The multi monitor thread... coz wider is better!

danskmacabre

danskmacabre
ED Multi monitor support?

Some games support multi monitors.
For example having the main game screen on one monitor and say trade stuff, information and so on on another screen.

Will Ed support this type of configuration?
 

Dejay

Dejay
I think multi monitor support was mentioned in some Feature Request Newsletter, I think they said probably yes. I'm sure it will have for a wide field of view in the cockpit.
But the whole game will be from first person, there are no "disembodied" screens. So no for trade stuff on another screen.
 

danskmacabre

danskmacabre
OK thanks. a wider view would be cool, but then I'd probably want to have 3 monitors hooked up to appreciate that properly.
which would be Awesome!

But my video card only has 2 slots, so I'd probably have to get another Video card to get more slots, which means probably using SLI.
But I wonder if ED will support/work properly with SLI?
 

Dejay

Dejay
danskmacabre said:
OK thanks. a wider view would be cool, but then I'd probably want to have 3 monitors hooked up to appreciate that properly.
which would be Awesome!

But my video card only has 2 slots, so I'd probably have to get another Video card to get more slots, which means probably using SLI.
But I wonder if ED will support/work properly with SLI?
Click to expand...

I think most gfx cards have 3 slots now, so sli won't be needed for 3 monitor setup. It might even be that you can only use the monitor connectors of the first card in sli mode?
Instead of getting 3 monitors though, you could consider buying the occulus rift that ED is going to support, when both are released near the end of 2014.
In both cases you'll need a fast gfx card though. I'm waiting for the new nvidia chip generation "maxwell" / geforce 800 series.
 

danskmacabre

danskmacabre
Dejay said:
I think most gfx cards have 3 slots now, so sli won't be needed for 3 monitor setup. It might even be that you can only use the monitor connectors of the first card in sli mode?
Instead of getting 3 monitors though, you could consider buying the occulus rift that ED is going to support, when both are released near the end of 2014.
In both cases you'll need a fast gfx card though. I'm waiting for the new nvidia chip generation "maxwell" / geforce 800 series.
Click to expand...

I have an Nvidia GTX680 card.
By the specifications below it actually support 4 monitors, nice.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/specifications

However, I forgot about the Occulus rift, that would be way better!
I wonder if my graphics card will be good enough for the Occulus rift..
 

Krollin

Krollin
Greetings Commanders,

Multi-monitor support would be good, though as already stated OR might be a better option, guess we will know closer to the time :)

Kro
 

Ixnatifual

Ixnatifual
One thing I was wondering about with the Oculus Rift. As far as I understand, it renders two separate images. Wouldn't that be pretty rough on the GPU compared to rendering the game on a single screen?
 

cassius

cassius
I really hope so! I know a lot of people still only have one, but there are a growing number of gamers turning to multiple monitors (myself included, got three for my new pc recently).

I had a quick search through the forums and they only comment by Michael was this on the PBF back in November:

Michael Brookes said:
As a minimum we'd support stretched across multiple screens.

Michael
Click to expand...

:)
 

popuptoaster

P
cassius said:
I really hope so! I know a lot of people still only have one, but there are a growing number of gamers turning to multiple monitors (myself included, got three for my new pc recently).

I had a quick search through the forums and they only comment by Michael was this on the PBF back in November:



:)
Click to expand...

If you got the space for them its easy these days, I needed a new video card anyway so my Nvidia GTX660 was £140 and will support 4 monitors at once 3 for gaming and one for other use.

I just asked my Facebook mates if anyone had an old PC monitor they didn't want, i picked the two best ones i was offered (i'm going to get two the same size as my main one now i've tried this out, its MUCH better but odd sizes cause issues on some games.)



yar1.jpg
 

Flak

Flak
Ixnatifual said:
One thing I was wondering about with the Oculus Rift. As far as I understand, it renders two separate images. Wouldn't that be pretty rough on the GPU compared to rendering the game on a single screen?
Click to expand...

Don't forget that each image (left and right images) are sharing the same screen so that each image is only half the width. In this case, it shouldn't be too much extra work for the graphics card to render the two images because it's still only filling a 1920x1080 screen (on the new Crystal Cove version) per frame.

The CPU will have to calculate two separate frames though, so there definitely will be more work than drawing a single frame, just not twice as much I don't think.

If someone with a Rift could tell us for sure how things perform, but that will be with the currently smaller screen.
 

ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
I wish gamers were less snobbish about duel monitor support. I don't have room on my desk for three monitors, but I hate having the second monitor showing a desktop when playing a game. It breaks the immersion, but it would be nice to use it to get an extra sense of peripheral rather than putting the cockpit in the centre of the two screens which would obviously have a gap. I love using it in Flight Simulator to just add a bit more horizon and a side window to my view.

