Matrox TripleHead Triples Your Viewing Pleasure

mikemuch writes "Matrox brings one of the coolest features of its Parhelia graphics card--the ability to drive three monitors--to any setup through a little VGA box. ExtremeTech has a review of the Matrox TripleHead2Go up. The review is pretty positive, the immersion in games and extra productivity area are a definite boon, but there are drawbacks: First of all, three hi-res monitors will set you back some serious dough, also there are some compatibility issues with ATI GPUs, and you may get a little vertigo while surrounded by your WoW world."

Comments

Perfect for

[dgatwood]

Flight simulators. Mmm. Surround vision.

re: perfect for

[jdbear]

Once you've flown just about any Flight Sim on multiple monitors, it's hard to go back to just one. Two is good, but there is the problem of having to deal with the divider in the screen, or living with your view being offset from center. I usually opt to fly with one monitor just offset from the center, and the other looking out one window. Three is much better, because you can center the main monitor and use the two on the sides for side window views. I've used multiple video cards and a product called WidevieW to achieve this. WidevieW allows Microsoft Flight Sim to run on multiple machines in Slave mode so that one machine controls the plane and the others just handle the view.

    The difference it makes in flying sims is too big to describe. I know guys who have opted for many more monitors (13 or 19 even) to get a full surround view. I think that 3 or 5 would be gracious plenty.

The cost is not that big a deal, either. Fifteen or seventeen inch flat panel monitors are available for less than $250 each, and can be used on other systems if the multi-monitor setup is not needed all the time.

Re:Perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

its not great if you use linux, as the support is genarally attrotious,

You'd think this thing would be perfect for linux gaming. You could run each of the three available games simultaneously.

Re:Perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

this isn't funny. it's insightful.

Re:Perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

Obiously this card is perfect for Bill Gates.

Re: perfect for

[owlstead]

Of course, these things are NOT seen as three different monitors. This means that you have to have support from the game to put the side views on the single monitor. I doubt many flight sims are capable of that, although there are so many add-ins for MS flight sim that this may just be that one exception.

Re: perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

I know guys who have opted for many more monitors (13 or 19 even) to get a full surround view.

Billy Nomates.

Re: perfect for

[m0nstr42]

The cost is not that big a deal, either. Fifteen or seventeen inch flat panel monitors are available for less than $250 each, and can be used on other systems if the multi-monitor setup is not needed all the time.

OK, I'll take a couple of your spares. You can pay off my student loans while you're at it, too.

Re:Perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 2 more versions of Tux Racer? Links please.

Re: perfect for

[Lumpy]

Two is good, but there is the problem of having to deal with the divider in the screen,

funny, pilots have dealt with the support seam down the middle of the windscreen on Piper and other aircraft for tens of years without a problem.

I would call the seam a "realistic feature" :-) add a plastic cover with scratches and yellowing to further simulate a nice 1978 comanche windscreen.

Re: perfect for

[jdbear]

Yeah, I think about the blind spots when I fly some of the planes in Flight Sim. It's even funny when I can line up a support pole on the screen with the divider line between my screens. I just imagine that the edges of the monitors are part of the plane :o).

In real life, I fly weight-shift controlled ultralight gliders, so my view is nearly unobstructed. Of course, it's a high-wing, so I have to take care when clearing my turns, but that's not usually a problem.

My real point was that adding monitors is the best way to increase the enjoyment of the flight sims that I know. I configure my screens as a single large view, and adjust windows accordingly for the perfect match. Makes VFR flight much more realistic in FS2004.

David

Re: perfect for

[bill_mcgonigle]

Some old Mac flight sims supported this. I believe FA-18 Hornet was one - we used to play it on a Mac IIci with 3 13" monitors and two extra NuBus video cards. It was only 256 color on each display, but the effect was quite good.

But this was 1993 or so so I'll stop raining on the "cool new technology parade".

Re:Perfect for

[msh104]

here yah go

http://www.happypenguin.org/show?Open%20Racer
http://www.happypenguin.org/show?PPRacer

Re: perfect for

[DrJimbo]

Lumpy said:

funny, pilots have dealt with the support seam down the middle of the windscreen on Piper and other aircraft for tens of years without a problem.

I would call the seam a "realistic feature" :-)

I have to disagree with you here unless the flight sim has head sensors so that when I move my head back and forth the views shift on the monitors. Otherwise, this is only a "realistic feature" for a situation where the pilot's head is clamped into a fixed position and can't move relative to the seam.

Re: perfect for

[PatTheGreat]

Or, you know, you could just go out and fly a plane.

Ain't that hard. I know, 'cause I'm a pilot.

Speaking of which, any other pilots out there notice how hard it is to go back to simulators once you've done the real thing?

Re: perfect for

[Anonymous Coward]

PatTheGreat said:

Speaking of which, any other pilots out there notice how hard it is to go back to simulators once you've done the real thing?

I've noticed this and I'm not a pilot.

So to come back to reality...

[IflyRC]

and you may get a little vertigo while surrounded by your WoW world.

WoW is addictive enough, something like this will send people over the deep end.

Re:So to come back to reality...

[Blue0ctane]

This is huge. It might inspire a new generation of fat WoW nerds to become even fatter and more addicted.

Re:So to come back to reality...

[Daemon69]

This is huge. It might inspire a new generation of fat WoW nerds to become even fatter and more addicted.

Am not! >:(

Re:So to come back to reality...

[hentaidan]

WoW is addictive enough, something like this will send people over the deep end.

You mean they can go further over the edge?

Wow

Re:So to come back to reality...

[Blue0ctane]

Never necessarily said that you were fat, just said that the fat ones would become even fatter. And I like how 20% of the mods rated my comment as Insightful. :-)

Re:So to come back to reality...

[Andrew Kismet]

You like the fact that only 1 out of 5 thought it was insightful? :P

Re:So to come back to reality...

[WCD_Thor]

I'm not sure about WoW but people already have died from MMORPG's. Somone even died playing BF2 too much.

cool but...

[mytrip]

I'd really like to see more games support multiple monitors. I have a bunch that dont and only support up to 1280x1024.

Re:cool but...

[Grishnakh]

I'd really like to see more games support multiple monitors. I have a bunch that dont and only support up to 1280x1024.

That's because resolution isn't important; only FPS and polygon counts are. That's why you should always run your games in 640x480, so you can get the most frames-per-second.

Re:cool but...

[Yvan256]

>That's because resolution isn't important; only FPS and polygon counts are.
>That's why you should always run your games in 640x480, so you can get the most frames-per-second.

I laugh at your his-res VGA 640x480 graphics! I get two gazillions polygons per second with my hacked 320x240 drivers!

Re:cool but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I replaced my monitor with a binary LED light. One bit of video data means that quad SLI setup can finally show its strength. (and at only $2000, who wouldn't want it?)

Re:cool but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but when I want to watch my girlfriend beat the other beach babes while bouncing her boobies in Dead or ALive: Beach Volleyball, i want to watch her in full hi-rez premium polygon pushing splendor, thankyouverymuch.

Do I need to mention the immersion factor?

Using a system like this made me want more eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

But I don't see anyone doing anything about that, except perhaps for the nuclear industry of the 70's and 80's.

Whoa....

[Anonymous Coward]

Slow down there Matrox..... I'd be happy to just get some SingleHead

Re:Whoa....

[edwardpickman]

Slow down there Matrox..... I'd be happy to just get some SingleHead

If you haven't had three heads at once don't knock it.

Re:Whoa....

[HardCorePawn]

If you haven't had three heads at once don't knock it.

I dont think he was knocking it... more like hoping for it

Re:Whoa....

[Anonymous Coward]

Think single head is rare, try getting married head ...

Re:Whoa....

[Evil-G]

Make sure you pick the right woman too... Or this might happen!

"three hi-res monitors"

[Z0mb1eman]

FTA:

Resolutions supported are limited to triple 640x480 (1920x480), triple 800x600(2400x600), triple 1024x768(3072x768), and triple 1280x1024(3840x1024).

If you have the room for three 19" CRTs, they're dirt cheap nowadays. Even LCDs have come down in price a lot - 17" and 19" LCDs are generally 1280x1024, and you can easily find cheap 19" LCDs for under CAD$300 (and decent ones around $350). Not all three monitors need to be identical... I'd suggest a quality monitor in the middle (since it'll be used the most), and cheaper ones on the sides.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

Those resolutions suck.

Call me when it will do four 20"+ 1600x1200+ monitors (which is only around a $2000 setup).

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[utlemming]

I am thinking of the guy with a dual-head video card installing two of these...does that mean that using a dual-head monitor and two of these triple-head adapters, you can run six screens together? That would have to be one heck of a desk to have it all, but I could see the need for this. Better yet, if you hooked this thing up to a Quattro that supports four monitors, do you get 12 monitors for a resolution of 7680x2048? Or would you get 15360x1024?

