rec.autos.simulators

I really regret not getting an SLI motherboard now. Two 8800GTs would be
a great bang for buck, and a low power solution to my needs now. However
when I upgraded I thought SLI was for idiots.

It turns out I was right. :-)

There are more powerful single slot solutions, but they tend to draw a
more power than 2 x 8800GT. And I think the 8800GT is going to be a great
card to have in the spares box in years to come.

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Whether one will drive three monitors properly in all games/sims is open
to question. I'm certainly impressed by my solo, somewhat slower, GTS's
abilities so far. But I haven't tested properly, and I'm sure it'll be
pushed to the limits by most things, especially when antialiasing comes
into the equation. Having said that, it's useful to bring a bit of common
sense to bear.

3072x768 (3x1024x768) = 2,359,296 pixels

1680x1050 = 1,764,000 pixels and used in the article above's benchmarks,
like this...

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Divide those numbers by about 1.34 and you've got the kind of frame rates
you could expect from the three screen equivalent. Ok, it's at lower res,
but never mind the quality, feel the width! :-) And higher (or lower)
ultra-widescreen resolutions are still an option.

It's definitely an area worth investigating IMO Don. But I cannot be
responsible for your back carrying those monitors back up from the
ba***t, or for your wife's mood for the next decade when she loses you
behind a bank of monitors. :-)

Andrew McP

Andrew...

ISTR that some bright spark tried this multi screen malarkey a few years
ago...

They had three monitors connected, and they were running GPL (a real
sim, from the good ole days, none of your namby pamby modern soft
southern sh*te, *** bumpered type sim thingies....)

Anyway, they had the main GPL in car view on the centre screen, and they
had some small program apparently which allowed the side views to be
permanently selected, and had the left side view on the left monitor and
the right side view on the right monitor.....! Must have looked awesome....

8-)

After some more detailed testing of the Matrox Triplehead I'm finding a
disadvantage over the 2 screen experiment. With the latter the Nvidia

its usual 60Hz. The result was no *** flickering and a genuinely
enjoyable experience.

So far though I've found no similar way of altering the Triplehead's
settings. As we all probably agree, 60Hz for a CRT is fairly unpleasant,
and with a 19" flicker on one side, and a 17" flicker on the other, it's
a little uncomfortable after a while. There may be a motion sickness
factor as well, I'm not sure. But I didn't have anything like that with
the 2 screen experiment, so I'm sure it's the flicker. It's more obvious
from the corner of your eye anyway.

On the positive side, I've bought two versions of the TrackIR over the
years, and both disappointed me. Using glance left & right buttons
without trackIR always disorientates me, and the trackIR was no better
for me, despite trying to get used to it. However the totally natural
ability to glance left & right with the three-screen solution is
completely different. I also find that if I *do* use the glance left &
right buttons to look even further around, the disorientation is far less
than before because I can still see the front of the car properly,
towards the edge of the 3-screen setup.

Anyway, that's all for now. I just thought I'd make a few notes which
might be useful for anyone else watching the thread. Tomorrow I have a
day off and hope to explore the flicker issue further. At the moment I'm
happy enough with the CRT solution to put off new monitors until I find
some bargains... but only if the flicker issue can be solved.

Andrew McP

PS Another disadvantage of ultra-widescreen. While running EVO this
morning I found myself looking out of the left window at the scenery in
the distance. This can't be healthy. :-)

I think that was a 3-PC solution, wasn't it? Anyway, you're right, it is
awesome. :-) As I said before, I encourage everyone to try the 2 screen
experiment if they can. It gives you a very good idea of what it's like.

Andrew McP

That was probably me and yes it was :)

I am using a TH2go now also with one LCD and 2 CRTs but I don't notice
the 60Hz issue. I do find though that running without vsync doesn't feel
very smooth even though the fps counter is way over 60.

Cheers
Tony

Interesting. Obviously it's early days for me, and I'll have to do some
tinkering. As much as I'd like an excuse to upgrade to matched screens
(especially as three  decent 1280x1024 or halfway decent 1680x1050
widescreens would cost me much less than the 17" CRT cost when new!) I
hate waste, and it would hurt to exile the CRTs to the unwanted heap of
junk. So if I get some use out of them, albeit at the expense of a bit
more electricity, I won't mind keeping them on the desk.

