3 monitors for LFS?

[Scope]

Does anyone know a graphics card that can handle 3 monitors - or combined with two gfxcards. So it should be possible in LFS to setit up.

Left monitor: Look left (45 degrees)
Middle monitor: Look ahead
Right monitor: Look right (45 degrees)

And is this possible in LFS?

[ColeusRattus]

It is possible for LfS to spread the pircture over three sreens, But I doubt that you can assign different viewpoints to the different screens.
Anyways, if the view us that wide, you will propably end up with the desired results anyways ;)

Just don't forget to check "show non-square modes" in the options ingame.

[(TR) Infinity]

Yes it is Possible with This Graphic card:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/home.cfm

[--==Gogo==--]

Come on guys! I'm about to order the Logitech DFP-Wheel because of LfS! (Currently driving with a Microsoft FF Wheel).

I don't want to buy a new Graphic-Card and 2 more monitors!!!

But if that works I assume I have to... Damn game!!

:smileypul

[jmkz]

very very very remote chance that it'll work

[Cue-Ball]

It's not a remote chance at all. It works perfectly fine. The Parhelia also works with most other games too (Quake, GTR, MS Flight Sim, etc).

I'm running this card and three monitors at home and it works perfectly. The two outside monitors make a huge, huge difference in the sense of speed and it's much easier to see when another car is next to yours since you can use 120 degree field of view.

Check out the "Post your LFS Rig" thread, page 5, in the Hardware section of this forum for pictures of my setup.

[geeman1]

Parhelia is probably the only way to get 3 monitors for LFS. We want LFS to support more than one graphics card at a time! A simulation needs true multimonitor support. 360 degree vision would be cool be cool :rolleyes2

[jmkz]

too bad the Parhelia is worse than even the cheapest NV/ATI cards:)

[Fonnybone]

You just HAD to add another pointless comment. Truth is it works fine
for him, who cares about the rest.

[jmkz]

uhm, so people like to do other things then just run LFS with medium detail you know, any recent game (Doom3 / HL2 / FarCry) will be unplayable on the Parhelia; so yes, sure it may work for him, but that doesn't mean it's a good solution.

Doom3 http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/21178
Nascar 2002 in surround... 32FPS
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/matrox_parhelia/page_15.shtml
Flight Sim in surround... 29FPS http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/matrox_parhelia/page_12.shtml


maybe you want to research things a bit before branding them as "pointless".

so yes, my original statement is still correct, playing LFS on different monitors will largely depend on the coding of the game and the graphics card you are using. None of the current FAST VGA cards is able to display 2(or more) 3D screens; not because they lack power but because the programs (games) and drivers need special attention. One of the few games I know which can use multi monitor is Flight Simulator from Microsoft. So the change IS very remote. because the market % of people owning more than 1 monitor is.. not very large, so not an interesting market to develop products for.

So sure, sue me for making a "pointless" remark, which I just HAD to ADD, apparentely, but if anybody here buys the Parhelia and that person does not ONLY play LFS, then he will be out of a lot of cash and performance at the same time.

[Fonnybone]

I was just saying that there's no need for bashing. If you have facts to
support your claims fine, but i don't see the need to simply post "your
hardware sucks". Your first comment "very very very remote chance that
it'll work" wasn't too brilliant either. These are the comments meant to help
which ironically make finding any sort of reliable help impossible. Seeing how
"It's not a remote chance at all. It works perfectly fine", it just shows how
researched your comments are and unfortunately reflect on your credibility.
Your last post is the only have to actually have any content.

It makes me think of those people always telling you "get a better pc, MY pc
is 9573 GTR-XYZ, blah blah blah, AM-more-than-you". Bad vibes. No one is
selling me a stereo by telling me i'm stupid to have a 'crappy' radio instead.
Quite the opposite. "I'm running this card and three monitors at home and it
works perfectly." This customer seems satisfied, and as a person who actually
owns the card and uses it, i'm more inclined to trust his experience.

[Cue-Ball]

The Parhelia isn't the fastest video card on the planet. I knew that when I bought it. But, when paired with a decent machine it IS fast enough for Live for Speed which is the ONLY game I play on this machine. In fact, this machine was purchased, built, and setup JUST to play LFS. I already had three monitors laying around and knew that the Parhelia was the ONLY way to get three screens working in LFS. So far, i'm quite pleased. I don't get 200fps, but the gameplay is smooth enough to be very playable and the extra monitors make a HUGE difference in the sense of speed and general "feel" of the game. It's a lot more immersive when you have so much of your view taken up by the game instead of looking through a single screen.

Eventually the Parhelia and three monitor setup will get replaced by a higher-end Radeon and a 26"+ widescreen LCD, but for now it works great and is FAR superior to a faster video card running a single monitor. I've got a second machine with a Radeon 9600 and a bigger screen that gets a much higher frame rate but I'd never choose to play on that machine over the "slower" three monitor machine.

[jmkz]

I was just saying that there's no need for bashing.

please quote me where I was bashing...

[Cue-Ball]

please quote me where I was bashing...

Just let it go. I wasn't offended, so it doesn't really matter.

<group hug>

[jmkz]

Cue-Ball, it was not my intent either to offend you, since you build that PC just for LFS that vidcard was a good choice for multimonitor setup :)

[Vain]

Isn't this (http://www.maxivista.com/) a solution to the problem?
The example configuration I imagin consists of two PCs, let's call 'em GamingMonster and Ol'Chap. GamingMonster is a state-of-the-art-dualscreen PC and the Ol'Chap is an old 500 Mhz single-monitor PC. Now you place all three screens around you. Maxivista says now it can make Ol'Chap's monitor appear as if it was the third monitor of GamingMonster, displaying exactly what a physical third monitor would display, regardless the content and that without having GamingMonster recognize the difference between the physical and virtual monitor.

Vain

[96 GTS]

<Buys a round of drinks for everyone that posted in this thread>
There, now we can all be friends and be happy :)

[geeman1]

Isn't this (http://www.maxivista.com/) a solution to the problem?Does that support 3D accelerating? If it does it could be the solution for this. If it does not it's no any use, because games work as fast as the slowest "monitor".

[Vain]

The vendor states that anything works. In their example they also show a DVD-movie drawn across multiple screens.
It looks pretty much like it streams the video-data that the virtual monitor recieves pixel-per-pixel. That would mean it supports accelerated graphics, shouldn't it?

Vain

[Scawen]

Yep, Parhelia works well with LFS - it is a proper DX8 card... but isn't as fast as more modern cards and you can't turn up the resolution too high.

The problem is, that ATI (definitely - they told me) and nVidia (probably - i guess) believe that there is no customer demand for triple head cards. So they just make these dual head cards.

Dual head is absolutely pointless for racing games, or any game in first person. I think that triple head cards would sell, to people who will make that extra effort to find some old CRT monitors, second hand at a good price, or actually spend the money to buy new ones...

But it's no good me saying that, please write emails to nVidia and ATI and ask them when / if they will make a triple head card, and explain to them why it's so much more useful than a dual head! :D It can work as dual head anyway if someone only has two monitors... so they've got nothing to lose! :) No harm in writing to Matrox to ask them to make a nice new DX9 super fast triple head as well.

[Scawen]

Oh BTW - ATI have this idea that you can have a "triplehead" by adding a PCI video card into your PC.

But, every game developer then has to write a kind of double-3d-engine which manages two sets of everything - very hard to do. Programming for Parhelia is just great, the program simply selects a wide mode and gets on with it, no difficult coding at all...

Allegedly, some future version of Windows, in conjunction with DX9 will be able to manage two video cards as a single surface. That's very vague, i'm probably wrong, forget i said that! :really:

[B2B@300]

Thx for the heads-up Scawen :)
I've had three monitors for years, for other purposes other than gaming.. personally I cant understand there mentality in not supporting tripple head cards :pillepall we now have dual core cpu's which give four virtual cpu processes we have 64bit operating systems capable of many multiple tasks and they think we want to do all our multitasking on one or two monitors max! :really: Jeez in my opinion the more monitors I can have the better :D So being able to use my extra monitors in a 3d game would be great (I dont at the moment) you have inspired me to write an email to the video card manufacturers..

[Scawen]

Cool... please do! If they believe there is customer demand, they will make them! :)

[Tweaker]

Allegedly, some future version of Windows, in conjunction with DX9 will be able to manage two video cards as a single surface. That's very vague, i'm probably wrong, forget i said that! :really:
I think that ATI Crossfire system will do that. Correct me if I am wrong, just thinking too hard :).

[Gunn]

I recall a few years ago sourcing and selling a triple-screen LCD monitor to one of my customers. He was a stock trader and wanted three screens so he could monitor the market more thoroughly and watch his share movement while attending to normal business. The screen folded outwards from the centre and consisted of 3 LCD panels. I can't remember the brand, but the fact that this was a few years ago shows that someone once thought 3 screens was a pretty good idea. So it doesn't just have gaming applications and Video card manufacturers should stop guessing what people will use and instead do some actual research. If promoted with the same hype, gusto and outright BS that their other products are launched with they should have no problem gaining momentum in the marketplace.

[frokki]

I think that ATI Crossfire system will do that. Correct me if I am wrong, just thinking too hard :).

Yeah. How about SLI or Crossfire?
Does 4 connectors change anything?

[spoop]

Crossfire isn't out yet, probably wont be out for 7234872384772years:razz:
Seriously, an sli setup will work for up to 4 monitors (10 actually, but we wont get into that) , either with a traditional 2 card setup or one of gigabyte's gd1 cards (2 cards on one card for sli)

[B2B@300]

Crossfire isn't out yet, probably wont be out for 7234872384772years:razz:
Seriously, an sli setup will work for up to 4 monitors (10 actually, but we wont get into that) , either with a traditional 2 card setup or one of gigabyte's gd1 cards (2 cards on one card for sli)

Are you sure sli gives extra monitor support, the reading of done on vendor sites suggests that if u have two dual head cards in sli mode u loose the dual head functionality :shrug:

[jmkz]

Are you sure

yes :)
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20051004/one_gigabyte_motherboard_four_graphics_cards-06.html#ten_display_overkill

[MagicFr]

hi,

at work i could use 3 monitors :)
1 for the game i'm devolping
1 for the code itself
1 for the debug information ( var watches, memories and reg view, etc ).

[B2B@300]

yes :)
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20051004/one_gigabyte_motherboard_four_graphics_cards-06.html#ten_display_overkill

I know tomshardware site well have been visiting it for years :P that articale doesnt clearly state that they are testing dx9 3d graphic screens (such as an lfs window) stretched across several monitors.. infact in the Benchmark and Settings section of the article you link to it is just mentioning normal resolutions you would expect on a single monitor.

When i do a search at the nvidia site about this it says,

Question
Will NVIDIA SLI™ support surround gaming with 3 or more monitors?

Answer
NVIDIA SLI™ based products can only support a single display within SLI mode. Up to four displays are supported when SLI software mode is disabled.

From this info though im still not convinced that surround gaming can be achieved on three monitors (except the matrox Parhelia), on two yes but three or more its still unclear.. anyway I plan to write some emails to graphic card vendors in the next day or two so will see if i can get a response back from them :)

[Vain]

Looks like we need multiple-accelerator-support like MS Flight Simulator 2004.
Please? :)

Vain

[jmkz]

B2B@300 you didn't state if the SLI can support multi monitor with DX9 ;)

no it doesn't and needs special programming from both driver team of the vidcard & the game coders. the first might be harder to fix than the second.

the matrox is the only one, but sadly the performance is lacking when compared to even the cheapest ATI/NVIDIA solutions

[Go-carter]

But - is there any multi-screen support for lfs yet?

If not, will it be?

[Scawen]

In short :

LFS supports multi screen using a single "surface" as excellently provided by Matrox Parhelia graphcs cards.

It does not support multi-screen with multiple video cards. This is hard to program, and is a bad idea for every single game manufacturer to have to do this individually, when a video card manufacturer can do this in its drivers and hardware, so solving it for all games at once.

