Have any of you gone back to a single screen? Possibly a very big single screen... Would anybody consider it?

Because, errr, I am, but I have sort of mixed / conflicted feelings about it.


FT

I don't ever want to, though some games have to have me use only 1 out of my 3 screens...

Well Basically since I went TripleScreen I will NEVER Want to go back to a SINGLE screen EVER IF Possible..

The Benefits outway the single screen even when I am NOT gaming the Benefits of Multiple monitors is just outstanding..

I can have a web page DL'ng stuff patches or whatever on another screen I can have the Zipped file and a Readme opened and the other working on the folder or files corresponding to the Mod or whatever.. Indespensible..

What issues are you having, I never thought I would hear someone say they where not too umm impressed or having doubts??

No -- won't go back.

I am not greatly bothered playing a "single screen game" (those that won't work on three screens) on one monitor. Also, I watch TV on one monitor. But, the advantage in most games and applications is too great to forgo.

I have 24 inch monitors which are the largest that fit in a bank of 3 on my desk. If I went to a larger monitor, I might have to place it farther away (depending on resolution). So, the image may not be any larger in my field of view. If I'm willing to pay for a super high resolution monitor, I still need a super GPU to fill all the pixels. So, no cost savings (expensive single monitor and expensive GPU).

Still, to each his/her own. Almost no normal games/applications actually require more than one screen.

Yeah I never thought I would either. :-D

My problem is I am stranded between two universes : Surround for flight sims, and 3D for Oblivion / Skyrim

My 3 screens are 3D screens (Samsung 2233RZ) connected to a pair of GTX460s. On the one hand, flight sims in surround are one of the best experiences I've had; on the other hand, Oblivion in 3D is also one of the greatest things I have ever experienced, and I plan on an orgy of 3D glory in Skyrim soon

My problem is that my 3D experience is marred by those Samsung screens, for the most part because the ghosting is horrendous. Also the first-generation 3D glasses are pain in combination with both headphones and regular glasses...

Anyway, just for Skyrim and very few other games, I am willing to consider buying a second-generation Nvidia 3D Vision 2 system, which entails getting new screens. Now those new screens are monster 27-inchers, way too expensive for me to buy 3 of !

So I had this idea insinuate itself in my head: what if I buy just one, to replace my current _central_ screen, and keep the other 2 Samsungs on the side? Then I would use just the central screen to play in 3D, and the three screens to fly.

But then I have to ditch the Nvidia Surround config and resort to SoftTh, and also it would preclude doing any simming in 3D (which in the right circumstances is a quite fantastic experience).

But then, I really want a better 3D experience in Skyrim than what I have now.

Of course the simple solution, at least with the way my brain works, would be to buy three new 3D screens, but even I am not that crazy...

(Although, hemmm, that's why credit cards were invented, right?)


FT

Well I am an Advocate of 3D I say stick with it .. I have the 1st gen nvidia 3D Vision glasses and use headphones and wear Prescription glasses my trick is to put the 3D Glasses arms above the headphones and have them resting on the top of the Headphones instead of putting them Inside the headphones like the Prescription glasses..

I have tried it with them on the inside and that hurts after a while so try my solution it works rather well..
I would say why cant you just Buy 1 3D Monitor now and get the others as you get the cash..The good thing is unlike Projectors you will not suffer from Bulb degradation where it dims over time..

I say get the 3 3D Monitors over a few months or perservere for a few months with your Current setup and save the money upo then buy ALL 3 at 1 time.. Or just say damn the torpedoes and splurge with that credit card you know the saying Buy now Pay later..


3D with new 27" monitors especially 3 of them is going to rock.. you won't regret it.
Could you get a screenshot or Video of the Ghosting?? Have you tried messing with the Seperation and convergence??

Do you have FRAPS they let you record in 3D and you could upload it too Youtube they do 3d videos..

same here, tried it a while back, and once i was able to get it setup on my rig, i never go back.

when my GPU died and i was forced to play BF3 on LOW and 1 screen I was in pain,

everything is quicker for me, games, video editing, audio streams in ProTools etc.

only thing i have to go back for is HBOGo/MAXGo for movies on demand, which I might get another Adapter, Move one of my other displays to Display Port, SO two MiniDP and DVI are to the Screen and HDMI to the HDTV. that way i can just activate forth screen, open movie in browser, move to 4th screen, and full screen.

Full screening video on those 2 sites don't work with Eyefinity. and maybe a few others (full screening ends up out of position spanning 2 screens partially instead of full screen on the center screen).

Vegas, ProTools, Fruity Loops, Adobe whatever.

20"-30"-20" is the best setup IMO. Huge center screen for movies and two smaller screens for surround gaming (though limited to DX9 games using softTH). After a 30" I can't downscale to 24" b/c center screen is too small. If only AMD and NVIDIA supported PLP.

He I should have known better than to ask such a question on this particular forum.


And I should never have mentioned that credit card...


FT

@ peppergomez : do you actually find that DX9-only restriction,err, restrictive? I was amazed to realize that all the stuff I want to play / already play in surround are all DX9 anyway, including TES5 Skyrim and DCS A-10C !

FT

I recently put together a new machine with the idea to get a single 3D vision 2 monitor, with Lightboost, to start and get two more down the road. I had a devil of a time deciding between the BenQ XL2420T 24" $400 and the Asus VG278H 27" $700 because whatever I got I would be stuck with forever. The thing that hung me up was that everybody says that bigger is better especially with 3D. The BenQ looked better in every way except size. The Asus had the size but was having bleed problems, a flimsy stand, wasted money on built in speakers, and no usb router. I finally came to a quick decision when I stretched a tape measure across my 6' wide game table to see what three 27" monitors would look like and saw that would be overkill for me. I would have to set them back a fair bit for the side monitors to even be in my peripheral vision. I can't see how there is any difference between sitting closer to a smaller 1920x1080 monitor and further away from a larger 1920x1080. It seems simple arithmetic to me that the FOV angle is the same. Anyway, I'm glad I got the BenQ and saved the money because that monitor seems to be the highest quality anything I've ever purchased. So, if that makes sense, 24 inchers could save you some bucks. Also, the BenQ has a matte finish screen, which isn't my preference, but when 3D is on that matte finish disappears completely and you're looking at a crystal clear glass window.

problem with 3 screens (I'm using 3 24")is that once you have gained the peripheral vision you can't go back without feeling that something is missing no matter the screen dimension. If only i could find a way to switch on the fly between 3x1 eyefinity for gaming and 3 discrete monitors for "productivity" without loosing settings i would have the perfect system!

I can disable and re-enable my eyefinity setup for gaming using a HOTKEY. when i Disable it to goes to Desktop extended mode.

Switching back and forth even saves my desktop's icon positions...

Agree with ease of setting up and using different combinations of monitor settings.

With a single HD7xxx card (assuming it has 4 connectors), one can preset any combination of monitors and characteristics in Eyefinity or simple 1, 2, 3, or 4 screen multi-monitor or even Eyefinity plus multi-monitor (for example, I've successfully tried 3x1 Eyefinity plus a 4th extended monitor). You can stack multiple monitors horizontally, vertically, or both (e.g. 3 across plus one over the middle monitor for 4 total). Once all desired presets are defined, just pick the preset you want at that moment and you get it.

Yup, I have this as well. Set up Presets in CCC for ATI card users. Be in the Simple mode when you do it though, or it might not save all settings set in CCC. I have Presets saved to hotkeys for a single monitor, single extended, double extended, Eyefinity without bezel compensation and Eyefinity with bezel compensation. Set up and save your extended Presets first, then do the Eyefinity group last.

I know that it should be possible to save presets an change them but either im too dumb or i botched the installation

I love 3 monitor gaming and have been running it for some games since I bought my first 5870 3 years ago with 3 x 23" DisplayPort monitors, the main reason I didn't run it for all games was lack of horsepower with the 5870s at 5760x1080 for everything.

I liked the Eyefinity presets and hotkeys feature for CCC, although it seemed everytime I updated AMD drivers the CCC profiles got hosed up and had to be recreated.

This year I did a temporary switch back to single (plus extended second) monitor with a GTX 560 for 6 months because I needed more horsepower and Nvidia support for a few key sims I'm addicted to that run better on Nvidia (FSX, rF2, ClOD) while I waited for Kepler to come out, but I really missed the 3 monitor gaming in sims like iRacing and ROF during that time.

Two weeks ago I returned to 3 monitor gaming with a new GTX 670/4GB and I am really enjoying finally having enough horsepower to run most games at 5760x1080. It works pretty much the same with Nvidia "surround" mode as AMD "eyefinity" the only difference being that NV drivers don't yet have any shortcuts or profiles to switch between 3 monitor "surround" mode and 3 monitor extended desktop mode, which is something I miss from the AMD drivers, supposedly this is a feature that is coming in the future.

