Widescreen Gaming Forum

The quotation is mine, and the quotes are from emails sent by Matrox employees. I wanted to put Matrox's language in the review because I feel their choice of words is very significant.

Ghimpi, I don't believe there's anything wrong with what I wrote. I said "new DX10 GPUs such as the NVIDIA 8800 series have increased [the pixel] limit to 8192 pixels, even in DX8 and DX9 applications." As always, people have to read carefully.

I don't see anything wrong with that quote, but people are misquoting your article. ;)

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

Erm, there's one thing I'd like to be certain of : are we discussing max res in 3D games, or on the desktop and in 2D apps ? Because I remember reading stuff about DirectX, and I'm pretty sure there were limitations (shattered by DX10, but not abolished) to the size in pixels a 3D game could be displayed at - in fullscreen.

In UT3, you can take gigantic screenies using the tiledshot command, basically multiplying your res by 2 (3840x2400 for a 1920x1200 monitor for instance), but you can raise the bar on your entire system and multiply by 8 (30720x19200 !!!) :shock: So it's hard to talk about limitations (and this trick is not even limited to DX10, I used it myself in DX9 mode). Of course, you have to do that in a window though :wink:

Erm, there's one thing I'd like to be certain of : are we discussing max res in 3D games, or on the desktop and in 2D apps ? Because I remember reading stuff about DirectX, and I'm pretty sure there were limitations (shattered by DX10, but not abolished) to the size in pixels a 3D game could be displayed at - in fullscreen.

In UT3, you can take gigantic screenies using the tiledshot command, basically multiplying your res by 2 (3840x2400 for a 1920x1200 monitor for instance), but you can raise the bar on your entire system and multiply by 8 (30720x19200 !!!) :shock: So it's hard to talk about limitations (and this trick is not even limited to DX10, I used it myself in DX9 mode). Of course, you have to do that in a window though :wink:

I've achieved 6400x1024 (SoftTH + TH2G Analog) full screen 3D in DirectX9.0c so there is definitely not a software 4096 limit on DirectX 9.0c.

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

Erm, there's one thing I'd like to be certain of : are we discussing max res in 3D games, or on the desktop and in 2D apps ? Because I remember reading stuff about DirectX, and I'm pretty sure there were limitations (shattered by DX10, but not abolished) to the size in pixels a 3D game could be displayed at - in fullscreen.

We are discussing max res in 3D games. We know that games can be run at 5040x1050; it's a proven fact using SofTH. Matrox's argument for not providing 5040x1050 support through the Digital TripleHead[/i]2Go[/i] is that this is not a supported resolution on the Windows desktop. One would imagine that this is a limitation of a single "monitor" (if it is really a limitation at all), because we know that this resolution can be achieved on the Windows desktop using multiple monitors.

Ghimpi makes the valid point that DX10 really has nothing to do with this. It just so happens that GPUs switched from DX9 compliancy to DX10 compliancy at the same time they moved from a 4096-pixel limitation to a 8192-pixel limitation. So everyone says (myself included from time to time) that "DX10 GPUs" can render 5040x1050 or larger resolutions, but that really is not the accurate way of describing things.

I call BS on Matrox's part; I think they are using a Windows desktop resolution limitation as a cop-out. There is no reason to assume that users, especially the typical TripleHead2Go users, need to run their desktops at the same resolution as their games. If widescreen triplehead users run 3840x800 on their desktops and 5040x1050 in games, so be it. If their is an actual hardware limitation preventing 5040x1050 in the Digital TripleHead2Go, then Matrox should tell us that.

Anyway, it is unfortunate that Matrox does not seem to ultimately know what will happen here. At the same time, at least they haven't told us it will never happen.

Very interesting thread...and a bit confusing. :?

So, I just fired up a game at 4500x1200 and it ran fine. Only one section of the game window fits on my display at any one time (screen is 1440x900), but this should indicate that my GPU (8800GTS) and DirectX version (9.0c) are clearly capable of running this resolution, right? If I had the means to connect multiple monitors or 1 ginormous panel, I should be able to play this game at that resolution without any problem, yes?

edit
I didn't use SoftTH or any special utility. I just manually edited the game's config file for this resolution.

edit 2
Removed annoying word repetition.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

GeneralAdmission,

That depends. First, you would need monitor (or "monitor") capable of handling this resolution. The TripleHead2Go is this "monitor", splitting an image and displaying it on three actual monitors.

Second, you have to be able to put this resolution through a dual-link DVI cable.
2560x1600, which we know works on dual-link DVI, is 4,096,000 pixels.
5040x1050, which we think works on dual-link DVI, is 5,292,000 pixels.
5400x1200, which may exceed the bandwidth of dual-link DVI, is 5,400,000 pixels.

So it could or could not work, depending on the above.

JKeefe,

Thanks for the data. Based on this information, it appears the restricting factor for ultra-high resolutions is not DirectX or the GPU, but the limitations of the DVI display connection, correct? Is there a different display connector that can supplant DVI and offer greater resolutions?

Also, the fact that I ran a game at 4500x1200 kinda proves that DX 9.0c is not limited to 4096 horizontal pixels, which surprises me because that number gets spouted off everywhere as gospel truth.

One question about your numers. Shouldn't the last entry of 5400x1200 be 6,480,000 pixels?

Does anyone know the highest successful resolution output by SoftTH?

Interesting stuff.

--off-topic--
I just noticed that you run TH on 3 21" CRTs. You must have a monster of a desk to hold that weight! :shock:

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

Interesting stuff.

Indeed !

I'm all for higher resolutions in the next TH2Go.. the last 2 generations of video cards (nvidia 8xxx, 9xxx or ati 3xxx/4xxx) can easily support these high resolutions, so why are we still stuck with obsolete 1280x1024 monitors?

I'm all for higher resolutions in the next TH2Go.. the last 2 generations of video cards (nvidia 8xxx, 9xxx or ati 3xxx/4xxx) can easily support these high resolutions, so why are we still stuck with obsolete 1280x1024 monitors?

Unless someone more knowledgeable can correct my findings, it appears the culprit is the DVI connector. Until that gets a significant replacement/upgrade, we're stuck. :(

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods