One big monitor, or three monitors?

[Forged]

Ok, not sure if this is the best place to post this - but I'm looking at upgrading my setup. I am seriously looking to get the obutto r3volution, and then upgrading my monitor.

I'm thinking of getting either 3 screens (maybe 24 inch - not sure), or getting one very large screen.

Does anyone have any input on this? What have you done, how has it worked? Do you wish you made a different choice?

Also - do you have the revolution? Are you happy with your purchase? :). I want to use it for flying (switching between side-stick and center stick depending on the sim), driving, and FPS.

Ultimately - would it be better to have three screens, or one huge one (and how huge)?

-Forged

[Untamo]

S!

Well, I thought about it quite long, and then decided to go for the one big one. I just couldn't accept the idea of having the bezels between the monitors interrupting my view.

Got this LG W3000H 30" monitor about 4 years ago, and haven't regretted a bit.

The 2560x1600 native resolution is the bomb. So much desktop space :) .. And no need to use antialiasing in games as the pixel size is so small you really can't see the jaggies.. well at least I can't, and I have perfect vision.

The biggest con is the price... ~1000 euros currently in some finnish shops. But I thought: I won't be needing a new monitor in at least 10 years, and this is the single most important piece of my simulator setup... so what the heck.. it'll only sting once :)

And.. having head tracking will make the three monitor setups a bit obsolete, I would think. Of course they add to peripheral vision, but I would guess that the help would be quite vaning. Three monitor setup guys should comment on that one :)

[335th_GRAthos]

IL2 had the possibility to handle three monitor view, giving you three times the field of view compared to a single monitor.

COD is not able to perform this (and it is unlickely it ever will, judging by the mediocre capability of the developers to optimize and improve performance during the past 14months).
subsequently there is no interest in investing on a three monitor setup if COD is the game you play.

~S~

[Forged]

I do have trackir 5 (which is simply amazing), and I didn't know COD doesn't have good support for 3 monitors! That really sucks. Well, I think it does. Can't say for sure since I've never used 3 monitors :grin:.

Despite the game apparently not (yet?) living up to its potential - I do love this game. It'll be my main game for years to come. I also play DCS warthog and p-51, and will be playing blackshark/etc. However, I don't see myself drifting too much from COD. I really like the WWII genre and would rather dogfight than manage BVR combat.

Thanks for the comments guys. I was slowly leaning to getting a single 30 inch screen before reading these comments - so now I'm definitely leaning strongly in that direction. I guess I could always get more 30 inch screens years from now (because they are expensive as hell) if I want more than 1 screen.

If anyone does use 3 screens for COD - I'd love to hear from you. Or if you use it in anything else (other flight sims, namely DCS, or racing sims).

-Forged

[FS~Phat]

I do have trackir 5 (which is simply amazing), and I didn't know COD doesn't have good support for 3 monitors! That really sucks. Well, I think it does. Can't say for sure since I've never used 3 monitors :grin:.

Despite the game apparently not (yet?) living up to its potential - I do love this game. It'll be my main game for years to come. I also play DCS warthog and p-51, and will be playing blackshark/etc. However, I don't see myself drifting too much from COD. I really like the WWII genre and would rather dogfight than manage BVR combat.

Thanks for the comments guys. I was slowly leaning to getting a single 30 inch screen before reading these comments - so now I'm definitely leaning strongly in that direction. I guess I could always get more 30 inch screens years from now (because they are expensive as hell) if I want more than 1 screen.

If anyone does use 3 screens for COD - I'd love to hear from you. Or if you use it in anything else (other flight sims, namely DCS, or racing sims).

-Forged

Cod works on tripple screen but performance is currently not great even with my system @ 6048x1080. It is playable on my system at 6048x1080 if I turn down settings a little but im using 4way SLI voltage modded 3GB GTX580s @ 1000/2200 Mhz and a CPU @ 5Ghz.
You can get the correct perspective and everything works, but as with most games there are perspective distortions which you cant do anything about.

It adds to the sense of immersion but it really doesnt make the game any better as such, you get a little more peripheral vision but not as much as you would think, as most of the view past 1/3rd of the outside monitors is extremely distorted (fisheyed) You can over come this by zooming in but then you loose too much vertical FOV and it defeats the purpose of having it.

So its a fun factor thing but to be honest a single 30" 2560x1600 or even a larger ~40" TV is going to create a bigger sense of immersion without the distortions and give you a more realistic life size representation. (one of the better gaming TV's and I cant tell you which because im out of date on good PC gaming TVs) Or you could go for a projector but they have their own issues with required space/light and low WAF! (Wife Acceptance Factor)

In a perfect world I'd like a quad HD monitor (4K res), 2x2 1920x1080 on top of each other giving 3840x2160 in one screen. These are coming but probably not for another couple years. So the best for now in reality is a 30". But you better have a pretty strong graphics card (GTX680/HD7970) with 3GB vram for that.

edit: 4K screens/projectors are still around $20k so dont expect any mainstream 4K devices under $5k for another 3-4 years.

[Forged]

Thanks for the feedback, sounds like you have a pretty beefy system!

I will be upgrading my video card when I get the new monitor. So that shouldn't be a problem. The rest of my system is definitely good enough. Not sure if I'm going ATI or GeForce. I've always been a GF fan, but my motherboard is xfire compatible, not SLI. It probably doesn't matter anyway, if I get a top of the line card, either brand will run this game with no problem on a 30 inch screen. In any case, I'll still have 2 other monitors hooked up to this (a cintiq 22 inch for digital ilustration work, and a 20 inch as a second monitor - not as an eyefinity/surround video setup).

Now I have to find a 30 inch screen :).

[Untamo]

S!

I can only recommend this LG W3000H. I haven't got anything bad to say about this other than that there is a slight "noise" in the picture, but you can only see if you look very closely at almost totally white areas of the screen. Otherwise it has served me perfectly for the last 4 years.

Some shops might have it on display, go and test it out :)