Overall I am just so happy to finally see 3 monitor gaming becoming more mainstream now that both video card makers support it on a single card and even more importantly the top end cards actually have the horsepower to deliver good performance at those resolutions, unlike the situation a couple of years back where only AMD supported it on a single card and even then there was not enough horsepower to drive those resolutions acceptably IMHO except for a few games that had specific coding to do it efficiently (iRacing). Hopefully this will really accelerate the adoption rate amongst hardcore simmers and FPS players (big advantage) and more game devs will apply specific coding and optimization toward triple monitor gaming (remove the stretch).

After the last week of playing iRacing/rF2/Arma2/DayZ/BF3 at 5760x1080p and good framerate (finally!), there is no way I would go back to single larger monitor permanently the only close thing is maybe someday adding a second 670/4GB SLI and going with bigger monitors, for now my 3 x 23" work great.

For me 3D has never been much of an attraction both in gaming and even movie watching because I already wear vision correction glasses, and the situation of having to add 3D glasses is always a pain and something I avoid.

i dont save presets for the bezel corrections, i just not the resolution after i run the bezel correction.

I kept my desktop running the normal 5760x1080 non bezel corrected resolution, and run games at the adjusted resolution, some games i run a Tick lower and let it scale,

BF3 I think i run with MSAA off and the res 1 or 2 ticks down from the bezel corrected res, which was like 6000x1080. Running BF3 on High/Ultra with frames/sec cap on 60, and Shader AA looks good and plays smooth (i may try capping it to 30 to see if it makes it smoother),

MSAA only drops the frame rate in BF3 w/ Minimal gain, i can care less if the fences are clearer, im still gonna target bad guys through them, and they are usually destroyed before the round is 5 minutes old anyway, and when they arent destroyed im not gonna sit and admire the fences.

@ Craigmire

Thank you very much for mentionning the BenQ monitor.

I knew its existence, but I had dismissed it because none of the reviews I had seen even mentioned its 3D capability... BenQ is REALLY NOT pushing it as a 3D screen. Returning to my searching I noticed this time around that there are actually two versions of this monitor: the T version which is 3D Vision 2 certified, and the TX version which is the same but with the emitter built-in and glasses in the box. Now by searching for the TX model I found some reviews that actually talk about its 3D performance.

And I agree with you that 27" is overkill (at least for a surround config).

FT

The benefit of 3 screens with 3D together must be, that you already can see what is behind the bezel, so wouldn't need bezel correction.

3 screens running at least 120Hz for 3d, you'd need 3Way SLi/Xfire of the top end cards if not 4.

and you wouldnt be able to see what's behind the bezel, you'll see what is drawn on the screen, if you use bezel correction, the image behind the bezel is not visible, 2D or 3D, if you dont use bezel correction, you'll see everything, but you'll have duplicated sections of the image, not to mention distorted Field of View.

I can't believe I was that stupid! Saving presets in basic mode worked!

Glad to have helped!

Sorry, meant to say that with 3D, you still would "see" what is behind the bezel with bezel correction. (Hasty postings at work)

Well I would say Not.. I say 2 680 would be more then sufficent.. I have 2 480GTX's in SLI and Run Arma2:OA and ROF fine..

With the 3rd card would be minimal gains 5-10fps,, the 4th card probally less then 4 fps.. 2 High end cards would work fine If I can run 3 screens in 3d with 2 480gtx's..

I would like to have 4 cards for the Folding @ Home Program I use.. It uses the GPU to compute Folds which will helpo find cures for cancer and such..

2 Way XFire/SLI might get you 60 Frames/sec, but might also have micro-stuttering.

at what rez?? I have better then 60fps in most games..Micro stutter was known issues with some titles that have been fixed in patches.. ROF was one that suffered from micro stutters when looking at the sun. but they had fixed those issues..

I have one 7950 OC, and I can Run BF3 across 3 screens, but I use lower settings, and cfg file lines to cap my Frame/sec at 60.

6050x1080 for me, I get Upper 20's/30s with BF3 on Ultra, upper 50s/60s with a custom CFG file. But there are large dips in very extreme situations, some as low as lower 40s, which plays hell on Vsync and overall smoothness of panning and trying to aim.

Thirdwire sims are a breeze, I can run them maxed out no problem.

DCS I have to lower settings

I know plenty of people that have Cross fired 7950s/7970s, In BF3 you'll get decent Frames/sec. on 60Hz panels w/ Lowered details in 3x1 or 5x1 setups.