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[setirw]

For me, at least, the monitors have to be identical, as subtle color shifts between different monitors become especially evident when using a multimon setup. It's annoying when one monitor's 9300K differs from another's. It's also nice to have identical bezel widths, so that windows transition properly from one monitor to another.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[owlstead]

How many videocards will be able to run 3840x1024 on a frequency of 85 Hz? Because that is what you would need if you used triple 19" CRT monitors. With TFT's you can get away with 60, 70 or 72 Hz without degrading picture quality. CRT's also produce a lot of heat and use a lot of energy. Besides that, who would still want his desk to be occupied with 3 CRT's while you can get decent 1280x1024 17" TFT's at decent prices?

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Martin Blank]

People like me who feel constrained by 1280x1024. I've been using 1600x1200 for years, and it can be distracting for me to use lower resolutions. I'd really like to have a nice LCD capable of 1600x1200 (or better) resolution on my desk, but they're still too expensive for me to be able to just drop coin. I have a secondary screen that is nearly dead, and is only good for 800x600 anyway (and ten years of service is a good run), so I may replace that soon with something of a relatively low resolution, but for the main screen, I have to have something high-res.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Serengeti]

Oo! You should take your Quattro, plug a Triple-head into each port, then a Triple-head into each of those!

Why is the man who went to St. Yves coming to mind?

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what the Matrox QID LP series of cards do. $800 a pop

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[HTH NE1]

You'll be reducing individual screen resolutions, color depth, or both to account for the memory shortfall on the video card. Just because you can connect a big screen to the card doesn't necessarily mean the card has enough memory to feed it all in 24-bit color.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[owlstead]

Uh, I just bought a 600 euro screen from Dell that does 1680x1050. I prefer it over the two 17" screens at work because of video and games - also my development environment still works better on just one screen instead of two (even though it IS optimized for two screens). You cannot split lines of text over two screens, it's that simple. All this said, I really don't see this having to much to do on this topic, so we'll probably be modded down :)

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Maxo-Texas]

My work setup is dual 1280x1024 monitors and it rocks.

I can open open up the eclipse workspace and then adjust it so source and variables are on the right, tasks and console are on the left, etc.

The monitors are at slightly different heights and have different bezel colors but after about 2 days, I don't even notice it any more. My brain just remapped it into one big monitor.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[HTH NE1]

I've thought about the best way to get three heads at lower cost. What if you used displays XGAs for the outer displays and What if you used a WSXGA (1600x1024) for the center and two XGAs rotated 90 degrees (768x1024) for the wings, for 3136x1024. That would let you retain your older investment or get by with cheaper displays, though matching the DPI between them may be harder. The portrait orientation of the wings lends itself to document presentation better.

Unfortunately so far only vertical resolutions of 800 and 1024 have equivalent horizontal counterparts; doubling up vertically to match a single rotated horizontal resolution requires eliminating bezels.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[gfxguy]

If I had mod points I'd give them to you. And since models change so quickly, good luck finding an identical version of something you bought last year. I'm stuck even with the same monitor on a dual ATI card - I think because one is analog, one is digital (going through digital to analog adapter), that that's what's screwing me up.

It really fubarred me doing a web page, and the colors on one screen were just different... anyone know of a decent calibration utility?

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[gfxguy]

That would kill me... when they finally upgraded me to dual displays, I asked for even two cheaper monitors (and give the good older one to someone else), and they said "yes" so I lucked out.

Still, now that I've got two, I think three would be ideal ergonomically, since you'd concentrate on the center one so much and turn your head only for the less used programs. I know it sounds like "oh, boo hoo, you have to turn your head", but I sit at a computer long enough to know that good ergonomics are important to me.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[LibertineR]

The way to insure that is to stick with Viewsonic. I run 3 VP201b monitors at 1600x1200 resolution and the color temps are identical across them all. You can select 9300, 6500, 5400, 5000, RGB and user adjusted from the front panel. The bezel is .5 inches and Viewsonic sells a stand that will let you mount 3 monitors on a single center leg. This only works with an Nvidia SLI setup, I use dual 7800GTX cards. WHen I am not gaming, I can run Visual studio on one monitor, Watch a DVD or a TiVo feed from WinDVR/S-video on another, and Excel, Word and Outlook on the third. I could never go back to working on one monitor.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Martin Blank]

That's an interesting idea, and perhaps not too expensive. It may also lend an interesting look to the desktop layout. In addition, having reference documents open in the wings would be easy to do, with primary work in the center.

I shall look into this. Thank you for the suggestion.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're doing color sensitive design of any kind, you're killing yourself if you do not have a good hardware ICC color calibration device for both your monitor, color management in photoshop, and color management for print.

I reccomend ColorVision products, you can find reviews out there.

There's a lot that goes with color management, even ambient light is very important, if you expect fine results, but that might not be very important if all you're doing is web design, because the color gamut of sRGB is lacking, and the gamut of available colors via html is horrid--but in a way that's a good thing.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[SacredNaCl]

For me, at least, the monitors have to be identical, as subtle color shifts between different monitors become especially evident when using a multimon setup. It's annoying when one monitor's 9300K differs from another I run a triple head now, and I have that problem. Even with a near perfectly matched pair of Iiyama monitors with very close to consecutive serial numbers its no guarantee they will be an exact color match. Mine isn't, and my third display is a used Compaq 7550 - which is substantially brighter than the other two (though I did finally get the colors to match up very very close). The difference in the two Iiyama's is very slight, but you can see it with greens and very bright reds. I spent hours when I first got them trying to color match them, adjusting every setting to try to get them to perfectly line up, but in the end its a luck of the draw thing I think.

Then of course, is the issue of deskspace. For my desk to support 3CRTs I had to add a brace to the center of it for the added weight (it was beginning to bend in the center), and I built a small extra edge on the left (a L type joint with a cross brace, everything dovetailed, glued, and nailed for extra stability) to give me 7" more space for dealing with the bulk. I could fit 3 21"'s on here if I had to now, but I'll settle for 2 and a 17". I've often thought that the ultimate desk for this type setup would be a large C shaped desk, with space for 3-4 monitors, your laser printer/copier and phone. (I have my printer on a desk next to this one with routers & switches & my phone). I looked into getting a large C shaped desk, one of the furniture stores had one I liked (even with holes you could pop out to run the cables through), but they wanted $2700 for it. Given that, my only option when this one finally starts to buckle from the weight will be to build one myself. I might break down and get LCD's instead next time, they are coming down in price, but even those in the larger sizes take up quite a bit of room. LCD's would cut down on the heat as well, which I approve of in the winter, but it can be bothersome in the summer.

So there are some issues with running a triple display that have to be overcome. There is a market for a company to make desks for this purpose - especially ones with space for the computer beneath (but elevated) and holes for all of the cables. I have to imagine quite a few people in graphic design, and possibly for some monitoring applications are buying SLI machines simply to run 3-4 displays. Most of the desks available are woefully inadequate for this task, and setting this up on a huge flat table (which is what I've seen a lot) waste a lot of room and is unhandy (though you can often fit your laserprinter/copier that way).

There are also quite a few software issues when running triple head. If you have a Parhelia, no problem - powerdesk is very nice. If you can meet your needs with a G450 or so - fine. I've tried ATI's Hydravision and Nvidias NView setup - which are okay on dual monitor setups though not as nice as powerdesk, but things don't work as smoothly on triple and quad monitor setups - there are issues with applications not launching where you want them, or not being able to send a movie to a particular display automatically or to the video out automatically. All of them have driver & setup issues in Linux, though Matrox products tend to have less, but that depends on the application you wish to run (they have a lot of specialty drivers available for fixes with CAD/CAM applications if you need them). Listed on their page with this TripleHead2Go product it says "WinXP/Win2000" so it may still need a driver of some kind and may not work under Linux (though I suspect it probably will in a limited functionality mode, with the issue being the software for controlling the displays needing Windows).

Its certainly an intersting product, but $299 a little steep for it. If you can afford $299+ plus a reasonably high end graphics card, you can afford a Parhelia, and might be better served going with that.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[gfxguy]

No, I don't really do any professional web development... doesn't mean it's not a problem, though. I'm just doing a web page in return for some free stuff... a nice barter deal (and you thought bartering was a dead system).

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Random Destruction]

I agree completely. Luckily I managed to pick up a second identical monitor used for my dual head setup. But even though they are both identical model 19" trinitrons, they still have colour/clarity differences. My one is slightly clearer, but the other makes better black (the clearer one is slightly red). So I think you'd really have to pick both up at the exact same time, to hope for same batch monitors.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[setirw]

*Nods* ViewSonic is the brand I use. Three P90f flat CRTs (I got them all for free.) The ViewSonic pro series is best; the other products are about average.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Lumpy]

I just bought 3 AOC 19" lcd's from newegg for $200.00US each. they look as good as my expensive Viewsonics and have a better warranty. Couple that with a dirt cheap Nvidia 6600AGP and a 6600PCI and I have 4 head capability with greater resolution capabilities for much much less while able to play any game at full res. (Yes even doom3/quake4 is smooth at full res) Matrox should give up and stay in the industrial 4-12 head video cards and not try to touch the home or media markets.. they simply can not compete.

