What looks best for IL2 (& therefore SoW) - 3 22" screens, or 1 27"?
 

I'm planning my PC acquisitions, and my main dilema is guessing what would be best for SoW, Eyefinity with 3 22" screens, or 1 27" screen. I already have 1 22" screen (which I need to keep), so if I'm going for 3 screens, they can't be 24" or 27". But I could move my 22" display to the side (for when I'm not flying) and get something like a 27" monitor for SoW.

Can anyone with some experience of either set-up give advice?

Thanks

well, will your graphic card be able to handle the 27" resolution with BoB........................

Well, put simply, you'll get a hell of alot better peripheral view using 3 monitors. Going up on just the monitor size will only give you a larger picture. It's all a matter of preference but who wouldn't want better peripheral view in IL-2? All the wide mods just stretch the picture when looking around and makes you kinda feel you're looking through a wide lens, instead of real view.

YouTube has some good vids on eyefinity and IL-2.

Thanks for the replies.Well we don't yet know what BoB would like, but I haven't bought the GC yet (which is why I'm asking this question anyway) and I anticipate getting a fairly quick card. A 27" (with high res) should require less processing power than Eyefinity anyway (less total resolution).

Well with standard IL2, you have wide, normal and gun view, and I switch between them a fair bit. Having a larger screen will allow you to see the wide picture and have to zoom in less. I don't know if SoW will allow an even wider view, which would suit large monitors, but if not, then I agree with you. I would like more view, and depending on the SoW settings, a larger monitor might give you more vertical view for a given physical size (ie, if the size of your gun site is an inch on your screen, a larger monitor will give you more vertical view than 3 small monitors). Not sure if Oleg has commented on the view settings.

I've been on youtube searching for eyefinity IL2 this morning, and came up short. I saw a lot of Dirt2 demos though.

I have a 26'' Acer and is pretty good...
Three 22" I don´t know.
You will have 5760x3060 resolution.People who has three monitors use to have 2 or 3 SLI setup and this is $erious business...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDu9NZHkRUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1NE8n42EQA

A squadmate is running 3x22" monitors on a single 5850 in eyefinity. Depending on the card model ofc the main reason to why most Nvidia guys run 2-3cards in multi screen setups are mostly the lack of outputs. Even a GTX260(which is still a good card) can run triple monitors alone with a TH2Go set. It's when you start messing with multi-24"> @ 1920x1200/1080 each, that things start to get really demanding.

Ofcourse, it's never wrong to have the extra horsepower but what you really need and what people think you need are often two different things.:)

3 22" (at 1680x1050) would be 5040 x 1050. I believe it requires about double the GC power of a standard screen. Depending on what SoW needs, it's not out of the question.

No doubt SoW will be very demanding, and it might require SLi/CF to run 3 screens, we'll see. But I thought this would be a good place to see how people have found the comparison between a large screen and 3 smaller screens. Thanks for those links - I watched the second one this morning, but it didn't show any in cockpit footage which is what I'm after. The other one is useful, and it seems there are more like that, I'll check them out.

Well obviously we don't need these things :)

*to run it. :grin:

I'm running a 27" monitor and haven't gone over to an eyefinity setup. Mainly because it would require using three 27" monitors for me to see enough of a visual improvement over what I've got to make it worthwhile. And even then it wouldn't be worthwhile because I'd have to spend a fortune on not just the monitors (even if I could find ones to match what I've got) but also on an SLI or Crossfire solution to give me (maybe) the framerates I'd want at that combined resolution.

I have no doubt it would be more immersive than what I've got, bezels and all, but I just can't justify the expense as I'm not that much of an enthusiast.

Three 22" monitors in portrait mode would be bigger than one 27" monitor, but it wouldn't be an amazing difference, and I'd have the bezel issue to deal with, and it's possible, depending on what frame-rates and image quality I wanted, that even three 22" monitors might tip me over that point where I require a multi-card setup.

Three 22" monitors in landscape mode (whose overall width would be just over double that of a 27" monitor) would give me a lot more peripheral vision on the sides (which could lead to complications in itself), but the vertical height would actually be less than what I'm already getting with a 27" monitor, resulting in an overall look that I just don't think I'd like. It could also require a multi-card setup, and...all in all, in terms of complications and costs (actual and potential), I just couldn't be @#!%ed.

Thinking about it, by the time graphics power and overall display resolutions increase to the point where I don't even think twice about jumping on board, because the immersion's so much better and the price is low enough, this 27" will have to look like what a 17" monitor looks like now in comparison. Which could be more than ten years from now at the current rate the technology is being trickle fed to us plebs...

Sorry, going all tangential again.

A single 27" monitor would be better IMO.

But having said that, I also highly recommend cutting out some cardboard, one 27" monitor size, and one 3x22" monitor size (bezel spaces included), and supporting them on your desk to actually see what it is you're dealing with.

Interestingly enough, looking at those distances here myself, they pretty much correspond to the same amount of head movement I use while using TrackIR. I think, for immersion, if I had multi-screens, I'd want to have to look further than that, ie. I'd have to turn my head more than 45 degrees before the TrackIR started to have to move the image for me. Not sure 3x22" would be wide enough for that.

If I already had a 27" monitor, I wouldn't be asking the question, I'd stick with a single 27" (another 2 27" and GCs required at this point would cost too much for me). And if I had 3 22" monitors, I'd stick with that. Hoever, I have 1 22" now, so it's either buy 2 more, or buy a 27" - allowing a little more graphical power for the three 22" set-up, the total cost will be about the same for me.

If I went for 3 22", it would be in landscape mode, and I'm sure I'd like it (doesn't seem to be a problem with the examples on youtube), but whether it's better than a single 27" I'm not sure :)

The difficulty I'm having is comparing the two options specifically from the in cockpit perspective. I'd love the width of 3 22", as it allows you to use your peripheral vision without having to keep moving your head left/right, as with trackIR (which I'll also be using). But I'd also love a bit more height too, hence the dilema. If my main game was a car racing game, it would be 3 22", without doubt - perfect. But in my Spit I need to keep looking up for them bad guys.

I'm really not sure what's best, so I might just get a 6970 (if it's not too pricey), get the game, find out my FPS on 1 22" and then see what my options are.