, center is at the split point of two displays.
Only games that I know of where you can change the viewport to the gameworld without changing the actual size of the game window are Anarchy Online and World of Warcraft (via UI MOD). I also think some Flight Simulators allow you to do it, but I don't really play those.
With viewport resize/move options, you can have full 3D screen on your main display, yet drag most of the 'other UI' to the 2nd display (which has just black background, or maybe some 2d graphic). MMOs would really benefit with proper dual display support where you could stick the inventory, map and all the other random windows to secondary display. Currently I'm really annoyed due to the fact that EVE doesn't support this - it would really benefit from it as you could put overview, scanner and map view to secondary monitor, really helping with the 'information overload' in PvP situations.
What we'd need is a videocard/monitor manufacturer 'alliance' sponsoring game devs to support proper dual monitor setups via specific extra options in the games - it would sell a lot of secondary screens and beefier videocards. It isn't *that* hard to do when you just make 'game desktop' to use whatever oddball resolution multimonitor system gives you, but allow separate definition of the '3D viewport' inside this 'desktop' of a game, and then make UI customizable/movable, and make sure all UI bits can be moved outside the 3D viewport, to the 'game desktop'. Add support to 'side/rear views' in secondary 3D viewports for extra brownie points so you can have 'rearview mirros' or outright 'surround game setup' if you have too much money, displays and too uber videocards.
I think for a lot of games, two horizontally aligned screens ain't enough since you can't easily use them to display one "view". Two screens are good for games which can make use of a secondary monitor displaying a map, but for things like racing games, flight sims or first person shooters, you'd want three screens so you could show front, left and right views.
One of the greatest things about City of Heroes is that it could be run in windowed mode and used accross dual monitors connected to a single card:
h tml
http://walkiry.no-ip.org/coh/grab_023_2005_01_27.
I tried 3 monitors (I had them already, the third one was connected to a PCI Radeon 9200SE) but didn't quite work, although I later heard in a discussion about this in the CoH forums that triple monitors worked wonderfully in a dual-card SLI configuration. YMMV.
The gained real state was wonderful. As you can see in the screenshot, I could have a lot of chat windows open, as well as all the bars available (team, inspirations, powers), and the map tab, while keeping a great view of the game. I'd imagine that if WoW were to support multimonitor setups, the gain in space would be wonderful since the UI gets crowded so easily. Imagine having multiple chat windows shoved to the side, and keeping track of everyone in a 40 man raid without having to completely cover your screen and obscure your character.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
I had a great two monitor on an Nvidia card setup running Debian, the massive desktop was great (I have one big monitor now), but I did try quake and the gap and slight differences in monitors made the display very dizzying.
I would naturaly concentrate on the center point (the montiors were CRT and different makes and what ever I did there was a gap between the two, plus the surround of each.
My brain would remove the stationary anommily and then I would get dizzy, followed by a head ache, followed by being sick.
So after that I always had games windowed and dragged to one or the other monitors.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
I find it interesting how the US Army (and their political wing, the GOP) refer to soldiers of the opposing forces as "terrorists" these days (specifically Iraq at the moment), even though they are quite clearly in their own country, defending it from an invading army intent on stealing their resources and setting up a permanent outpost presence in their back yard.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment and paint a scenario for you:
Country X invades the US, ostensibly to "spread freedom and topple the rogue regime which created a police state, subjugated its own citizens under the dictator Bush and exported terror to the world". You and your friends, naturally pissed off that another country has unilaterally and quite obviously invaded you (regardless of the outside world's media spin on the reality of the situation on the ground), fight back against them. You don't officially belong to the US Army (routed early in the piece because they were a spent force after trying to invade too many countries at once), but you and your friends nonetheless form a citizens' militia and hit back however you can, improvising explosives and using all your skills and ingenuity to try to vanquish a militarily superior foe. You also begin killing those Americans who decided to cast their lot with the invaders and are assisting them to "restore law and order", since they are even lower on the scale of human refuse than the invaders - they are collaborators and traitors to their own people.
So, under that scenario, do you call yourself a "terrorist", a "freedom fighter", or are you part of an unofficial "citizens' army/militia/resistance"?