The video card manufacturers don't make any more triple head cards because they believe that you won't buy them. This is the problem, you need to tell them that you want it - or else they will just carry on making dual head cards as they do now - totally useless for gaming.

So please write to NVidia and ATI - and let them know you would like a fast, modern, triple head card. Also write to Matrox and ask if they will make an updated, fast Matrox Parhelia.

[Go-carter]

You see, I've just bought a dual screen card, and i also have another computer, so I could use the descrption said in the other page(Vain's example). Is this possible with this setup?

[Vain]

No, unfortunately the said program only works together with MS Flight Sim 2004 over several computers.

Vain

[Go-carter]

But I can still use 2 screens with LFS?

[jmkz]

nope, single screen only

[AndroidXP]

Ofcourse he can use 2 screens in LFS, he has a DualHead card :really:

He just cannot use a third screen with the remote computer variant...

[Scawen]

Ofcourse he can use 2 screens in LFS, he has a DualHead card :really:I'm not sure about that... because the bar would be in the middle which makes it pointless. But i think someone has use a fixed turn angle before, so they got more view angle in one direction.

About multiple screens by using multiple computers connected, i think that is an easier option than supporting multiple video cards in a single computer. But although it's a nice thing to support, it's a bit low priority compared with several other things. I don't know if it will be supported by LFS in future, or if Direct X or video card manufacturers will make it easy to support multiple screens, before we reach that time.

[Vain]

The driver support for hardware-accelerated multi-GFX-board surfaces will propably be a good year or more away. If I had the LFS sourcecode on my HDD I'd head for the LFS-built-in support for multiple cards. Except of course when the structure of LFS doesn't support that for-god's-sake.
Though... my experience is restricted to OpenGL. I've got no clue wether you'd have to sacrifice a virgin to MS to get DirectX to draw across multiple GFX-boards.

People buy 100$ expensive wheels for LFS. They (including me) will surely also buy 2 additional monitors and a secondary GFX-board for LFS.

Vain

[Kegetys]

I've got no clue wether you'd have to sacrifice a virgin to MS to get DirectX to draw across multiple GFX-boards.

Direct3D implementation of multimonitor support sucks, since you have to create all textures, vertex buffers, etc. to each device separately which is a real mess, not to mention how much it wastes memory from the card. And you have to do it all in one single application, you cannot have multiple applications running at the same time that would use a fullscreen device (So for example running two instances of LFS would not work, except windowed). There doesn't even seem to be any way to transfer surfaces from one device to another even if the devices are on the same card, so you cannot render everything on one device and just move the finished frame to the other device to be displayed (An attempt to do this caused a BSOD in the nvidia driver for me :smash3d: ).

I havent personally tried using multiple monitors with OpenGL, but I would assume all you need to do is change the render target to the other full screen window? Does it work right even if you have two video cards installed, with OpenGL handling all the texture transfers etc. transparently?

[Cue-Ball]

Here's a thought...

How about doing multimonitor the same way that Gran Turismo handles it? In other words, use a second PC and a second monitor and have that machine display the driver's view, but turned a few degrees to one side.

There are some drawbacks to this, of course. You'll need a second (and maybe third) PC, as well as the extra monitors. Also, doing this online would mean using at least one additional spectator slot in addition to the normal slot you would normally occupy.

Not the best solution, but it might work for those of you who REALLY want the wider view but don't want to use the Parhelia. Of course, this method could also be used for rear view, status view, etc. which you can't do with the Parhelia.

[jmkz]

I tried dual monitor setup with LFS (2560x1024) on NV6800GT, max details, 60FPS (vsync on) with 2x TFT monitors, it runs very fine, but the line in the middle is really disturbing, and changing the view manually does not allow you to fix it sufficiently.

I tried other games too,
Doom3: no go
UT2003: only when in Windowed mode
FarCry: flawless integration (like LFS)
rFactor: flawless integration (allows changing view in cockpit a bit better, letting you view the track on monitor1 and right side+stats on left screen)
Serious Sam has a special multi monitor mode, it automatically displays stats on the right screen and the in-game image on the left.. very much like the peeps here want for LFS.

[--==Gogo==--]

Crossfire isn't out yet, probably wont be out for 7234872384772years:razz:


Crossfire iss out with new Catalyst 5.10! :p

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9448/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_510_release_notes.html

[jmkz]

uhm.. Crossfire is HARDWARE...

[Honey]

I'm not sure about that... because the bar would be in the middle which makes it pointless. But i think someone has use a fixed turn angle before, so they got more view angle in one direction.

About multiple screens by using multiple computers connected, i think that is an easier option than supporting multiple video cards in a single computer. But although it's a nice thing to support, it's a bit low priority compared with several other things. I don't know if it will be supported by LFS in future, or if Direct X or video card manufacturers will make it easy to support multiple screens, before we reach that time.

i don't understand, if i buy a dual head graphic card, can i put the left view on the second monitor while having the front view on the primary?

is it possible to use some lfs add-on (lfs-spectator?) to achieve this result? i explain better:
- 3 pc over a LAN
- the main pc connected to an internet server and running lfs-spectator
- the 2 other pc connected to the master pc trough lfs-spectator and viewing me with left and right view respectively

is it possible?

thanks! :)

EDIT:
sorry, i completely misunderstood what lfs-spectator does, but the question now is: how much effort will require to implement such feature into lfs (ie allowing a client to relay packets to another 2 clients)?

[jmkz]

i don't understand, if i buy a dual head graphic card, can i put the left view on the second monitor while having the front view on the primary?

no :)

[Honey]

no :)

thanks for the reply...even if you made me so sad... :D

[Vain]

jmkz:
What about turning a custom cockpit-view 45° or whatever to the left? The front part would appear on the right monitor, the left part on the left monitor. You'd need to fiddle around with the custom view a lot, but it should work.

