How to realise triple head output with Nvidia card

PjotrVan

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Jul 6, 2004
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For a car <A HREF="http://www.vstep.nl/p_s_dsim.htm" target="_new">driving simulator which we are developing</A>, we are looking for a graphics solution with 3 outputs. I know that Matrox has some TripleHead cards, but their 3D performance is not sufficient. Because the latest Nvidia 3D cards have such a good performance and high output resolution, I was more thinking of using a kind of VGA splitter, which would split one of the 2 VGA outputs running at 2048x768 into 2 separate monitors of each 1024x768, each showing a different half of the original 2048x768 image. The 3rd beamer is then driven by the card's 2nd VGA/DVI output.

Technically, this should work, but I haven't been able to find such a VGA splitter device yet. All the splitters just duplicate a VGA signal onto multiple identical outputs.
Does anyone know whether such a device exists? Or could I use the splitter of the Matrox card?

Another technical option is of course to use multiple PCI Express cards in one PC, but I cannot yet buy such PCs here at reasonable prices. Also, a 2 card solution would require some serious 3D programming and possibly synchronisation problems. A one-card solution would be easier.

Ideally, Nvidia would bring out a triple head card, which would make sense, as all the flight sim and F1 sim players would probably love to play their games and sims on triple-head LCD panels, but I haven't been able to convince anybody at Nvidia to develop such a card.
 
the market is a bit small compaired to pure 3d gaming. It would be a nice add on. Who have you tried to contact at nV? Dev rel really doesn't get involved with stuff like this.
 
I spoke to some Nvidia people at the CeBIT exhibition a few months ago, don't have their business cards. Also with developers from LeadTek and MSI. Nobody seemed to have any plans for triplehead solutions....
 
I know that you can get triple display from ATI too. You can make by pairing an AGP ATI card on an ATI based motherboard (with integrated video). Ta dam! 3 output. But, you would still be limited by the integrated GPU performance.

But, as I see, since your software will not reach a broad audience, you can develop for Matrox only. And you might even bundle your software with a Matrox Parhelia card. :smile:

From your website screenshot, you don't need very high-res or polygon count. You mostly need an immersive experience. If I were you, I would focus on Matrox support for triple-head.

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It's tricky to use words like <b><font color=green>AMD</font color=green></b> or <b><font color=blue>Intel</font color=blue></b> in a signature some users could think your are biased.
 
try getting into the developers program then talk to your account manager he/she will point ya in the right direction. other then that ya can't do much with current technology support for new features like that.
 
For now the market(I guess) is too small for such a "niche".
The vast majority of people don't own, and have(the ones I have talked to) neither the money or the desire for such a thing.
Maybee in 10 years it will be more common, but I don't expect to see this any time soon.

Terracide...

Don't pretend - BE!
 
thats true, unfortunatly but man that would be an awesome gaming experience monitors all around you hehe 7.1 surround sound :). Almost like real life!
 

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