I haven't tried my Rift yet, have only had the Alpha for two days but here's some stuff I found on the oculus rift forum:

https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=5568
 

popuptoaster

P
Flak said:
Don't forget that each image (left and right images) are sharing the same screen so that each image is only half the width. In this case, it shouldn't be too much extra work for the graphics card to render the two images because it's still only filling a 1920x1080 screen (on the new Crystal Cove version) per frame.

The CPU will have to calculate two separate frames though, so there definitely will be more work than drawing a single frame, just not twice as much I don't think.

If someone with a Rift could tell us for sure how things perform, but that will be with the currently smaller screen.
Click to expand...

It will just cut the frame rate in half the same as 3d does i would think, your GPU will take the strain not your CPU.
 

popuptoaster

P
Michael Brookes said:
We haven't finalised the support for multiple monitor setups yet, as a minimum you can stretch across all screens, however we will be looking at other options as well.

Michael
Click to expand...

Is that stretching a windowed version of the game?

I know some games support that and some don't.

If you have identical monitors i know Nvidias 2d surround can add the option of 5760 x 1080 to most games but if like me you have odd monitors you need to be able to stretch manually to get the best fit.
 

Dead Fred

Dead Fred
I have a GTX 680.
But any recent card can support three accelerated 3D screens plus one for email or surfing or temperature monitoring or **** or whatever.

As far as windows is concerned the three surround monitors appear as one monitor that has a funky resolution of about 4000x1280, depends on your monitors of course and bezel correction , three high res widescreen ones would generate different numbers.
You have to use the same resolution and aspect ratios or it looks weird.
I am running three 5:4 screens that together look like a much wider aspect ratio. 16:9 or something.

But my point is that if you load a game like TF2 for example you can change resolution inside the game and select your new super combined monitors as if it was just one big monitor.
The game itself is not even aware there are three separate monitors.

It should pose no problem for ED but I cant test that statement as I don't have the alpha. yet......

I believe you can accomplish similar things with a program called SoftTh but that looks like a bucket load of hassle.

Also using an odd number of screens is desirable or you get the edges of two screens right where your crosshair is.......
 
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djh

djh
If you look at the recently released Dev Diary #10 (came out today), look at about 1:16.
In the background on the left, you will see a team member playing ED on a 3 monitor setup.

So it exists. As Michael said earlier today, it's being worked on.

Yay!
 

rgomez246

rgomez246
Would ED support 4K monitors? I plan on upgrading to three 4K monitors when I am done building my new system. Just managed to get my hands on a Asus Rampage 4 Extreme Black Edition for my new build and cant wait to see what it can do. :cool:
 

popuptoaster

P
Dead Fred said:
I have a GTX 680.
But any recent card can support three accelerated 3D screens plus one for email or surfing or temperature monitoring or **** or whatever.

As far as windows is concerned the three surround monitors appear as one monitor that has a funky resolution of about 4000x1280, depends on your monitors of course and bezel correction , three high res widescreen ones would generate different numbers.
You have to use the same resolution and aspect ratios or it looks weird.
I am running three 5:4 screens that together look like a much wider aspect ratio. 16:9 or something.

But my point is that if you load a game like TF2 for example you can change resolution inside the game and select your new super combined monitors as if it was just one big monitor.
The game itself is not even aware there are three separate monitors.

It should pose no problem for ED but I cant test that statement as I don't have the alpha. yet......

I believe you can accomplish similar things with a program called SoftTh but that looks like a bucket load of hassle.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's all true, i have the GTX660 and it does the same thing, if you have odd sized monitors though you need to be able to stretch it manually to get best fit of the games i am currently messing around with Warthunder and Microsoft Flight do not support stretching a windowed version of the game but World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and Star Wars the Old Republic do let you just resize the window and then sort themselves out to fit your selection.

This is WoWP and SWOTR, both run in windowed mode and i just pull the edges out as far as i need to get best coverage, if you try the same thing with Warthunder the aspect ratio won't change so as you pull sideways the bottom of the screen drop off the bottom of your monitor.

(Excuse the full sized images, thought it defeated the object to shrink them)

ksta.jpg


trb8.jpg
 

Dead Fred

Dead Fred
That's Groovy Baby!
But I think I need to get three big monitors just to appreciate your three big monitors...
But that would be silly, lol.
Maybe when I am rich.

Warthunder works quite well and Planetside 2 has a special wide view mode but I don't like that. Kind of accelerates the movement of your peripheral vision.

Facetracking/ headtracking becomes more sensible with 3 monitors and Iv'e been playing around with that too using FaceTrackNoIr, see the Blue Peter Headtracking thread. Got it working nicely with a pair of polarised sunglass lenses at 90 degrees and a Delan clip. TrackIr works in ED not sure about the cheapo alternative tho.

Now, has anyone tried NINE monitors in a three by three array? lol.
 
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