Vain

[jmkz]

"should" in that sentence tells it all;)

I tried it, but the custom view does not allow me to turn the screen to make the driving experience better than working with only 1 monitor; the only way to get things working is with 3 monitors where the center view is in the middle; but no ATI/NVIDIA card supports more than 2 monitors in 3D Games. Too bad really as I have the perfect setup here;) (3x TFT 17"-18"-17")

I'm going to look around to see if there is a work-around, but I'm afraid my search will not turn up anything solid.

if the LFS coders could somehow add support for a 2nd monitor so the game *knows* you are using a dual-screen setup, than there is much more hope of getting a special view on the 2nd screen (track layout, Left/Right view, lap times, tyres, damage.. etc)

I've seen it done in Serious Sam (Direct3D) where the game displays your "stats and console" on the 2nd screen, keeping the 1st screen for the 1st person view

[ellis_dee]

Well, I tried yesterday to spread lfs on two monitors. So far it only worked windowed, and as soon as the snd monitor comes into play, the framerate drops to like 2 fps...probably cause it is not hardware accelerated. I read that on nVidia Cards, you have to change the monitor settimngs to horizontal span, but I happen to have an Ati 9600 XT and there isn't such an option.

Tried Hydravision, but that doesn't change a thing...

So, does ATI support 2 D3d accelerated monitors? what do i have to do to archive this?

[jmkz]

most likely you need an X8xx X1xxx series ATI card for that

[P5YcHoM4N]

Well, I tried yesterday to spread lfs on two monitors. So far it only worked windowed, and as soon as the snd monitor comes into play, the framerate drops to like 2 fps...probably cause it is not hardware accelerated. I read that on nVidia Cards, you have to change the monitor settimngs to horizontal span, but I happen to have an Ati 9600 XT and there isn't such an option.

Tried Hydravision, but that doesn't change a thing...

So, does ATI support 2 D3d accelerated monitors? what do i have to do to archive this?
There is an option. But I only know where it is in the CCC:

Link (http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/4452/likethis9ci.jpg).

Check that. Then you can use LFS in dual screen, without 2fps. But the bar down the wheel sucks, and I spent ages trying to fiddle with the views, but if I get it so I could see forwards, and see to my right, I couldn't see out of the left window.

Can it be setup so you can force the wheel to be on the right(left) screen, and the dash and such on the other, so you get a bigger view range?

[jmkz]

Can it be setup so you can force the wheel to be on the right(left) screen, and the dash and such on the other, so you get a bigger view range?

been asked before.. unfortunately.. no :(

[colcob]

There is an option. But I only know where it is in the CCC:

Link (http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/4452/likethis9ci.jpg).

Check that. Then you can use LFS in dual screen, without 2fps. But the bar down the wheel sucks, and I spent ages trying to fiddle with the views, but if I get it so I could see forwards, and see to my right, I couldn't see out of the left window.

Can it be setup so you can force the wheel to be on the right(left) screen, and the dash and such on the other, so you get a bigger view range?

Yeah, you can actually. You just use the custom view and actually set it to be looking to the left by 20 degrees or something (assuming RHD). That way, whatever you point the view at will be where the bar is on your view. If you set it up right, it feels like you are looking forwards out of one monitor and sideways out of the other.

[jmkz]

I tried this but it does not feel natural

[P5YcHoM4N]

Yeah, you can actually. You just use the custom view and actually set it to be looking to the left by 20 degrees or something (assuming RHD). That way, whatever you point the view at will be where the bar is on your view. If you set it up right, it feels like you are looking forwards out of one monitor and sideways out of the other.
I tried that before (and did again today). It feels like your alwasy looking to one side, which is offputting. It also removes most of my left view (even in 120 view angle), if I try and get more left view I get the centre down the wheel again, and I can't see where I'm going.

Meh well, will have to stick to one screen for now.

[Kegetys]

There doesn't even seem to be any way to transfer surfaces from one device to another even if the devices are on the same card, so you cannot render everything on one device and just move the finished frame to the other device to be displayed

Being bored, I tried this again today using a method I thought would be extremely slow. And it is slow, but I still managed to get 30fps on my 3GHz P4 + AGP GF6600GT in 3456x864 resolution, quite low details though. The way it works is that it creates one big surface on the primary video card to which the game renders things normally, and this big surface is then clipped to three parts to be displayed on the other monitors. It's slow since it needs to copy quite a lot of stuff from the video card to the system memory and then back again, it might be much faster with PCI Express card(s).

The thing I need now is a PCI video card so I could actually try it out myself :doh: It works now on two monitors, with both side views drawn onto the seconday monitor (So only one of them is visible but the performance should be quite the same as with a real third monitor). Looks like this (http://koti.mbnet.fi/kegetys/lfsdualhead.jpg).

[jmkz]

Looks like this (http://koti.mbnet.fi/kegetys/lfsdualhead.jpg).

looks pretty good!

[anttt69]

yes :)
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20051004/one_gigabyte_motherboard_four_graphics_cards-06.html#ten_display_overkill

I just checked this out, looks expensive.

Do yoou reckon I could just add more graphics cards to my exisiting mobo and use 3 monitors in LFS or does it have to be a special board?

I think 3 monitors support would be great and ATI or Nvidea should make a card to support this market. It would make racing games and first person shooters soooooo much better. You could have 180 deg view it would be awesome.

Could someone mod a Parhelia wack some more mem on it + a faster GPU and we're in buisiness :nod:. N E1 know PCBS & electronics around here?

Bit of a long shot I know but we need monitor support. Well done to those who wrote to manufacturers :thumb: I think we all should. (yes DO iT!) show them there is a market and they will make the product, as Scawen said.
Keep badgering them until they do.

Im gona write to them all see what they have to say.

[sdether]

I played with the dual head thing for a bit. I can just stretch the window across multiple screens, but as has been pointed out, that is amazingly slow. Once I told the hardware to treat both screens as a single surface ran fullscreen across both at full framerate. I played some with moving the view around, but unfortunately never ended up with a view that felt better than a single screen.

I've contacted Nvidia about a triple head card, so far no response. If someone finds a person over there that's responsive or willing to get emails to count the demand, i'll resend my request.

