How Realistic Is Multi-Monitor Gaming On A Budget?

[delaro]

If your not playing FPS and Racing type games it is a waste of real-state. RPG type games your focus on the box around your Avatar, which leaves the other 2 monitors kind of pointless.

 

[jjb8675309]

Certainly some games work better than others. Personally I have found that most games DO work better with triple displays. Not just FPS but games like Assassin's Creed, Batman, and Tomb Raider were all much more enjoyable with 5670x1080. Actually the only game that I have played were the setup is pointless was NBA 2k15. Other than that, the overall experience of the game was enhanced. Trouble is finding 3 displays that don't have varying levels of backlight bleed since it is low end TN panels we are talking about.

 

[Johnabie]

Nice review, I'd like to mention that a R9 270 is available for 150$-30mir, R9 280 is 195$-30mir and R9 290 is 280$-20mir. All prices are from newegg US. I mentioned amd cards only because of memory bandwidth for price and mantle both required for High resolutions. Nvidia cards still remain viable for more $$$. Thanks again for the article

 

[RedJaron]

I've got mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it's a nice experiment to find the lowest gear that can run this. But I have a hard time seeing someone actually try this in real life. I don't demand maxed out settings on my games, but I do prefer at least medium quality with a 30 fps minimum. And dropping below native resolution on an LCD looks horrible to me. I'll drop detail settings before I drop resolution. I'd rather see jaggies at 1080 than the blurriness of AA'd 900 on 1080.

Find the cheapest card that can get 30 fps - 40 fps on medium settings across three screens and I'd be really interested.

 

[captaincharisma]

they were looking to see if you can do it on a low budget. not mid to high, LOW budget

 

[Audiose]

I have a GTX 770 FTW from EVGA. I had an AMD Radeon HD 6850 with 1 GB and it had tearing issues like CRAZY with my triple-monitor solution (Dell UltraSharp 24" IPS monitors). AMD did NOT have an option to set vSync at the global/system level, and the application had to have a built-in option to enable vSync for that to work. Games were nearly unplayable as a result.

I went with the GTX 770 and have had zero of those issues. Web browsing is fantastic (no tearing), games are super immersive.

One thing the article doesn't make clear is that some games you may need to search for a patching program or a UI fix that allows you to interact with menus or field of view settings.

 

[Sakkura]

I've got mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it's a nice experiment to find the lowest gear that can run this. But I have a hard time seeing someone actually try this in real life. I don't demand maxed out settings on my games, but I do prefer at least medium quality with a 30 fps minimum. And dropping below native resolution on an LCD looks horrible to me. I'll drop detail settings before I drop resolution. I'd rather see jaggies at 1080 than the blurriness of AA'd 900 on 1080.

Find the cheapest card that can get 30 fps - 40 fps on medium settings across three screens and I'd be really interested.

That's how I feel too. Something like an R9 280 would be interesting. It's still a reasonably high-end card for 1080p, but it's come down in price a lot, and for 5760x1080 it's certainly less than you'd normally see people aiming for. Hitting decent frame rates at medium settings and native resolution seems plausible with a card like that, and then you have a pretty awesome experience without really costing that much more. I mean, with $400 invested in monitors, would the difference between a $100 R7 260X and a $190 R9 280 really be that big a deal?

Still, it's always nice to have some of the more unusual setups tested, to see what's really possible. Could be useful if someone has a single monitor and an R7 260X and is wondering whether to get a better graphics card or extra monitors first.

 

[larkspur]

If your not playing FPS and Racing type games it is a waste of real-state. RPG type games your focus on the box around your Avatar, which leaves the other 2 monitors kind of pointless.

Not true at all. MMORPGs are much better on triple monitors. Speaking from experience, WoW, SW:TOR, and Wildstar are MUCH better on triple monitors - aside from the increased FoV you can arrange windows (like inventory, quest-log, mini-map, or whatever) to pop up on the side screens which allows clear vision through your main screen at all times. Skyrim and Oblivion are beautiful on triple screens. Assassin's Creed and Shadow of Mordor are also gorgeous on triple screens. It sounds more like you are speculating and don't have hands-on experience.

 

[crowndroyal]

Is there no software from the GFX cards makers that can treat a BIG screen like 3 monitors ?

 

[larkspur]

AMD did NOT have an option to set vSync at the global/system level, and the application had to have a built-in option to enable vSync for that to work.

Catalyst Control Center does have a global option for forcing vsync. Or you can setup a game profile for individual games to customize 'forced' settings. Your 6850 at eyefinity resolution likely wasn't displaying more than 60fps anyway unless this was a very graphically-weak game. Any 1gb card is going to struggle with high resolutions in newer games. There is a huge difference in performance between a 6850 1gb and a 770 so I really don't think you are presenting a fair comparison.

 

[jjb8675309]

I've got mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it's a nice experiment to find the lowest gear that can run this. But I have a hard time seeing someone actually try this in real life. I don't demand maxed out settings on my games, but I do prefer at least medium quality with a 30 fps minimum. And dropping below native resolution on an LCD looks horrible to me. I'll drop detail settings before I drop resolution. I'd rather see jaggies at 1080 than the blurriness of AA'd 900 on 1080.

Find the cheapest card that can get 30 fps - 40 fps on medium settings across three screens and I'd be really interested.

I totally agree with you here. I'd rather have 1080p on low then 720p ultra.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

What is "Widescreen Fixer" supposed to do?n Article wasn't quite clear on what it exactly is supposed to fix.

 

[EngageTheSun]

Any good looking monitors out there with a VESA mount on them that look like the AOC ones? I love the design, but I would like to have them on a arm.