If you still consider the Iraqi resistance to be "terrorists" after thinking truthfully about the above scenario, but wouldn't call yourself that, then you are the worst type of hypocrite I know.
I sincerely hope though that after considering my scenario honestly, you will come to the conclusion that you need to redefine a terrorist a little more specifically, and then apply that evenly to players on all sides, not just those on the opposition.
I can dream, right?
Visceral Psyche Films
On a related note, anyone hear anything more about PS3 supporting multiple TV's? I'm always in favor of more screen acreage.
On a related-related note: anyone know how expensive modulator's are to make? I'd love to see some game system supporting multiple TV's by broadcasting multiple channels. One coax output on the back and a splitter and you're in busniess! Sony? Listening?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
My genres of choice have been MMORPG's and RTS for the most part with a few flight sims. My current crack is WoW. My real goal would be as mentioned, to have all my inventory, minimaps, guild/area/whatever chat windows and some buttons and controls over on the right monitor, while I have the 3d redering "world view" on the left monitor. Of all things only ONE game has accomidated this so far:
Horizons
Yeah.. you heard me.. Horizons.. yes THAT Horizons. It's a sad thing in my world. For an MMORPG to support this they need a few key things:
a) The ability to make the game window the real full screen size instead of the full size of one screen. At one point in time WoW could do this, but now when you're in windowed mode it insists on only allowing you aspect ratio that follow the one screen hight:width ratio.
b) The ability to move all aspects of the game UI to the other monitor or wherever you want. WoW has this functionality through third party UI modifications.
c) MOST IMPORTANTLY It needs the ability to unhinge the 3d world redering window from the main window and resize it as the users need. Horizons had this, it was glorious. WoW does not yet. It has a functionality similar to this, but it still doesn't get there due to the aspect ratio limitations that the UI seems to enforce on you. Not to mention you have to do it all through a scripting language (lua/xml) which doesn't make for a smooth user interface for the non geek.
Just my $.02 USD on the matter.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
http://www.go-l.com/monitors/index.htm
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Video-Card.html
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Man, that's weird. At my old job, I had five (yes) monitors on my desk at one point. All CRTs. It was the most awesome development environment ever. Keep my SQL Enterprise Mangler up on one screen, so I never have to worry about printing out current copies of the db schema to reference (just look at it live), IM and web on one monitor that was easy enough to just hit the power switch on when I needed to really focus...never got any games working in the multi-monitor setup there though, sadly...
-knewter
LCD vs CRT:
No matter how fast the pixels show up on the screen, they're just not going away fast enough. I find myself shooting things that just aren't there anymore.
LCD + FPS = ghosting.
CRT + LCD = bad color matching.
2 CRT = almost a footprint problem.
Needs for a 2nd monitor:
A second monitor is great for games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, where you can take instruments such as the GPS, radio, etc. and place them on the second monitor. It's also good for web browsing while gaming. Flight Simulation requires that you look up charts and weather. You can make use of web pages when playing RPG games like WoW and Guild Wars.
A second monitor is also great for voice communication such as Teamspeak, Ventrilo. It allows you to peek over and see who's talking.
End of the day: A second monitor is 100% worth it. If you're an avid anything, two 19" monitors go for $300 CAD each.
As for footprint:
1. Pull your desk away from the wall
2. Push your monitors off the end so that the base is on the desk, and the back is on the wall.
Having played GR for several years now (and still going) I constantly find myself looking to the left and right to see if any of my enemies are around. It would be much faster and easier to just look at my 2nd and 3rd LCD panel to get this information. It would also help with finding sniping targets without having to move, which does actually affect gameplay. Being somewhat colorblind myself, I rely on seeing movement to spot enemy snipers, but being able to see left, forward, and right without having to move my character would be a great benefit, if such a setup is possible.
The same goes for any other FPS I've ever played, including games like WoW (I couldn't count the number of times in a day I'm looking left and right searching for that last quest mob that I need to kill). I think the possbilities for this end only in the games you have. As I said before, I just hope the games support this, allowing you to devote one monitor to a single view.
And they said zombies weren't real!