[jmkz]

you could send emails to www.tomshardware.com www.hardocp.com www.anandtech.com and ask them if they could help by contacting/inquiring with ATI/NVIDIA/MATROX about triple-head cards:)

[anttt69]

The Parhelia isn't the fastest video card on the planet. I knew that when I bought it. But, when paired with a decent machine it IS fast enough for Live for Speed which is the ONLY game I play on this machine. In fact, this machine was purchased, built, and setup JUST to play LFS. I already had three monitors laying around and knew that the Parhelia was the ONLY way to get three screens working in LFS. So far, i'm quite pleased. I don't get 200fps, but the gameplay is smooth enough to be very playable and the extra monitors make a HUGE difference in the sense of speed and general "feel" of the game. It's a lot more immersive when you have so much of your view taken up by the gaa second machine with a Radeon 9600 and a bigger screen that gets a much higher frame rate but I'd never choose to play on that machine over the "slower" three monitor machine.

What sort of Frame rate do u get with your parhelia?
what detail/res do u use?

[Cue-Ball]

What sort of Frame rate do u get with your parhelia?
what detail/res do u use?
I posted details about my frame rate either in this thread or in another thread on here. If you do a search on parhelia you should find it.

I've since replaced my Parhelia with a GeForce 6600GT because I will soon be replacing my three screen setup with a widescreen projector.

[anttt69]

cool a widescreen projector.:Looking_a

how much are they? and where can I get one?

[Cue-Ball]

cool a widescreen projector.:Looking_a

how much are they? and where can I get one?
Most projectors these days can display 4:3 or 16:9. Expect to pay $700 for a low end projector with 800x600 max res to over $3K for a higher end HD capable one.

[Turb0]

The thing I need now is a PCI video card so I could actually try it out myself :doh: It works now on two monitors, with both side views drawn onto the seconday monitor (So only one of them is visible but the performance should be quite the same as with a real third monitor). Looks like this (http://koti.mbnet.fi/kegetys/lfsdualhead.jpg).

But how did u get it 2 work like that?

[Seahorse]

Without using a Parhelia card you cannot achieve a 3 screen display. I had a 3 screen setup - the problem is the 3rd screen is run by another graphics card - which is where it all goes wrong. Dual screen is dead easy but the split in the centre of the monitor sucks.

Until nVidia or ATI get their fingers out, forget it...:Looking_a

[Turb0]

ohh.....
thanks seahorse
test:D:D:D

[Xenix74]

here is Lfs with 4 Monitors

The trick is easy:
You need 2 Pc,
2 Grafikart with Dualview (Geforce6800Gt & 5900XT).
4 Monitors. (you can use 3 too but the fov is the half when i use Dualview)

a) 1. Pc is Host/ 2. Pc is Client ( for online you need 2 Accounts )

b) Only change to free look camera with secound Pc and addjust with the x,y,z & other coordinates the Pc´s to each other. (Use the same Resolution on the
both Pc)

optionaly c) I put a Joystick in the 2.Pc and use the Program "joytokey" to make some hotkeys over the Joy.

Alt+F5 - Freelook Cam on the client Pc
Shift+Tab - Switch to other cars backward
Tab - Swith to other cars forward

Now its very easy to switch to my own car & cam after Restart & Pitstop

I think it must be possible to make a program or mod like Wideview (www.wideview.it)
Only I idea from non programer. Sry if i disnerved

[iHomer]

Hi, I think it's possible to use 3 monitors on a non Parhelia system. You "just" have to own an ati card and a motherboard with an ati chipset.

I think I read that having that combination you can use all the outputs from the graphic card plus the one from the mainboard, so you could have 3 different outputs.

:)

Investigating a little bit would be a good Idea, but I don't even have time to play LFS right now so...

Bye

[P5YcHoM4N]

Oh yeah, don't know if you guys know about it. But there is a 7800GT with four(4) heads. Two DVI, two D-Sub. It costs around $800 on newegg.com. But meh =p

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121213

[B2B@300]

Oh yeah, don't know if you guys know about it. But there is a 7800GT with four(4) heads. Two DVI, two D-Sub. It costs around $800 on newegg.com. But meh =p

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121213

I could be wrong :shrug: but isn't that just two 7800's in SLI configuration on one card? If so I don't think it will do what we want it too...

[glyphon]

what about this new gadget from matrox?
TripleHead2Go (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/th2go/press_release.cfm)

since it is essentially treated as a single triple wide monitor by the computer, would this work?

the nice thing about this is, you can use it with any video card.

.:edit:.
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/th2go/gaming/list.cfm#l
it has the LFS demo listed as a supported game :D

[Scawen]

That sounds great! I look forward to hearing from any LFS person who tries it out!

I guess the user needs to install a driver for the device, and that would be a driver for a "monitor" as this device would appear to the computer as basically a monitor? I'm just thinking of how LFS will come up with the wide screen resolutions, in the screen resolution page...

My hope is that this allows 3 screen racing, using an up-to-date card so giving better frame rates than you can get with a Parhelia - which was the only real three screen solution up to this time! :)

[B2B@300]

Awsome :D I know what I'll be playing LFS on with the next major patch :thumb:

Checked my card it can support 3840x1024 :thumbsup: just got to wait for April :D

Next question is what is the max wiodesceen resolution that LFS supprots? Cause thats like 3.75:1 aspect ratio :p

[Hyperactive]

This will be so expensive. I need to buy a bigger desk, 2 19" lcd monitors and that matrox device. :D And the cables...

I guess it won't work prefectly in LFS because you can't atm select what you want to see in other monitors = you can't select the look left/right views to the left and right monitor using the monitor in the center as the driving view. Or...? :scratchch

[Scawen]

Ah, I'd better mention what most people probably don't know...

If you select any 16:3 ratio screen mode (same as 3 normal 4:3 monitors) then LFS goes into a special "parhelia" mode, and the text / laptimes / etc - all 2d display things, are confined to the central screen, plus a couple of other layout improvements.

