Inrptrn Posted June 25, 2009 Posted June 25, 2009 The black shark bug has bitten and I've decided to do triple monitors but I'm very indecisive over which way to accomplish this. I have 3 24" monitors but it's my understanding that I won't be able to use 5040x1050 w/ th2go because my monitors don't run at 57hz. But with softTH I could get around this? I will be somewhat disappointed if I have to run at 4320x900. Also performance wise is th2go generally accepted to be less of a burden on the system than softTH? I have 1 GTX 285 but I don't want to have to buy another high end card just to have acceptable FPS. Figured throwing a GF8800 in here will do the trick. any other pros/cons to consider? Thanks for your help!
Schwinn Posted June 25, 2009 Posted June 25, 2009 I would think not having identical video cards in the system would be just inviting problems to your simulation doorstep =) That is of course just my opinion.
Inrptrn Posted June 26, 2009 Author Posted June 26, 2009 All the 8800 would do is give me the 3rd DVI port for the third monitor. Otherwise it would basically be unused.
Schwinn Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 Yes but your two cards are going to perform differently...so two screens on your 285 would in theory run smoother then your other one? The second card still handles the processing that the single monitor is needing. I am not saying it won't work I am just playing devils advocate with having mixed cards.
Inrptrn Posted June 26, 2009 Author Posted June 26, 2009 Yes but your two cards are going to perform differently...so two screens on your 285 would in theory run smoother then your other one? Yes, I'm concerned about that too. On the other hand I don't know if a single 285 will be able to power three monitors at 4320x900 and be smooth.
Inrptrn Posted June 26, 2009 Author Posted June 26, 2009 Just ordered a th2go. Will do a test drive and see if it's a keeper or not...I think they are way overpriced though.
Schwinn Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 Good luck I hope it works out for you!! Yes the Matrox is way over priced for what it is. But thats them French Canadians for you hehe.
Inrptrn Posted July 5, 2009 Author Posted July 5, 2009 Finally after many hours and days of pulling my hair out, and after about 40 drivers swaps and restarts I can run BS @ 5040x1050! It's gorgeous. I was really close to sending the th2go back.
G3 Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 so you got there in the end, never to go back now :thumbup: i imagine. would be good to hear a bit more on the hassles you ran into, what driver worked etc.
Schwinn Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 i am glad you got it working =). If you don't mind me asking are you going to run a 4th monitor for the Shkval and Abris?
Alex_rcpilot Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 I'm running SoftTH with the setup listed in my signitrue. And I'm getting an average of 34FPS in Black Shark at 5040X1050. Before this test, I was even able to run a low-end ATi card as the secondary card for Crysis with SoftTH. Mixed cards work fine. The primary card does all the rendering job and dispatches a portion of the image to the secondary card. So the secondary card is basically only a video multiplexor. Here's an image of my 5040X1050 gameplay, if you take a closer look at this picture you will see the number 53. And Schwinn, you were talking about using a fourth monitor for Shkval and ABRIS, please feed me with more information if I fail to present below. I haven't found any embeded multi monitor support in Blackshark. So when you run it at full-screen with multi monitors, you have to make them appear to be a single monitor to Black Shark. That's what TH2G and SothTH do. And TH2G is actually making the operating system think there's only one monitor. With a fourth monitor working in conjunction with TH2G, this monitor appears as a sencondary monitor to Black Shark. As far as I know, there's no way to expand the game image to this monitor in full screen. Assume you had 5040X1050 with TH2G and 1680X1050 on a fourth monitor located on the right hand side. To get the stuff running, you'd have to run Black Shark in window mode, and edit options.lua. Modify width parameter to 5040+1680, and if the program manages to start normally, you will find the entire image centered along the centerline of the "primary"(5040X1050) monitor, which is 2520 pixels from the left. That means there's an invisible 840X1050 area of the image outside the left boundary of the primary monitor. Which also means that Black Shark window only covers the left half of the secondary monitor. That's what happens to a geometrically asymmetrical monitor setup. And by the way, having Black Shark running in window mode significantly reduces FPS.
Schwinn Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 I follow your logic...but can you simply add the 4th display to triple head to make it 4 monitors wide? 3 on the one DVI (triplehead) and one on the second DVI.
Inrptrn Posted July 6, 2009 Author Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) would be good to hear a bit more on the hassles you ran into,what driver worked etc. The biggest hassle is that 5040x1050 and 4320x900 are not supported out of the box, atleast not in my case. They work as a custom resolution and therin lies the hassle. I'm also running Windows 7 which complicates matters somewhat. The last Nvidia driver set to properly recognize the custom resolutions is 182.50. To install these drivers on Win7 you have run it in Vista SP1 Compatability mode.The other drivers you have to contend with is Matrox PowerDesk. I'm running 2.05. There is a beta PowerDesk driver for the custom resolutions on nvidia 200 series cards but it casued black bars to appear on the screen in 5040x1050. The last problem and I haven't figured out how/if I can fix it yet; I have to switch my desktop to 3840x1024 prior to running BS or the user interface is invisible. BS switches to 5040x1050 once I'm passed the UI. I don't have this problem with Rise of Flight. I'm just glad my monitors support 57hz! I didn't think they did. I do have a fourth monitor but it's just a 7" touch screen for running touchbuddy. I don't know where I would put another monitor. I haven't tested FPS yet but so far it there is no noticable performance hit. Edited July 6, 2009 by Inrptrn
Inrptrn Posted July 6, 2009 Author Posted July 6, 2009 I'm running SoftTH with the setup listed in my signitrue. And I'm getting an average of 34FPS in Black Shark at 5040X1050. Before this test, I was even able to run a low-end ATi card as the secondary card for Crysis with SoftTH. Mixed cards work fine. The primary card does all the rendering job and dispatches a portion of the image to the secondary card. So the secondary card is basically only a video multiplexor. Here's an image of my 5040X1050 gameplay, if you take a closer look at this picture you will see the number 53. Looks great. I like how the bezels line up with the cokpit window frames and you don't even see them anymore. :pilotfly:
Alex_rcpilot Posted July 7, 2009 Posted July 7, 2009 Looks great. I like how the bezels line up with the cokpit window frames and you don't even see them anymore. :pilotfly: lol, yes but only when I don't pan my head. Two things about TH2G that I like: A. Bezel correction; B. Ultra low power consumption compared with a secondary graphics card. Two things I hate about it: A. Overprice B. Doesn't allow single monitor rotation. I do a lot of programing, rotating a monitor introduces higher efficiency by showing more lines. The 2209WA monitors are capable of rotating 90 deg. clockwise, which is a handy feature I don't wanna waste.
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