Multimon? Three is perfect. Four is painful.
Not too long after beginning my programming career, I worked for a dot-com company that bought Matrox G400 dual-head video cards for all employees, along with two 19″ monitors. Those of us who use multi-mon setups know that once you move from one monitor to two, it’s very difficult to be happy with just one.
Well ever since about the year 2000, I’ve felt like I needed another monitor. It’s not that two was all that great – it’s just what I was used to. I kept feeling like I could be more productive with a third monitor.
Earlier this year, I bought a third L90D+ Samsung LCD monitor along with a second GeForce 7800GTX video card. I happened to have an Asus motherboard that supports dual PCI Express x16, so I could just drop in a second full-speed card. Combine those items with an older 17″ LCD I had around and voila. Four screens: 5120 pixels across and 1024 high.
The gamers and multi-mon users in the crowd are probably nodding heads, “Yes, nice rig,” but I encountered a serious problem. There was too much room!
Yes, that’s right. I had to move my head too much to see all the screens. I’d put something in the fourth monitor waaaay over there and I’d get a crick in my neck from looking over that far. Eventually I found myself putting nothing in it. Then I turned it off. Finally, I removed it.
So lesson learned: For those of us in the dual-monitor club, three monitors is an awesome upgrade. But stop there. Your neck will thank you for it.
Are they mounted left to right? Maybe you should mount two on top, two on bottom?
Of course then you’ll get neck cramps from moving your head in circles.
Comment by Steve Nelson — November 17, 2006 @ 12:00 am
I have 3 19" monitors as well and would never go back! It’s hard to enunciate the benefits of having multiple monitors until you’ve tried it. Though I agree three is probably the max. As it is, I feel like I’m at NORAD.
Comment by Brian Kotek — November 17, 2006 @ 12:00 am
Ya, I ran 3 21" monitors at my last job, it was cool – but at that point you’re borderline. The amount of mouse movement you have to do is tremendous, and with those huge monitors I was turning my head back and forth like crazy too. 4 would be extremely challenging at 21", but might be worth it at 17".
Comment by Tariq CFLEX Ahmed — November 17, 2006 @ 12:00 am
They were three in a line, left to right. Two virtual desktops, using nVidia horizontal span. Brian, you like three, but I’m warning you: Do not go to four. I can understand if you have to occasionally monitor something.
Tariq, when I explained the situation to Patrick (another Webapper), he thought it amusing that of all the possible problem: drivers, desktop management, bugginess, cost, power, the ruinous factor was *ergomonics*. He laughed. There are some things that you just can’t fix.
I do however, make great use of three settings in the mouse control panel. I’ve increased the mouse pointer size to Magnified, I’ve increased the speed a hair, and I use Enhance Pointer Precision. I can rip across three monitors, 3840 pixels, in a couple inches of mousepad due to the acceleration setting. nVidia is the way to go for management utilities. ATI has always been deficient in that regard.
Comment by Nat Papovich — November 17, 2006 @ 12:00 am
I once saw a Silicon Graphics video that predicted everyone eventually having a monitor that covered the whole surface of the desk, then curved around and went up the wall behind. I cant wait, meantime I will have to save up for extra monitors. What reall annoys me about the two monitor situation with Matrox Hardware is that all the dialog boxes come up in the position where the two monitors join and that makes tme difficult to read.
Comment by Kevin Roche — November 20, 2006 @ 12:00 am
You know I was thinking about this over the weekend, and I thought of what would be perfect with 3 monitors. WhenI did 3, I used the normal aspect ratio 21" monitors (the 1600×1200 kind).
Right now I’m using two 21" widescreens from Dell. They can be rotated 90 deg if you want more vertical space vs horiztonal. 3 of these in that 90 deg ratation woould be perfect, as they’d be fairly narrow enough that side by side don’t require a ton of head movement to pan across, but gives you at the same time that massive desktop space.
Comment by Tariq CFLEX Ahmed — November 20, 2006 @ 12:00 am
There’s a high res pic of this proof of concept monitor that Microsoft made. It’s as wide as 3 monitors, but it’s one continuous monitor that’s curved for massive desktop real-estate. I saw it in a vision of the future video from MS.
It’s hard to tell, but there’s an image on this page that looksl ike it may be it.
http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx?id=433
Comment by Tariq CFLEX Ahmed — November 20, 2006 @ 12:00 am
I know 4 is problem, but thats only because you are not using the Zenview Arena Ultra HD with a 30" primary screen and 5 others around it!! Thats what you need!
Comment by Andy Jarrett — November 21, 2006 @ 12:00 am
Forgot the url: http://digitaltigers.com/zenview-arena-ultrahd.shtml
Comment by Andy Jarrett — November 21, 2006 @ 12:00 am
That’s just wrong, Andy! But I know that the multi-mon world (beyond dual monitor) is mostly filled with stock traders. They need to keep an eye on lots of things up at once. But $8000? No thanks!
Comment by Nat Papovich — November 21, 2006 @ 12:00 am
Does anyone have any advice about gaming on 3 monitors. just bought myself a triplehead2go but the quality is heartbreaking compared to the crisp bright DVI signal I am used to. I’m thinking about getting another graphics card to drop in the other PCIe slot but I suspect I will not be able to span the 3 displays into one big screen for gaming if I use 2 cards. Any ideas?
Comment by Kevin Mullen — November 26, 2006 @ 12:00 am
Nat,
What you might find is that the purpose of the other monitor (3rd or 4th) really should have another user.
From my experience, I find the extra monitors after 2 are best suited to continous or non-related tasks ( server monitoring, Remoting to other machines, Large FTP , etc…) These type of tasks are excellent for that.
You probably also noticed that you need to move the monitors back a little to minimize eye/head movement. Best to think of it in car terms. All your mirrors should be viewable with only the slightest head or eye twitch. Apply some of this and 4 monitor bliss awaits
.. Oh and if you want try TopDesk for Expose like functionality.
Hey, are you still "accidentally" destroying Steves AOE villages?
Comment by Kevin — December 8, 2006 @ 12:00 am