Lowfat

Could always go with a Matrox TripleHead2Go. Although I think one 32" display is already big enough to get submersed in the game. Hell today I was feeling nearly sick from all the bouncing around in Mirror's Edge.

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swimtech

Big Ass - one of the handiest technical terms there is! Very easy to understand, and, um, visualize?

Just couldn't help myself, again...

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Judas

Problem is... that for ATI cards, triple head to go isn't a working solution as even still today, the maximum a single port on the ati video cards are limited to 3840 width, which is 2x 1920 monitors.

Now i know you can then take a dual head, and then 2 monitors, and then attach a 3rd to the 2nd port... which i would like to do.. and then test out... however i've yet to assemble a system for that kind of job.

I plan to here soon.

Using the next ATI HD5xxx series card, 3 Samsung 2443BW 24" Monitors, and a single dvi dual head adapter.

All i know is that it's unbeleiveably more emersive with 3 small displays spanned vs a single 52" 1080p.... one of the major contributing factors is that 5120x1200 is kick ass way better then 1920x1080

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dj_stick

I could get four GT120s for my Mac Pro, eight 30" displays....


and i think a 40" display qualifies for the "Big Ass" category, though I can't see myself using one for a computer

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Cannyone

I was perfectly happy with 1 display until I started playing WoW again... Now I've connected a second (small) display for using Thottbot and such.

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

Zelig

Picked up a second 24" monitor last week, so running dual 24" monitors now.

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Tyrsonswood

Cool.......2 X 24's would be sweet

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Cow_160483

Tell me about it all i need is some space and i would definitely do that

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Decode!
Muhahahahah!

GigaWatt

how about 2 X 24" CRT ones... hahahha ... you would have to have a special room just to fit in the monitors... LOL

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Tril

At home, one monitor. It's an iZ3D 22" monitor so it takes the two outputs of my video card.

At work, I'm using a laptop but I'm using it as if it were a desktop. I've got a mouse, a keyboard and a 24" monitor connected to it. I only use the 24" monitor, I leave the laptop screen off. I got this monitor based on Zardon's advice (http://www.driverheaven.net/news/155...ain-month.html) and it was a good purchase.

Between working on the 22" monitor and the 24" monitor, I prefer to work on the 24" monitor. Now that I'm used to it, I feel uncomfortable when working on anything smaller. Personally, I hate working directly on my laptop screen. It's way too small.

Cannyone

As I stated above ... I was using a 26" (really a 25.5") with a 20.1" secondary. But there was a problem... It would always shut off the second display whenever I restarted. At first I thought it was the ATI Hydravision drivers not liking the different resolutions. So, first, I tried uninstalling it to see if that helped.

Next I tried using a 24" display from another computer for the secondary. This means both displays are running the same resolution (1920x1200). That still did not resolve the issue of the second display being disabled when Windows (Vista) starts. All I can figure is that my primary display's lack of an *.inf is keeping this setup from functioning properly. The primary display is a Vizio LMM26. Any ideas why this setup isn't working like other multi-display setups have in the past?

At the same time, I've noticed a somewhat disturbing trend. Apparently Large LCDs were not selling well at all. So the companies, in a effort to cut production costs, have canceled the 16:10 aspect ratio displays in favor of 16:9 displays. Also the largest size seems to be 23.6", but I don't really want to downsize. And after looking around I found that there are a few "large" LCDs still available online (that aren't 30"). So this morning I decided to try a Hanns-G 28" (actually a 27.5" display) from NewEgg >> Newegg.com - Hanns·G HG-281DPB Black 27.5" 3ms Widescreen LCD HDMI Monitor 500 cd/m2 800:1 Built in Speakers - LCD Monitors It will run at the same resolution of 1920x1200 and has a set of Vista certified drivers. Here's hoping having real drivers, instead of running in "Plug an Pray" mode, will work.