To be more analagous the US when invaded by the powerful, corrupt, evil "Country X" would have had to have been ruled with an iron-fist by a minority of the population. Lets posit that black people had been in power for a couple of generations and kept the white population out of political or other kinds of power. Lets also say that they were particularly harsh on another minority in the country, say the latinos, and had openly massacred them several times.
Now, the corrupt and evil "Country X" declares that it's going to end this situation because they feel that this bloody minority led dictatorship is threatening their ("Country X's") national security. So they invade and topple the regime and allow the country to set up a new one, one which is more inclusive of the majority population and other minorties.
Now the black folk who had been in ultimate power and able to lord it over everyone else are understandable unhappy with this sitauation so some of them go underground and using their ingenuity improvise a resistance, attacking both the forces of "Country X" to drive them out after their evil, unilateral invasion and also attacking the other ethinic groups in an effort to disrupt their attempts at a new, inclusive government.
At the same time, a radical Christian group from Canada which is bent on re-establishing an imaginary golden age of Christianity when all Christians were united under the Holy Emperor and were the dominant culture on the planet, infiltrates the US and begins using ingenious improvised attacks on the forces of "Country X" and also against the other ethnic groups trying to establish a new government, becuase the form of government they are working towards does not, in the estimation of these radical Christian fundamentalists, comport with God's revealed wisdom in the holy scripture.
Now, let's fast forward a bit, the black minority has begun to see that the new government is truly trying for inclusiveness and slowly abandon thier ingenious improvised military campaign against the forces of "Country X" and the other ethnic groups and begins to severe ties with the Canadian-based radical Christian group that had been stirring things up as well. But the radical Christian group continues funneling people in from other Christian countries to fight "Country X" and the new government being formed.
Being overmatched militarily, they fight by blowing up the military forces with improvised explosives and also randomly blowing up innocent US citizens in an effort to create widespread terror and hopefully a corresponding willingness to give in to the goals of the radical Christian group.
Given that, yes I would call those folks terrorists.
As a general matter, if your tactics are to create terror among people not directly engaged in military action against you then you are a terrorist, regardless of what sympathies your cause might engender.
Multiplayer is a consistently overlooked use for extra displays. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to drive multiple displays, audio streams (preferably on headphones), and input devices to run a single game with multiple players on one box. Think of it as a mini LAN party in a box.
PCI-e makes multiple displays easier, mutliple channel sound is already common, and USB should be able to support extra keyboards and mice (I think).
All that's lacking is a standard set of multiple I/O protocols and then developer support.
A well engineered game shouldn't even need rewritten netcode to make it work.
What we'd need is a videocard/monitor manufacturer 'alliance' sponsoring game devs to support proper dual monitor setups
From the imaginary future review, "Doom 5 plays terribly on ATi's BajillionX900. Across the 5x3 1600x1200 setup we have in the Gamespy offices, it can barely crank out three frames per second."
It's painful enough for them when people want to switch up from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 to 1600x1200 or turn FSAA up to 16x etc. Imagine if they were getting benchmarked on multiple monitors all trying to pull that off.
Right now, they pump out a ton of heat trying to power a single monitor with everything turned on and still don't have instanced geometry, proper displacement maps, real vs environment reflections, or do much with HDR - and Dell and NVidia are already teaming up to produce four $500 parts, across two boards, to get the frame rate even higher.
You think they really want a setup where people benchmark them against something that takes three times the power (plus any additional overheads that come in) for triple head - or, worse, 15x when someone decides a 5x3 setup would be even more immersive?
i'd like to get 4 of these in a 2x2 wall mounted configuration.
The 2405FPW features either 16ms or 12ms response. Which is okay, but nothing to write home about these days. For twitchy games I'd prefer something a little more snappy.
Da Blog
I generally dislike responding to ACs, but I appreciated your response.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
What?!? Nobody modded you funny?!? Hahaha!
Well, you made ME laugh anyway.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I have played a large number of games that worked in multiple monitors, so long as the monitors all appeared as one desktop. Just change the resolution and ASPECT RATIO of the game! For example, I played Aliens Versus Predator 2 with three monitors because it had a console command for aspect ratio. Also see
Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
no hidden comments and I only mod UP