Anyone flown BS with Matrox triple head?

[Alex_rcpilot]

I've been interested in this graphic peripheral for a few years, long before the digital version was introduced. But it's till recent days that I found myself able to afford a setup with it. So I'd like to gather some info to help determine what exactly to go with.

 

The digital version offers maximum 5040x1050 (triple 1680x1050) resolution, which makes 1680x1050 monitors a reasonable choice for a display setup. If I was going to purchase a new triple display setup, I'd have a few questions to ask, and they are listed below:

 

1. This new setup won't be used only for gaming, I'd like to rotate at least one monitor 90 degrees when I work on coding projects. I did a search with Google, but the returned information seemed out of date. Is it possible to rotate some or all of the three monitors with newest drivers?

 

2. If I go with one 1920x1200 and two 1680x1050 monitors. It should be possible to set all of them to 1680x1050 while gaming, and set the 1920x1200 one at its max resolution with the rest turned off, am I right?

 

3. For acceptable FPS say 120 or higher with effects in Black Shark set to high, what's the minimum recommended CPU, chipset and Graphic card requirement? What about running this with FRAPS activated at the same time? Well, this question may sound stupid, sorry about it, if you find it that way, please just ignore this one.

 

Thanks for your time, guys.:)

[JG14_Smil]

I too would like to know how the Triple head works with Vista 64 and BS, is windowed mode still needed?

 

Alex, 120 fps in BS is very hard to achieve, so I suggest lowering your 'acceptable' standards :)

[hannibal]

if u do buy th2g, realize that NOT all monitors work, monitors have to be of the same resolution, and if you want 5040x1050, it requires 3 monitors to work at 57Hz...(even more limited)

[S77th-RYKE]

check out SofthTH here ; http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

 

needs 2 vid cards and no need for TH2go

 

also I read somewhere in softh forums that flipping a display upright makes you lose performance from the get go .

[Alex_rcpilot]

I too would like to know how the Triple head works with Vista 64 and BS, is windowed mode still needed?

 

Alex, 120 fps in BS is very hard to achieve, so I suggest lowering your 'acceptable' standards :)

 

Thanks man. :doh:oops, I should have aimed at 'reasonable' standards.

 

Since hannibal helped point out the actualy FPS limitation of TH2G, I'll give up this impractical requirement, and simply expect fluent gameplay at the given resolution and FPS. Perhaps 5040 * 1050 for BS with TrackIR software, and 3840*1024 for BS with both TrackIR and FRAPS activated. Will this be easier to achieve?:)

[Alex_rcpilot]

if u do buy th2g, realize that NOT all monitors work, monitors have to be of the same resolution, and if you want 5040x1050, it requires 3 monitors to work at 57Hz...(even more limited)

 

Thank you for the info. I thought TH2G would be able to detect the maximum resolution of each monitor and force the user to set them to the same numbers(i.e, bring down the resolution for one or more of them to compatible value if they happen to exceed the limits).

 

I can live with 57Hz or slightly lower, on LCD monitors.

[Shrubbo]

......

 

I can live with 57Hz or slightly lower, on LCD monitors.

 

The question is can your monitors? Some monitors say they can but in fact can't do 57hz. The best rez I can run is 4320x900 and not 5040x1050 because my monitors won't drop to 57hz. Mind you that is not to say I am unhappy, TH2Gd is freakin awesome :thumbup:

 

Anyway some links that will explain some things for you so you can make an informed choice....

 

Widescreen gaming forum FAQ, also gives pros and cons of Softh etc.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/TH2Go_FAQ

 

Surround gaming forums @ widescreengamingforum.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/index.php?c=8

 

All in all I am very happy with the TH2Gd and highly recommend it if you got the cash laying around. Myself and every single person that has played on this rig have all said the same thing and all had the same grin...

 

"OMG this is F%$##@ awesome!!!"

 

Check this thread as well...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=34832

Shows how to change your FoV for surround gaming.

[Alex_rcpilot]

check out SofthTH here ; http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

 

needs 2 vid cards and no need for TH2go

 

also I read somewhere in softh forums that flipping a display upright makes you lose performance from the get go .

 

Hi S77th, I've heard of SoftTH before and I just checked the link you provided. Unfortunately BS is not within the supported list.

