Uh oh... ATI does triple head

[Che Guevara]

@DGhost: You're totally right with the lack of decent support for games , but other driver issues? We're talking about ATI here ! Peronally I know many ATI users, but no happy one... have you ever heard about VPU recovery for example ?

@Chrono_Wanderer: Of course it does not make sense for a real gamer to buy a Parhelia today (did I say that?), but It does not make more sense to buy a ATI solution for surround gaming (!), right?

[Taz]

Originally posted by Ribbit
Actually, VIA were planning an SMP version of the KT266 at one point. Scary....

VIA did an SMP version of the Apollo Pro 133A ages ago, as used on the Abit VP6

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by Che Guevara
@Chrono_Wanderer: Of course it does not make sense for a real gamer to buy a Parhelia today (did I say that?), but It does not make more sense to buy a ATI solution for surround gaming (!), right?

I think ATI surroundview is not designed for gaming in mind. Usually those who would spend big bucks for the display are the professionals. It does make sense to buy ATI for gaming, just not surround gaming, in fact, personally I think there is no need for surround gaming as well for now, because it does cost a lot of you want 3x decent display (after all you don't wnat a cheap monitor with crap quality for work). Unless you have a lot of moeny to spend, I don't see the benefit of surroundgaming because of the price. I still think multidisplay is more benefical for work, so 2d quality on those is important. Besides, even if you give me a parhelia and money to buy 3 pairs of monitors, i'd go for 2 pairs of monitors + some other hardware components instead.

Honestly, IMO there is no good solutions in the consumer market for triple display. I think it will take a while for the industry to adopt this new idea.

and because I think this benefit does not justify the cost, i think ATI is a better buy. (dual head config)

[SaTaN^666]

no, guys Its actually NOT gaming supportive, I found this ati tripple head thing a LONG time ago on asus website, and for once I thought matrox had a sg competitor, but I researched and asked some questions, its actually NOT surround gaming. its false advertising from my opinionand lets not forget how a high end ati card runs on 2 monitor gaming? ( http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...216/index.html ) burning out? theres no way they CAN do surround gaming, specially with 2 cards. like someone said earlier up there ^^ that requieres a hard constant connection between both cards which means lots of fsb and cpu and Memory useage... I know this because I play flight sim alot with 2 video cards right now, my 8x parhelia and a ati radeon on pci.

[leech]

Originally posted by Chrono_Wanderer
Besides, even if you give me a parhelia and money to buy 3 pairs of monitors, i'd go for 2 pairs of monitors + some other hardware components instead.

Uhm... dont' you mean 3 monitors and 2 monitors....

Saying 3 pairs and 2 pairs...would be 6 and 4 monitors...

Well, I have a Triple-Head setup.... let's see... 300-400 bucks for a Parhelia 8x and about 750 for three 21" CRT monitors.... You can get used monitors for pretty cheap these days. Granted, that's a 1000 bucks or so... plus however much you decide to put into your whole system.. But look at some of those Alienware PC's that are $4k and up! And they don't do the surround gaming thing... which by the way, Paddy the Wak is helping out tremendously!!! Thanks Paddy!

Leech

[DGhost]

Originally posted by Taz
VIA did an SMP version of the Apollo Pro 133A ages ago, as used on the Abit VP6

ick. after the BP6 i will never trust an Abit dually board again. ever.

i did, however, own the MSI board that used the Apollo Pro 133A (the MSI 694D Pro). It was stable with both 2x celly 366's and 2x1ghz CuMine PIII's and the most ram I crammed at it at one time was 1gb. great little board, all things considered, and it just got better over time. quite possibly the most stable and reliable motherboard I have ever owned. i soo hated to get rid of it.

@ SaTaN^666 - ATI SurroundView has *never* been marketed towards gaming. it is important because it allows the average person to use both the onboard video *and* an AGP card at the same time and acctually get some benefit out of it. the fact you can get 3x monitors out of it makes it an incredably cheap way to get a multimonitor 2D workstation. it is not going to be a major or driving feature, just a bonus. shit, i would be willing to bet that the image output quality when doing it is somewhat lacking.

so whats the reason for this sudden thread resurrection? kinda old, ain't it?

[leech]

I like my Bp6, in fact I still have it, running dual 466's and Debian linux with kernel 2.6.6. Runs tip top.

Leech

[Paddy the wak]

Hi guys ... this SurroundView thing ... ?

Am I understanding this correctly ... It can it do 3 screens for normal stretched desktop stuff and then 9800 (or whatever) quality on just the centre screen for gaming ?

Although I do my best for Surround Gaming ... as it is the best ... I'm not too sure when things get technical ...

I have a second system with a 9800pro for those games that won't run in TH ... Not that I use it much as the Parhelia Surround experience is way Way WAY better than one screen any day ... ... I would quite like it to have a TH stretched desktop. Can any of you guys tell me what I would need to set it up ?

Thanks...
Paddy the Wak