Problem is that no ID games have been able to do multi-head cince Quake III had a hack to support it.

And flight sim's have sucked for decades because support for multiple PC's in MS flight sim has been missing for a really long time. (I had 4 monitors + 1 for instruments in MS flight sim 4.0 back in college... it was fun abusing the Computer lab!)

I would love to see games or mods use just a second monitor for stats, top down map, etc... but nobody is doing it as less than 10% have more than 1 monitor on their computer... Some games (C&C generals) have major control probmens with multiple monitors because the mouse does not stop at the border and they are using a 1 pixel wide b order for scrolling.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

I use two that way, with one right in front of me where I do most the work, and the other one off to the side to hold less important stuff. I'd only have them side by side in front of me if I didn't have the desk space.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Echnin]

My iBook only has 32 MB of VRAM, but I have no problem spanning dual-screen with 1024x768 on the built-in screen and 1280x960 on an external CRT. That works out to about 2 MP. 7680x2048 would be about 15 MP. Shouldn't a card with 256 MB of VRAM be able to handle that? 17.67 bytes per pixel.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Maxo-Texas]

No-- you are correct.

If you sit with your head turned just an inch left or right from neutral all day, then you are going to pay for it with spasms on the contracted side.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[DilbertLand]

I'll 2nd the comment about Matrox sticking to industrial cards. I made one of the early purchases of the AGP Parhelia card when they made all these great claims about how they were going to take over the world with "surround gaming". Fast forward one year and the user base was having to make their own mods to the software just to get the latest games to run. Matrox completely dropped any gaming support (and fired most of the staff responsible for it) for the card - pretty sad when it wouldn't even run World of Warcraft on a single monitor without crashing - after 9 months they still didn't have a solution and I haven't checked back since (yes 9 months and they kept saying they were "looking into it" - are you kidding me!!!). Sure makes me feel warm and fuzzy about spending almost $500 on a card. They just don't have the resources to really give the level of support needed for gaming markets.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Doppler00]

Yeah I totally agree there really isn't much of a market for this product other than the stock traders that want to hook up their laptop to there monitors, but why not just get a desktop to do this?

My home system is kind of a weird combination of monitors/LCD's so this box definately wouldn't work:
Radeon 7500 PCI
analog, Viewsonic 19" CRT 1280x960@85Hz

Radeon X800 AGP
DVI, 24" Dell LCD 1920x1200@60Hz,12ms
analog, 19" Viewsonic 19" LCD 1280x1024@60Hz,2ms

So I've had the freedom to upgrade one monitor at a time, I started with 3 CRT monitors and just replaced them with mismatched LCD's. My next LCD will probably replace the 19" CRT with a 21" LCD at 1600x1200. If I had something like the TripleHead I'd be forced to buy all three monitors at once, AND be limited to the 1280x1024 resolution on each.

It's amazing that LCD's are so cheap now days, but I'm believing there would be diminishing returns at 4 monitors. For one, my desk only has so much space, and my direct field of view is limited. I was thinking of buying one of those custom LCD monitor arms, but that starts to get a bit ridiculus.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, the barter system is alive and well, no doubt. Still, it's a good idea to have a display that's displaying something relatively close to what the creator of graphical works intended those works to look like, and there are monitor calibration sites on the web and programs that you can use to do that with. Correct gamma, brightness, contrast go a long way to make pictures, etc. look they way they're supposed to... Infact, it's a good idea to calibrate for games, too, especially since some games work with shadows, and dark areas, a correctly calibrated monitor really helps with atmosphere. With ICC hardware calibration, it removes the guesswork.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[JoeShmoe950]

Not the best solution, but for my dev machine at work, I don't need 3d accel, so I just stuck in three low end graphics card's, one monitor each. That way, I can run them all at any resolutions, so I can have 1024x768 to test things at what the user would experience, 2048x1536 for coding, and 1600x1200 for other tasks. Just using three cards can be a relatively inexpensive solution.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[madstork2000]

It is not just a factor of available memory. You also have to have enough bandwidth to get all that video information to the monitors in a timely fashion. So if your card does not have a fat/fast enough pipe to the monitors it either won't work or will work very poorly.

-MS2k

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[SenorCitizen]

How many videocards will be able to run 3840x1024 on a frequency of 85 Hz? Because that is what you would need if you used triple 19" CRT monitors.

It would be, but Matrox's box only works at 60 Hz (75 Hz at triple 1024x768) so you had better stick with LCD's.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[MegaHyster]

http://www.lian-li.com/Product/OA/OA_F1.htm

and http://www.ergoindemand.com/computer_monitor_stand _hex.htm

Only if you have a nice budget...

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Lumpy]

you put them in a 2X2 arrangement. 2 above the bottom two. works great. and takes up the same space as 2 monitors.

the arm cost me $145.00 and clamps to the desk for stability.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Jozer99]

10 minutes of fiddling with color calibration will fix it enough to stop being noticable most of the time. For instance, my $400 professional graphics 19" LCD had much better color calibration out of the box than the $170 no name LCD I bought to use as a secondary monitor. However, I was able to match the cheaper monitor to the more expensive one well enough that it is hard to notice the transition, except when squinting at photoshop color pallets and such. I recomend using the calibration tools in the monitor's controls, not using software calibration, unless you have a hardware color sensor. I find that the software tools are harder to get right, and when you reinstall your OS, or switch to a game, often the color profile goes away. With two monitors hardware calibated, yuou dont have that problem.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Martin Blank]

I have a few spare cards hanging around, and my main card is only a dual-output. I can drop in an old S3 ViRGE for one of the wings (or even two of them -- I think I have four spares). It would also help clear out some of the junk I have laying around.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[default luser]

I used to be a Matrox junkie. I loved the 2D quality. I loved the high performance of the G400 series. But Matrox took too long to relase a followup.
The G450 was late and unimpressive due to the low clock speed and 64-bit unoptimized memory bus.

The G550 was late and unimpressive due once again to the low clock speed and 64-bit unoptimized memory bus.

This whole time, Matrox was sitting on their ass, not improving on the DualBus originally released with the G400. I knew what was going on thanks to MURC (Matrox User's Resource Center, no longer exists), which was frequented by disgruntled current / former Matrox employees. They said that after the G400, Matrox management did not have a vision, and as a result their best digital and analog folks left. The recovery time is why the G450/550 were so late, and not at all innovative Matrox never regained their G400-era fire.

Meanwhile, ATI and Nvidia were learning that memory bandwidth was becoming a severe performance limiter, and out of necessity they learned tricks like texture and Z compression, and other memory bandwidth savers. ATI and Nvidia also switched from wide 128-bit unified memory busses to crossbar memory architectures to improve overall bandwidth utilization.

I didn't wait around. I bought a Radeon 8500 to replace my G400 MAX about 6 months before the Parhelia was released.

When I saw the Parhelia, I knew I had made the right decision. Matrox used the same old bus technology they had been relying on for years, and upgraded it to 256-bit wide to try to make up for their technology deficit. It performed a little better than cards with 128-bit busses, but wasn't all that impressive.

When the 9700 Pro was released with a 256-bit bus, and ran circles around the Parhelia, it dawned on people just how bad Matrox's memory tech was. Fragment AA was a nice carrot to attract people, but it wasn't enough to make up for the car's incredibly poor performance.

Re:"three hi-res monitors"

[Anonymous Coward]

it's interesting to see the reviews showing triplehead screenshots of quake 4 and doom 3....

this is news?

[webmind]

why is this news? quad-head and even more head video cards are existing for years now...

Re:this is news?

[aero2600-5]

It's news because it's not a card. It's a box that you can attach to almost VGA card, but you would know that if you had RTFA, or even the summary.

I'm not much of a gamer, but I can see this being pretty useful while coding. I usually have more than one source file open at a time. More desktop real estate can come in handy.

Aero

Re:this is news?

[setirw]

Did you read the post's link? It's an external box which can split a single head's output into multiple display channels.

That's why this is significant.

Re:this is news?

[HTH NE1]

I'm not much of a gamer, but I can see this being pretty useful while coding. I usually have more than one source file open at a time. More desktop real estate can come in handy.

Indeed, I want more real estate in my display as well, but company policy here will only allow us one display per desk due to (1) not knowing any studies that definitively show a productivity increase in a multi-head setup, (2) an unwillingness to perform our own study, and (3) it may cause resentment between employees to have one employee provide his own hardware for a multi-head setup.

Meanwhile some employees do have multiple monitors, but that's because they also have multiple computers.

Re:this is news?

[HappyEngineer]

Just get the second computer and hook up the second monitor to the first computer. Then let the second computer just sit dead under the desk.

As for productivity, I don't know whether normal users would get a boost, but there's no question whatsoever that programmers do. There's just too much information that's needed to do it all on one without constant tabbing between windows.

If a programmer doesn't get a boost from multiple monitors then that programmer probably isn't all that good. The better you are, the more plates you keep up spinning in the air.

Personally, I have 3 monitors at home and 2 at work. One of the ones at home rotates so I have a nice tall monitor for browsing.

Re:this is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, get an el cheapo touch screen 8" VGA and stick it in and just tell anybody passing by that you took it from your car. SHow them the benefits (of having a second screen, not touchscreen).

I can save you some dough...

[argStyopa]

Change screen setting to letterbox.
FOV=120
Sit Really Close.

Re:I can save you some dough...

[docrice]

I picked up an old P750 off eBay a year ago, got three 19" LCDs, and life has never been better. All I do is text stuff though (web, mail, occasional DVDs, chat, VMware, SSH, etc.). But being able to keep an eye on your work and personal e-mails, multiple chat windows, several browser windows, plus a movie running and being able to see it all at once is fantastic. The card itself is only AGP, so I have to use a slightly older machine for it. 3840x1024 (analog) works just fine for me. On the other hand, training your eye to keep track of everything at once takes a while.

Re:I can save you some dough...

[jftitan]

I have AdD , not a problem for me. only took me half a

Re:I can save you some dough...

[jdbear]

Yeah, I know what....hey, is that a butterfly?

Just buy a real Matrox Video Card

[Gates82]

I would much rather have a real Matrox video card that supports triple head plus TV out then a box that emulates this type of setting. I saw this product on there website a few weeks ago and it seemed like the only place this would come in handy is for taking a laptop to a confrence room or any other venue that might have a projector or other secondary dispaly that is only need temporarily.

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?

Re:Just buy a real Matrox Video Card

[friedmud]

The problem is that Matrox cards don't have anywhere near as much power as dual Nvidia/Ati setups do... meaning that even though you might be able to run 3 monitors... you will have to do so at _terrible_ resolutions and low quality settings.

With this box you can enjoy _true_ high definition gaming across 3 monitors using SLI/Crossfire (preferably SLI since ATI has some issues with this box).

The one problem I see with the box is that the monitors all look like one big monitor.... this would be annoying.... Anyone who has multiple monitors knows that your OS needs to be aware that they are multiple monitors and not just one big one.... for instance when you hit the maximize button on your browser do you really want it spanning all 3 monitors? Or just maxmizing on the current monitor?

With this box it will most likely span all 3.... but maybe they have a software hack to prevent that. Under normal multiple monitor scenarios (in both Linux and Windows) it will just maximize on the current monitor... which is exactly what you want (most of the time ;-)

Friedmud

How many games support these resolutions?

[Mafiew]

How many games actually support these resolutions: 1920x480, 2400x600, and 3072x768?

There's plenty of games that don't even support widescreen resolutions.

Re:How many games support these resolutions?

[turtleAJ]

How many games actually support these resolutions: 1920x480, 2400x600, and 3072x768?

Duke Nukem Forever you insensitive clod!!!

Re:How many games support these resolutions?

[portwojc]

A bunch of games support this and the list grows.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/th2go/gamin g/list.cfm

Re:How many games support these resolutions?

[Pollardito]

it looks like they've thought of that. from TFA:

The other big killer app is "Surround Gaming." Matrox includes a Surround Gaming Utility, the latest version of which supports around 120 games. This simple application will find supported games on your hard drive and automatically edit their configuration files to support triple-wide display resolutions like 1920x480, 2400x600, 3072x768, or 3840x1024. Because the OS sees the TripleHead2Go device as though it were a single monitor with a maximum resolution of 3840x1024, it works just fine with SLI configurations.

Imagine the porn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Snatch in the middle and thighs on the side... omg I can see a whole new market open up for the virtual porn industry with this thing.

VGA only. Obsolete.

[Jarnis]

In the days of DVI connectors, this product is DOA. It uses VGA connectors only. 3840x1024 outta analog VGA is going to look .. umm.. less than perfect.

Besides, with sli/crossfire board setups you can already get three screens with DVI - even with 1600x1200 displays, and couple of dual DVI 6600s are not that much more expensive than this thingy. The only thing this has going for is that it's external, so it works for laptops.

This is Matrox once again playing the 'stuff for 3-screen stock market gamblers'-market. Same as with parhelia - most common use for Parhelia in the real world was by stock traders who wanted their three screens full of graphs and stuff. They can't get Parhelia sold to laptops (Which are the New Toy of the stock gamblers), so they made an external triple head thingy, so you can bring your laptop to your desk, stick in this and turn on your three screens of crappy fuzzy picture and look like a l33t stock market specialist.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[necro81]

I agree that not providing DVI support will certainly dampen this product's future.

However, I have a practical question: is there enough room on the back of a standard PCI card for three DVI ports side-by-side? My workstation graphics card has dual DVI outputs, plus an S-Video port. Even if you took the S-Video port off, there doesn't appear to be enough room for a third DVI connector. I suppose you could do it with mini-DVI ports, such as they have on some laptops (e.g., iBooks) but then you'd need a mini-to-DVI adapter for each screen, and that adds to the cost.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Conception]

Well, you are missing the market here. The name is "TripleHead2Go". It's for the workstation laptop that can't take SLI. They aren't trying to compete with the SLI market.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Jherek Carnelian]

Just use HDMI connectors. They are electrically the same as single-channel DVI. If the monitor is DVI, just use a HDMI-to-DVI cable which should not cost much more than a regular DVI-to-DVI cable.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded insiteful??? Its clear the original poster didnt read the article which concluded pretty much the same thing...

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else suffering with the new Fedora Core 5 xorg and Matrox? I bought a Matrox g550 a few years ago because it had a Free software drivers. It worked well under FC4, and I was looking forward to seeing what FC5 would bring with its GNOME improvements.

Shame then, that the FC5 seems to have gone way way backards in support, unless you happen to own a proprietary graphics like from NVidia or ATI. With a Matrox G550, anything related to GNOME is appalling compared to FC4. I suspect the enforced GTK move to use Cairo, and the fact that xorg doesn't really care about you unless you have the latest and greatest card. Frankly, I feel screwed -- a decent quality 2d card with ok 3d drivers... and it's slower than ever. So much for all the promises about how composition and cairo/glitz would revolutionise Linux graphics.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[iceperson]

my current quadro card has a single output that you use a dongle with 2 adapters on the end for duel display. there's plenty of room for 2 of those on the card so i see no reason why a single card couldn't hookup to 4 monitors.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[m50d]

In the days of DVI connectors, this product is DOA. It uses VGA connectors only. 3840x1024 outta analog VGA is going to look .. umm.. less than perfect.

I've used VGA at 2500-ish and it looks beautiful. I don't want, need or care about DVI - only DVI output I have goes straight into a converter back to VGA. DVI is a solution in search of a problem.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[imsabbel]

Well, maybe then dvi should take a look at your eyes.
If it looks "fine" to you that just means your vision is crap.
(You cant argue the signal properties of those cables, so please dont even try)

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Tweekster]

You ever notice how the people with bad vision/hearing are the ones that dont bitch about new technologies being good enough,.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[m50d]

My eyes are fine. I can see the the compression artifacts when I'm playing an (unscaled) video at that res. I routinely use 8x6 console fonts. I don't know anything about the tech, but I can see it's unnecessary.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[kabz]

My boss used to stare at a 19 inch monitor running 1024 x 768 @ 60HZ under fluorescent lights and claim it was perfect...

Just being near that POS made my eyes want to shrivel up and fall on the floor.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Frogbert]

Right this moment I can go to my local tip and pick up 3 fairly good quality 17 inch CRT monitors for free. All the local businesses have upgraded to LCD's so CRTs are easy to find. Now with a VGA connector I can connect up these free monitors, otherwise I'd have to spend money on LCD's which I simply can't afford.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[madaxe42]

Yep. My old boss ran at 1920x1400 or whatever, at about 55Hz, under flourescent lights.... He now wears glasses like beer bottle bottoms.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Splab]

It has to do with what you are used to, back in the days I was using 60hz and thought it was just fine. Then one day someone changed it to 85hz, oki I thought, a bit better, but what do I care.

Now I'm so used to 85 hz that I actually feel Ill when I see a 60hz monitor - on top of that certain lights can make me so sick you woulndt believe it.

Ohh and on topic, I got 2 19" CRT screens, the quality is less than what you get from LCD, but it's fine for me - and I would love to get my hands on the matrox product, I'm buying a used 21" SONY CRT, and was thinking of dumping one of the old 19", but with this I could get so much more work area.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[pla]

DVI is a solution in search of a problem.

Then, no offense, but you either use so much higher quality displays than the rest of us that you can't fairly compare the two, or you've never used an LCD display.

Not a solution in search of a problem, DVI removes exactly such a beast - Namely, removing an D2A2D path that compensates for a digital device trying to maintain backward compatibility with old analogue (CRT) displays. Yes, newer flat panels do a pretty good job of autosyncing - But particularly if you use ClearType (or whatever your preferred platform calls its version of subpixel sampling), you can see the difference even on high-quality analogue displays (most people complain about this as either moire or color-fringed text).



Now, a bit more on-topic, I have a very serious problem with this device... While a neat idea, it seems to me that:

1) Few video cards support a 3840x1024 output device, and
2) A pair of GF6600s, giving quad DVI out up to 2048x1536 per panel, costs half as much.