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

dj_stick

16:9 is more true to widescreen video content, so that change makes sense in the higher resolutions (so no more black lines above/below videos or cropping the sides to fit in the screen)

16:10 makes sense for the smaller displays, like my 19" widescreen (1440x900) - had it been 16:9 there would have been too much vertical resolution lost (900px as opposed to 810px) vs a 4:3 monitor (usually with a res of 1280x1024)

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Judas

more appropriate for videos though isn't 16:9... it's actually closer to that of 16:7.... there is generally FAR more movies that aren't true 1080p... as there is 1920 vertical lines but only about 720horizontal... which is just bloody annoying imo....

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dj_stick

then that's just 720p/i content...

but odd, most of the time the vertical count (525/720/1080) etc doesn't change, but the quality is dependent on the horizontal count... VHS has a lower horizontal count than analogue TV, which in turn is lower than DVD and os on...

Maybe it's different with digital media

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Judas

no it's 1080p content.... ..


playback just about ANY blu-ray dvd.. which is 1080p.. and due to the way directors prefer to format their movies.. quite often even on a 16:9 screen. you'll end up with black bars above and below...

Shrek 3 is 1080p straight away...... no black bars.
Pirates of the carribean is 1080p, with Black bars.....

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dj_stick

you're forgetting that not all movies are filmed in 16:9 - many theatre screens are quite a bit wider, can't remember the exact ratio though - hence the black bars

so that's not a problem with the encoding at all, it's just the way it was filmed for the intended cinema audience

also of note, some british TV/Movies are filmed in a 14:9 ratio...

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Judas

i'm also aware of that...

there are still some theatres that use a much closer to that of 4:3 then 16:9 ratio due to their projectors they are using.... but of course majority rules...

still a 16:9 1080p movie should be such.... not with black bars... or upsampled in some way.... i want RAW true 1080p

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dj_stick

that's what you're getting.... if there is such a thing as "raw true 1080p" -> all that means anyway is that you're getting 30frames a second (or 25 with NTSC) of content with a height of 1080lines)

so you're saying you'd rather lose the edges of the picture, than see the whole image?


EDIT: most of the media you buy will give the content's aspect ratio anyway, and it'll clearly state it's not 16:9 by giving you 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 or something similiar, so movies you buy at 16:9 1080p will be exactly that, like Shrek that you mentioned

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Cannyone

I don't watch DVDs on my computer. Because I have 42" Plasma on the other side of the room. And there I notice that almost none of my collection of movies displays in anything close to 16:9 format.

However, I'm just talking about displaying data, like; Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, or games. In those cases 16:9 means less screen area. Which, IMO, is less than optimal. I also don't care if the display is using the finest dot pitch. Explaining my primary reason for avoiding a 30" display. When it comes to displaying data I prefer larger dot pitch combined with say a dual page display (for Word Documents). And at the same time I don't use both displays simultaneously for any one "window". Which is why I don't require 2 Identical displays.

On the flip side, If I really like this Hanns-G I will undoubtedly purchase a second. Simply because of the current trend away from the 16:10 aspect ratio. And that also makes some of the other displays available for use on my secondary computer, or as a larger display for a laptop.

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

Judas

Man i tried 2 of those hanns G models you have and i personally thought they were complete junk, the display quality was one of the poorest i've ever seen, i would take the little 9" Photoframe i've got sitting on my counter here over the hanns g..... Honestly, i can tollerate pretty poor picture quality, but i couldn't stand the monitor more then a few hours before figuring it was faulty or something, a 2nd one presented the same claring disgusting image, the general report on them is poor as well from reviewers (although when i got mine, there was very few reviews aside from a wackload of customer reviews, majority of which complained... others thought it was great)

I was tempted to get Acer's new 27" 2048x1152 16:9 display.... but the reviews from that were similare to that of the hanns g.... better.. but similare.... considering it's a TN panel.. i just don't want to bother with getting upset over it, so i ditched the idea and went with a projector

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Cannyone

Yes, I realize this is a TN Panel. But I could buy 2 of these and a second 4870 for what a 26" S-IPS panel would cost. And I've seen, and compared, this display to those of other manufacturers. So I tend to conclude that you may be more demanding of your display than I am (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!). Still I'll take your comments into consideration when I evaluate the unit I receive (later today).