The desk will no doubt have other ideas. Every time I come back from work
I expect to find it's collapsed!

Andrew McP

Andrew you should try using this util if it'll work for the card/
screen combo you have going.
http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

Being able to set each screen independantly is a huge bonus.

As you were saying earlier, this isn't like the Track IR - this feels
way more natural. I think it's the closest we can probably get to true
peripheral vision.

Yes, the only thing stopping me trying that was the lack of a second vid
card slot. I do have a vanilla-PCI Voodoo5, but I'm not sure the ancient
3rd party drivers will co-exist safely with an otherwise stable setup.

The refresh rate thing is going to be an issue for me though. I could
never stand 60Hz straight in front of me, and it's worse (for me anyway)
at the sides.

Still, this week has shown me there's no going back, so unless the pound
weakens even more than it is (hardware prices are already rising here!)
I'm either going to have to upgrade my motherboard to SLI for softTH, or
my monitors for the Triplehead. The only good news is that all the racing
sims I've tried so far seem to have managed fine with my 8800GTS 320Mb.
Games like Crysis require some significant cutting back (and absolutely
crawls at high settings), but still manage to run quite respectably. The
gain in width is actually a fair swap for the high levels of special
effects, so I'm too impressed by what I've gained to think about what
I've lost.

I imagine a new vid card will still cross my path before too long... if
only as an investment. If the UK pound tanks much more (and I think it
will) the vid card'll be worth more in 6 months than I pay for it now. Of
course if the dollar starts re-tanking to match the DOW, I may merely
break even. But those are the risks you take when you speculate on the
international hardware markets. :-)

Andrew McP

If it helps, I am using a Geforce 7900 PCI-E and 5600 AGP and get
decent framerates with iR. I was very surprised.

I think it helps that the second card is doing very little work, just
catching data peeled off the main card, then lobbing it onto the third
screen. So in theory even the PCI card I hope to source will cope.
Whether the already congested PCI bus will cope is a different matter!

But something will definitely have to be done. I've no idea how Tony
manages with peripheral CRTs at 60Hz. I've had enough after ten minutes
or so, and it's taken the gloss off an otherwise exceptional experience.

Andrew McP  

I don't know if it makes a difference but I run with vsync on locked at
60Hz. Normally I am fussy about refresh and when I used one of those 19"
monitors as a main screen (without using vsync) I had it wound up to 120Hz.

If ever Windows started without the monitor on it would default to 60Hz
and I had to restart it!

Might be worth trying with vsync if you aren't already.

Conversely I cannot run AA with Softth which is a showstopper for me and
hence why I prefer the TH2Go solution. Better a slightly lower res with
plenty of AA than a higher res with none IMHO as the lines on the track
side get all jaggy.

Cheers
Tony

I'll certainly investigate further. You sound as fussy as me when it
comes to screen flicker, so I may be missing a trick.

Agreed. It's something I notice almost as much as I notice screen flicker.
Anti-aliasing is one of the truly great advances in computing, even at
high resolution.

It's why I decided to bite the bullet last Monday. Found that Insight (UK)
had a few in stock (unlike most retailers!) and hit the buy button. Apart
from anything else, it's a much more elegant and transparent solution...
though for the money you'd certainly expect it to be! :-)

Andrew McP

Making sure vsync is enabled seems to help a little. But I'm still
getting eyestrain before very long. I didn't get this with the two screen
experiment (where I could have an 75Hz refresh rate on the CRT, and both
screens were right in front of me) so I'm hoping this is a refresh rate
issue, not an allergy to ultra-widescreen wraparound confus-o-vision(tm).

For the time being it looks like the widescreen experiment is over. Phase
two will begin when I make my mind up about the way forward with screens.
So many options, none of them hugely expensive (unless I get a much
bigger desk), but all of them costly if I regret buying three of
something!

Andrew McP

To add to your option list, SLI multi monitor support from nVidia:

http://tinyurl.com/69274u

Cheers
Tony

Er... cheers Tony. Just what I needed, another option! ;-)

Andrew McP