Nvidias attempt at a tripple head card

[SaTaN^666]

nvidias new 6800 ultra is one of the new nvidia cards... I read this thinking that MAybe Parhelia would have a good competitor for triple head gaming BUT... The 6800s burnt :P. what do you guys think?

http://www.hardcoreware.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-18385.html

[Mikko]

I can't see any TripleHead there, except GeForce 6800 Ultra + additional PCI GeForce 2mx.
This is something people have done for ages...

It will only give you three monitors for desktop usage, but no Surround Gaming.

[leech]

I've had this thought for some time, but haven't bothered posting it... but couldn't you do a triple-head surround gaming set up with two nvidia 6800 cards with the SLI set up? Since technically you'd have four outputs... and they'd be running concurrent..... and it'd be mighty fast as well.

Leech

[Mikko]

You need a "stretched mode" for Surround Gaming.
I believe that you can't get stretched mode across multiple graphic cards, no matter what you try.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Mikko
You need a "stretched mode" for Surround Gaming.
I believe that you can't get stretched mode across multiple graphic cards, no matter what you try.

Yeah, but the "SLI" cards might appear as one card to the OS. Might. I have no idea how they have chosen to implement this.

[SaTaN^666]

yes they might appear as one card.. BUt it stil needs to recognized both cards as a tripple head resolution... and btw.... what is going on with matrox... Ive heard no new news or rumours from them in a while :/

[borat]

i think its certainly do-able to have them seen as one card as in effect they are processing the data as a single card, however how you get anything meaningfull to be outputted from the second card i dont know, i thought it was rigged to send all data back to 1 of the 2 cards, im sure with some clever driver implementation it could be possible though, bet you could have triple head independant DVI at 1600x1200 per screen with that tech too, that i would be interested in.

[Kurt]

At this point, why stop at Triple Head? Go to FOUR Heads!

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Technically, it has to be possible. I think it only depends on the drivers.

[iwik]

Hi Guys,
Dont know what you make of this.On asus site they list a combo
P4R800-V which has ati card on board and you couple it up with
a 9200se and one or two other options and you get there product call SURROUND VIEW.They show it like the Parhelia and go so far as to state it uses eg FlightSimm.Take alook and give comments.Rather curious.

Les

[Kruzin]

Not the same as surround gaming. Some sims will use multiple monitors in independant mode. That setup cannot do the stretched mode needed for surround gaming.

[leech]

Originally posted by Kurt
At this point, why stop at Triple Head? Go to FOUR Heads!

Because for FPS games always have the target reticule in the middle of the screen, so it's much harder to play when there is an empty space where you'll want to shoot...

Leech

[leech]

Originally posted by Chrono_Wanderer
Technically, it has to be possible. I think it only depends on the drivers.

I could be wrong, but I would think the whole purpose of SLI would be to use the two cards as basically the same.... at least that's the way the old Voodoo2 worked. Just gave it more power. But I thought that since each card will have at least two outputs on them (quad DVI if you had two Ultra cards). I think I'm going to research this more... perhaps post it on nvnews.net, but I swear the people here are FAR more intelligent than most of them over there... Maybe it's just because people who buy Matrox cards are not the typical moronic wannabe computer geek, but are official computer geeks.

By the way, anyone notice that the Matrox Tech Support forums are closed? Maybe it's just because it's Saturday..... but usually you can still browse them..

Leech

[Kurt]

Originally posted by leech
Because for FPS games always have the target reticule in the middle of the screen, so it's much harder to play when there is an empty space where you'll want to shoot...

Leech

That doesn't meant ppl HAVE to use 4screens for the main display area. The 4th screen could be used to display tactical info for ex. (or whatever).

[leech]

Yeah, I realize this, but that means the game would have to be programmed to do this. And it's already hard enough to get some games to work with the proper FOV for triple-screens. I think Battlefield 1942 had something like that, for Dual-Head displays, it'd put the map up on the other screen...

Leech