Considering that, why would anyone buy this? Okay, someone mentioned the laptop market - But I have a pretty kickass Latitude less than a year old, and it won't drive anything above 1920 (I suppose it might go to 2048 if I manually hacked the timing, but 1920 pushes the available video bandwidth). Incidentally, for everyone wondering why Matrox didn't use DVI, I just gave the answer... DVI has a bandwidth of 165MHz, into which a mode of 2048x1200@60Hz using CV-RB just barely squeezes. At 3840x1024@60Hz (again using CV-RB), you need 252.8MHz - Or looking at it from a different direction to make it work, you'd need a refresh rate of 36Hz. If that doesn't cause eye-bleedyness, I don't know what would.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[toddestan]

Get a flat panel monitor with a VGA and a DVI input. Then hook both the inputs into a dual head video card. Then mirror the outputs so they are the same. Then switch between the inputs on the monitor - the difference is very obvious, no matter how good the monitor and the video card are - you'll be able to tell the difference between the DVI and VGA inputs at a glance.

Of course, if all you use are CRTs, then the VGA output is just fine, as CRTs are analog devices (though I do have a 21" IBM monster that has a DVI input, though I can't tell the difference between the DVI and VGA on that CRT)

It really amazes me how many computers with flatpanel monitors still ship with just VGA. I would think that all digital would be cheaper than a digital to analog converter on the video card, along with an analog to digital converter in the monitor, but I might be wrong.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[m50d]

Get a flat panel monitor with a VGA and a DVI input. Then hook both the inputs into a dual head video card. Then mirror the outputs so they are the same. Then switch between the inputs on the monitor - the difference is very obvious, no matter how good the monitor and the video card are - you'll be able to tell the difference between the DVI and VGA inputs at a glance.

That's poor A-D on the flatpanel, not inferiority of the VGA signal

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's poor A-D on the flatpanel, not inferiority of the VGA signal

Look, the very nature of A-D conversion means that you will be losing data. D-A-D simply cannot provide as clear a signal as just D, and that's what the difference between VGA and DVI is.

Re:VGA only. Obsolete.

[m50d]

It can't be perfect but it can very easily be plenty good enough. I think your comparison says more about poor A-D on some flatpanels than innate problems with VGA.

PARHELIA OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS NEEDED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of you might not know it, but Matrox has become hard to deal with when it comes to open source OS support.

Matrox Parhelia open source drivers are badly needed! Since Parhelia was introduced something happened at Matrox and now they are not willing to do co-operation with open source people. Open source world has needed bug free, up to date Parhelia drivers for years, but without success.

I'm writing this right now on a FreeBSD box that uses VESA driver to display X graphics. Would be damn nice to finally be able to use my video card properly. I own Matrox Millenium P650 AGP.

There's one guy who provides up to date drivers to Linux community. You can find his unofficial Parhelia drivers here. He's a regular contributor at Matrox Technical Support Forums, but does not belong to Matrox staff.

Strange perspective

[LordVader717]

The view seemed a bit strange to me on the oblivion screenshot. Presumably, it is just being rendered as a wide angle perspective, which doesn't really change the fact that you're looking at a flat projection, and is totally unnatural for the side views.

It would be intersting to have a setup with the side moniters at an angle, rendering a different perspective, according to their position.

Re:Strange perspective

[langelgjm]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. I've been running Quake 3 on a dual monitor setup for a while, at 2560 x 1024. Pretty amazing, except for the whole bar in the middle. I'm considering getting a third monitor, setting the field of view at about 150 degrees, and angling the outer two. Unfortunately, it's a bitch to configure most games to support multiple monitors. Quake is probably the easiest I've dealt with, but some (like Half-Life / CS) simply won't work, which is a real bummer. Often an argument against including multi-mon support is that it provides an unfair advantage in multiplayer games to people who can afford it. This is true to an extent, but having a faster computer / better internet does the same. Multi-mon setups are great, but haven't reached their full potential yet. Oh, and widescreen movies across two monitors are pretty nice, too.

Diminishing Returns

[VorpalRodent]

Working as a software engineer, I enjoy using multiple monitors for efficient multi-tasking (ie - I do not have to mess around with sizing different windows, I just throw them onto the other monitor).

However, I wonder at what point this becomes no more beneficial. I could foresee finding uses for three monitors in a work environment (although less frequently than I utilize two monitors). But four monitors? Five?

At some point, its got to become more difficult to keep track of where you've put everything than the efficiency of having everything available warrants.

I can understand the benefit in games with immersive environments. I've played many a game where I would have enjoyed having three or more monitors in front of me, all useful to the game itself, but as far as productivity applications go, there's got to be a limit. More can't always be better.

And then there's the...other...application. Will Slashdotters soon find themselves utilizing three whole monitors of porn? I know I like to keep my monitors having screenfulls of fluffy bunnies and puppies.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[Wooky_linuxer]

Imagine three monitors full of ponies. Oh dear.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[SpiceWare]

A few years ago I had three CRT monitors going, 17" in the middle, two 15" on either side. They were replaced with two 19" LCDs, and while the bigger screens were nice, I found not having that third screen to be annoying. I recently got a third 19" LCD and things are much nicer. I have queries running in oracle on one screen and development tools on the other two.

I don't think four screens would be helpful, and think it might even be counter productive by having the information too spread out.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[cluening]

You must not use virtual desktops much. I easily run six virtual desktops without losing windows, and I'm sure plenty of people run a whole lot more than that. I generally have one devoted to Firefox windows, one devoted to mail/mud terminals, and the rest devoted to management/programming terminals.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[blincoln]

I could foresee finding uses for three monitors in a work environment (although less frequently than I utilize two monitors). But four monitors? Five?

I use three monitors at work, and it's great. I treat them like the big display in Minority Report - whatever needs the most attention goes in the middle, and things I want to keep handy but are less important go to the side. One really big high-res monitor would work just as well, but no one will buy one of those for me.

For me personally, I could probably find a use for another three on top to make something like a HUGE widescreen display, but I think you're right that it wouldn't be as big a jump as from one to three.

Incidentally, I tried two first, and I didn't like it. It felt unbalanced.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked with two big screens for many years -- programming, multimedia production, painting, etc. Last year I worked with three 22" screens and found that the third screen got little use. The problem was distance and rotation. Two screens were nice because I could put them at the same distance from me and just pivot my chair to face them without refocusing my eyes. But with three screens, I had to rotate the chair quite a bit and refocus my eyes because I couldn't keep them at an equal distance without wasting much of my desk's surface. I found myself doing 95% of my work on the two nearby screens and used the third distant display to show my schedule and inbox. When I went back to two screens, I really didn't miss the third one.

As for pr0n, attention-deficient types might enjoy having multiple slideshows and videos running on the various screens.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[Eil]

I guess it depends on the application. 90% of the computer users Out There aren't going to need more than one monitor at a time. Your office workers, for example, typically don't multitask between programs. Home users browse the web and read email, but usually not at the same time. Gamers might see some advantages depending on the game that they're playing.

However, as an IT guy by day and a wannabe programmer by night, I find that my productivity is vastly improved by dual-head monitors. The primary reason: work on the left screen, documentation on the right. Like most sysadmins (hopefully), I live on documentation, whether reading or writing it. When having to make do with just one screen, I turn on focus-follows-mouse and layer the windows such that it takes minimal effort to switch back and forth between them. But even that gets tedious, especially when my documentation is a man page or configuration file example that I'm trying to duplicate.

I can envision some very rare situations where three or even four monitors would come in handy, but those are almost statistically insignificant.

Re:Diminishing Returns

[DocTee]

Three is indeed great for developing - I used to have a 17" and two 21"s. Text editor on middle screen (21); browser window open on right screen (21); logs, ftp, putty, irc etc open on the left screen (17). Worked great - miss it now that I've only got the two 21"s.

On the subject of multi-monitor niceties, if you use your PC as your entertainment centre as I do, its nice having the video/vis window fullscreen on one screen while having player controls, playlist, system volume controls etc open on the spare.

Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KVMs?

[$1uck]

I've got two monitor system at home and 3 pc's hooked up into a KVM switch. Only one machine gets to use the second monitor in the current setup. Even if my other machines had the video output for multiple monitors I wouldn't be able to pipe them all through the kvm switch. Can this device sit outside the kvm switch and allow all three pc's access to both (or even all three if I bought another monitor)? If so this would definitely beat buying video cards that allow 3 monitors (or 2 monitors) for all three pcs. I guess I should RTFA and find out.

Great for laptops...

[dstj]

DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go are good for laptop owners... I work with a laptop that I carry home after work. I find it's much more convenient then just emailing me my files, but the smaller screen and keyboard is killing me. I usually plug it in a 19" CRT and a USB keyboard to be more comfortable. With these "gadgets", I'll be able to use two or three 19" CRTs with the single VGA output my laptop has! Having tasted two monitors before, I tell you that it's an instant productivity gain!

Three monitors does seem like a lot though. But I sure I'll find some good use for it.