 

[Evolution2001]

Thanks to those that pointed out multi-monitor gaming requires a different interface as compared to Windows general monitor setup. I only have my triple-monitor setup at work and I don't game here. When I go home, I have a single 133" projection in my home theater, so multi-monitor gaming at home isn't in my future.

 

[Bannereus]

Nice article, glad to see TH found an appropriate use for 1080p TN panels

@Marciocattini. -- "Man I'm left wondering whether this article should have included a dual and triple sli/crossfire with the same cards to see if you could achieve a high level of detail ... I mean 3 radeon 260's and nvidia 750's TI is still pretty cheap compared to a high end card!!"

-last I checked, nvidia didn't build the 750 Ti with a bridge connector = no SLI (they reserve that for higher end cards starting with the 760)

-the R7 260X does allow crossfire (maximum of 2 gpus though) with OR without a bridge, though a single R9 285 has double the resources at just less than double the price and power consumption, without the hassle of crossfire; up to a few months ago, dual-260X looked pretty good to me too


I agree the next step is to do a face-off between the GTX 760 and an R9 280/285 at higher details

 

[jjb8675309]

I agree the next step is to do a face-off between the GTX 760 and an R9 280/285 at higher details

^this ^+1 I am very interested in seeing something like that.

 

[Reynder]

This is creepy, I was thinking about this all day at work today and then here comes this article. Have a Korean 1440p panel, but would rather have then screen real estate of a triple monitor setup. Thanks for reading my mind!

 

[AnimeMania]

Does anybody use 3 monitors in portrait orientation? I don't have a 3 monitor setup, but if I did, I think that is the way I would go. Are there any pros and cons to either a portrait or landscape orientation.

 

[tinmann]

There are a few variables to look at and it depends on what you want from your gaming experience. I have a triple monitor setup but I also have a 30" display. In single player games the wow factor of triple monitors makes it a clear winner but in multiplayer games performance becomes the main factor and a lot of AAA titles don't yet support widescreen resolutions and your frame rates take a major hit. For instance in BO2 on triple monitors I will get 91 fps but on the 30" @2560x1600 I get 200 fps using a multi-GPU card. Then with a lot of games you have to get 3rd party software just to make some games work widescreen. They do an excellent job but any game update renders the software useless until they update the 3rd party fix. This might take days sometimes weeks.
I think the sweet spot in gaming right now is a 28" ultra-wide 21:9 and a high end card like the GTX 980 or the R9-290x . I highly recommend SLI if you want real performance without cutting corners on graphics setting.

 

[f-14]

marciocattini the 750's have no sli port, so sli is out of the question there. worst decision i've seen nvidia make in a long time.

you can cross fire with the 260's tho and that is a big win for amd over nvidia.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

4k came before technology was ready. There are windows/text scaling issues outside of gaming, and it takes a monster rig to run any game in 4k (2x 980's struggle to max out BF4/Crysis 3 and maintain 60 fps).

people always going on about wanting to "max out" games. IMO games can look better with lower detail settings but higher resolutions. I remember going from a 19" 1440x900 monitor to a 24" 1080p. I had to turn some detail settings down to get the same fps, but it still looked better and you could see more game detail despite lower settings. you could probably get away with a single gtx970 or 980 on a 4k monitor with reduced details. I do agree 4k would still be an issue for some games that dont natively support it, but you need the technology to exist before you can start supporting it right?

 

[palladin9479]

Hmm trying to do "budget" triple screen is like trying to do "budget" Ferrari's / Lamborghini's. It's possible to acquire a high performance car and strip out all the accessories / features but it kinda defeats the purpose. If your going to spend the money building a three monitor setup for "gaming", then you might as well go all the way and do it properly rather then stopping halfway with a mediocre experience.

 

[mamasan2000]

Hmm trying to do "budget" triple screen is like trying to do "budget" Ferrari's / Lamborghini's. It's possible to acquire a high performance car and strip out all the accessories / features but it kinda defeats the purpose. If your going to spend the money building a three monitor setup for "gaming", then you might as well go all the way and do it properly rather then stopping halfway with a mediocre experience.

Theres always a sweetspot.
Let's say you had a company with 5 employees that did some analytics.

Would you get each employee a decent PC

OR

Buy a supercomputer for a couple million.

Theres a limit in terms of cost/benefit/need.

But I do agree on your overall ideology. If you are into gaming, immersiveness, triplescreens or whatever, go all the way.

Example:
You could buy a cheaper GPU and play games on med/high settings now and 2 years later buy a new card

OR

Buy a really good GPU and run every game in Ultra for at least 3 years and then efter 5 years (still running games at med/high) get a new card.

Which would be a better experience? Which would be cheaper, in the long run? Usually highend GPU.
But that doesn't mean 4 x Titans.
I'm comparing a 150-200$ GPU to a 300-450$ GPU.

Sometimes it pays to not be cheap =).

 

[buzznut]

Perhaps I am missing something but I didn't see any mention of display port. I know the R9 series does not require a DP adapter, but I thought that the R7 would. Certainly DP monitors are not that cheap, so I was wondering about running 3 monitors without out the pre-requisite DP.

I've been struggling with this since getting a 3rd monitor, have both a passive adapter and an active one and neither one works.

 

[lunyone]

Nice article. I would like to see results with a lesser CPU/Build combo, if possible. This way we can see any effects of a lesser CPU would have on the overall gaming experience. Here is a build that I would consider (other CPU option would be a Pentium 3258):

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($78.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-A Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($62.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Dual-X Video Card ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 60Hz 21.5" Monitor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $782.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-08 23:02 EST-0500