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

DS

[tepples]

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 ;-)

games list

[uzusan]

matrox has a list of games that support mutliple monitor modes:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/surrgame.cfm

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.

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.

Re:Desktop for the other monitor

[Kesch]

Currently I use a two monitor setup with WoW on one screen and Slashdot on the other. It actually works great that you can set the game to be windowed and maximized so it looks the same as full screen, but you can move your mouse over to the second screen. Of course, I'm guessing you are using linux because I know that the second monitor on linux will black out when playing games like doom. I don't know how to fix that.