 

The soft solution is potentially more flexible, yet it eats up so much hardware resource that I might start to get when new games get released over time. Thank you for the info anyway.:thumbup:

[S77th-RYKE]

Hi S77th, I've heard of SoftTH before and I just checked the link you provided. Unfortunately BS is not within the supported list.

 

The soft solution is potentially more flexible, yet it eats up so much hardware resource that I might start to get when new games get released over time. Thank you for the info anyway.:thumbup:

 

BS is working , check the forums as softth seems to be big on "community" help. there is a thread with config for BS on the very first page.

 

just trying to help , I haven't decided what way I will go myself yet .

 

the $500 can$ th2go is very steep considering that $500 would pay for the 3rd monitor AND extra vid card I need , also that vid card could be used in sli mode when not using tripple monitors .

 

if they would price the thing(TH2go) at say $150.00 , I'd buy it for sure .

[Alex_rcpilot]

The question is can your monitors? Some monitors say they can but in fact can't do 57hz. The best rez I can run is 4320x900 and not 5040x1050 because my monitors won't drop to 57hz. Mind you that is not to say I am unhappy, TH2Gd is freakin awesome :thumbup:

 

Anyway some links that will explain some things for you so you can make an informed choice....

 

Widescreen gaming forum FAQ, also gives pros and cons of Softh etc.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/TH2Go_FAQ

 

Surround gaming forums @ widescreengamingforum.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/index.php?c=8

 

All in all I am very happy with the TH2Gd and highly recommend it if you got the cash laying around. Myself and every single person that has played on this rig have all said the same thing and all had the same grin...

 

"OMG this is F%$##@ awesome!!!"

 

Check this thread as well...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=34832

Shows how to change your FoV for surround gaming.

 

:music_whistling:oops, never thought there would be a bottom limit for FPS, it kinda kicks me in the butt. Yeah I guess when I put this thought to practice, I better consider monitor selection as the last step to go, so that I may test as many monitors at the store as possible to minimize risk. Or perhaps I can hold my cash for another couple of years before Matrox developes some new generation TH2G devices.

 

Thank you for the links, I need to spend some time to digest them all. Like I said, this won't just be a gaming machine, but a powerful workstation as well. I'll primarily use it to develope industrial hardware when I'm not gaming. Like this:

Fullscreen schematics at the left; Fullscreen PCB in the center; Fullscreen datasheet at the right.

 

And when I work on my firmware, I'd like to flip the screen so that more lines can be fitted into a single page. e.g:

Hardware drawing on the left; Memo documentation in the center; Code to the right:

Anyway, if this can't be done with TH2G, I may simply rewire the monitors to AUX graphic ports on the primary and secondary graphic cards.

;)

[Alex_rcpilot]

BS is working , check the forums as softth seems to be big on "community" help. there is a thread with config for BS on the very first page.

 

just trying to help , I haven't decided what way I will go myself yet .

 

the $500 can$ th2go is very steep considering that $500 would pay for the 3rd monitor AND extra vid card I need , also that vid card could be used in sli mode when not using tripple monitors .

 

if they would price the thing(TH2go) at say $150.00 , I'd buy it for sure .

 

wow that will be cool. I appreciate your help, and since I'm going with triple display and dual graphic cards either way, I'd try softTH first, coz it's just software and won't hurt anything if it doesn't work well enough.

 

And if I do buy TH2G but find it incapable of meeting some of my rigorous requirements, I might design a PCB with MUX DVI ports and necessary components to switch between TH2G and separate connection without frequently plugging/unplugging the connectors.

[Shrubbo]

No I don't think that can be done alex, well if it can I can't see how but I don't think so. One way around it is the TH2G only uses one port on your video card and your pc only sees it as one really wide screen monitor.

 

Nothing stopping you pluggin in a 4th monitor into the spare card port and rotating that. In fact when I get around to it I am going to do just that just for the hell of it, like its not hot enough in here already :D

[Alex_rcpilot]

No I don't think that can be done alex, well if it can I can't see how but I don't think so. One way around it is the TH2G only uses one port on your video card and your pc only sees it as one really wide screen monitor.

