Hardware & Technical Multiple Monitors

helihead

H
Hi, I run multiple monitors all the time as an expanded desktop from one video card with DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs. I know I can do multiple monitors from one video card for normal Windows desktop type stuff.

The question is... does it work that way for games like Elite? Do I need separate video cards driving separate monitors or is there a way to use a single card DVI/HDMI/VGA on 2 and three monitor gaming setups.

I have worked with multiple monitors for years but I have never played games that way and am not sure how to setup something like Elite that way.

If I need to buy separate video cards then I will do that.

Thanks
Jeff
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Depends which card you have :) it may need a Display Port connection for at least one monitor, and then enable multiscreen in Eyefinity or Surround.
 

helihead

H
Asp Explorer said:
Depends which card you have :) it may need a Display Port connection for at least one monitor, and then enable multiscreen in Eyefinity or Surround.
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I haven't bought the new card yet but I was looking at something affordable like [h=1]GeForce GTX 650 Ti[/h]
It has DVI, HDMI and VGA just like my current card but I have no idea what it takes to get a multi monitor game system going.

Thanks for your help.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Someone else who knows more about those cards can give you better information than me - but that is NOT a card I'd use for multiscreened gaming. It doesn't have the bandwidth to push enough pixels at a decent speed, 1gb isn't enough RAM, and a 128 bit bus is going to be a huge disappointment.

I have never used one though, so as I said, someone else can maybe help more.

Ok compared to my nearly 4 year old card, which I consider the minimum for multiscreen, here is how it stacks up. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-7950-vs-GeForce-GTX-650-Ti

Not so good. Save up some pennies and get something a bit meatier would be my honest advice.
 
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Afroleft2001

Afroleft2001
Two monitors - yuck, big bezel in the middle, not nice. Three? The smoothest way is to actually have three cards, put that to one side.
Depending on the make you can tell the card to use all the attached screens as one big one. I've got Radeon, so I'd use Eyefinity, not sure what the equivalent for nVidia is, but they do have it.
Once you've done that, start Elite, you'll see a new resolution option that represents the total screen area you have. That's it.
I tried it with dual screens, but even with a thin bezel it's horrible.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/lg-34uc97-curved-monitor,review-33110.html This is on my Want list.
 

helihead

H
Afroleft2001 said:
Two monitors - yuck, big bezel in the middle, not nice. Three? The smoothest way is to actually have three cards, put that to one side.
Depending on the make you can tell the card to use all the attached screens as one big one. I've got Radeon, so I'd use Eyefinity, not sure what the equivalent for nVidia is, but they do have it.
Once you've done that, start Elite, you'll see a new resolution option that represents the total screen area you have. That's it.
I tried it with dual screens, but even with a thin bezel it's horrible.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/lg-34uc97-curved-monitor,review-33110.html This is on my Want list.
Click to expand...


Ha what a monitor. I bet you would get adapted to it pretty quick and love it.

OK so you guys will think I'm crazy and it takes some explaining but I have a crazy idea and just want to see if it can work...

My wife and I are in our 50s. Been married 25 years and have played games together since day 1. Last few years not so much cause of kids and health and work. We played Kingsquest, wingcommander, Laura Croft (All of em) and a ton of others. Other than going crazy with networked Dungeon Seige, we always played on one system splitting controls instead of 2 systems mostly cause we couldn't afford 2 good systems back in the early days. Now we can probably afford about any reasonable system but 3 kids eat a lot too so we need to be careful.

So I use to play Elite on My C64. When I saw Elite Dangerous I knew we would be back at it but our work systems aren't even close to being able to run it. Time to build up a new game box.

My kids are all under 11 and think Minecraft is the only game in the universe. I want to build a game setup that will water their eyes.

We currently have our couch facing a 60+ inch HD TV (about 7 feet away) and we have PCs with monitors on each end of the couch. We look at three screens everyday but she does her work and I do mine and the TV is TV and occaisional PC. What I would love to see if I can do it put the main Elite screen on the TV, the expanded screens on the left and right couch end monitors. A flight stick and throttle for me and a game mouse, nostromo and keyboard for her and it all tied into our surround sound system.

Basically the living room becomes the cockpit for Elite and she and I can fly it together like we always have.

Yeah I know the HD TV is not ideal but it is BIG and other games we have played on it looked awesome. I haven't built up a box in a few years but I think I have evey thing I want figured out EXCEPT a way to work the video card(s). I am shooting for an Intel I5 and 16GB. An SSD just to make it boot faster and tons of cooling and tower big enough that I can get anything I want in it.

The thing I am lost on is how to get the screens to work the way I want. Odd as it sounds, I have used multiscreens at home and work FOR WORK but never on a game.

My current video card is hooked to my left hand VGA monitor through DVI or VGA and the big TV through HDMI. It looks fine but the only thing we have had on it is stuff like dungeon siege (we network 4 PCs with our kids and play all weekend). I have no idea if it would even be worth it but I can't let go of that idea to convert the living room into the ship.

OK there is the crazy idea so let me have it. Ideas?
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
You can certainly do that, but you won't have left and right screens working quite how you imagine them. There is an option to have them permanently show the information panels, but at least on my setup I could never get it to work right.

https://vimeo.com/115841864
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
helihead said:
Crap. Now my wife wants gaming lights.
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Lol - absolutely not worth the expense and hassle! I had a thread on them around someplace, will see if I can find a link. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=91225 Basically only bother if you have lots of spare cash and are willing to mess around with cables and registry settings - but can be very impressive when done. They are horrendously overpriced.
 
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Jacknife

J
My answer: it's absolutely possible to play Elite: Dangerous using three monitors driven by a single graphics card. I do it using a Radeon R9-280X with three 1920x1080 monitors - although I did end up compromising and running at 900-height resolution, because my card's not quite powerful enough to handle station environments at full triple-1920x1080 resolution without taking a framerate hit. Still, it's very nice, giving good peripheral vision and adding to the impression of "being there".

The trick is, there are two different ways to set up multi-monitor systems. The standard way will give you several separate desktop spaces, one per monitor, though you can arrange them so that you can move your mouse between them seamlessly. (If you "maximize" a window in a setup like this, it will fill one monitor.) The other way, that you'll want to use for gaming, is to take all of your desktop spaces and combine them into a single "virtual" desktop space, using NVIDIA Surround or AMD Eyefinity. (In a setup like this, "maximizing" a window will cause it to stretch across all of your windows.)
 

Commander Dek

C
My thanks to the contributors of this thread. I've just fitted an Nvidia gtx980 graphics card and I now know to enable the Surround feature via the Nvidia Control Panel. I'll have to save up a bit before I get a third monitor though............ and the new desk that I'll need first.............. ;-)
 
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