Re:Great for laptops...

[johnty]

but what happens if you have a widescreen laptop? i smell trouble in the air...

VGA only?

[I Like Pudding]

Fired.

Retraction

[necro81]

I didn't notice at first that this was an external dongle for existing graphics cards. Nevermind.

Forget the 3 monitors...

[bugnuts]

Get yourself 3 projectors and a huge wrap-around screen (hell, white cardboard). VGA is fine on projectors, and you can blend the edges.

Talk about immersive... imagine a driving game on that.

Re:Forget the 3 monitors...

[Andy Gardner]

Are there really any graphics cards out there that could render a 360 degree FOV?

Re:Forget the 3 monitors...

[autophile]

Get yourself 3 projectors and a huge wrap-around screen (hell, white cardboard). VGA is fine on projectors, and you can blend the edges.

Talk about immersive... imagine a driving game on that.

Vroooooooom, Vrooooooom, screeeech! Hey! Watch out for that... pixel! Night Driver here I come!

--Rob

Re:Forget the 3 monitors...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at an elumens http://elumens.com/ display. Even at 1280x1024 More resolution would be nice - think about how big a pixel is if your screen is 4-5 m wide.

Re:Forget the 3 monitors...

[morie]

while you are at it, use 3 projectors and a parabolic mirror. It gives a real sensation of depth.

I was in this beast while they were loading the new software. it was fixed stationary, still you couldn't believe you were not moving when the simulator screen showed a turn. Spooky.

It is even better when it moves, 6 degrees of freedom and really fast!

Re:Forget the 3 monitors...

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you have eyes in the back of your neck or something? 180-200 degrees would be just enough for me, it's easier to move what's on screen than to rotate myself around.

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[networkBoy]

It should, and almost is worth the analog limitation.
-nB

on a related note

[circletimessquare]

i used to have real estate envy, and car envy

now i suffer from multiple monitor envy

scroll down to the 8 screen, zenview and arena displays, and let your mouth hang open, watering

hmmm, maybe i should rob a bank...

Re:on a related note

[charlesnw]

hmmm, maybe i should rob a bank...

may i remind you of....

dum de dum dum dum....

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/04/16/2227209.shtml

Productivity Problem

[VorpalRodent]

I was looking at the website, and it clearly depicts how Windows handles this. Windows believes that you have a single monitor that is three times as wide. The problem with this is that if I maximize a windowed application, it spans three monitors. It even shows a picture of this happening in their little demo advertisement.

This totally defeats the purpose for productivity type things. I want to be able to maximize things onto a single monitor. I don't want to take the extra step of properly sizing something to fill a third of my "monitor".

Do they provide a means to trick Windows into artificially separating the monitor? Perhaps they could team up with Sony and provide a rootkit that does it for me that I can never remove, so that when I get rid of this, I only ever maximize things to one-third of my screen. That would be a hoot.

Re:Productivity Problem

[ABoerma]

TFA actually includes a nice little picture showing you can adjust these settings.

Re:Productivity Problem

[LibertineR]

Dont use the Matrox solution for what you want. Get a couple Nvidia cards with dual DVI output. You have the option for 3 or 4 independent screens, or to combine all of them into one. This way, you can maximize a window to a single monitor, but then you can still drag a window from one monitor to another or have it span between two monitors if you want.

Re:Productivity Problem

[EnsilZah]

Three that are actually one?
Doesn't the catholic church have prior art on that one?

Re:Productivity Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I was looking at the website, and it clearly depicts how Windows handles this. Windows believes that you have a single monitor that is three times as wide.

FWIW, this is not how Windows usually handles this. Usually multiple monitors are separate, with independent resolution and relative position (adjustable with a nifty drag&drop thing). The taskbar and docking windows stick to the sides of each monitor, windows maximize to whatever monitor they are on.

Re:Productivity Problem

[Bwian_of_Nazareth]

Still I like Xinerama on Linux better. On Windows, the display with greater resolution has wallpaper not correctly stretched to full size. More important, if you move your mouse from greater resolution to lesser resolution along the "border", then your mouse hits a "wall" and cannot enter. Bloody annoying. On Linux, mouse just skips those extra pixels. Much better.

On the other hand, getting overlay and acceleration work with Xinerama is pain on Linux. Real pain. :)

Re:Productivity Problem

[Duds]

There's a program called "Ultramon"

You will learn to love it.

Ob-Simpsons Quote

[Otto]

"Increase my killing power, eh?"

So the OS won't know there are 2/3 monitors?

[owlstead]

This means that the thing is useless to me. I do not look at my two screens at work as one single screen. I see them as two seperate screens. If I put an application on one screen, I expect it to open on that screen. If I maximize a window, I expect it to maximize on one monitor, not over two monitors. I don't want to see the task bar stretched over the whole two screens (ok, with KDE/Gnome this is no problem). I don't want new applications to be centered on the screen. Well, you catch my drift by now. Maybe for some applicications this is no problem, but for many others, it is.

Re:So the OS won't know there are 2/3 monitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

PowerDesk-SE does exactly what you're askin'. It makes the desktop monitor-aware.

Re:So the OS won't know there are 2/3 monitors?

[Anonymous Coward]

This can be done, but only if you install the Matrox software.
The powerdesk application can do all you described.

Re:So the OS won't know there are 2/3 monitors?

[magicchex]

FTFA

Tried the dual head without much luck

[Z3nN3rd]

I got the dual head for my Ferrari 4000 and had a heck of a time getting this working...in fact, I just gave up and went back to my lappy486 screen. it was pretty dang cool for the 1 day it worked. I never got it to work after that. Yes, ATI X700 Mobile Radeon GPU. Cool laptop. Cool Matrox thing. Just not so cool together. Derek

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[freakmn]

It should, as the specs claim that it shows up as a single 3840x1024 monitor. That is assuming that your KVM switch can handle that sort of resolution being pushed through it. I believe that many KVM switches don't have cables that provide that sort of bandwidth, so they have a limit in their specs. It's also possible that it would work anyway, but it's a small risk. The downside for your application is that it only supports 3 monitor configurations, not 2 monitor configurations, so you would have to add another monitor to the setup it sounds like you have. I've never used one, so don't take my word as fact, but the article and the info from Matrox's webpage seem to fit what I'm saying.

Been doing this since 2000

[TWX]

When XFree86 4 came out supporting Xinerama the first thing that I did was to set up a box with three beat up CRT monitors and install "The Matrix" screensaver... It was so pimp...

Ribbed for her pleasure

[Unski]

"Matrox TripleHead Triples Your Viewing Pleasure"

I'm sorry but the headline reads like a condom advertisement. Mind you, I do have the tiny puerile mind of an adolescent.

Seconded

[twistedcubic]

It is common knowlegde that there are open drivers for Matrox cards, but the common knowledge is wrong, unless you limit yourself to basic functionality. Check out the Matrox support forums. You need their closed driver for using DVI on the G450/G550 cards.

Re:Seconded

[Svenne]

Actually, there are no open drivers at all for the Parhelia or the P-series, even though Matrox promised it when the Parhelia was released several years ago.

/nitpick on

[fohat]

World of Warcraft running on multiple monitors is not supported and I have yet to see it done.

Allthough I heard Chuck Norris once did it.

Re:/nitpick on

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I thought the idea of this thing was so that the computer didn't have to know that there were really 2-3 displays, just that it was one monitor that was a bit wide. Doesn't WoW support widescreen? :P Shame on Blizzard!

Of course, real men make theme parks on Half-Life 2 with Garry's Mod

Re:/nitpick on

[snuf23]

The article notes that the device has software fixes for the games to support the 3 display mode. World of Warcraft is one of the games they tested with it and they said it ran fine (unlike Oblivion which was slow).
Maybe Chuck Norris was using this product.

Re:Even better for

[Andy Gardner]

Space flight simulators.

Especially when they're free. ;)

side effect

[squizzz]

Now reading a dupe will hurt triple as much... :(

Just wait!

[Kouroth]

I'm just going to wait for the flexible displays. Then I can buy one big display and flex it around in an arc. I think that would be way better than $1200 for 3 displays. If they are smart with the new tech when this kind of stuff comes out then you will be able to have as many 'view boxes' as you want on a single display. That way one display can be as many as you want. If you had the cash you could even do a full wrap around display, heck maybe they will make display domes.

Re:Just wait!

[SurfSlade]

Just use a projector and a curved screen

Not much has changed in the past few years ...

[RembrandtX]

I was an early adopeter of the Parhelia card, [with 3 19 inch CRTS none the less] and sent it back in under a week.

This box, 4 or 5 years later, is exactly the same thing, low resolution, flickery displays .. at least its a lot cheaper. still, for $50 you can buy an extra video card.. sure you can't have 180 degree WOW .. but have you ever tried to play WOW across even 2 monitors ?

Re:Not much has changed in the past few years ...

[toddestan]

The only problem with second video cards in Windows is that you only get acceleration on your primary screen. Which sucks for games that want to do anything fancy on the second screen, and also means you can't run your Winamp visualizations on that second monitor. I haven't really found a good solution to this yet - you can make the side monitor your "primary" and drag all your icons and stuff over to the front monitor. However, this just creates a new set of problems.

