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V. Mardian 2003-09-19 07:45
Greetings!
I'm looking for a 3 monitor solution with the following uses:
Left - email, excel, web browsing
Middle - DirectX gaming, but in windowed mode
Right - DirectX gaming, but in windowed mode
OS: Windows 2000 or Windows XP
Some questions:
1 - can the mouse traverse from left to middle to right freely?
2 - Does Alt Tab work for apps on seperate monitors?
3 - When I launch a windowed program where does it appear? Can I drag it to another window? Does it "remember" its position next time I load it up?
4 - I want 3 indentical LCD mintors. Should I look for an AGP card with dual DVI out (for left and middle monitors) and then a PCI card for the right monitor? Or should I get 3 seperate cards? I figure I can combine the left and middle because the left is only doing 2D applications. How about
5 - Whats the fastest card with dual DVI out? Whats the fastest PCI card for secondary card?
I will probably have more questions based on any responses.
Thanks for your time!
VM
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Darnt 2003-09-20 02:07
1 - yes, no problem
2 - yes, for the OS it is just one big monitor
3 - if you use ultramon it can remeber the location, you can also put location info in the shortcut so it opens that program always on the monitor you want.
4 - I don't know much about gaming. but 3 seperate cards is overkill, one dualhead is a better solution, the pci card will always be slower than agp, so for games i would suggest a good agp card for the two 'game' monitors.
5 - no idea.
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V. Mardian 2003-09-20 10:03
So what you are suggesting is this:
Left - Secondary PCI card
Midle and Right - Primary dual-head AGP card
Does mean that when I first boot up the BIOS will be displayed on the middle monitor, and also all my icons and the taskbar will also be in the middle?
Thanks.
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V. Mardian 2003-09-20 10:09
Also, what would happen if I dragged the middle directx game window such that half of it were on the left monitor and the other half were on the right monitor? Would it slow down or crash altogether? I can't imagine how an AGP and a PCI video card could work together like that.
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Douglas 2003-09-25 00:36
The DirectX problem is more an issue with the software. Flight Simulator 2004 supports multiple screens. When the window is moved to another DirectX supported screen it will update and then display 3D on that screen. If a program is not multi-screen aware it will use the display that is set as the primary. Some programs will crash if they are moved off the screen that they are to display on, with DirectX.
We have tested FS2004 on 3 screens with our Xentera GT 4 AGP card, and it requires a lot of processor.
Douglas Jordan
Colorgraphic, VP Engineering
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Barton 2003-09-25 03:35
Doug,
I have been waiting for a response like this from you and your company. You indicated that you have tested F2004 with three monitors and the XGT4-AGP and that it requires a lot of processor, but I have several other questions:
1. Did you try it with digital DVI monitors?
2. When you say a lot of processor, are you referring to the video GPU or and CPU in the PC?
Basically, I want to accompish this setup you have tested. I want to run the XGT4-AGP with three digital monitors. I would like to know if you think that the XGT4 and a 2.8P4 would really provide that good of a frame rate. I would really value your honest and candid opinion.
Thanks!
Barton
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Douglas 2003-09-25 06:01
Our tests were on analog flat panels. But the monitor type will not make any difference in our case. System was a basic Dell Dimension 4500, P4-2.4GHz, 256MB RAM. I don't know if the program can give frame rate information. I felt like the P4-2.4G was not enough processor, the system could use more memory as well - but this was a "prove that it works" test. I cannot say a P4-2.8G would be enough either, but it should be better.
We did not spend enough time to get the extra views working full screen as Microsoft states you can each view full screen on each monitor. It appears the program itself has a problem displaying in windowed mode when a window is stretched too large the mouse cursor shape will start toggling between busy and arrow and not update the window. Once sized back down it starts to update and the mouse goes back to normal. We have not seen this behavior with any other 3D program.
FS2004 is not a program you can just run and start flying if you are not familiar with it. A flight stick control is needed.
If I were to build a new system for this purpose, I would start with the fastest thing I could buy within the budget.
Douglas Jordan
Colorgraphic, VP Engineering
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Barton 2003-09-25 07:20
Doug,
Thanks alot for your response. I have a 2.26 533FSB, 1GB RDRAM system now and was getting ready to build either a 2.8 or 3.0 800 FSB with 1GB of dual cannel 800 RAM.
Your tests almost mirror my own. I'm running with a 4 button yoke with throttle control as well as rudder pedals. Even when I turn off the anti-alaising, lower the global scenery, lower the aircraft quality and lower the global weather, it is still "jumpy" and if I try to "stretch" across monitors in the windowed mode, I get the same effect that your describing.
If I set the disply setting to 2048x768, then it looks a lot better, but I can't get to 3072x768 to span 3 monitors. Nview doesn;t support spannign across multiple card (hince the new XGT4!)
Microsoft does state that you don't realize full hardware acceleration unless you come out of the windowed mode and operate full screen. They maybe right. I just need to get a card to test the theory.
I guess I'm going to suck-it-up, drop five bills for the card, build the new system and see what happens. I want to be the first one to do this and post the results on the various flight sim forums. There are many like me who want to do this without networking a group of PC's. This will prove intereting.
If you would, drop me a line at 'dtbmjax@yahoo.com' when the XGT4-AGP becomes available.
Thanks!
Barton
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Douglas 2003-09-25 08:13
Barton, we do not have span mode for greater than two screens either. In fact once you go beyond a single GPU for span mode you loose DirectX. This is why Microsoft is supporting multiple heads as each head can support DirectX. We released the Xentera GT 4 AGP for production today and expect to see them in November.
Douglas Jordan
Colorgraphic, VP Engineering
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