Surround vs 2560x1600

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Sowexly

Gawd
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To clarify I'm wondering what people think about surround as an experience compared to a single 2560x1600 monitor.

I'm wondering if I should get into the surround thing or just get a very nice single monitor for games/movies etc.
 
I'm enjoying the surround gaming experience, but I miss my 32" HDTV main screen too.

I wish there was a way to do both.

I bought three 4:3 HP LP2065 20" monitors from TigerDirect for $80 each. Price of entry to try surround gaming was really low. It's especially fun for car racing games, and looks great for GTA IV, but some games have weird issues - like the huds are on the far left or right, and or stretched. On occassion some games seem to have a fish eye view as you appropach the far left and far right side.

It's pretty unreliable which games work and which don't.

I'm trying to decide if surround gaming is just a novelty or if it's better. At this time I'm leaning towards novelty or maybe worth playing on a few select games.
 
For multitasking, multi-head is great.

For gaming a few games work no problem, a few more have patches that need updated now and then to make them work and they work either great or only sort-of....and there are lots of games that barely even support 16:9. GPU temps are usually a fair bit higher at both idle, as well as load...so if you're not on a waterloop expect a bit more noise.

I'm probably going to go back to single-monitor 2560x1600 or x1440 when funds are free....Eyefinity is great where it works. But lots of games are either broken, or hold you hostage to whenever devs update patches. Skyrim is a great example, where Steam stealth-patches it all the time and breaks fixes on top of Steams "do not update" preference doing jack squat. It is simply supremely frustrating when you most don't want it to be...and I'd rather be enjoying games and relaxing, than fighting games to simply make them work.

Wish it was better supported, but most devs outright refuse to and state they have no plans to.
 
Yeah I guess I don't play many games that would support more than a single monitor and the reason I compare this to 2560x1600 is that I would like to try it out and it would be silly to SLI the 600 series to play @1080p

Now what 2560x1600 monitor is the best?
 
IMO surround only beats 30" 2560x1600 if you use 24" monitors or larger. Any smaller and the immersion starts to drop compared to a single big screen. For productivity, nothing beats 1600 vertical pixels.

From what I heard HP zr30w is pretty good for gaming - it has very low input lag.
 
Now that I think about it I don't have room on this desk for more monitors xD
But I could always get a bigger desk too, I like the ZR30W it looks nice I wondering if 7ms delay would be noticeable compared to the 2ms I'm at right now.
 
If you have a six series geforce card you don't need to sli to try surround. I'd recommend picking up three identical 4:3 20" ips monitors like I did and give it a shot for less than 300. Worst case - You can sell them and not lose much. Moreover since they are 1600 by 1200 4:3 resolution my plan was to eventually buy a 30" monitor and use two of the 20" lcd panels flanking the 30" on left and right side in portrait mode. This effectively allows three monitors with 1600 height for regular desktop use and from what I understand the heights of the 1600 pixels is darn near spot on.
 
I was just think about some IPS panels @4:3 but I think I would rather grab the single 2560x1600 then get the panels later if I need them.

I think this is the only forum I can say need at the end of my previous sentence xD
 
Archaea said:
If you have a six series geforce card you don't need to sli to try surround. I'd recommend picking up three identical 4:3 20" ips monitors like I did and give it a shot for less than 300. Worst case - You can sell them and not lose much. Moreover since they are 1600 by 1200 4:3 resolution my plan was to eventually buy a 30" monitor and use two of the 20" lcd panels flanking the 30" on left and right side in portrait mode. This effectively allows three monitors with 1600 height for regular desktop use and from what I understand the heights of the 1600 pixels is darn near spot on.
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20"-30"-20" is GREAT for gaming when you can get it to work properly. Not too stecthed horizontally at 4960x1600, but there is too much fussing IMO to get it to behave. Only DX9 and older games will work because you need to use the softhTH software hack. Sadly neither AMD not NVIDIA support mixed resolution gaming. I have a 30" HP zr30w which I love, and 2 Dell 20", and have enjoyed using the Dells in portrait mode alongside the HP. Now if only AMD or NVIDIA wold support it. Another option is to use 3 24" 27" or 30" monitors in portrait mode. That avoids the main drawback or triple screen gaming in my opinion, which is a very compressed vertical (especially if using 1080 monitors) with a very stretched horizontal. I am running 3 24"s right now in horizontal mode, and it feels like looking out a gun slit in a tank or something like that. Squashed and stretched. Won't be using that for much longer, and will return the monitors. Might try 3 27" 2560x1440 in portait mode next, for a total resolution of 4320x2560.
 