 

Nothing stopping you pluggin in a 4th monitor into the spare card port and rotating that. In fact when I get around to it I am going to do just that just for the hell of it, like its not hot enough in here already :D

 

That would be sweet. Actually if TH2G is bottlenecking a lot of things, I'd rather consider TH2G as a 'secondary' monitor set, and give it just what it needs. That means using three cheap 1440x900 monitors for TH2G on one port ( pity 1280x1024 ones have ceased production ) , and a large 1920x1200 separate monitor for the other. there won't be any better option for watching HD movies than this one.

 

And perhaps I will build something like this:

[Made.In.China.00]

Nice idea, but maybe you should plug the monitor 4 to the main video card, so when you use TH2G, you can use SLI. If you are using SLI or plan to use SLI in the future.

[Alex_rcpilot]

Nice idea, but maybe you should plug the monitor 4 to the main video card, so when you use TH2G, you can use SLI. If you are using SLI or plan to use SLI in the future.

 

Oh thanks for the reminder.

 

Monitor #4 should be connected to DVI Port #2 on the primary graphic card. So that I can put the cards in SLI/CrossFire mode when I need to use TH2G, and make them work individually when I spare each port for one monitor.

[JimMack]

Video of Black Shark with Matrox TripleHead2GO - http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/ad/gxm/th2go/blackshark2/

[S77th-RYKE]

that is nice... thanks for posting ..

 

or do it for free with Softh ;

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=39577

[Total]

I'm putting together a video that shows not only BS with the triplehead2go, but also a couple of other games along with studio multitracking, pcb layout (glad I ain't the only one on here lol), general office apps, and web authoring.

 

There's also a good thread on the TH2G in the BS GD forum. I'll link it when I find it.

[Burnerski]

I just got Black Shark last week and with the help of this forum and others

at softTH was able to set up BS with 3 22" monitors @5040x1050. I was blown away.

Here were some of the problems I encountered, these may be addressed in earlier threads.

1. I had trouble initially setting up the monitors in windows. I had old drivers, get the latest Nvida drivers.

2. I had to manually enter the resolution in options.lua.... height = 1050...resolution=5040x1050....width= 5040.

3. Where is the options.lua folder? Its in c\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\BlackShark\data\scripts.

4. Make sure you get softTH 1.09.

5. Do a search for Black Shark at the sofTH forums for the softTH config.

　

Hope this may help some.

Burner

 

[Burnerski]

Link to a short youtube video I made showing triple monitors..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdZh-aUOVnQ

 

 

Regards,

Burner

[S77th-RYKE]

Link to a short youtube video I made showing triple monitors..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdZh-aUOVnQ

 

 

Regards,

Burner

 

thanks for posting , it seems that you succeeded in setting correct borders ..

 

can you please post your set up ?

 

softh.cfg , options.lua , whatevermonitor.lua and what ever else you modified ..

 

thanks

[Burnerski]

;

; SoftTH 1.09 configuration file

; by Kegetys, http://www.kegetys.net

;

[config]

; deviceIDLeft/right: Direct3D device ID's of left and right monitor, or 'auto' for automatic

; secondaryWidth/Height: Left&right monitor resolution, or 'auto' to use same as middle screen resolution

; secondaryRefresh: Refresh rate of left & right monitors, or 'auto' for automatic

; secondaryFormat: Secondary device image format: 'RGB32', 'RGB16', 'RGB16D' or 'RGB32CUDA'.

; uploadMethod: Method used to upload image to secondary card(s): 'blit', 'D3D' or 'D3DCUDA'

; forceAffinity: Set to 1 to force process affinity to all processors/cores.

; borderSize: Size in pixels of frame border between monitors that is discarded

; sideExtraWidth: Width difference between middle and side monitors, or 'auto' to autodetect from desktop resolution

; noHotkeys: Set to 1 to disable all hotkeys

; noOSD: Set to 1 to disable on-screen display when changing settings

deviceIDLeft=1

deviceIDright=2

secondaryWidth=auto

secondaryHeight=auto

secondaryRefresh=auto

secondaryFormat=RGB32

uploadMethod=D3D

forceAffinity=1

borderSize=0

sideExtraWidth=auto

noHotkeys=0

noOSD=0

[Direct3D]

; ** Advanced setting for Direct3D games **

; lensCorrection: Lens correction, set to 1 to enable support. >1 to enable by default

