Confused - triple screen setup

[TheORDL]

Hi guys,

Now that ive started planning a new rig ive been looking at possible triple screen setup.

Now please forgive my dumbness;

So triple screen on ps3 = 3x console, game etc

I was thinking of getting a gaming pc, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for mods, motion etc and would cost only a little more than more consoles and games that i would need extra.

Could i not sort of kill 2 birds with one stone here, is it possible to have 1 ps3 running gt5 and have the ps3 connected via hdmi into a pc. From there can the pc spread the image across 3 screens?

I dont know too much about current pc capabilities or triple monitor setups so any advice is appreciated.

Cheers

Evo

 

[Devedander]

That's not how it works... the problem is you need 3 screens worth of pixels drawn and the right aspect ratio.

If you just took one screen and stretched it it would be both very low resolution and look really wide and stretched out. You wouldn't actually see any more to the sides than a normal single screen.

The point of triple screens is to actually draw the data to each side you don't usually see. On a console it takes 3 consoles to do it usually due to hardware performance constraints but also just in general due to how it's programmed (ie consoles aren't programmed to support more than 1 monitor natively or any aspect ratio other than 16:9 and 4:3)

 

[left888]

Get a good PC and join the legions of PC racers. From iRacing to rFactor we have triple screen racers and there is no need to buy 3 consoles. Check out my triple 55" monitors, I race mostly iRacing.

 

[TheORDL]

Thanks for the replies guys. How stupid am I, forgot the side views are taken care of by the other PS3s.

@left888, nice setup. I dont have that much funding available, however il look into PC spec that I would need and get an estimate of cost. If I post what im looking at would you be kind enough to give it the once over to see if what im looking at would be suitable.

 

[TheORDL]

Hey guys. After a little advice on pcs. Im looking at getting a budget pc for now but im looking for one that has potential to be upgraded over the next year or so. Il be getting one from here:

http://www.very.co.uk/electricals/desktop-pcs/pc-base-units/e/b/101004/s/price,1.end

Price limit is £450.

Which, if any offer the best value and potential. A zoostorm on there with a gt630 4gb but have read its a bad card. I know only a little about pc building so any help would be great.

Cheers

Evo

 

[sesselpupser]

Some questions:

What are you going to be playing?
Would you consider a self build, bearing in mind it's really, really easy but takes a little time? You'll get far better value for money if you do. You'll also learn a lot.
What sort of spec do you want from it?
Just how far do you want to go with upgrades?

You might like to start a separate thread to discuss building a PC in the Computers and Tech subforum, I'd say that question makes up 25% of the threads there and most regulars would be more than happy to weigh in. Not that this is an especially bad place to ask, but you'd get more help with a thread there.

£450 would get you quite a basic PC though because you have to remember that you have to buy the operating system. If you were to spend closer to £600 to get a decent motherboard and power supply you could feasibly look to upgrade the processor, RAM and graphics card in future... You could, depending on what you want to play (it would have to be old, not particularly taxing stuff), possibly scrape by with the processor's integrated graphics rather than buy a separate graphics card to keep things cheap.

 

[TheORDL]

Thanks neema;

Looking at getting into triple screen racing eventually, various titles and may be a bit of Iracing.

Ive built my own PCs before but a few years ago. Id want ample capability for running such titles and to be able to record from Hauppage Gamer 2 from my PS3. We run a league and could do with getting some replays online.

General admin and office work should be fine.

Im struggling with processor types more than anything and which to go for, budget will be tight for now so thats why i put the max i did.

So Spec wise;

2.8ghz or better
4gb ram - upgradable to 8
500gb hdd
graphics - intergrated for now eventually to go for something supporting 3x monitor

If one of the budget pcs has a motherboard with potential for expansion then that would help. Dont know which has the best prospects for future upgrade.

hope im making some sense!

Evo

 

[wajdi1977]

You need at least
3.3ghz
8gb ram
GPU like HD7000 Series! I have the HD7950 Flex edition and I run rF2 without any problem.

 

[TheORDL]

Had a quick look online, hows this look?

AMD A6 5400K Black Edition 3.6GHz Socket FM2 4MB L2 Cache
Asus F2A82-V Socket FM2 DVI D-Sub HDMI 8-Channel HD ATX Motherboard
Corsair 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Red Vengeance Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24)
Sapphire HD 7850 OC Edition 2GB Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card
Seagate 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Barracuda Hard Drive 7200RPM 16MB Cache
Pioneer S20LBK 24x DVD Writer Drive
Powercool 650W 80plus Certified Efficiency PSU - 4x SATA 2x PCI-E

Just confused still about triple monitor, will i need 2 Sapphire cards?

 

[wajdi1977]

You need an active display port to run 3 screens!
http://www.accellcables.com/B087B-005B.html

I advise you the HD 7950 Flex Edition, because you don't need those active display ports with it!

 

[TheORDL]

You need an active display port to run 3 screens!
http://www.accellcables.com/B087B-005B.html

I advise you the HD 7950 Flex Edition, because you don't need those active display ports with it!

Thanks,

So would any of the PCs on that link be suitable for a base with potential?

http://www.very.co.uk/electricals/desktop-pcs/pc-base-units/e/b/101004/s/price,1.end

I need something soon for admin/word etc and can look to upgrade parts over time.

Evo

 

[wajdi1977]

when you want to buy a new pc, you should be very patient! take your time before deciding which PC you will buy!
when I upgraded my last PC, it have spent 5-6 weeks in internet and i had visited many specialized sites, I have asked the opinion of a lot experts.... then I made my decision!
You dont change PC every week. so take your time mate!

 

[Troysloth]

when you want to buy a new pc, you should be very patient! take your time before deciding which PC you will buy!
when I upgraded my last PC, it have spent 5-6 weeks in internet and i had visited many specialized sites, I have asked the opinion of a lot experts.... then I made my decision!
You dont change PC every week. so take your time mate!

Totally agree here. I recently purchased a new PC and spent over 2 months of online research, and asking for help on forums before I finally made the purchase. I was originally planning to build it myself, but one day I was checking CyberPowerPC and found out I was able to have them build it for me for less than it would have cost me for just the parts. That may not be true for all builds, but it worked for me.

Whichever way you decide, whether to build it yourself or buy it pre-built, do plenty of research and ask questions. There are plenty of people here that have either bought or built new PCs, so this is a good place to ask.

Here are the specs for the PC I bought in case you are wondering: Case - Corsair Carbide 300R mid tower, Power Supply - Corsair 850TX V2, CPU - AMD FX-6300 with Coolermaster V6 GT fan, MB - GigaByte GA-990FXA-UD3, Video Card - AMD Radeon 7970 3GB DDR5, RAM - 16GB (8GB x 2) G.Skill Ripjaws X, HDD - WD Caviar Black 1TB, OS - Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I spent just over $1300 with shipping. Your mileage may vary.

If you do get an AMD video card, make sure you get monitors with a display port. This will allow you to hook up triples without any adapters. You will only need 2 mini-display port to display port cables and 1 HDMI cable. I have 3 ASUS VS278Q-P monitors. 2 are connected by display port and 1 by HDMI. I just use the included AMD Eyefinity software to set up my display for 5760 x 1080.

 

[Gunstar]

I don't want to make this sound too simple, but I just slapped a 660TI (and a better power supply) into my old 2.4 quad core, plugged in 3 TVs with HDMI and boom, triples as easy as you could want. Total cost with card, displays and cables was just under a grand, and I got free Borderlands 2!