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jeff bigger 2004-02-01 08:37
I am just about to purchase 3 19" viewsonic vp191b
lcd monitors and stand for surround gaming.
my operating system is win98
my primary card is a xfx geforce 4 128md 8x agp w/dvi and tv out.
my secondary card is a 16mb voodoo3 pci.
I currently am using 2/22" crt monitors,but haven't been able to play any games using both monitors. Probably because I have one monitor on each card(the voodoo3 is pretty weak for games requirements these days).
my question is:
In order to get the most out of my new video setup
for an awesome gaming experience should I just scrap my geforce4 and get a triplehead card? or should I hook up 2 lcds' to the geforce4 and get a better pci card for the third display?
should I use vga or dvi conections?
any and all suggestions will be appreciated. I really dont want to drop this kind of coin just to be disappointed with gaming performance
thanks
jeff bigger
j.bigger@mchsi.com
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ecarlson 2004-02-01 09:34
I have no experience with games, but you'll be doing those monitors an injustice if you don't run them via DVI.
- Eric www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Chriotic 2004-02-01 11:20
The most important point first:
Your problem with running a game on more than one monitor may be due to the game itself: Most games aren't programmed to run on more than one monitor at a time. Exceptions are flight simulators and you might find the one or other game that can make use of more than one monitor, I think there are some strategy titles and a FPS, but it isn't a standard feature for games. If your games can be multi-monitored you should be able to run them by connecting both CRTs to your NVidia. You just need a DVI/VGA adapter for that.
Eric is right, you should really connect those monitors via DVI. Picture quality is usually better if you use dvi, besides, your chances that all monitors display roughly the same colors without special calibration tools are much better if you use dvi - especially when using different cards.
There are no triple head video cards that you would want to purchase for a gaming system.
The most common tripple head card is the matrox parhelia. There are two problems with this card:
1. Triple head only works if you are willing to connect two displays analog.
2. Matrox cards are probably the worst performing cards on the market when it comes to gaming.
The other cards available are quad display solutions, but those aren't really gaming cards either. You end up with Radeon 9000 performance or NVidia cards based on the Geforce4 gpu. If your NVidia card isn't powerful enough for your needs, those cards won't help you.
Your best bet is a combination of AGP and PCI cards. Again, check first if your games can be multi-monitored at all.
If you aren't in a hurry to get this setup, wait a few more months. PCI-Express might be the answer to a lot of grafik card problems. All we need is a good mainboard with more than one PCI Express 16x slot.
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