Multiple monitor gaming

[litegrace]

So I have recently been thinking about getting a second monitor for my computer to use as a chat screen or changing music/videos in the background while I play. Then I remembered that Nvidia has something called Surround that allows you to run a game on 3 monitors.

Out of curiousity, how much more of a drain on system resources would this be? Also, would I ideally need the same monitor to not get differences in color/brightness? My rig is: i7 4790k, 16GB RAM, GTX 970 (factory overclocked), 128 GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD. The main game I play is Final Fantasy 14, and I currently get 60-100 fps on max settings (depending on if I'm in a town with a bunch of players, or out in the world). Probably won't end up running the 3 monitors unless it's only a slight resource drain (which I doubt). Thanks1

 

[X79]

If you're running at 1920 x 1080 and your GPU has enough DVI and HDMI ports, you can do it pretty easily.

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

Instead of 1 1080, it's 3 1080, easy to calculate. Triple monitor gaming is basically cheating in most games, especially games like CSGO, where you can cover 3 directions at once, giving you a huge advantage. The developers are allowing this, but nobody cares. There's motherboard which lets you cheat, there's monitors which let's you cheat when sniping, and there are mice which let's you get rid of recoil, so where do you draw the line for what's considered "fair" and "not fair".

PC gaming as a whole is unfair, but for RPG's, and MMO's, like your primary game FF, and games like this, a triple monitor setup is really cool, but in a lot of games, just like the 21:9 aspect ratio, triple monitors aren't fully supported, even if it's available in-game. Expect a few games to look warped, or not function as you would want it too. Your GTX 970 is more than capable of a triple 1080 setup. And for racing simulators it's really cool to play on a triple monitor setup, as opposed to a single.

Even if you buy the same monitors, there's a high chance they won't match colors, and there's a even bigger chance even after calibrating they won't match, because manufacturers aren't telling the consumers when they use different panels, though in the TV market they do, because Sony among others was called out on it a while ago. Outsourcing is a huge problem in the display market, so ideal would be a single monitor, which the standard aspect ratio 16:9, pretty much everything supports not, unlike 21:9, etc.

5760 * 1080 = 6220800 pixels
1920 * 1080 = 2073600 pixels




All the best!

 

[litegrace]

Instead of 1 1080, it's 3 1080, easy to calculate. Triple monitor gaming is basically cheating in most games, especially games like CSGO, where you can cover 3 directions at once, giving you a huge advantage. The developers are allowing this, but nobody cares. There's motherboard which lets you cheat, there's monitors which let's you cheat when sniping, and there are mice which let's you get rid of recoil, so where do you draw the line for what's considered "fair" and "not fair".

PC gaming as a whole is unfair, but for RPG's, and MMO's, like your primary game FF, and games like this, a triple monitor setup is really cool, but in a lot of games, just like the 21:9 aspect ratio, triple monitors aren't fully supported, even if it's available in-game. Expect a few games to look warped, or not function as you would want it too. Your GTX 970 is more than capable of a triple 1080 setup. And for racing simulators it's really cool to play on a triple monitor setup, as opposed to a single.

Even if you buy the same monitors, there's a high chance they won't match colors, and there's a even bigger chance even after calibrating they won't match, because manufacturers aren't telling the consumers when they use different panels, though in the TV market they do, because Sony among others was called out on it a while ago. Outsourcing is a huge problem in the display market, so ideal would be a single monitor, which the standard aspect ratio 16:9, pretty much everything supports not, unlike 21:9, etc.

5760 * 1080 = 6220800 pixels
1920 * 1080 = 2073600 pixels




All the best!

Thanks for the response! While the obvious math would be to triple the resources needed, I figured it wasn't exactly triple the demand. The reasoning behind me believing this is that the same assets (mostly) should be in VRAM, and the fact that generally only one screen will have lots of stuff to render (in FFXIV at least). I feel like most of what is being rendered (as far as actions, characters, and animations) will be placed only on one screen at a time (depending on where you are facing), so would I be correct in assuming that the other 2 screens are using minimal resources in comparison?

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

It's the amount of pixels, each screen has an identical amount of pixels to render every second.