MatriX 2003-04-30 01:54
Hey
Nobody can probably answer all of my questions, but here's what I know about the issue myself. It is possible to do surround gaming with nVidia cards...
Personally I can run Q3, UT2k3, UT and a few other games if I follow the tips on matrox site. This requires that I run the game in windowed mode and then move it out to the edges of my desktop so that it appears to be running in fullscreen unless you look at the edges. True (fullscreen) surround gaming is not possible yet as there is no way to span between two cards...
The performance I get with the following setup is quite good, 60 fps average running (1280x3)x1024.
The setup is one Geforce MX 460 AGP with dual-CRT, the other is a Geforce MX 440 PCI 64 MB DDR-RAM with one CRT.
Christian's attempts to run Q3 and the other games failed. Now my setup is completely stable, never crashed on me. Is the reason why his setup crashed due to the fact that he used a Geforce 3 combined with 2x Geforce 2 MX? Because my two cards are of the same generation, look the same to the computer (almost), but his are widely different with the Geforce 3 supporting DX8. Question is how to explain this?
Now I would like to make a better performing surround gaming rig. My only option seems to be:
A good primary card, eg. Geforce FX 5600 or the like, so that I can also run games on a single monitor. Of course the limiting factor will be the two other cards, so if I only used surround gaming a Geforce MX 440 AGP would be sufficient to run the primary monitor. Hopefully this solution would be stable but if the cards have to be of the same generation, then I won't be able to upgrade to a much better rig unfortunately.
Option 1:
Geforce FX 5600
Geforce MX 440 PCI
Geforce MX 440 PCI
Q1. I know Jaton makes a DH-card, but are there any manufacturer's that have any PCI cards (of course Geforce 4 MX) with DVI?
Q2. Are there any plans to make newer PCI cards of other generations. E.g. Geforce FX 5200 PCI?
I have been told that ATI does not support OpenGL on more than one monitor. Why? And if they did at a later time the perfect solution to my mind would be the following:
Radeon 9700/9500
Radeon 9000 PCI
Radeon 9000 PCI
At least you can get the radeon pci cards with DVI and dualhead without a problem and then you would also get better image quality with the ATI-cards. Also as far as I remember the Radeon 9000 are not crippled like the Geforce 4 MX cards regarding the DX8 support. Am I right about this issue?
Hope that someone would like to add their thoughts to my post here as I am thinking about my next purchase.
MatriX
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MatriX 2003-04-30 01:56
sorry for being so ignorant. Christian has already tested a system with geforce 4 mx's only. I just don't know why his locked up... My system has never locked up in UT2k3.
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MatriX 2003-04-30 02:12
and then I have also found out know that you can actually get Geforce FX 5200 PCI cards... maybe I should do a little bit more research before posting. PNY Geforce FX 5200 PCI
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MatriX 2003-04-30 02:18
and even more research
http://www.pny.com/products/verto/geForceFx/5200pci.cfm
The cards is DH and has DVI-I. Thus one should simply invest in the following:
Geforce FX 5600/5800/5800 Ulta DH
Geforce FX 5200 PCI DH
Geforce FX 5200 PCI DH
All with DVI and with the potential of running a 5 monitor surround gaming system + TV-out even. Limiting it to 3 would of course give much better performance. Also one could run in clone-mode and make a copy of the system on another monitor. Dunno how useful that is anyway.
I don't think I'm interested in the ATI solution anymore....
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Christian Studer 2003-04-30 12:06
I'm going to do a 3-monitor ATI review in a couple of weeks, with two RADEON 9000 cards (AGP + PCI).
Regarding UT2003 and surround gaming: what drivers were you using? I also used the demo for testing, not the full game, probably shouldn't make a difference though.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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MatriX 2003-04-30 17:30
I ran under OpenGL, used the 41.09 and 40.72 drivers, used the settings from Matrox' homepage. The main issue was that the framerate was too low as one of my cards (Geforce MX 460 had to render for two of the screens and the resolution I used was 1280x1024 on all 3 screens, but it was 100% stable). There was also a previous thread discussing this (1-2 months ago), but I think I will invest my money in 2x Geforce FX 5200 PCI and one Geforce FX 5800 after the summer vacation.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum/messages.asp?Topic=2251&tmpl=
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Uncle-Bob 2004-01-08 06:59
Matrix ?
Did your buy your 3 geforce FX ?
Does it work fine on Quake 3 and UT2K3 ?
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DelPHiuM 2004-01-19 23:54
u can run pritty much any windowed open GL game on the Nvidia G-force range (2,3,4,FX) with the latest drivers any mixture will work (though performance will change from card to card of cause).
The nvidia - drivers ahve n-view tools in the tools there is an option for a spam button. u can find this option by opening the nView desktop manager -> user interface -> "windows and applications" - show button for full-desktop maximize.
i find that useing this button/feature has a higher compatibility rate with games and other openGL programs. much more reliable.
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Ozuma 2004-02-10 05:23
Does nVidia GeForce FX 5200 have OpenGL in it?
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David Phelan 2004-02-10 10:02
Any luck with DirectX games?
David
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jbigger 2004-02-11 03:25
I'm trying to get quake 3 in surround
How do you get the cursor outside the game in order to move/resize window?
3 monitors (agp geforce4/pci fx5200)
whan i try matrix settings, only one monitor has the game displayed tho others are blank
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