But the micro stutter hasn't been fixed by AMD.
its not a situation based (ie looking at the sun, looking at the water), its on 100% of the time in titles that have the m.s. problem, it's a bug/glitch or conflict with XFire and Alternate Frame Rendering and only exists on 2-Way XFire on 7900 series cards (drivers?).
Micro-stuttering is the Frame Rendering Variance from the 2 GPUs, people claiming to have m.s. on single GPU configurations are only getting low frames/sec or refresh, m.s. occurs even when your locked at Vsync.
the 7970s are notorious for M.S. in 2-Way Xfire, and have countless cases proving adding a 3rd card fixes the m.s. until AMD fixes it.

The 7900 Owners Club found a command line string to add to a custom CFG file that fixes it for BF3, or you can disable/change certain features in CCC, for the most part, a non "Power user" that doesn't know how to configure their stuff wont know how to fix it. the latest 12.7 CAP fixes it for a lot of titles by using the same settings that were posted by users that fixed it in BF3.

I know a few people that use large panels in 5x1 Portrait mode Eyefinity (something like 5400x1920 [10,368,000px]), but they use 120Hz Panels with a 120Hz Vsync.

They Tried to run just Two 7970s in Crossfire but with everything maxed they were unable to maintain their desired 120 Frame/sec, on even 3 screens [3240x1920px), I think they said they maxed out at 80 or so Fr/sec with dips to the upper 50s. But had Micro-stuttering, adding a 3rd card got them to 120Fr/sec for 3 screens, removed microstutter, but as soon as they added the last 2 displays to the eyefinity group Frame/sec dropped to 105-110, adding a 4th Card enabled them to maintain 120Hz in 99% of the time (occasional dips to 110 on specific maps and specific situations).

Running 3d is usually 120Hz (60 Frame/sec x2 [left eye and right eye fields]), so if you wanna run max details 3d (120Hz) across 62 million px, you'd need 3 7970s in CrossFire w/ Alternate Frame Rendering Turned off in AMD CCC.

well fine but I am talking nvidia SLI and you are talking AMD eyefinity.. What is the nVidia equivalent of a 7970?? if it is 570 that is just a mid range card.. you could solve all this and just get 2 690 GTX's.. I doubt you would have any troubles then.. but heck that would be a very ecpensive upgrade..

Like I said I run 2 480GTX sli'd and Arma2 near maxed out but at 3072x768 with 3D running. Of course when 3D is enabled I am limited in FPS to what my refresh rate which is (75hz) and I get 37.5 FPS in most games with 3D not running probally about 80??, i really cant test as I am running single screen currently one of my bulbs blew wich blows.. I do NOt get micro stutter in any game I play/fly since driver updates, Rof was the only micro stutter sim I had..

Except for Rof While looking at the sun and in SLI Mode I would get the microstutter it is well documented for this issue and in RoF and it was a nvidia issue since fixed by newer drivers and 777 studios optimising the code for SLI..

I am sure AMD has similar issues with Micro stuttering just the nature of the beast I imagine..



But I beleive anything over 60FPS is just numbers..unless you are an advid Twitch shooter

480, 570, 560-448, 680, and 670 have less than 7% Frame Variance in SLI, Single GPU Variance averages around 4%.

The 7970 is scoring 50% to as high as 85% variance. (ouch),

also meant to say 5000/6000/7000 series, not just 7900s have MS.

if your referring to this:
http://dangerdogz.com/forums/topic/7990-rise-of-flight-setup-guide-tools/

it wasnt Micro-Stutter, it was Stutter, caused by the engine playing hell with the GFX Cards, as it originally wasnt designed to support XFire/SLi and was added later, so Some parts of the engine weren't coded properly.

Agreed - While ~ 30fps is sufficient for perception of smooth motion, it is better to get faster frames up to a point. But the difference between 60 and 120 fps is < 1/100 of a second per frame.

It is worth it, however, to be able to generate 120fps if one plans on using 3D apparati...since 60fps in full 3D would be pretty nice.

120 fps is not needeD for3d just 120hz refresh rate is needed

True, technically.

However, since 3D relies on sending a separate image to each eye, if your system is generating 60 fps, when you split it for 3D you're really getting 30 3D FPS.

Your 120hz monitor can show 120 images per second, or 60 fps for each eye...but that means your game needs to be pushing 120fps to max out the capability of your monitor.

That's assuming shutter glasses. It'd be different with the red/blue (anaglyph?) but...eww.

You don really need 120!fps for3D your card can "stutter flawlessly " in 3d as it does in 2d tough not an ideal situation