A Fresh Look At Multi-Screen PC Gaming

crookedvulture writes "It has been quite a while since Slashdot last covered multi-monitor gaming. A lot has changed in the interim. Monitors prices continue to fall, and improved AMD Eyefinity and Nvidia Surround implementations make creating multi-display arrays incredibly easy. Graphics cards have gotten faster, allowing high-end models to handle the latest games at the ultra-high resolutions that multi-screen setups enable. Developers are doing a better job of supporting those resolutions, too, although HUD placement and single-screen cinematics are still problematic in some titles. Even in the games that do have niggling flaws, the wider perspective of a triple-screen config can offer a more engaging and immersive experience. As stereoscopic 3D implementations fail to catch on, multi-screen setups look like the best upgrade for PC gamers."

The last time i tried this

[icebike]

There were versions of some of the popular First Person Shooters back in the day that would handle multi screens.
They were great, for about 15 minutes, then vertigo set in, and even walking up the stairs out of the basement became a challenge.

I suspect it was something to do with Visual Simulation of Motion with no motor or balance system feedback that did me in, but it could have
been the pizza and jolt cola.

Useful

[bill_mcgonigle]

Back in the day old NuBus video cards and 15" displays were easy to come by so I hooked up a Mac IIvx with three displays and used it for A10 Attack [wikipedia.org]. Left screen was left window, front screen was front window, right screen was right window.

It really improved gameplay for that sort of simulation, because if you were in a cockpit, that's something like you'd have available to you. I looked a few years ago into setting up something like this with X-Plane but it needed a networked set of computers, which seemed like overkill. Maybe that's improved.

I'd imagine an FPS would be better off with goggles of some sort, though, if the resolution could be sorted out. Use the right tech for the right kind of simulation.

Extra screens + full screen game is real benefit

[devforhire]

I've been running a 3 monitor display (3 x 22" 1920x1080) for several years playing WOW, LOTRO, EVE, and BF3. The games look awesome covering all 3 screens, but it doesn't improve gameplay enough to make it worth my time. I typically play with the games windowed and maximized to a single screen. This lets me multi-box easily or play a game while watching a movie on another monitor.

Peripheral Vision

[wisebabo]

One benefit of multi-screen games is that they can provide, when angled inward, is peripheral vision.

Even an infinitely wide flat display can only provide 180 degrees of view. However, depending on the widths, position of the viewer and amount the panels are angled, a multi-screen system can do much better.

Anyway, are there any tweaks in the softawe to account for this? If you DO angle the displays, then you no longer have a flat "window" into the virtual 3D world. So the software should account for this (and ideally also the size of the bevels) and ask you the angles that you've set up your monitors. (I'm not a gamer so I don't know, maybe this is commonplace).

A really sophisticated setup would allow you to place arbitrarily sized monitors at arbitrary locations and angles, like portals onto an imaginary world. Would be best for flight/ship/tank simulators. Actually, if you're going to go this far, maybe it's just easier to use a virtual reality headset.