[B2B@300]

Great thx for the feedback Scawen :)

So then once you have set the mode in display settings to 3840x1024 with the matrox device, LFS will have that mode? I just dont see similar modes in there at the moment even with non-square modes enabled, but I'm guessing it only shows supported modes of your current hardware.

Just wanted to be sure about it before taking the plunge :tilt:

[Seahorse]

This will be so expensive. I need to buy a bigger desk, 2 19" lcd monitors and that matrox device. :D And the cables...

I guess it won't work prefectly in LFS because you can't atm select what you want to see in other monitors = you can't select the look left/right views to the left and right monitor using the monitor in the center as the driving view. Or...? :scratchch

Most cards already support dual monitor gaming - no point though, car is impossible to drive with the two bevels in the middle of your view. The whole point is 3 with one in the middle the others on L & R.

Unless you mean you already ahve one and want 2 more...:thumb:

[KiDCoDEa]

I guess the user needs to install a driver for the device, and that would be a driver for a "monitor" as this device would appear to the computer as basically a monitor?

not even that is needed. the tripledevice informs windows a 3840 monitor is connected...

"TripleHead2Go does is add support for three displays to your existing card. Once everything’s hooked up to your PC, TripleHead2Go looks like one really big 3840x1024 monitor to your PC, no custom graphics driver is needed to get it to work. Matrox uses the EDID standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDID) to report the resolution to Windows (both Windows XP and Windows 2000 are supported), from there the TripleHead2Go module outputs the data from the GPU to the displays. Up to four resolutions are supported: 3840x1024@60Hz (giving you three 1280x1024 displays), 3072x768@75Hz (three 1024x768 displays), 2400x600@60Hz (three 800x600 displays), and finally, 1920x480@ 60Hz (three 640x480 displays)."

more info http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=5504

[Hyperactive]

Most cards already support dual monitor gaming - no point though, car is impossible to drive with the two bevels in the middle of your view. The whole point is 3 with one in the middle the others on L & R.

Unless you mean you already ahve one and want 2 more...:thumb:

Yes, I was talking about having 3 monitors :)

I am actually more suspicious about how much use would it be to have my current 1 monitor view streched on 3 monitors. I mean, the left and right side monitors would only widen the perspective or fov, but it would still take to press the look left/right buttons to see what's going on on your side. I'd like to have the left and right monitors showing the 90 degree views from left and right and the center monitor would be the racing view monitor. Of course this would leave dead spots in forward left/right directions...

Hmm, maybe a trackIR and 3 monitors :D

[himself]

I would like to see LFS on this (12pack LCD):

http://www.plastk.net/

[bitb]

Matrox Parhelia is the only video card that natively support 3 heads and / or report 1 drawing area to DirectX, but unfortunately it is oldish card. Probably will work fine (as stated earlier in this post), but no high resolution and no AA.So the only real altertative if you really want to go immersive, is to get a massive screen (24"+) and then run a SLI system for better performance to taste / budget. Oh and sit really close to it...

[B2B@300]

Read post #77 or this thread :thumb:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=5504

[B11TME]

Been a while since anyone posted on this....But i was thinking about doing this myself and wondered if anyone has tried this matrox box out yet? Or is there any other ways around this now?

[Hyperactive]

http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=254514
http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=258035

All I could find from RSC, the search is a bit slow, 3 mins per search :p

[B11TME]

Thanks for that...seems the matrox box is the way to go.

[Kegetys]

My quest for cheap triplehead continues. A few weeks ago I got myself a PCI express system, and today I got a secondary PCI-e videocard (a GF6200LE). I coded up a test DLL and so far it looks good; I get ~50fps in 3072x768 resolution with 4xAA, three monitors: http://junk.kegetys.net/softTH.jpg

The FPS hit is pretty big, since in single screen mode, 1456x1092 resolution I get well over 100fps most of the time, but it still runs very well and is very playable. There propably still are some tricks to optimize it a bit more... But its not bad for a 29e setup(price of the 6200LE) compared to the Matrox Triplehead 2go :)

The setup I made it with is:
Intel Core 2 Duo "Conroe" E6600 at 3,45GHz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe (Forces PCI-e 8x mode for both cards :()
GeForce 7900GT (Does all the rendering, and displays right monitor picture)
GeForce 6200LE (Displays left monitor picture)

[sdether]

Wow.. The entire video card industry can't come up with a decent triple screen solution and you just hack up some DLLs? Seriously, you need to get with Nvidia and have them create this as an official solution. I got a th2g for some testing and while it's works great for games, it's still pretty hacky of a solution and doesn't even do DVI.

[Kegetys]

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzyiMlilsHc)'s a little video of it. Running in 3840x960 resolution now, i put the side monitors to 1024x768 16bpp color to minimize the bandwidth required (they are downscaled from 1280x960 32bpp, so it looks good still)

[Shotglass]

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzyiMlilsHc)'s a little video of it. Running in 3840x960 resolution now, i put the side monitors to 1024x768 16bpp color to minimize the bandwidth required (they are downscaled from 1280x960 32bpp, so it looks good still)

what fov is that ? it looks larger than the 120° lfs usually has as maximum

[Kegetys]

what fov is that ? it looks larger than the 120° lfs usually has as maximum

Should be 120. I do have some code to force it wider, but as LFS isn't aware of the change cars/objects that are outside the 120 degree FOV disappear when using it, so it's not very useful :)

[Vain]

That modification is pretty impressive.
How does it work? Via a modified D3D8.dll like some of your other modifications?
If so, would it work on other programs aswell?
Can't wait to try that out. :thumb:

As I understand the secondary videocard is just a "drawing-slave". Would any (D3D 8) videocard work, like f.e. a 5 year old PCI-card?
(Not planning to use it, just asking out of curiosity.)

Vain

[Kegetys]

That modification is pretty impressive.
How does it work? Via a modified D3D8.dll like some of your other modifications?
If so, would it work on other programs aswell?

Yes, it's a d3d DLL. It should be possible to make it work with any D3D game, though currently I have only tried LFS (And it propably wouldn't work with anything else right now either as it does some LFS-specific assumptions)


As I understand the secondary videocard is just a "drawing-slave". Would any (D3D 8) videocard work, like f.e. a 5 year old PCI-card?