Hidden Cost...

[Duncan3]

Don't forget about the electricity to run a 3-headed rig. These days it costs far more to run it for ~3 years then to buy it.

Re:Hidden Cost...

[Unski]

Yeah I can vouch for that. It was back in April 2003 when I gave my girlfriend a 3-headed rig from Anne Summers. Fast forward to now: she still won't answer my knocks on the bedroom door and the electricity company is threatening me with legal action. The thing only cost me ~£40, so you're right about it being cheaper than the electricity needed to power it.

Re:From TFA

[Andy Gardner]

Matrox includes a Surround Gaming Utility, the latest version of which supports around 120 games.

trip heads ... can't live without em ...

[teckfrek]

I've been using the dualhead2go for about 4 months now. I hang it off my lappy and run trip heads and frankly, I can't live without it. Takes a little mucking to get it working right with Linux but it's well worth it. One note, I've attempted to get this working under FC5 with Xorg.7.0 and no luck. The accelerated ATI drivers aren't working well with it either, but the radeon drivers with Xorg.6.8 work great. To anyone with spare monitors, I highly recommend it.

games games games

[tacokill]

This is for games. I can see some usage and it had me interested at first. But, after reading about it, you need some serious muscle to drive the video in your games. As in, a COUPLE of high-end video cards (~$500/ea, maybe the $300 model would give you enough).

At that high of resolution (3840 x 1024), many many games look pretty solid. So you are looking at (3) x $250 for monitors, plus another $600-$1000 in video cards (SLI required). Sweet, but ouch.

im blind after visiting that site

[Anonymous Coward]

from all the adverts and "sponsored content", could they get any more on the page ?
i guess content was an afterthought, ive seen less advertising on a domain squatters site and thats saying something

You're so fat...

[SeaFox]

You need three monitors to see your entire grocery list!

[rimshot]

Re:You're so fat...

[JohnnyBigodes]

Since when does...:

"Pizza"
"Beer" ... need 3 monitors to display? :^)

Its about time!

[stinerman]

Finally I can build the computer system from Swordfish!

lol ;-)

[circletimessquare]

a slave-master society requires people with a slave mentality just as much as it requires people with a master mentality

so if you think the cops even care, or would care, about me saying i'm going to rob a bank, when its obviously just free expression, then you are demonstrating the fear-driven way of thinking required for big brother to work. in other words, the way you think is part of the problem just as much as dark authoritarian forces out to control you: you are signalling that you are ready and willing to live in fear and control, by reacting like a hysterical nitwit at the slightest indication that someone is looking at you

we don't live in a fascist state, but even if we did, the way to deal with that is to still be yourself and express yourself, and when the authorities challenge you, if you aren't doing anything essentially wrong, then die a martyr. for i'd rather die free than live a slave. and so i will never be afraid of any authority, or second guess anything i say, ever in my life. mainly because i know i'm not doing anything wrong. and capitulating to some authoritarian force, to sell myself out, woud be doing something wrong. so i have nothing to fear, at all, ever. death is not something to be afraid of when a life under the boot is the other option. i'd rather be dead

so remember my last words, before the "man" comes to get me (snicker): running around with your head between your legs about the implications of every little word you say due to paranoid schizophrenic perceptions that someone is watching your every move is no way to go through life, unless you are a slave

don't be a slave

and don't pump your ego up to think that anyone actually cares about you that much to watch you that much. it's a pretty sad way to make yourself feel important to imagine that you are being persecuted by invisible forces in the government. the truth is, dork: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU

and that's a good thing!

because it means you are free

Re:lol ;-)

[charlesnw]

Um wow. I don't think I live in a police state. I am not challenging your right and obligation to free expression. I was making a joke .

Re:lol ;-)

[charlesnw]

I don't think anyone is watching me. I am not paranoid. In fact I have blogged about that. All of the "monitoring/survellience" that goes on that people get all upset over. Who cares. The govt doesn't care about you. They care about people who are actually breaking the law or who they have a reasonable suspicion of breaking the law.

Hades would like to say: "-Thank You, Matrox!!!1!"

[the cobaltsixty]

'Cause now, Cerberus can play FPS. (I really tried to be funny)

Or even better...

[temojen]

3 times the frozen bubbles!!!1!



w00t!

Testers needed?

[sgt scrub]

I would be willing to test this for linux compatibility if anyone wanted to send me one.

Re:another side effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Software makers will have to start advertising that their products have side effects; otherwise, Joe Sixpack won't be sure that he's going to see anything on his side monitors! Just beware of ads that promote unintended side effects. :-)

"New! WinFooPro Gold 7.43 Beta Plus Platinum Edition, with 25% more unintended side effects."

I mispoke.

[LibertineR]

SLI has to be turned off for the 3 monitors to be active.

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[Grishnakh]

There's now a few KVMs available that support dual monitors. You should check those out.

What does Bill Gates use?

[mcguyver]

In this article is a pic of Bill Gates desk with 3 monitors - anyone know what hardare he's running to do this?
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/30/news/newsmakers/ga tes_howiwork_fortune/

Re:What does Bill Gates use?

[Darthmalt]

Can't tell from the pic, Could be a three headed card, two headed card and a single head card, three single head cards, etc etc etc. With win XP it's very easy to set up multiple monitors.

Re:What does Bill Gates use?

[deathcow]

> In this article is a pic of Bill Gates desk
> with 3 monitors - anyone know what hardare
> he's running to do this?

Come on, your name is McGuyver, you tell us how he's doin it..

is it paper towel tubes doing cross monitor electron channeling?

is it a distribution panel built from paper clips and foil?

Seriously though... Windows has all that built in. Just plug in more video cards, or multi-head cards.

Re:What does Bill Gates use?

[mcguyver]

>Seriously though... Windows has all that built in. Just plug in more video cards, or multi-head cards.

Middle management has reduced me to asking simple questions on /.! Thanks for the help though, I appreciate it.

I got to play with it....

[speedplane]

I saw Matrox at ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) two weeks ago when they first announced it. I actually got to play with it and I have to say it may be the coolest pc-graphics related technology in 2006. You get to use peripheral vision when playing video games.
The one down-side is that it isn't DVI compatible, only analog.

does it have to be 3 identical?

[fikx]

Everything I read seems to say it has to be 3 identical monitors (at least 3 identical resolutions). Any chance of somehting like this being able to scale the outputs to match...say reporting the reolutions to the PC like it does now, but scaling/translating for one or two lower monitors hooked in. I'd love to have a 19 inch in the middle but have two scaled 15 or 17's to each side i.e. the image on the side monitors is reduced down to fit them without having that annoying missing section like on mis-matched monitors now.

On a side note, is there any input card that would allow us to make a PC into one of these? An analog input card + multiple video cards on a PC would make for a fun box to play with....as long as you didn't mind dedicating a whole PC to just being a video adpater ;)

Re:does it have to be 3 identical?

[xerxesdaphat]

It doesn't have to scale anything. When you display content on a 15" monitor, does your graphics card have to scale it down as opposed to a 19" monitor? No. It's still the same resolution; the only difference is that 1024x768 is being squashed up into 15" instead of 19". So yes, if you plug in three different monitors, the content ought to display exactly the same, just smaller on the smaller monitors.

Why 3 if you can get foure

[houghi]

The Matrox QID Pro graphics card supports up to 4 digital or analog monitors at a time and provides 2D/3D acceleration across all displays.

The big drawback is no Linux drivers (that I know of)

Re:Why 3 if you can get foure

[Anonymous Coward]

All matrox QID series support Quad Independant Displays. Not only the QID Pro.

Do you work for Matrox?

[LibertineR]

I ask that, because I went to my current setup, (see above reply) from a Parhelia, because PowerDesk made me crazy. It would not keep settings after a reboot, and I was limited to 1280X1024 across 3 screens. Since I have 3 Viewsonics capable of 1600x1200, the nView solution has worked great for me. I still have trouble sometimes saving configurations through a reboot, but only with the TV out switching from Component-out to Composite-out. My 4th screen is an HDTV. When PowerDesk would lock up, nothing could get out of it, except a hard reboot. nView is much more stable and has more features. If money is no object, I would recommend nView every time, though the Matrox picture is superior in both DVI and analog modes.

This would be perfect for....

[Brad1138]

Blinky

awww yeah

[sentientbrendan]

>Matrox TripleHead Triples Your Viewing Pleasure
Awesome, but... when did Matrox expand into the prostitution business?

