rec.autos.simulators

And, er... wow!

No, I mean WOW!

The piddly little extra bit of FOV you get on a normal widescreen monitor
has never done anything for me... you pay over the odds for that extra
bit of monitor (or lose vertical resolution). That's why I've stayed with
4:3 monitors so far.

But I can honestly say that when I saw LFS, then iRacing running in 8:3
'wide-o-vision' (2560x1024) for the first time it was one of those rare
moments when the PC world shifts beneath your feet. As I always suspected,
it makes a *huge* difference to the driving experience and immersion, and
a bit of quick experimentation with Crysis & HL2 proved the same there...
though to a lesser degree (for me anyway).

I think I now have to take a three screen setup very seriously, because a
single *** screen now looks so constricted... and that's only after
half an hour of playing around!

SoftTH would probably be the best answer for me, but I only have one
PCI-E slot, and a vanilla PCI 'slave' card won't cut the mustard... even
if I had one. A new motherboard would be a pain to sort out.

Mmm... this could get very messy and rather expensive. The Matrox
solution is complicated by the fact in the short term I'd want to use a
combination of mix & match analogue (non-DVI) monitors, which would rule
out the superior digital triplehead solution.

I think I need to sit back and contemplate this for a while. Or maybe
apply my iRacing technique... ignore it for a while in the hope the urge
will go away. :-)

Andrew McP

I'm not sure if Matrox & Co let you easily (and for all games)
put different views on the left and right monitor, or is it just the
regular front view distributed over the three monitors???

If it's the latter, I could not accept looking at the two bezels but rather
have one big screen. Meanwhile I'm once a week looking at prices for 40" LCD
TVs (Full HD) but currently way too high to be used only for a racing***pit... ;)

l8er
ronny

However your 1366x768 has an aspect ratio of about 1.8, whereas the 2
screen (both 1280x1024) resolution I was playing with today gave me 2.5,
with more clarity (especially) in vertical resolution. That's an extra
40% or so peripheral vision & track width which a magnified screen can't
match... and that's before you add another screen to bring the aspect
ratio up to an amazing 3.75. That's over twice the field of view you have
on your screen.

The game/sim 'sees' the new resolution (in Matrox's case usually
(3x1280)x1024) and renders enough to fill it. So there's no stretching or
magnifying going on (at native resolutions anyway). You're just getting a
much wider window into the *** world. And our vision responds very
well to that, which is why cinema screens are shaped the way they are.

Bezels are always going to be a problem, but Matrox seem to have
minimised the disruption. I also have to say that if I can manage several
laps of racing (with a big grin on my face!) on a 2 screen setup where
I'm staring straight at the bezels, I *know* they won't be a problem with
a 3 screen setup where the side screens are supplying immersion and
peripheral vision rather than something to focus on all the time.

Anyway, I can see this is going to give me the same kind of headache
iRacing has. I want the benefits, but there are downsides as well. In my
non-*** life I am increasingly concerned about peak energy, and I
think energy prices are going to have to rise dramatically to beat down
global demand. So a three screen setup, plus a new vid card to push that
resolution fast enough is going to be a power-hungry beast perched on my
desk at a time when that makes less sense.

As ever, these decisions are never easy. The heart leads the way, but the
head has to do the maths! I suppose another solution might be to buy the
highest resolution single widescreen I can afford and run it at an
in-game resolution which maximises the available screen width (ie with
black bars at the top and bottom of the screen). There may be
complications with that though... the monitor automatically stretching
the image to fill the screen, or the sim/game not offering the right
options.

I can see I need to do a lot more research before I decide what to do.
The only annoying complication is that one of the hardware suppliers I've
used in the past has sent me a 10% discount code to be used by the end of
August. I must resist the urge to use that... 10% off something I regret
later won't be a bargain! :-)

Andrew McP

PS Way OT, but this guy has an incredibly well presented, and
thought-provoking lecture on peak energy (and lots of other things
relevant to the times we live in).
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Mind you, while my 17" LCD sits happily beside the 19", it'd look a bit
small next to the 28".

Mmm... the temptations of a cheap solution rather than the *right*
solution!

Andrew McP

Thanks.

Then DX can see your 'new' monitor setup and will offer the correct
resolution in all games.

Andrew McP

There goes another cheapskate solution to the multi-screen problem! I am
*totally* converted to the idea now though. I was just running 2 screens
again and despite the middle bezel mess I was still about to lap in
iRacing at normal speeds.

Mind you, normal for me's not much of a challenge.

Andrew McP

Yesterday I loaded up Crysis again to do a bit of testing while trying to
work out what vid card (and perhaps a new PSU to power it reliably!) I
might need. Once I discovered I could knock back the details and still
have it looking good on a 2560x1024 display driven by a relatively lowly
(now!) 8800GTS, I ended up playing for far longer than intended. The
experience is simply amazing in everything; though for me the effect in
racing games/sims is far more impressive.

It really has been a week that's changed my view on multi-screen ***
completely.

Andrew McP... who, in about 1989, sneered at a mate who spent an arm and
a leg on a 17" monitor. Why would anyone need so much screen space?

I wonder if I can use my TV (that I have hooked up anyway) for a third
monitor? Might allow me to not need a new video card right away... Did
you try that?

Three screens certainly makes a difference to the video card though.
Today my impulse-bought TH2Go arrived and some quick testing with a 17"
LCD, 19"CRT and an ancient 17" CRT showed this is quite an experience,
even if frame rates are knocked back.

Where I really noticed the immersive 'depths' was when hitting curbs or
going off, when the shaking of the car really hits you because of the FOV.
Racing three wide at Talladega in N2003 is also an experience and a half.
I'm not a huge oval fan, but those big tracks always gave me a bit of a
thrill, and when you can see the cars beside you once they get close to
level, it's quite an experience.

So is crashing. When I inevitably screwed up, the huge FOV makes being in
a mass Nascar wrecking rather scary! Spinning cars and smoke all over the
place on three screens is an awful lot of wreck to take in.

Frame rates in N2003 and GTR Evo were certainly fine at 3072x768, even
with plenty of other cars in front, though when I tried Lomac (flight sim)
things were less impressive. However that was always going to be a tough
test... that thing can still stress a single screen. I didn't have time
for much else, and my desk's a bit cramped for the CRTs to all line up.
But as 'proof of concept' it worked.

Now I just have the expensive part to think about... vid card & monitors.
The only 'good' news is that there are quite a few decent 19" 1280x1024
monitors with a power consumption of about 40W. At the moment my CRT + 17"
(which I've used on the games box for a while for movie editing) pulls
about 160W. Three new, matched screens would be cheaper to run, helping
make up for the inevitable increase in vid card power... if I ever decide
what to 'invest' in.

Anyway, I'm thinking out loud now. In an ideal world I'd prefer a single,
very widescreen monitor. But as there's no such thing (apart from those
silly budget concepts) this looks like the only sensible option.

Did I say sensible?

Andrew McP

some quick testing with a 17"

Now you got me thinking, I have 2 19" CRT's in the ba***t and am using a
22" LCD I just got. Newegg has a 8800GT for $120. When the Wife starts
hollering I'll just blame you :)
Don

Andrew McP

PS It occurs to me that the wonderful Dell 1600x1200 I use on this PC for
desktop use has various video-in orifices. My 8800GTS has a composite
video out, so I may well just have wasted 226ukp on the triplehead! Still,
what's new? :-)

PPS Great suggestion by the way. I'm sure it'll be useful to others, and
I'm surprised and impressed that it works in the first place!