1. #1
    Some of you may recall, I've been Matrox Parhelia simmer for years. The Matrox card has been the only way to accomplish 3-screen simming for some time now, and we've often discussed when/if ATI and Nvidia would rise to the occasion.

    Well, it appears Matrox has outdone themselves, and done Nvidia and ATI's homework at the same time, coming out with a piece of hardware that I think you'll agree has some pretty amazing implications for all simmers.

    I'm a little green on what this all means, but I suspect it means I'll soon be getting into a superpowered NV or ATI card at some point in the future.

    Look here:
    http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offho...aming/home.cfm

    http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/th2go/home.cfm

    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/..._2_go_preview/


    I know some of you are just itching to cut Matrox up for having poor performance and all that, but in light of this latest gizmo, you must admit, you're thinking differently now, aren't you?

    Way to go Matrox, excellent for simmers!!!
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  2. #2
    Yep, I've seen this.

    I can only say that my prayers have finally been answered ... easy, cheap and powerful 3-monitor gaming for all!

    (Sounds of crowds cheering, whistling ..)

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  3. #3
    I already have 3 screens running, but I'm extremely excited about this as finally I can consider building a new rig based on Nvidia or ATI without having to lose multi-monitor support.

    Freaken brilliant if you ask me, brilliant.
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  4. #4
    nice ideal but 60 or 75 max refresh rate, that would hurt my eyes i see flashng even under 85 i need 100 refresh rate really, or am i missing something ?
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  5. #5
    My LCDs look great at 75mhz. I don't know how much higher they go. CRTs may be a different story, but I put mine into storage...
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  6. #6
    That looks amazing.

    75Mhz refresh really shouldn't be causing you a big problem. 80 or above is recommended though.
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  7. #7
    Arcadeace's Avatar Senior Member
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    I read a review on this it seems a couple of months ago, I was also very interested. But although it worked well for its intended purpose of establishing a triple display from the big 2 manufacturers, the frame rate output was reduced substantially, at least on the applications tested with the vid cards used. We may have to wait for the next gen or two vid cards before it could be implemented with demanding games. But it does give some hope.
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  8. #8
    Wild.Bill.Kelso's Avatar Member
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    I see that IL2FB, PF, and LockOn are supported games. But how does it do it. Does it just chop off the top and bottom of the screen, then stretch it across all 3 monitors like a Letterbox movie aspect ratio? If so, it would seem that the quality would just go down.

    Or do all of these games render 3 screens all at once?
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  9. #9
    Good question. It's done through drivers and the "Powerdesk" software, which is much like the ATI or NVidia settings pages.

    The Matrox driver/hardware makes the O/S think that the monitor size is 3840x1024, and as a result, the games will render to that size, meaning that it's rendering 2 extra screens of information. Windows thinks it's one big monitor, but the hardware gizmo then splits it back out to each screen as it should.

    This also explains why Nvidia "Wideview" users haven't been able to succeed getting 3 screens running, because with a normal Nvidia card using wideview, Windows thinks it's running multiple screens rather than one big one.

    So in short, Matrox has made the drivers and hardware work in a way that the O/S thinks it's one big monitor (3x the width), so the OS starts running things that size (much like it does if you change resolution from 640x480 to 1024x768.

    Take FS2004 for example, since it's the most closely aligned with Windows. In FS2004, you can't select resolutions in the sim that your computer can't support. Once Windows realizes you have a 3840x1024 monitor, that option will show up in FS2004.

    It's about the same as if your next video card supported a resolution of 10240 x 7680 - suddenly Windows would start rendering at that res. The only difference here is it's a different aspect ratio as well.

    Clear as mud?
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  10. #10
    Wild.Bill.Kelso's Avatar Member
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    That's clear to me. So, now all I need is a new state-of-the-art computer; 3 monitors; and a Triplehead2go. Someday...
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