Nvidia's Implementation of Triple monitors vs ATI Eyefinity

[cbn]

Does anyone have any links to Nvidia's implementation of Triple monitors that will make its way onto the Fermi cards?

I read somewhere that this technology is already present on the Workstation cards and that moving it over to the gaming line will be very easy.

 

[soccerballtux]

It's going to work exactly the same way.
Which, by the way, the monitors are supposed to be flush on a plane with each other for the perspective to look right, not wrapped around. AMD needs to make this clear.

 

[Udgnim]

need SLI motherboard and I think a GTX 260 or higher video card (not sure on this level of video card) for Nvidia triple monitor

can not do triple monitor on 1 Fermi

 

[PingviN]

Does anyone have any links to Nvidia's implementation of Triple monitors that will make its way onto the Fermi cards?

I read somewhere that this technology is already present on the Workstation cards and that moving it over to the gaming line will be very easy.

Seems like GF100 will be able to use 2 monitors, SLI will still be required for 3 monitors.

 

[zerocool84]

It's going to work exactly the same way.
Which, by the way, the monitors are supposed to be flush on a plane with each other for the perspective to look right, not wrapped around. AMD needs to make this clear.

Well tell all the reviewers in the world then too cus they are doing that as well.

 

[cbn]

It's going to work exactly the same way.
Which, by the way, the monitors are supposed to be flush on a plane with each other for the perspective to look right, not wrapped around. AMD needs to make this clear.

The monitors are supposed to be "flush on a plane"? Does this mean viewing angles might become an issue if the monitors are arranged in "Landscape" rather than "portrait" configuration?

Also I have heard Nvidia "Surround View" requires two video cards. How does this work? Do the GPUs render the images on the monitors separately since there are only two DVI outputs on each card?

 

[Lonyo]

The monitors are supposed to be "flush on a plane"? Does this mean viewing angles might become an issue if the monitors are arranged in "Landscape" rather than "portrait" configuration?

Also I have heard Nvidia "Surround View" requires two video cards. How does this work? Do the video cards render the images on the monitors separately since there are only two DVI outputs on each card?

It's entirely possible to render the whole output as a single image, and then distribute the final image across multiple cards to be displayed on multiple monitors, and I would expect this is what NV could do.

This is an example of a hack to get triple monitor output over two cards, although in this case only one card does the rendering.
I would assume it would be easy for NV to work a much more effective way to do something similar, especially at a driver level.

It does bring in an interesting question though, how would the workload be distributed.
Bandwidth could have a big impact if indeed it does do AFR and split the output between cards, because that's a lot of data going between the two cards, and x8 vs x16 SLI might come into play, but if they do some sort of tile based organisation, then there would be load balancing issues between multiple cards.
A full scene as one image which gets split and divided between cards seems to be the most sensible approach.

 

[Shilohen]

The monitors are supposed to be "flush on a plane"? Does this mean viewing angles might become an issue if the monitors are arranged in "Landscape" rather than "portrait" configuration?

Also I have heard Nvidia "Surround View" requires two video cards. How does this work? Do the GPUs render the images on the monitors separately since there are only two DVI outputs on each card?

I assume he's basing his statement on the fact that the video card does not simulate two other cameras to determine what appears to the left and right, it's just a much bigger resolution so, if you wrap the monitors around yourself, what you're going to see to your side won't really be on your side in the game, but rather in front of you to the left and right.

 

[gorobei]

search function is your friend:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2041411

and multi-monitor 3d span was never available on their workstation quadro line. that was just 4 monitors off a special dongle for 2d apps on their lowest end quadro card(stock trading display and other basic extended desktop setup.) it was never capable of native multi-monitor rendering of 3d games.

the in-plane requirement only refers to 3d vision. if you angle the side monitors to avoid TN color shift at off angles, the 3d effect gets messed up.

for surround you need:
1 x sli motherboard
2 x (260 or better) video cards [2 x fermi if you want 3d vision surround]
3 x monitor [3 x 120hz monitor if you want 3d]
1 x 3d glasses

for eyefinity you need:
1 x 5xxx videocard
3 x monitor (ideally one should be capable of displayport support)
[1 x dport to dvi dongle, if your monitors dont support dport]

 

[aka1nas]

It's going to work exactly the same way.
Which, by the way, the monitors are supposed to be flush on a plane with each other for the perspective to look right, not wrapped around. AMD needs to make this clear.

They varies quite a bit by game. Some games have a fish-eye effect as you widen the aspect ratio, some do not.

 

[aka1nas]

Also I have heard Nvidia "Surround View" requires two video cards. How does this work? Do the GPUs render the images on the monitors separately since there are only two DVI outputs on each card?

AFAIK, the feature fully support SLI for rendering. Two cards are required because pretty much all Nvidia cards at this point are dual DVI only.

The upside for this is that it means that Nvidia will finally support SLI being enabled with displays being active on the non-primary card in the SLI set. Up to this point, if you wanted SLI on with 3 screens you had to use an extra card for screen 3 that was not part of the SLI set.

 

[soccerballtux]

The monitors are supposed to be "flush on a plane"? Does this mean viewing angles might become an issue if the monitors are arranged in "Landscape" rather than "portrait" configuration?

Also I have heard Nvidia "Surround View" requires two video cards. How does this work? Do the GPUs render the images on the monitors separately since there are only two DVI outputs on each card?

I assume he's basing his statement on the fact that the video card does not simulate two other cameras to determine what appears to the left and right, it's just a much bigger resolution so, if you wrap the monitors around yourself, what you're going to see to your side won't really be on your side in the game, but rather in front of you to the left and right.

Exactly.
If anything, to handle fishbowl effect you would angle monitors convex away from you.
Alternatively, they (AMD/Nvidia) could render a much wider resolution past the 3 monitors you have, and then for the 2 side monitors, smoosh it back in to fit. This would more closely simulate a 2nd and 3rd camera, and is similar to the convex angling method; except that this way a). it would require more videocard horsepower (good for sales) and b). you would get full 16:10/9 resolution on the 2nd and 3rd monitor to the left and right, not something closer to square (which is what your eyes would see if you angled them away from you via the convex method).

 

[cbn]

search function is your friend:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2041411

Yep, I saw that thread. Unfortunately much of the talk there is regarding "3D" not "surround view".

P.S. I actually posted a question in it yesterday regarding mixing resolutions.

 

[NoQuarter]

There's a tradeoff with the fishbowl effect because the field of view can actually wrap all the way behind you. If you set FoV high your right and left edges can actually reach around to show what is directly behind you. Many games fishbowl effect is strong enough so what is at the edges at 5760*1080 really is on your direct left and right side, and if it's weaker then it's perfect because those monitors aren't actually wrapped around you anyway.

Problem is the images get skewed to be very large the further out from center it is. So positionally you get the right perception.. but how close objects appear is wrong. There's not really a proper way to put the monitors to cover both. You can keep them flat to help with the enlargement, but then they aren't in the right position. You can angle them toward you to put things in the right position, but then objects feel closer than they are.

If you play it, it feels more natural to have them angled at you because that's closer to where the objects displayed are in relation to you. In racing games those panes are usually your left and right window.. so technically you would need them wrapped around you if you wanted to look left and right to look out your windows. In Lotro the edges of those panes actually reach about 150 degrees behind my character on each side. Leaving the monitors flat makes no sense given the perspectives being represented even if it helps correct the skewing.