Widescreen Gaming Forum

hi!

i am new to this, but i read a lot about triplehead, softth, eyefinity already.

i have: a nice 24" full HD monitor and a Ati 5850 1GB card.

i want: triple rig for gaming as affordable as possible.

my first impression was to go for this:

add 2x 17" 1280x1024 in portrait mode to the sides (to save space) PLP problems realized

can i run this on one 5850er?
do i need a passive or active displayport to DVI adapter? or a second gfx-card? my mobo is sli and x-fire able.

as far as i know this would basically work, but:

i need to run games in window mode, to be able to span all displays - this might come with a performance hit => how much of a hit??

solution 2: softTH: might work for some games, but do i need a second graphics card?

eyfinity requires all monitors to have same resolution or i need to take the lowest resolution on all 3 screens
is eyefinity hassle free, or still lot's of tweaking to get it working?

what about performance?
1GB of VRAM might not be enough? if i skip AA and AF will the 5850 be enough for say BFBC2?

better to get an additional 5850 or better a 6950?

is it better to go for x-fire or one card with more power?

thanks for helping
mario

My suggestion is not to cheap-out on the displays. SoftTH is really problematic on universal compatibility and configuration. My suggestion is wait till you can afford two more of your 24" LCD. Unless you are prepared to have a frustrating case-by-case configuration of every single game you play with SoftTH, I warn you away from it. PLP is not the way to go if you want compatibility.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

thank you for the suggestion.
i came to kind of the same conclusion while reading a bit more on that topic.

and it's not the monitor prices that worry me - it's the 2 x FX480 i need to run it smoothly on 3 x full HD screens ;-)

mario