Yes all the D3D rendering is done on the primary card and the others just display the parts of the rendered frame, but you need PCI Express for an useable framerate. (Even a non direct3D card would work as it uses Windows GDI to draw the side monitors) I tried it earlier with AGP+PCI combo but the best I got was around 10fps, PCI has very limited bandwidth and everything in AGP seem to be optimized for sending data from system RAM to the AGP card, not the other way so it ends up being very sluggish.

[Shotglass]

so it wont work with a sli setup then ... bad news i guess a single card just doesnt seem to be up for the job of driving those massive resolutions

[Kegetys]

so it wont work with a sli setup then ... bad news i guess a single card just doesnt seem to be up for the job of driving those massive resolutions

I dont know, if SLI doesn't let you use three monitors then propably no... The resolutions aren't that big though for newer video cards, for example 3x1024x768 resolution is only ~22% more pixels than 1600x1200.

I also did some quick test with other games, and with minor tweaks I got Operation Flashpoint and LOMAC working quite well with it.

[Shotglass]

I dont know, if SLI doesn't let you use three monitors then propably no...

afaik of the 4 dvi-outs a sli system has only 2 are operational so the only option would be a pci card which apparently doesnt work too well

The resolutions aren't that big though for newer video cards, for example 3x1024x768 resolution is only ~22% more pixels than 1600x1200.

i was thinking more along the lines of triple 1280*1024 for 2 tfts which is roughly twice the amount of pixles i currently use (1920*1200) and on my sys the highest i can go with my single 78gtx for constant 60+ fps

[wheel4hummer]

I do have some code to force it wider

Damn, you have code for everything!

[Kegetys]

i was thinking more along the lines of triple 1280*1024 for 2 tfts which is roughly twice the amount of pixles i currently use (1920*1200) and on my sys the highest i can go with my single 78gtx for constant 60+ fps

I tried 3x1280x1024 now and I still got ~60fps when alone on the track and 45-60fps when racing with a full AI grid. This is with my unoverclocked 7900GT, so it still would be quite playable.

One thing that also would be possible is rendering only one side monitor at a time, ie. render only a 2x1280x1024 frame, cycling between left and right views on each frame (center view on every frame). Though it would cut the FPS on the side monitors in half compared to the middle one, which might look a bit odd.

[wheel4hummer]

I tried 3x1280x1024 now and I still got ~60fps when alone on the track and 45-60fps when racing with a full AI grid. This is with my unoverclocked 7900GT, so it still would be quite playable.

One thing that also would be possible is rendering only one side monitor at a time, ie. render only a 2x1280x1024 frame, cycling between left and right views on each frame (center view on every frame). Though it would cut the FPS on the side monitors in half compared to the middle one, which might look a bit odd.

How about just dropping every other frame that goes to the middle monitor?

[Kegetys]

A little update for those interested, most things are working quite well now and I added Direct3D 9 support too. At least the following games more or less work:
- LFS
- Operation Flashpoint
- LOMAC
- Richard Burns Rally (GUI is stretched over all 3 monitors, and needs FOV forcing which causes some occasional artifacts on the screen edges)
- Oblivion (My video card can't quite keep up though, ~17-25fps outdoors :P)
- rFactor
- X3 Reunion
- GTR 2 (Runs but mouse only works on middle screen, plus gui is stretched on all three so you cant start the race :P)

I also added a "border" feature that renders the frame even wider, and leaves out an adjustable amount of pixels from between the monitors. This makes the transition from one monitor to another look better as there is a bit of invisible zone where the monitor bezels are. LFS doesn't like it though as it no longer detects it as a triplehead screenmode and renders the GUI wrong...

Here (http://junk.kegetys.net/RBR_Triplehead.avi) is a fraps recorded video of RBR using it. It feels like I'm really going fast now :tilt:

[Vain]

Jesus christ. That RBR footage was absolutely great. I didn't plan to make such an expense (2 monitors + mainboard + GFX card) but you're obviously forcing me. :(

Vain

[the_angry_angel]

Here (http://junk.kegetys.net/RBR_Triplehead.avi) is a fraps recorded video of RBR using it. It feels like I'm really going fast now :tilt:You sir, are a legend :D

[Jakg]

dammit that video looks good! Kegety's - what stage is that?

[Kegetys]

Kegetys - what stage is that?

Joux Plane

[Jakg]

Joux PlaneI take it that's France? then I might just try it!

[Kegetys]

A beta version is now available here (http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/) in case anyone has the hardware to try it. I haven't tried it with anything else than my own system so it might or might not work for you.

[Dumpy]

That's great man, nice job!!

[wheel4hummer]

Does your program work for wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Or, quake to be vauge)

[Kegetys]

Does your program work for wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Or, quake to be vauge)

If it uses OpenGL then no

[wheel4hummer]

If it uses OpenGL then no

Ooops, I thought Woflenstein was directx, but i was wrong. IT is open gl. I don't have 3 monitors anyway. :D

[Daveebee]

Matrox make a clever bit of kit that enables one graphics cars to feed 3 monitors. Its Triplehead2 go at about 3

[DEFFX]

Kegetys.I could not race without my momo leds and pitspotter.
Thanks you are very clever and kind to give us these applications. Now three screens awsome.

My question is. Can the side monitors display left and right veiws in lfs. I already have a big widescreen lcd so side monitors would be used as side windows.
Hope this makes sense
Shame i cant use the onboard graphics for a third monitor or can i?
As i only have one pci express socket at moment
thx again
DEFFX

[DEFFX]

lol 1 post in three years
If this is not possible then i expect you and scawen to sort it :) im relying on you
Be great to look left and right and see whos next to you.
I will probably post again around 2009 at this rate
Thanks again DEFFX:thumb:

[Kegetys]

Can the side monitors display left and right veiws in lfs. I already have a big widescreen lcd so side monitors would be used as side windows.

Maximum FOV you can get in LFS is 120 degrees, and, being a "flat" projection it is not really possible to get proper side views without big distortions.

[DEFFX]

A man of your talents and scawens i doubt if some sort of lock left/right veiws is difficult.Get together and stir up Bill.The future is online gaming for sure. Probably get yous on the payroll $$$Gates$$. I'm sure a lot of hard core racers\simers would go three screen and see whos left\right. it would defiantly make the experience real. Why is vr so far away?
Cheers just rambling
DEFFX
Post 3 :-) gettin the hang of this
not racin lately

[DEFFX]

Wot A Load Of Bull Xbox Lfs But Im Probably Not Far Off
Lol Stick To Racin Not Postin From Now On

[KiDCoDEa]

Maximum FOV you can get in LFS is 120 degrees, and, being a "flat" projection it is not really possible to get proper side views without big distortions.

from one cam only yep.
would be nice if other "cam" povs were used natively in lfs and definable to output something made from various povs...

[George Kuyumji]

Matrox make a clever bit of kit that enables one graphics cars to feed 3 monitors. Its Triplehead2 go at about 3

What really buggs me about this TripleHead2Go is the refresh rate.

When you have a fast CPU and Grafik Card you want to play at high resolutions such as 1600 x something or at least with 1280 x something.

With the triplehead2 go 1600 x something is not possible at all, and 1280 x something only has a monitor refreshrate of 60 hz. Very uncomfortable, and impossible to use for more than several minutes for most people including me. 75 hz is a minimum for comfortable viewing experience.

With the Triplehead2go you have to stay on a 1024 x something resolution forever. Thats a big thumbs down on what could have been a very nice addition to Gaming.

"TripleHead2Go does is add support for three displays to your existing card. Once everything’s hooked up to your PC, TripleHead2Go looks like one really big 3840x1024 monitor to your PC, no custom graphics driver is needed to get it to work. Matrox uses the EDID standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDID) to report the resolution to Windows (both Windows XP and Windows 2000 are supported), from there the TripleHead2Go module outputs the data from the GPU to the displays. Up to four resolutions are supported: 3840x1024@60Hz (giving you three 1280x1024 displays), 3072x768@75Hz (three 1024x768 displays), 2400x600@60Hz (three 800x600 displays), and finally, 1920x480@ 60Hz (three 640x480 displays)."

[Shotglass]

With the triplehead2 go 1600 x something is not possible at all, and 1280 x something only has a monitor refreshrate of 60 hz. Very uncomfortable, and impossible to use for more than several minutes for most people including me. 75 hz is a minimum for comfortable viewing experience.

its 1280*1024 @ 60hz which is the standard resolution and refresh rate for tft monitors ... and being tfts they dont flicker at all no matter how low you set the refresh rate

and iirc matrox recently added support for triple 1280*960 @ 75 for crts

[zulater]

Ok, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get this to work properly.
I'm using 3 monitors on 2 7800GTs. I can run windowed mode and stretch the screen out and actually have the game playing on all 3 monitors but if i try to stretch it to cover all of the monitors it crashes.
I can get full center monitor and a little half over each other monitor before it will crash. I don't understand why it is crashing when i stretch it further if it will already display and play on 3 monitors.
I know it will not play in fullscreen mode unless windows sees one monitor and I am not trying fullscreen mode just windowd mode.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[geeman1]

Ok, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get this to work properly.That does not work like you probably think. Windows only supports hardware rendering on one adapter so if you stretch the window to all 3 monitors your framerate will drop to zero. Don't know why it crashes though, it "worked" last time I tried it with my GF6600GT and Ati Rage :)
You should probably give the Kegetys' hack a try it should make it work for you in full screen.
http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

[Bob Smith]

Yeah, I'd give up with windowed mode, I get about 0.25fps with dual view, or 80fps with both screens merged. Quite a difference.

[zulater]

well i get ut2k4 to crash when i try to stretch it across all 3 screens in the same place. so it's probably windows that doesn't like it. though with it playing in all 3 screens it does run pretty smooth so if i could get it to work it would be nice.

[mee too]

got my last monitor today

It is nothing short of awesome!!!!!!

7800gs OCed to 566 MHz / 2.89 GHz

3 LG L1932 19" LCDs

Its great for cad and 2d stuff too Im already spoiled after 1 day

[neilmichaelcasey]

not sure if you guys already seen this BUT I use a projector onto my
livingroom wall. Now a projector of the sort i got only costs about £500-600.
Im getting a screensize of 12x8 ft. Its only 800x600 BUT from about 14ft away i cant see the pixels. Heres sum pics. All you need is a big flat wall u can paint. I find the whole experience amazing. Now there is an issue with bulbs costing about £150 each but Ive had about 6-8 hours a night for about a year but still have half my lap hous left (i use the projector on low light mode to double the length of the lamp life) so i reakon i still got anoth 6 months of use before bulb replacement time.

Just a thought - Peace :)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/Furball_UK/lfs03.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/Furball_UK/lfs02.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/Furball_UK/lfs01.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/Furball_UK/lfs04.jpg

[anttt69]

thats cool, :thumb: what FOV do u use??

I want one for christmas!

[xWolFx]

I have been overlooking the possibility of a projector, but for a number of reasons I did not get one.

1)The detailing is not as good and clear as on a TFT/LCD monitor(s).
2)The best playing would be done in a dark room.
3)Bulb replacing/spare wall.
4)For £150 per bulb you could get a 19" monitor.

[neilmichaelcasey]

er - not sure on FOV > about 90 ish i think. The pics are from before i got the propper widescreen resolution going. It looks alot better now.

The pic can be abit blury BUT from this distance its not that noticable.

Think about it, 12x8 ft widescreen. For the price its unbeatable, they dont make tvs that big (probably). DVDs look nice on it :thumb: Everything is now (almost Lifesize). And dont even ask about the p**n :D

Also £150 for 18 months at 6-8 hours every night isnt that bad.

You can still watch stuff in the daytime if you want, because it has an
ultrabright mode thingy BUT that decreases lamp time alot. Hope that helps.
Peace.