; lensCorrectionEdge: Lens correction edge offset

; hideNondefaultDevices: Hides all but the default adapter from the game

; forceHorizontalFOV: Forces horizontal FOV to be three times as wide

; forceResolutionWidth/Height: Forces device to be created with this resolution

; force16bitDepth: Force game to use 16bit depth buffer, can improve performance and reduce memory use

; sleepBeforeRead: Time in ms to sleep before reading back buffer data from video card

; useMultihead: Uses multihead features of primary card if available, can increase performance and reduce memory use

; delayedPresent: When useMultihead enabled, delay primary monitor present to sync with secondary head

; d3d8dll: Path to D3D8.dll/D3D9.dll to use or auto for automatic (system32 dir)

; altResetBehaviour: Do not reset lost main device after secondary device initialization (WDDM crash workaround)

lensCorrection=0

lensCorrectionEdge=0

hideNondefaultDevices=0

forceHorizontalFOV=1

forceResolutionWidth=0

forceResolutionHeight=0

force16bitDepth=0

sleepBeforeRead=2

useMultihead=0

delayedPresent=0

autoSquash=0

altResetBehaviour=0

d3d8dll=auto

[hooks]

; Win32 API hooking settings - Used for some extra compatibility and game-specific fixes

; doHooking: Enable/disable hooks in Direct3D, with OpenGL hooks are always enabled

; doScaleMouseCoordinates: Scale mouse coordinates for getCursorPos to fix games which do not handle negative screen coordinates properly

; doScaleFromLeftScreen: Spread out mouse coordinates from left screen to full width

; doScaleWindowRects: Scale focus window WindowRect

; doScaleClientRects: Scale focus window ClientRect

; mouseXoffset: Number of pixels to offset mouse cursor position in X axis, to fix misplaced cursor due to negative screen coordinates. auto = use X resolution

doHooking=1

doScaleMouseCoordinates=0

doScaleFromLeftScreen=0

doScaleWindowRects=0

doScaleClientRects=1

mouseXoffset=auto

; Triplehead screenmodes to add to resolutions list (width multiplied by three and border added)

; width x height x refresh rate in Hz

; 'auto' adds current primary monitor desktop resolution

; Must be last in this file

[modes]

800x600x60

800x600x75

800x600x85

1024x768x60

1024x768x75

1024x768x85

1280x960x60

1280x960x75

1280x960x85

1280x1024x60

1280x1024x75

1280x1024x85

1440x900x60

1600x1200x60

1600x1200x75

1600x1200x85

auto

 

This is my softh.cfg.. I only entered the res I needed in 3 places in the options.lua per my earlier post, nothing else.

 

This is a very graphic intensive setup and I think requires a really good video card. Mine is a GTS8800 330Mb which is getting old, the other is a 7900. My CPU is a cor2duo oc'd @ 3.8. Frame rates are not that good.. 15 to 20. I just ordered a gtx275 and will see if that helps. If anyone needs help setting this up don't hesitate to ask, it's really trick. I think Black Shark is great but can't wait for jets.

 

Regards,

Burner

[S77th-RYKE]

;

; SoftTH 1.09 configuration file

; by Kegetys, http://www.kegetys.net

;

[config]

; deviceIDLeft/right: Direct3D device ID's of left and right monitor, or 'auto' for automatic

; secondaryWidth/Height: Left&right monitor resolution, or 'auto' to use same as middle screen resolution

; secondaryRefresh: Refresh rate of left & right monitors, or 'auto' for automatic

; secondaryFormat: Secondary device image format: 'RGB32', 'RGB16', 'RGB16D' or 'RGB32CUDA'.

; uploadMethod: Method used to upload image to secondary card(s): 'blit', 'D3D' or 'D3DCUDA'

; forceAffinity: Set to 1 to force process affinity to all processors/cores.

