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?

Comments

My thoughts...

[brokencomputer]

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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Re:My thoughts...

[inter alias]

Yes, multiple monitors may be appropriate to distinguish between different tasks or parts of tasks (multi-window apps), but gaming is one one-window task and therefore a huge monitor is the appropriate solution. Even better if it was flexible or produced 120 degrees concave or so.

But yes, until we get curved displays 3 monitor gaming is a workable solution for peripheral vision. But I'd still go with a 30" cinema display.

Re:My thoughts...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think the difference is that two smaller displays is generally cheaper per pixel than a single larger display.

Besides, I'm not sure if there are many games that even operate at the resolution of the 30" computer monitors from Apple and Dell.

Re:My thoughts...

[TheSkyIsPurple]

I remember playing a flight sim/attack game many years ago on my Quadra 650 w/ 3 screens. It was great. The main screen showed the front view. The left screen showed the left view, and I think you can work out what the right screen showed =-) Now... apply that to FPS (and give me the motion sensors like in Marathon), and I might get interested in that genre again.

Re:My thoughts...

[Glonoinha]

There was actually a way to get the original Doom to do this. It took three machines, each with a single monitor, networked, to do it - but it could be done.
Or so I heard. I never actually saw it working.

Some games do support it.

[click2005]

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.

Female gamers.

[Onan]

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.

Re:Female gamers.

[ameoba]

I don't know about male/female gaming but, being a World of Warcraft player (and a male), I find my gaming experience to be much improved by switching to a widescreen monitor. The extra space on the sides of the screen is a great place to store all of the 'incidentals' of the game - quest log, inventory, character display, etc - while leaving the central area of the screen uncluttered and usable for playing the game. It feels like I'm more 'productive' now that I'm not longer required to constantly be opening & closing windows in order to get the information I need on the screen.

Desktop for the other monitor

[Spazmania]

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.

XBOX Forza

[jasko]

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.

Re:XBOX Forza

[wolrahnaes]

It works with quite a few monitors actually. At a LAN party a while back I hooked up 6 Xboxes on 5 TVs. The front screen had a second machine running rear view in PIP and there were two off to each side. We were trying to get a 7th box in there to run a spectator-cam view, but we ran out of copies of the game (3 legit copies, only 3 modchipped xboxes, so only 6 could run it).

Flight Sim

[ScottyUK]

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.

In the old days...

[Admiral Frosty]

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!

Also, the future will have rocket-powered ponies.

[supersocialist]

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.

Problems with games on a dual head system

[jafuser]

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:

• Fullscreen task switching: For some reason, nearly every game I've tried always minimizes when it loses focus while in fullscreen mode. This is very annoying since I just want to hop over to my IRC window, type something quick, and hop right back to the game. Or maybe I want the game to keep running while I'm chatting, while I wait for something to happen (see next item). Also, usually the minimize/restore process can take a lot of time and doesn't always go smoothly (sometimes the audio volume level is bumped around)
• Automatic pause on defocus: Some games pause when the game loses focus (ie X3). I guess the idea is that if the game isn't the curretly focused application, then you probably want it auto-paused since you might miss something. With two monitors though, i've still got the game filling one whole screen so this is not always true.
• Windowed mode problems: Since fullscreen causes a lot of problems, it seems like the best idea is to try to run things in a maximized window if the game allows it. The problem is that some games won't maximize in windowed mode. For example, EVE Online gives me a list of standard resolutions which I can set the window to, but it can't be resized or maximized. And trying to move the window around is a game in itself since the program likes to grab the mouse pointer when i'm trying to move the window to the top to get it to cover most the screen without cutting off anywhere.
• Glitches on secondary screen: I've often seen games and programs which run fullscreen on my primary monitor will affect the secondary monitor's "bounding box" region for where application windows can be moved to. Usually it causes the left half of the screen to be unusable while the fullscreen game/program is up and running.
• Slowness: I had one game which gave me a really low framerate unless I first disabled my secondary monitor when I started the game; but once the game was running, i could re-enable the second monitor and my framerate was fine.
• The Seam: I haven't really had this problem yet, since I always play games on my primary monitor only; but any even-number of monitors is going to wind up with the problem that the center of your game's action is going to be on the seam between the monitors (unless the game explicitly notices this and compensates). It's too bad there aren't any ATI or nVidia cards which support triple-head monitors so people could do a nice setup with the game action centered on the center monitor.

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 =)

Monitors? Dual Projector's!

[SloppyElvis]

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...

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[account_deleted]

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Define "terrorist" for me

[Quizo69]

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?

From an MMORPG perspective.

[Churla]

I am someone who has run a dual monitor rig for most of the last 7 years. Dating back to the "well, if you upgrade to windows 2000 it will support multi monitors off the bat".

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.