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Problem with these 24's and 27's in portrait mode is that most of them are TN panels and they look like garbage in portrait if you are off angle, (which at least one of them has to be off angle) Whichever is the one you are looking at from the typical top of the monitor is washed out, purple, and looses all contrast. It's no good for office nor gaming.
 
With 2560x1600 you are stuck at 60 Hz and panels with horrible anti-glare coatings = no go.
 
Vega said:
With 2560x1600 you are stuck at 60 Hz and panels with horrible anti-glare coatings = no go.
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I found that to be the case with the AG on the Dell 30" but I kept the HP ZR30w because the AG is much less noticeable on it. I've really enjoyed gaming on it so far, even though it is only 60Hz.
 
Skripka said:
For multitasking, multi-head is great.

For gaming a few games work no problem, a few more have patches that need updated now and then to make them work and they work either great or only sort-of....and there are lots of games that barely even support 16:9. GPU temps are usually a fair bit higher at both idle, as well as load...so if you're not on a waterloop expect a bit more noise.

I'm probably going to go back to single-monitor 2560x1600 or x1440 when funds are free....Eyefinity is great where it works. But lots of games are either broken, or hold you hostage to whenever devs update patches. Skyrim is a great example, where Steam stealth-patches it all the time and breaks fixes on top of Steams "do not update" preference doing jack squat. It is simply supremely frustrating when you most don't want it to be...and I'd rather be enjoying games and relaxing, than fighting games to simply make them work.

Wish it was better supported, but most devs outright refuse to and state they have no plans to.
Click to expand...

This was my general experience with multi-monitor gaming as well. When it worked it was pretty damn good but the amount of tweaking , driver problems and lacking game support or broken game support makes it a gigantic hassle. Very rarely did I not have to do some kind of tweak or problem solving to get it working correctly and then there are games which don't even support it. Multi-monitor gaming reminds me the early days of SLI , it has some growing pains to deal with still.

Same goes for video cards as well. Last time I went with an SLI setup and while its been good for the most part , there have been many times where I've had to wait on patches or had other problems running SLI. Next video card I'm buying will be the fastest I can fit into a single slot without running SLI or Crossfire.

My plan right now is to get a new 120hz monitor for PC gaming since once you start gaming on one you won't ever want to go back to 60hz monitors regardless of the resolution increase. And I've got a 27 inch 1440p Korean monitor coming this week.

I guess as I'm getting older I feel less and less like dealing with the hassle of getting everything running at its max. I would rather have a simple setup that works and just enjoy it.
 
I have 3 27" monitors and do not even do surround gaming on them. I play on my center monitor which is 120hz (Samsung S27A950), netflix/web/etc on the other two.
 
I did both. 2560x1600 with two more on the sides. I also went as far as to do 5x1 Portrait with 30"rs which was crazy. I cant play game on a single 30" anymore. I feel so cramped on anything less. I can use 3 x 24"rs, but gaming just sucks on one monitor now. IMHO, Eyefinity / Surround is awesome. There are some games that don't work, but going forward, more and more developers are getting on the bandwagon. Support was ludicrously absent back in the days of the TH2Go, but now that the tech is widely available to the masses, support is coming and coming. Less and Less does the WSGF have to make fixes. But not every game is supported yet.
 
Surround setups are cool when they work. The problem is there are multiple FOV problems, cut scene issues, and often times a straight up lack of support for multimonitor solutions in games. I went ahead and did both. I've got 3x30" monitors, but most of the games just don't support it. Often times I'm stuck using a single monitor for lack of a better option.
 
Thanks for the input guys, I'm between the 30" and a 120Hz but I'm not sure yet.
Will likely grab 2 670s either way but I do find myself gaming less and less at least multiplayer wise.
 
Sowexly said:
Thanks for the input guys, I'm between the 30" and a 120Hz but I'm not sure yet.
Will likely grab 2 670s either way but I do find myself gaming less and less at least multiplayer wise.
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Get both if you can afford it. Game on the 120hz monitor and do everything else on the 30 inch.

Problem solved :cool:
 
Godmachine said:
Get both if you can afford it. Game on the 120hz monitor and do everything else on the 30 inch.

Problem solved :cool:
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I kinda wish I could try out a 120Hz monitor but I don't know anyone who has one so that isn't exactly gonna happen.
Them Korean 2560x1440 monitors look nice but I don't know if I want to deal with getting it from a foreign site.
 
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