Re:Oh man!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's giggidy giggidy goo!

~~~

How it Works...

[edashofy]

I looked at the DualHead2Go product a while ago, and it's a nifty trick. It takes one really wide VGA signal (say, 2048x768) and splits it into two 1024x768 signals. This one splits it three ways. Windows thinks you still have the one monitor. This is not an ideal multi-monitor setup, as your poor video card still has to drive this insane resolution.

Running three monitors these days is not hard with desktop machines, you can easily run your primary display off your AGP card and get a cheapo PCI dualhead for side displays. Using a Dell C/Dock (which has a PCI slot), I even run three monitors off my old Dell Latitude C640 laptop at work using a $50 Radeon 7000 DualHead card.

Bad refresh rates for CRTs

[Anonymous Coward]

60 Hz? It would kill my eyes.

Big monitors and vertigo...

[plasticpixel]

and you may get a little vertigo while surrounded by your WoW world.

You get used to it. I set up a Sharp Aquos 45" as my desktop
monitor. Sitting 3ft away from it gives a pretty immersive
view of games running at 1920x1080i. I was a little sick to
the stomach at first, but it soon passed. Now playing World
of Warcraft on anything else feels like peering into another world through
a keyhole.

I also find that with a big monitor, I don't hunch over the desk anymore
to make out the letters. My neck and back problems have dissapeared.

Bigger is better.

To be truely immersive with three monitors, they should probably be
in the 24" wide size. Three tiny little 17" or 19" monitors won't
cut it. Or better yet, mount three projectors to a rail, line up
the edges where the picture meets, and you have a really cool wrap-around
experience!

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[CyberSlugGump]

$luck, if you are running Windows and the machines are networked, you might be interested in the software MaxiVista.
(I don't know if you could easily cycle through each computer to each utilitze two displays, but you can download a free demo.)

* Use a monitor of another PC as if it is a second monitor attached to you main computer.
* Keyboard/Mouse switch (aka Remote Control mode): Each monitor shows what's on the computer it is attached to, and you can move the mose among them. Keyboard input is directed to the screen the mouse is on.
* Desktop mirroring.

Quality is quite good, but I haven't tried gaming on it. I used to use a KVM switch, but I find that the remote control mode is much nicer than having to constantly press ScrollLock.

I imagine other similar software exists for other platforms. (I'd be interested in something for Mac OS X.)

Matrox web site has illustrations of 1-card 4-DVI

[MojoStan]

is there enough room on the back of a standard PCI card for three DVI ports side-by-side? My workstation graphics card has dual DVI outputs, plus an S-Video port. Even if you took the S-Video port off, there doesn't appear to be enough room for a third DVI connector.

Another replier pointed out that his/her video card can support two displays from one output using a dongle. Matrox, which has found a niche serving the multi-display market, has illustrations of this on their product info pages.

Matrox's QID Pro AGP card ($600) product info page shows four DVI monitors connected to a single card using two outputs + dongles. It appears as thought the video card's two outputs are not standard DVI ports (LFH60), but the card includes two LFH60-to-DVI dual-monitor adapter cables.

If you want to see something really trippy, they also offer this product in a low-profile PCIe or PCI card, supporting four displays off a single output.

Use your imagination....

[Anonymous Coward]

Beer:
  Chech Pilsner
  Belgian *
  Bavarian Bok
  .
  .
Pizza:
Supreme
Pepperoni
.
and so on...

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Don't we all usually have three monitors worth of porn open at the same time?

The possibilities are unlimitless...

[Anonymous Coward]

So in theory, I could have my dual head AGP card and my single head PCI card each running three monitors, for a total of nine monitors? It is conceivable that would cause my head to implode.

Re:Is this the answer for Multiple Monitors and KV

[$1uck]

Actually, my plan is to have a windows xp, solaris 10, some flavor of BSD and a flavor of Linux, all running (and networked). I'd like to have the linux pc acting as a PDC, although I'm not entirely sure the bsd or solaris 10 machines would be able to act as clients on the samba network (since samba emulates a windows network?). I'm not really a network guy (mostly software dev) but figure it would be a nice project and a way to learn stuff, if I'm ever collecting unemployment for any length of time.

Re:Or even better... Visualize more

[davidsyes]

Head. Coming to a desktop near you.

This could increase your risk of head/brain cancer, couldn't it, if you use CRT's? That a LOT of flux going on if you're at a small desk. You might have to degauss your surroundings.

Seriously, WHY is Slash not sometimes going Head-to-Head with submissions like these?

But, just for the reviewer's myopia with:

"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing, working in Excel, writing in Word, editing in Photoshop." ...why not take that to say, "With KDE and other Open Source GUI widgets, if your graphics card permits, then you can

"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing in Konqueror, Opera, Mozilla-Firefox, Galeon, or working in Calc, writing in Writer, editing in GIMP or designing in VariCAD, and making music in Rosegarden."

i hope...

[santaliqueur]

i hope matrox follows gillette.
 
  "fuck everything, we're going to five monitors"

ExtremeTech not the only site that reviewed this..

[Yert]

.. And it's old news, the emabargo passed on April 12. :)

http://www.gamerati.net/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=123&Itemid=1

Matrox Cerberus

[Esion Modnar]

is what they should have called it, and then bundled it with a copy of "God of War". Of course, Cerberus is harder to say than Triplehead, and then there's that great whooshing sound of it going over a whole bunch of people's heads.

I think what the above post meant is...

[NRAdude]

Linux has such a favorable multi-user environment; structered to allow multiple accounts bound to particular local input and output utilities, that with effective processor resources deligated to correctly programmed and primed applications (such as business and entertainment) would provide a reasonable local workstation for real-time productive and pleasurable use without exorbiant (expense) inherint in competing kernels and operating systems that have not this functionality part of the Intelligent Design(TM).

The availability of these activities from Linux and the operating system interfaced to it are effectively available by disclosure of the entire specifications of the hardware, for the threaded development cycle to effect the intellectual pragma necessary to bring about these functions. The cost of such on a Microsoft solution was possible only by the addition of non-standard PCI-interfaced specialty hardware that specialized in performing the above (usually more performance effective than a Linux solution). Despite the competitive nature and propoganda advertised, standards-compliant and economically affordable products have determined that such a solution can be experienced from a solution commonly among that of Linux because much of the complexities and conflicts of the retail products utilized to meat the necessities of said computer environment and use are found to be satisfied by Intelligent Design of the system BIOS in a mode of open source compliance to divide the hardware particularities for such an advanced and retarded use of resources.

Thankyou for the Kool-Aid, brothers Richard, Bruce, and Eric!

From your friend(s) at the Network Redundancy Adminsitration,
M. Gregory Thomas.

PS: I know the above was sarcasticly hillarious. I'm just trying to interface with Them, Incorporated.

Color Management

[jetmarc]

> It's annoying when one monitor's 9300K differs from another's.

Certainly it is.

However, there is a way around it: color management. For it to work, you use a special device (photo spectrometer) that reads back the colors that your monitors produce. Then, the color LUTs (look-up tables) of the graphics card are modified, to account for all differences from the theoretical ideal.

This, of course, requires individual LUTs for each monitor. It escapes my knowledge if the Matrox card has this feature. My dual-head ATI Radeon does, however.

Another hurdle to take is the broken Windows color-management support. It is not possible to assign different color profiles (with their integrated LUTs) to different monitors, when they are driven by the same card. There are two ways around it, and again it escapes my knowledge if the Matrox card provides an easy work-around. The work-around for my ATI card needs a tiny manual interaction after every boot.

Matrox is known to be a good choice for graphics artists. Their name always stood for slow but high quality graphics. I assume they have color-management addressed, better than many competing manufacturers.

A photo spectrometer for calibrating and profiling your displays costs between 70 and 200 dollars, depending on model and quality. Unless you buy golden audio cables for your HiFi, you will probably use it only once. Afterwards you can sell it on ebay or share it among a group of friends, to minimize the cost.

Marc

X-Plane

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Flight Sim? Pfah! X-Plane kicks its ass. MS just duplicates performance characteristics of planes - X-Plane has a real physics model. Hook it up to simulator hardware and the FAA accepts X-Plane time as simulator hours. Engineers use X-Plane to try out aircraft designs. You can do the same thing yourself, design your own airplanes and fly them. And yeah, I think it has multi-head support.

Big Deal!!

[Auger Duval]

Matrox doesn't support My system!!
http://augerduval.com/images/mon-rack9.jpg
The 9th monitor (not pictured) is a touchscreen keyboard.

Limited res is not as good as 2 hires monitors!

[SloppyElvis]

This thing is limited to 3840x1024! 2x24" widescreen LCDs will run 3840x1200 for around $2000 US. 3 19" + $300 cost of this would be more.

I guess the screen break with 3 monitors is better than 2 though. Someone mentioned projectors, and this could be really cool for that. 1024x768 projectors can be purchased for under $1000 US. For $3300 + my PC and a beefy GFX card, my basement could be really nice....

WoW world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that like a PIN Number or WAP Point?

This is old technology

[steveski74]

I was using triple display back in 1990 on Mac II 68040 machines.
I can't believe it took so long to get to 2 monitors, and 3 well, only bother if you're a graphic artist and need loads of screen real estate, plus a TV output so you can drag media across to do a quick preview to get colours, etc looking right.
One comment was surround "flight sims". I think a high res VR headset with direction tracking would be much nicer for the application. That way you could look behind you better.

Anyway, it's been around for years, just another example of the fact that no new technology is really new anymore.