Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi Guys. For the record, this is my first post to this forum. Can I ask anyone here for some advice? I am something of a Novice to all this and some help would be gratefully appreciated.

I am running three 42" LG televisions, on two GTX 470 Nvidia cards in SLI mode. I have a Pentium Quad with Windows 7. I am playing mainly flightsims: Strike Fighters 2, Cliffs of Dover, Rise of Flight and IL2.

My problem is frame rates and resolution. On low resolutions the game plays fine, but getting anywhere near the 5760 X 1080 16:9 resolution which is native for the TVs, the games slow down to hideously low frame rates to the point that it's like watching a slide show of a game. I checked to make sure the games were running under "multiscreen mode" in the nividia settings.

According to most reports, the GTX470s, while not the latest thing on the shelf, should give an acceptable performance. My other option is to use a Matrox Triplehead2go. The odd thing is that the frame rates using the Matrox unit are quite good, even on the highest resolution, but the screen is reduced to a 4:1 aspect radio for some weird reason, leaving two huge, ugly black bands on all three screens. I'd rather go with Nvidia surround as, apart from the framerate issue, it's a lot less buggy than Matrox.

Any suggestions you might make would be appreciated.

2 470's in sli at that resolution will be pushing it. Adding a third 470 my be your best bet providing your psu is up for it.
What cpu are you running, pentium quad is a bit vague

I run 3 580s on 3 lgtv's as well and love it.

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intel x79
2 way 780ti's under water
Intel 4760 extreme @ 4GHz
3 x 42 inch screens @5860x1080
16 gigs xmp ram @2200

Hi Coolman and thanks for your reply. My processor is an Intel Quad Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz. The funny thing about this is that on the Matrox, I get very acceptable frame rates. I am in contact with their support people and I hope to get the very ugly display sorted out on the higher resolutions. Even though the display is all over the shop, the frame rates are fine. I think the difference is that the Matrox is a separate unit that plugs into the computer and does a lot of the foot work in managing the split screens, leaving the 470s to simply crunch the numbers for the game, whereas if I switch to Nvidia surround, the cards have to do all the work, hence the awful frame rates.

Do you think the GTX 470s are too old to be trying to run the maximum resolutions for the LG TVs?

Given that I only have two slots on my M/board, what would be an acceptable card to run these displays?

You'll need to watch VRAM usage very closely with 1.25GB of VRAM. Surround eats it up and begs for more. If you're careful with settings used, you can get pretty good framerates in a lot of games, even in Surround resolutions on GTX460SLI or GTX470SLI. But on most demanding titles, you'll have to cut back on a lot of the eyecandy.

Hi Again, and thanks to both of you for your help. For the most part, I have solved the main problems simply by ditching the Matrox unit and working with just the two Nvidia units. I improved the general performance in terms of desktop screen resolution and menus for games. The menus were for the most part invisible, appearing on the wrong screen or ending up spanning two screens. All these problems cleared up after I removed the Matrox. I fiddled with the graphics settings on several games and came to the conclusion that with the right settings, I was able to achieve a reasonable balance of graophics quality and frame speeds. I will sacrifice graphics quality for frame speed every time, as the whole point of this is to play games, not look at scenery, which is nice, bnut not vital. It seems to me that with teh entry of Nvidia and Eyeinfinity into the multiscreen gaming realm, Matrox is going to lose it's long held niche position in the multiscreen sector. I suspect they may retreat into the corporate sector and let ATI and Nvidia have the gaming sector. In any case I am reasonably happy with teh outcome: good frame rates at full resoulution on medium settings. I will invest in a set of two 570 cards when the wife isn't looking. Thanks again for your help.

Thread moved from General gaming discussions.

Did Matrox really ever pretend to invade the gaming market, though ? ;) Sure, they invented Surround Gaming, but look at their list of supported games: Hor+, Vert-, stretch, they don't really mind as long as the resolution works.
Again though, I think your problems were related to TH2G's 3x 1080p @50Hz mode.

To get back on topic: clearly, 470s are middle-range cards. Two of them are... still middle-range SLI.
On the other hand, 5760x1080 is a MASSIVE resolution that will heavily tax any GPU's performance. That's 6M pixels... A single 30" panel is only 4M. Definitely not middle-range class display !
Finally VRAM may indeed come into play, 1.25 GB is like the lower limit for gaming at that res.

And even with the best GPU possible Surround gaming means compromise more often than not... Lower settings and/or lower resolutions are your friends ! Nothing beats a satisfying framerate.