XP 64 : dualhead2go or expanded mode ?

[GSalden]

Hi,
This week I am getting my second 26" monitor.

In the past I always used horizontal expansion ; it had a framerate impact of 25-30%.

Isn't it true that Matrox blows up the image , cuts at the top and at the bottom a piece of the image and then spread the rest over all monitors ?

If that is the case one should think that using a dualhead2go gives better framerates than using expanded mode in windows alone.

Anyone ever tried to see the difference ?

[Trevor Hale]

I don't know about the unit "Cropping the image" I have not seen that, but yes, you get little to no framerate hit using a dh2go, or th2go unit. Expanding across multiple screens does give a framerate hit more then either of these units.

Trev

[Thunder175]

I run a Triplehead 2Go on XP x64. What the Triplehead (or Dualhead) basically does is make the computer see only one moniotr rather than two or three. What this basically does is triple your resolution width.

I have three 19" monitors that natively support 1280x1024 resolution each. What the Triplehead does for me is that it makes Windows see one monitor, and I jack up the resolution to 3840x1024. There is no cropping of the image, it just allows you to run double or triple the resolution width.

The only framerate hit you will see in FS9/FSX is because you are having to display more of the outside world. I mitigate this by running dual 7950GX2's for Quad-SLI.

[BHawthorne]

There should be little to no difference in FPS between horizontal-span in XP and DH2G in XP. On the other hand, if you use Vista or Win 7, horizontal-span no longer exists, so you have to use a DH2G.

Isn't it true that Matrox blows up the image , cuts at the top and at the bottom a piece of the image and then spread the rest over all monitors ?

Donno where you got that idea from, but all it's doing is spanning like horizontal-span does, but using a hardware box to achieve it. There should be no difference in rendering FOV between horizontal-span and DH2G. What I think you're talking about is called -vert. This occurs in some games where the camera code did not properly account for extreme aspect ratios. This is a limit of specific games, not a universal issue. Every game has a different codebase and 3d engine. They all behave differently to non-standard aspect ratios.

Simply put, you won't see a framerate difference between DH2G and horizontal-span mode unless you use SLI with the DH2G.