By comparison, the Vizio unit that is currently my primary display got very poor reviews. I didn't find the colors to be that bad once I made a few adjustments, but it doesn't have "ANY" driver files. That's the real reason I want to replace it. And the Hanns-G does have Vista Certified drivers. Then both the Hanns-G display and a Samsung 245BW should work together, the way other dual-display setups have in the past. As it is I can't even load the Samsung drivers or the OS wants to make that display the primary, and treat the Vizio like a "TV".

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

roadrunner17

2 is the only way to go!

Judas

drivers for the displays aren't exactly necessary....

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Cannyone

I was of the same opinion previously. But now I know, from experience, that this is NOT true. If all you have is one display then, yes, a Plug n Play display will "work" .... sorta. When you'll have trouble is when you want to use different resolutions, or when you want to use another display. Then, at least Vista, becomes quite picky about what it will allow you to do.

Oh and I can only conclude that your Hanns.G 28" was either a different model (mine is an HG281), or was not a representative sample (actually mine may not be a "representative" sample). Because the colors on this display are great! As with most LCDs it's brightness was set way too high. But it has very good contrast (though I dropped that a little as well), and excellent Vibrance. Well I guess that's not really a word, but the colors are bright and strong (which is one area where the Vizio was lacking). If your display was like mine is and you didn't like the colors .... then I don't understand!

I'm going to use this for gaming, not Photoshop. All the games I've tried look great! Well, I do notice that the "dot pitch" is larger because, I can see some jaggies when there's no Anti-Aliasing. Which on the 24" would be far less apparent. But for those stand alone games where I only use 1 display this will not be an issue as I'll have the AA turned on.

I really suspect that I should get a second one of these while it is available.

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

Judas

ah... i don't use plug in play display either as all my displays are automatically recognized and the correct driver installed via either the preloaded drivers in vista or via windows update...

And i've worked with up to as many as 8 Displays connected to a single computer... .... 8 identical displays mind you

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RE III - Frankie

I use 2 monitors for net surfing and one for CrossfireX gaming.

Cannyone

Well my issues may have been caused by Registry Errors. But I've rebuilt the one system and also built a whole new system, both with Nvidia cards. And it's different! When I plugg in the second display it juggles things for a few seconds (blanks out the screen) then comes up in Extended mode. This is all I wanted!

I don't know why the ATI card wasn't letting me do this... but I'm really tired of loading Operating Systems atm. So finding out for sure is very low on my priority list.
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Well I did decide to try the 4870 one last time before I sold it. This is on a Windows 7 installation, where I had been using a Geforce 275GTX. So I ran Driver Sweeper, then shut down and swapped out the cards. After initial detection, and a restart, I installed the 9.6 Cats. Then I plugged in the second display and right clicked on the Tray Icon - selecting "Extend Desktop" option for the second display. It now works. And both displays come up when I enter Windows.

At the same time the CCC doesn't crash all the time, like it did with the 9.5s. So overall, I'm very pleased. I'll probably sell of the older C2Q with the older SLI setup. And I'm thinking of getting both another one of these XFX4870s, and a second 275GTX. Then I need to do hardware updates for a while....

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Eagles may Soar! But Weasels don't have to worry about being sucked into a jet engine...

Neshi

just one... If I ever buy another one I will use this 17" and the new one as a dual setup.. Just to have more working space within word or anything really.. I think it's handy.
But until that time, I'm quite happy with my 17"e-yama

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The only guarantee in life is failure, to achieve success you have to take risks.

cbeasley0

I use two to four at any given time. Usually because I steal them from my roomates when they upgrade stuff.

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RE III - Frankie

I normally use just one single screen, but I have a second 15" monitor ready for use.