Triple monitor gaming?

[ramzorz]

So, I've finally coughed up the dough for a video card upgrade (5670 to a 7770) and got my 3 monitor setup done. I've been longing for this day for literally years. One bad side is that my three monitors are different resolutions. Two 1280x1024 on the sides and one 1680x1050 in the center. Eyefinity is out of the question because it requires the monitors to be the same resolution, or the image will be distorted.

I've read about this software that does the same thing but allows you to have different size monitors, although I forget and it only supports certain games and if I recall correctly, it's tedious to set up per game... something I'm definitely NOT interested in. I need a simple replacement for Eyefinity.

I had the idea of playing games in windowed modes, but still even then, I couldn't scale them to my wanting; also, I'm not exactly content with seeing my taskbar whilst playing games.

[primexx]

I find that game support for multi-mon is generally **** poor. even eyefinity which was designed for that very purpose is really just a lackluster workaround to the lack of native support in games.

[Phalesafe]

A Single 7770 is not heavy duty enough to do 1080p triple monitor gaming. You're going to be better off gaming in a window unless you like gaming on the lowest visual settings. Also as primexx said the support is **** poor the only games that work well so far for me are MMORPGs or Battlefield 3. RTS or games like Dota and League equate to way to much mouse movement for it to be enjoyable. A lot of games dont even work correctly, it will load the Resolution but the FOV will make its so you dont have access to or cant see a lot of critical UI elements.

[theyarecomingforyou]

@ramzorz - You don't seem to have any idea of how demanding multi-monitor gaming is. Taking a look at the pixel count for such a setup gives you some idea:

2560x1600 = 4.1m pixels

1680x1050*3 = 5.3m pixels

1680x1050 + 1280x1024*2 = 4.4m pixels

What does that mean? Well, I game at 2560x1600 and I have found that many games are too demanding for a single GTX680 - even now with my SLI GTX680 setup I get slow down in some games. Therefore you stand zero chance of a good experience gaming at such a resolution with the graphics card you have, let alone tying to get non-matching resolutions to work. Also, how much VRAM does your GPU have? If it's only 1GB then most games won't even run, let alone perform well.

You'd be better off getting a single 24" 1920x1200 S-IPS display. The 1280x1024 monitors will either be very dated or very cheap, not to mention they'll likely have substantial bevels. Even your 1680x1050 display will be a TN-panel, so will have limited colour reproduction and viewing angles.

[ramzorz]

@ramzorz - You don't seem to have any idea of how demanding multi-monitor gaming is. Taking a look at the pixel count for such a setup gives you some idea:

2560x1600 = 4.1m pixels

1680x1050*3 = 5.3m pixels

1680x1050 + 1280x1024*2 = 4.4m pixels

What does that mean? Well, I game at 2560x1600 and I have found that many games are too demanding for a single GTX680 - even now with my SLI GTX680 setup I get slow down in some games. Therefore you stand zero chance of a good experience gaming at such a resolution with the graphics card you have, let alone tying to get non-matching resolutions to work. Also, how much VRAM does your GPU have? If it's only 1GB then most games won't even run, let alone perform well.

You'd be better off getting a single 24" 1920x1200 S-IPS display. The 1280x1024 monitors will either be very dated or very cheap, not to mention they'll likely have substantial bevels. Even your 1680x1050 display will be a TN-panel, so will have limited colour reproduction and viewing angles.

Damn, I feel like an idiot now. I had completely forgot that a 7770 is not even capable of doing so. You're right. Maybe I'll just have to wait until I get a new setup and some new monitors.

The card has 2GB of RAM, but it still won't support it with the GPU's lower end performance. I suppose I made this thread out of curiosity more than anything. I do get some neat performance (like 60FPS on Skyrim with all maxed settings on my 1680x1050 display), but to add two monitors on top of that would be deadly.

Still, I would enjoy to see any alternatives to Eyefinity just to use as general knowledge if I happen to run across the same/similar monitor with a more powerful GPU setup.

[Lord Method Man]

A lot of games are Vert- too instead of Hor+

[theyarecomingforyou]

Damn, I feel like an idiot now. I had completely forgot that a 7770 is not even capable of doing so. You're right. Maybe I'll just have to wait until I get a new setup and some new monitors.

The card has 2GB of RAM, but it still won't support it with the GPU's lower end performance. I suppose I made this thread out of curiosity more than anything. I do get some neat performance (like 60FPS on Skyrim with all maxed settings on my 1680x1050 display), but to add two monitors on top of that would be deadly.

The problem is most people don't realise how niche multi-monitor gaming really is. It's really expensive to get a capable system and even if you do it requires a lot of technical knowledge to get right, as most games don't support it as standard. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with dreaming big. Hopefully in a few years it will start to become a bit more mainstream and easier to achieve. :)

PS - Skyrim's not that demanding (despite the great visuals) and is one of the games that runs on a single GTX680 at 1600p. Games like Alan Wake, Far Cry 3, Metro 2033, Total War: Shogun 2 and Batman: Arkham City are much more demanding, especially at high resolutions.

[ramzorz]

The problem is most people don't realise how niche multi-monitor gaming really is. It's really expensive to get a capable system and even if you do it requires a lot of technical knowledge to get right, as most games don't support it as standard. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with dreaming big. Hopefully in a few years it will start to become a bit more mainstream and easier to achieve. :)

PS - Skyrim's not that demanding (despite the great visuals) and is one of the games that runs on a single GTX680 at 1600p. Games like Alan Wake, Far Cry 3, Metro 2033, Total War: Shogun 2 and Batman: Arkham City are much more demanding, especially at high resolutions.

Hehe, I guess Skyrim wasn't the best example. I could even run it at about 25 maxed on a 5670. Thanks for all the help by the way!

[bucko]

I recently tried http://www.wmdportal.com/projects/cars/ (it's in alpha) on a 3 screen set-up. It was on a display at Kustom PC at a LAN I went to. The game was very smooth and would be good in races to see cars going by the side of you. I think for certain games like racing and flight sims would be good, but I'm not so sure about how other game genres would cope.

[n_K]

Yeah car-based games I think are at the forefront. Cruden for example is an actual racing simulator (real pistons and whatnot) and has 3 or 5 monitors for the driver and 6 or so monitors for the stats at the side.