Matrox Triplehead2go

Mine arrived yesterday.

It is designed with 3 standard monitors in mind but I am using it with a
widescreen centre monitor which scales quite acceptably at 1280x1024
giving a total res of 3840x1024. With 2x 7800GTs in SLI GTL copes
remarkably well, as does NKPro. It will also run at 3072x768 and
2400x600 though my widescreen centre monitor looks a bit jaggy at 800x600.

I have always liked 3 screen setups and now it is possible with a single
PC with any high end graphics card config.

Works great for racing sims IMHO.

http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen1.jpg

http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen2.jpg

http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen3.jpg

http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen4.jpg

http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...ro_screen1.jpg

Cheers
Tony

"Tony Rickard" > wrote in message
. uk...
> Mine arrived yesterday.
>
> It is designed with 3 standard monitors in mind but I am using it with a
> widescreen centre monitor which scales quite acceptably at 1280x1024
> giving a total res of 3840x1024. With 2x 7800GTs in SLI GTL copes
> remarkably well, as does NKPro. It will also run at 3072x768 and 2400x600
> though my widescreen centre monitor looks a bit jaggy at 800x600.
>
> I have always liked 3 screen setups and now it is possible with a single
> PC with any high end graphics card config.
>
> Works great for racing sims IMHO.
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen1.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen2.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen3.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen4.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...ro_screen1.jpg
>
> Cheers
> Tony

Where did you buy yours from? I'm thinking of doing a setup with my 21
inches CRT monitor in the center and i would buy two 19 inches lcds for the
sides. The only problem is my graphic card. I only have a 6800XT at the
moment and i would need at least to buy another one to SLI them. Or i could
just buy a 50" DLP television and connect my computer to it...

(Tony Rickard) wrote:

> I have always liked 3 screen setups and now it is possible with a
> single PC with any high end graphics card config.

I was very excited by this at first... finally an excuse to buy an SLI
setup capable of driving lots of pixels. Then I saw the price of the
triplehead and woke up. :-)

I guess it's not too bad compared to the price of 3 monitors and a (pair
of) really fast vid card(s), but I just can't swallow that price.
Hopefully it'll inspire some cheaper competition though.

Andrew McP

Andrew MacPherson wrote:
> (Tony Rickard) wrote:
>
>> I have always liked 3 screen setups and now it is possible with a
>> single PC with any high end graphics card config.
>
> I was very excited by this at first... finally an excuse to buy an SLI
> setup capable of driving lots of pixels. Then I saw the price of the
> triplehead and woke up. :-)

The only previous alternative was multi PCs or a triplehead card like
the Parhelia (still at premium prices). What this does is mate to your
nvidia or ATI card so you are not locked into a specialist card that
isn't ideal for gaming.

> I guess it's not too bad compared to the price of 3 monitors and a (pair
> of) really fast vid card(s), but I just can't swallow that price.
> Hopefully it'll inspire some cheaper competition though.

Compared with a 30" widescreen it isn't a bad solution

Cheers
Tony

Bob Loblaw wrote:

>> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen1.jpg

> Where did you buy yours from? I'm thinking of doing a setup with my 21
> inches CRT monitor in the center and i would buy two 19 inches lcds for the
> sides. The only problem is my graphic card. I only have a 6800XT at the
> moment and i would need at least to buy another one to SLI them. Or i could
> just buy a 50" DLP television and connect my computer to it...

Direct from the Matrox online shop.

Sounds a perfect setup. The centre screen can be set to be your windows
desktop and the outer screens set to lose the top and bottom cm or two
to match up with the bigger centre monitor. Then you won't have to mess
with setting it up for Windows and sim racing every time.

It will be a lot cheaper than a 50" TV although you might just want one
of those anyway The TV won't give you 3840 x 1024 though.

Cheers
Tony

(Tony Rickard) wrote:

> What this does is mate to your
> nvidia or ATI card

You've reminded me of the other problem. I prefer to buy ATI these days
(a more political than practical decision, I admit) and the Triplehead
has some nasty limitations with ATI cards for some reason.

Andrew McP

Andrew MacPherson wrote:
> (Tony Rickard) wrote:
>
>> What this does is mate to your
>> nvidia or ATI card
>
> You've reminded me of the other problem. I prefer to buy ATI these days
> (a more political than practical decision, I admit) and the Triplehead
> has some nasty limitations with ATI cards for some reason.

Yes, ATI seems limited to 2400x800 with the Th2go (I think it is because
the X1xxxx cards are limited to 2560x1600 and the TH2Go works on
combinations of 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1200). Plus no support
currently for Crossfire

So nvidia cards are better supported as they can go right up to 3840x1200.

Still a huge improvement over the Parhelia but you are right, ATI owners
should take note and look at the compatibility table here before deciding:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offho...patibility.cfm

Cheers
Tony

Tony Rickard wrote:

> Yes, ATI seems limited to 2400x800 with the Th2go (I think it is because
> the X1xxxx cards are limited to 2560x1600 and the TH2Go works on
> combinations of 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1200). Plus no support
> currently for Crossfire
>
> So nvidia cards are better supported as they can go right up to 3840x1200.
>
> Still a huge improvement over the Parhelia but you are right, ATI owners
> should take note and look at the compatibility table here before deciding:
>
> http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offho...patibility.cfm

Anyone else using this? I really am very impressed and considering that
19" CRTs are being dumped by corporates a cheaper alternative than
large widescreen LCDs.

Cheers
Tony

I am thinking of getting the TripleHead also. What fps are you getting
in GTL at what in-game details settings? Do you use rfactor - if so,
what fps are you getting there at what in-game details settings? What
is the speed of your processor? Thanks!

Tony Rickard wrote:
> Mine arrived yesterday.
>
> It is designed with 3 standard monitors in mind but I am using it with a
> widescreen centre monitor which scales quite acceptably at 1280x1024
> giving a total res of 3840x1024. With 2x 7800GTs in SLI GTL copes
> remarkably well, as does NKPro. It will also run at 3072x768 and
> 2400x600 though my widescreen centre monitor looks a bit jaggy at 800x600.
>
> I have always liked 3 screen setups and now it is possible with a single
> PC with any high end graphics card config.
>
> Works great for racing sims IMHO.
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen1.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen2.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen3.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...tl_screen4.jpg
>
> http://www.baldrick.pwp.blueyonder.c...ro_screen1.jpg
>
> Cheers
> Tony

wrote:
> I am thinking of getting the TripleHead also. What fps are you getting
> in GTL at what in-game details settings? Do you use rfactor - if so,
> what fps are you getting there at what in-game details settings? What
> is the speed of your processor? Thanks!

AMD64 4000 with 1Gb RAM.

40+ FPS in GTL with pretty much everything maxed except shadows at
medium & 3840x1024. I will check with rfactor.

I was surprised as the jump from 1920x1200 to 3840x1024 had a relatively
small impact on FPS, knocking shadows down from high to medium and
reducing the AI from 20 to 12 seems to have got me back to close to the
FPS I was getting. SLI doesn't seem to do much for GTL at more normal
resolutions but I believe is helping out a lot at the higher ones. Not
tried disabling a card to find out yet.

Cheers
Tony