Widescreen Gaming Forum

I see lots of members talk about triple monitor rigs and being new to all this it makes me curious what the benefit is versus just having say a 50"+ display. Seems like you could get the equivalent width with more height. Thanks for any input.

Well the first two things that stand out to me are:

1. Greater Raw Resolution - There are far more pixels than you would get with 1080p screen. (unless you are using 3x640x480 [3x480p])

2. Greater Field of Vision - On Triplehead Setups, you can see more around you. It make it much more immersive because you will be able to use your peripherals.

Beyond Games though, you get a greater sized desktop space. Being able to do a lot more at once is one of the best things triple monitors give you.

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For sheer size of display a big TV cannot be beaten. However TVs have their own issues as they are not set up for gaming. The main one being that the max res is 1920x1080. The same as a 22 inch monitor. So all you see is a VERY BIG image of the same area you see in a smallish monitor. With 3 24 inch monitors (or, wallet allowing, 3 30inch monitors) you see much more of the game. My in game FoV goes from about 85 degrees to 140 degrees. I can see out the side windows of cars/cockpits. I can see movement of enemies off to my side in FPS's. You also get the immersion factor. You cannot sit close to a huge 50 inch LCD, the picture looks shiite. But I can sit within 50cm of my monitors and the image is crisp and clear. So I get a real feeling of immersion, the screens fill much more of my personal FoV, the screen fills more of my eyes, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong, gaming on big screens is great. But for immersion and amount of game seen, multi-monitor gaming cannot be beat IMO.

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Dipping bags at Mach1.9

I have both so I can give a honest unbiased opinion.

Single Screen - Its big its cheap its fun, its much better than a single smaller computer monitor in my opinion it still made the games a lot more immersive and surround like even without the increased FOV that you get from triplehead resolutions. Some key benifits are that the resolution is a lot easier to drive at a high frames per second for all games, higher compatability with all games, and I really like the large size of text and icons and stuff when using it for computer stuff and not games/movies.

For movies and stuff or games that do not support TH the bigger TV is by far a better idea, also if your like me and have some video game consoles the TV has support for them plug & play while most monitors may not have the appropriate inputs to take the console games or the right resolutution to display them correctly forcing you to rely on hardware scaling, and hardware scaling in monitors is usually not the greatest, TV's have better scaling from what I have seen since they are designed to have to do scaling. It goes both ways though for sure, there will be HDTV's with bad scaling and monitors with good scaling just based on quality of the product.


Multi Monitor - Probably will cost you more than a single large HDTV screen but not nessisarily if you go with cheaper TN panels and opt for software TH instead of the more expensive hardware solutions like a TH2Go or a ATI eyefinity card.

For multi tasking computer work this is going to be a better option, you have 3x more pixels here so you have a lot more work space, of course the pixels and distance between the pixels is a lot smaller than the HDTV so you have to be closer up.

Its not going to be as good for consoles, single screen games, or movies and stuff so it would flat out lose in gaming catagory if it was not for the fact it can take advantage of all those extra pixels and increase the FOV of the games to give you surround gaming.

Gaming in surround is great, its more realistic and in general a lot more fun than a single screen, but it varies per game on how well it works and just how much an improvement there is to be had.

I find racing and stuff to be the best fit for multi screen, while games like First Person Shooter are nice on 3 screens but I could have been just as happy with my one big 37" infront of me.

RPG games are another one thats great on 3 screens, if your into WoW, Aion or the likes then 3 screens will be so nice to you. Dragon Age also is good but still has some problems.

3 Screens is a big move, lots of hardware, desk space and other things needed, but I cant say I regret the move and I also cant say that I do not miss the 37" screen as it came in handy for a lot of things. I still use it as a 4th monitor but as its mounted above the other monitors its just a tad too high to comfortably use at the desk to game with so I only use it for movies now where I watch from across the room and video games and have to settle for single screen gaming on a 24" monitor.

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In multi monitor set-ups, you can have several programs to go full screen on each monitor unlike having just one monitor. In one monitor, you will get tired of resizing windows.

In multi monitor set-ups, you can have several programs to go full screen on each monitor unlike having just one monitor. In one monitor, you will get tired of resizing windows.

Window resizing is not a big deal there are programs out there to handle that for you, everything from the matrox power desk to the built in windows 7 functions, the resolution would probably be a factor that is more important.

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I play console games on my large screen TV, PC games on my triple screen. Triple screen is almost always more immersive for games that support it well, but there's virtually no benefit if the game is broken like Vert- or HUD stretching etc.

i personally have 3x23" 1080p monitors that i don most of my gaming, but i keep a secondary 32" in front of my couch (still hooked up to my rig) for games that have Broken TH support or none at all.

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System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |