nvidia 680 and 3 monitors

[ReadyMan]

My only option with these monitors and the 680 are the 2 DVI ports and the display port.
Interesting that the 690 has 3 DVI ports.

I still cant get a hold of a 680. I hope they stop trickling these cards in and send a real shipment to newegg soon.

[BUBBALOU]

I get the strange feeling, some of the posters above only play Descent at 680x480 on 1920x1080 3D/240hz monitors......

Give me your hardware...... I have a couple of old CRT's in there garage you can have

Next on the horizon is DP1.2 compliant Monitors that have 2 DisplayPorts (for daisy chaining without the need for a MST)

[ReadyMan]

Still trying to get ahold of one of these 680s (seems like the EVGA store has them more often than newegg for some reason, but they dont last more than a few minutes)
With the 670s out now, they've got a 4gb version for $469
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.a ... Family&sw=

As opposed to the 2gb 680 SC edition for $520
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.a ... Family&sw=

the 4gb 680 at $629 seems way overpriced.

I've been reading a bunch of reviews and there's a few mentions of using these cards for triple monitor gaming.
Any opinion as to the 4gb 670 being better or not for triple monitors than the 2gb 680?

(I doubt I'll OC the card)
I even read a hint about a 685 card coming out that diminishes the value of the 680, but cant find much concrete on it.

[Krom]

There are decent odds that Nvidia has a bigger Kepler part in the wings, but with the yield issues on the 680 keeping it out of stock, it will probably be a while before we see something larger, and the cost is likely to be astronomical. Also some articles on the 670 vs the 680 revealed some interesting results, in several games the 670 and 680 perform identically even though the 670 has less shader power from one of the SM units being disabled. The only explanation for both cards performing the same is that the limit isn't the number of shader cores, but rather something that is the same on both cards: memory bandwidth. Both cards have 256 bit memory @ 6 GHz clock speed so if the games were limited by that, it makes sense the cards would perform the same.

So I would guess that Nvidia's potential "Big Kepler" product will feature a wider memory bus to improve that bandwidth limitation. They may also address compute performance, which is pretty weak in Kepler (at least compared to Fermi).

[ReadyMan]

Finally got the 670 4gb card, and after installation, everything worked right from the start!
Thank you all for the advice and input!


I'm currently enjoying 5760x1200....and wondering if I should put my 3 monitors into Portrait mode (3600x1920 resolution).
Anyone have opinions on portrait mode over landscape for desktop use and also gaming?

[FireFox]

I've always ran in landscape mode, never bothered with portrait. I do know from an ATi point of view there was some issues with compatibly of menu screens on some games in portrait mode. Also the fish eye effect on the side screens is not there if I recall correctly. It seemed to turn the screen into a big monitor with bezel in it, imo going with a 42" will yield a similar result less all the issues. I can be wrong but imo with the bezels so close to the center point of view it will bug the living daylights out of me especially if you use it for desktop use and watching movies. Even the 5x1 option from ATi's side isn't appealing to me due to the aforementioned.

Just my personal opinion best would be to try it and see.

[Valin Halcyon]

I bought 3x Dell 24" screens and removed their cases. I remounted them in their base casing and trimmed around the edges so that they'd fit together flush. Then I built a mount out of PVC tubing and mounted them to it with the 4-screw mount on the back of the original panel casings. Once mounted, I trimmed the casings further, and used rubber cement to seal them together, as it does seal, but is easily removed if I desired to change a panel. I then used the leftover portions of the front bezels to create a new front bezel that goes around the entire array, rather than just the individual panels and used superglue to mount it onto the array.

Result? 3 x 1 panel array with zero spacing between panels and a solidly stable mount.

[Krom]

Now that I wanna see, snap some pics for us if you would...

[Valin Halcyon]

No pics, but here is a tutorial about the process of debezeling you might find useful.

http://www.wsgf.org/node/18530

[ReadyMan]

Wow!
Very interesting way to cut down the bezel area.
Landscape warping on the edges of the monitors during gaming (flight sims) is annoying, but the 3 screens are terrific for desktop/every day work.
Currently I'm gaming on the center monitor at 1920x1200, with the 2 side screens running other pgrms.

Seems portrait mode does make for a very narrow center panel view....

[BUBBALOU]

low cost no effort solution stagger the left and right monitors behind the center brezel and secure with velcro

visually no difference

[Valin Halcyon]

Even better solution is my next project, using 3 HD projectors on an angled surface. /TT\ I've seen it done for in-home flight simulator cockpits and I'm curious to see how well it works for normal computing...

Simplest example:


The dream:


Preeeettty:


OMFG Hamster balls for all!!:

[roid]

Even better solution is my next project, using 3 HD projectors on an angled surface. /TT\ I've seen it done for in-home flight simulator cockpits and I'm curious to see how well it works for normal computing...

Simplest example:


The dream:


Preeeettty:


OMFG Hamster balls for all!!:

Arn't HD projectors super expensive? They are like 1 to 2 thousand $ each!

edit: NM, just searched ebay and found tons of them for under $400, even under $300. now i'm confused why the PC stores i looked at didn't stock these prices. There's probably some important quality differences i'd have to research all day to find out about

[fliptw]

They probably don't stock them because they are items that take up room on shelves that don't sell as often as LCD monitors.

[roid]

Have you seen this? It uses a tiny PicoP laser projector.
[youtube]AX2VLyJyMC0[/youtube]
It's low resolution though, a while back i was thinking of stacking a bunch of the PicoPs together for a wider field of view, and HD.

urgh it's annoying waiting for the price of tech to catch up with the ideas we want to implement.

[flip]

Fresnel Lenses FTW

[Valin Halcyon]

Eh...I see why he used those, but frankly they leave this circular sheen on the view that drives me slightly insane. I'd much rather just have the concave projection surface, 3 projectors, and correction software. Then put it outside of a cockpit window thing for depth/realism.