; borderSize: Size in pixels of frame border between monitors that is discarded

; sideExtraWidth: Width difference between middle and side monitors, or 'auto' to autodetect from desktop resolution

; noHotkeys: Set to 1 to disable all hotkeys

; noOSD: Set to 1 to disable on-screen display when changing settings

deviceIDLeft=1

deviceIDright=2

secondaryWidth=auto

secondaryHeight=auto

secondaryRefresh=auto

secondaryFormat=RGB32

uploadMethod=D3D

forceAffinity=1

borderSize=0

sideExtraWidth=auto

noHotkeys=0

noOSD=0

[Direct3D]

; ** Advanced setting for Direct3D games **

; lensCorrection: Lens correction, set to 1 to enable support. >1 to enable by default

; lensCorrectionEdge: Lens correction edge offset

; hideNondefaultDevices: Hides all but the default adapter from the game

; forceHorizontalFOV: Forces horizontal FOV to be three times as wide

; forceResolutionWidth/Height: Forces device to be created with this resolution

; force16bitDepth: Force game to use 16bit depth buffer, can improve performance and reduce memory use

; sleepBeforeRead: Time in ms to sleep before reading back buffer data from video card

; useMultihead: Uses multihead features of primary card if available, can increase performance and reduce memory use

; delayedPresent: When useMultihead enabled, delay primary monitor present to sync with secondary head

; d3d8dll: Path to D3D8.dll/D3D9.dll to use or auto for automatic (system32 dir)

; altResetBehaviour: Do not reset lost main device after secondary device initialization (WDDM crash workaround)

lensCorrection=0

lensCorrectionEdge=0

hideNondefaultDevices=0

forceHorizontalFOV=1

forceResolutionWidth=0

forceResolutionHeight=0

force16bitDepth=0

sleepBeforeRead=2

useMultihead=0

delayedPresent=0

autoSquash=0

altResetBehaviour=0

d3d8dll=auto

[hooks]

; Win32 API hooking settings - Used for some extra compatibility and game-specific fixes

; doHooking: Enable/disable hooks in Direct3D, with OpenGL hooks are always enabled

; doScaleMouseCoordinates: Scale mouse coordinates for getCursorPos to fix games which do not handle negative screen coordinates properly

; doScaleFromLeftScreen: Spread out mouse coordinates from left screen to full width

; doScaleWindowRects: Scale focus window WindowRect

; doScaleClientRects: Scale focus window ClientRect

; mouseXoffset: Number of pixels to offset mouse cursor position in X axis, to fix misplaced cursor due to negative screen coordinates. auto = use X resolution

doHooking=1

doScaleMouseCoordinates=0

doScaleFromLeftScreen=0

doScaleWindowRects=0

doScaleClientRects=1

mouseXoffset=auto

; Triplehead screenmodes to add to resolutions list (width multiplied by three and border added)

; width x height x refresh rate in Hz

; 'auto' adds current primary monitor desktop resolution

; Must be last in this file

[modes]

800x600x60

800x600x75

800x600x85

1024x768x60

1024x768x75

1024x768x85

1280x960x60

1280x960x75

1280x960x85

1280x1024x60

1280x1024x75

1280x1024x85

1440x900x60

1600x1200x60

1600x1200x75

1600x1200x85

auto

 

This is my softh.cfg.. I only entered the res I needed in 3 places in the options.lua per my earlier post, nothing else.

 

This is a very graphic intensive setup and I think requires a really good video card. Mine is a GTS8800 330Mb which is getting old, the other is a 7900. My CPU is a cor2duo oc'd @ 3.8. Frame rates are not that good.. 15 to 20. I just ordered a gtx275 and will see if that helps. If anyone needs help setting this up don't hesitate to ask, it's really trick. I think Black Shark is great but can't wait for jets.

 

Regards,

Burner

 

thanks for posting

 

I could have sworn from your video that you had set border sizes..

 

you know.. to compensate for distance between monitors..

[Total]

As promised - Here's a video I made using the TH2G and FRAPS

 

 

Once I get my video camera back (someone borrowed it) I'll shoot one of how my desk set up looks. The video shows exactly what I see ingame.

 

I use the Acer X203H monitors (can read about my adjustment with those in the youtube description). What I did like about these monitors though was the bezels are tapered front and back. That worked out nicely on my desk since it's a corner desk. The two side monitors are at a 30 degree angle in relation to the center monitor, so I get the "wrap around" effect with reduced bezels. I have maybe 3/4" inch worth of bezel seperation between the monitors as a result of those tapers. Also, being matched monitors, I did not have to use the TH2G's bezel adjustment at all either :)