Can I connect a XP box to 3 monitors and play a seperate video on each?

[SuperFreaky]

Can I just slap 3 PCI cards in there and setup multi-monitors with XP?

Or do I get the problem where XP can only display overlays in the primary screen or something like that?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: SuperFreaky
Can I just slap 3 PCI cards in there and setup multi-monitors with XP?

Yes.

Or do I get the problem where XP can only display overlays in the primary screen or something like that?

You might, if you try to display things through video overlay (though this might actually work with three cards driving three displays).

If you use a codec/player that does software rendering, you can display your video windows wherever you want (or even stretch them over multiple monitors, at least if they're on the same physical card).

 

[xtknight]

I think you use theater mode, something like that, to get by the overlay problem. I'm not sure if Windows is smart enough to use each card's overlay. You could also use D3D 9 Video Mixing Renderer (hardware) and still get acceleration but be able to display on anything (additionally you can perform transforms and blends with the videos). Many software lets you choose between the overlay or the video mixing renderer. If not the VMR, maybe GDI, which while not accelerated, will still slow display in more than one location.

 

[SonicIce]

is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

I've seen flight sims spanned across like 8 monitors. Although, I'm not sure what was involved in the process.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

Not unless you have a card with three video outputs (Matrox makes some, but they have horrible 3D performance by today's standards) and run in a spanned mode across all three, or the game is built for it.

The flight sims mentioned above know how to handle talking to multiple video cards at the same time and displaying stuff on each.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: SonicIce
is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

Not unless you have a card with three video outputs (Matrox makes some, but they have horrible 3D performance by today's standards) and run in a spanned mode across all three, or the game is built for it.

The flight sims mentioned above know how to handle talking to multiple video cards at the same time and displaying stuff on each.

Hmm, what other games besides flight sims have this ability? Will any game work with 2 or 3? Farcry and CSS worked with no trouble at all on 2. pics

 

[imported_Goo]

Matrox.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: SonicIce

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: SonicIce
is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

Not unless you have a card with three video outputs (Matrox makes some, but they have horrible 3D performance by today's standards) and run in a spanned mode across all three, or the game is built for it.

The flight sims mentioned above know how to handle talking to multiple video cards at the same time and displaying stuff on each.

Hmm, what other games besides flight sims have this ability? Will any game work with 2 or 3? Farcry and CSS worked with no trouble at all on 2. pics

a lot of game have thus ability. Ut2004 engine games. Quake 3 engine games, HL2 i think, Nascar racing games, etc, check out the Matrox website.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: SonicIce

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: SonicIce
is it possible to play a game across 3 monitors? I've done it with 2 on a 6600 GT and 6800 Ultra. But not sure about 3.

Not unless you have a card with three video outputs (Matrox makes some, but they have horrible 3D performance by today's standards) and run in a spanned mode across all three, or the game is built for it.

The flight sims mentioned above know how to handle talking to multiple video cards at the same time and displaying stuff on each.

Hmm, what other games besides flight sims have this ability?

None that I'm aware of.

Will any game work with 2 or 3? Farcry and CSS worked with no trouble at all on 2. pics

Any game that handles 'weird' resolutions like 3200x1200 or 2048x1024 will work just fine if you use a spanned video mode (it looks to Windows and OpenGL/DirectX like one big monitor that is just really wide). If you run the monitors as independent displays (or they are attached to different video cards), the game will either run very slowly or crash if you try to put it in windowed mode and stretch it across multiple displays.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
a lot of game have thus ability. Ut2004 engine games. Quake 3 engine games, HL2 i think, Nascar racing games, etc, check out the Matrox website.

UT2K4, Q3, and HL2 only work like this in a spanned mode. They can't handle multiple independent displays, or managing windows on multiple cards. Like I said, Matrox has cards that can span across three monitors, but their 3D performance is pretty bad by today's standards.

Not sure which racing game you are referring to.