A Fresh Look At Multi-Screen PC Gaming 146
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."
Re:Niggling flaws? (Score:4, Informative)
nigglingpresent participle of nigÂgle (Verb)
Verb:
Cause slight but persistent annoyance, discomfort, or anxiety: "a nasty leg wound which still niggled at him".
Find fault with (someone) in a petty way: "he loved to niggle and criticize people".
Multiscreen should not mean widescreen (Score:5, Informative)
Just about everyone that uses a multi screen setup uses 3 screens in order to avoid the bevel in the middle. Usually the left and right screens are angled inward as to for a viewing arc. That is actually not a bad idea. Especially if the angles are such that the optical axis of each screens intersect at the user viewing position.
BUT...
Eyefinity or Nvidia surround don't work that way. They simply fool the rendering engine in believing the aspect of the rendering context is much wider. The result is that the virtual camera in the game uses a wider angle lens (Not quite but it will do to make my point). This causes the edges of the left and right screen to look rather distorted. Adding more screens width wise is really not worthwhile.
What is needed is multiple 3D contexts like you can have in Microsoft Flight simulator where each camera looks at a slightly different heading. But, why bother to solve that at the game engine level. NVidia and ATI pay attention this tip is free!
It should be possible to build true multiscreen logic into graphics drivers. If NVidia can do stereo they ought to be able to render outputs at different angles. Not only that, each output should not even assume that the optical center is in the middle of the screen either. Enter head tracking logic.
I did lots of experiments with multiscreen and what it would take to have the ultimate multiscreen experience. I even wrote some demo software to prove the point in these old videos show that I made four years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBdtPz2V_vY [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku76aHq3pps [youtube.com]
(Sorry about the cheesy sound track)
And still we are stuck with dumb distorted multi monitor widescreens!