Tri-Monitor Gaming -- Possible?

[bznotins]

I would like to build a display configuration similar to this:

Ubergizmo Link

Now my question is that with an SLi video card setup, would it be possible to play a game and have it display on all three screens? Or is my only option to play a game on the middle screen and have the other two display my desktop? Would I have the two side monitors hooked into the DVI ports of one vidcard and the middle monitor on the other vidcard?

I realize the video hardware requirements of such a goal are enormous, but that is another discussion. I just would like to know if it is possible.

Thanks!

 

[BladeVenom]

I'm fairly certain it's possible. I've seen several flight sims that offer mulitple monitor support for more than two monitors. I'm suprised that multiple monitor gaming isn't more popular.

 

[KeithTalent]

I really only see this as useful for RPGs or Strategy games, for FPS games it would be obnoxious IMO, though maybe I'm just jealous

 

[bznotins]

Yeah, this would be for FPS games, mostly. Rather than have the game know that it's three monitors, I'm really thinking that the vidcard(s)/drivers need to tell the game it's just one (really big) monitor... is that possible?

 

[ArchAngel777]

My dad would kill to have that setup... He would use it for his flight simulators. Though, I personally wouldn't want much to do with it.

It would be also cool for race car simulations... The main screen is the windshield and the two smaller panels could be the side view! That does sound like a good idea... Then I could build an actual replica of a car (BMW M3 GTR!) and race away for the evening.

Yeah, that setup would be really cool for a few games, but I wouldn't want it for my main rig.

 

[CP5670]

SLI has until very recently supported only one monitor, but the 8800 may have possibly changed that with its separate outputting chip. I haven't seen any reviews that looked at SLI with the 8800 cards, but someone here might have that setup.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: bznotins
Yeah, this would be for FPS games, mostly. Rather than have the game know that it's three monitors, I'm really thinking that the vidcard(s)/drivers need to tell the game it's just one (really big) monitor... is that possible?

Currently, only for monitors on the same video card. Matrox makes some 3/4-headed video cards, but they're incredibly slow by today's standards (~GF2/3 speed, I think).

Like the previous poster mentioned, in theory you could do something like this via SLI... but neither ATI nor NVIDIA has done it yet.

Matrox also makes an external box that makes two or three monitors look like one big widescreen monitor -- but the resolution is limited to (I think) 1024x768 on each one.

Edit: A handful of games (mostly flight simulators) also support rendering to multiple video cards at the same time, and so can run on as many displays as you want. But the game has to be specifically written to work like that.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: bznotins
Yeah, this would be for FPS games, mostly. Rather than have the game know that it's three monitors, I'm really thinking that the vidcard(s)/drivers need to tell the game it's just one (really big) monitor... is that possible?

Matrox has a triple-head-2-go gaming adaptor that makes 3 monitors appear as one. I'd imagine there are other limitations on the device besides the fact that it uses D-SUB instead of DVI. On the plus side, the device comes with an app that tweaks ~250 games for widescreen support instead of you hunting down the tweaks and applying them manually.

http://hardware.gamershell.com/articles/matrox_triplehead2go/