LCD screens make it very easy (and relatively cheap) to fit a three screen setup onto just about any corner desk. I used to think of it as a rich person's way to tear up ten pound notes, but after I experimented with two screens using an old CRT (thanks to the painless way Nvidia drivers allow this), I soon made room for a 1 LCD, 2 CRT experiment and invested in a Triplehead box to drive it. When my old 8800GTS 320Mb managed to run that setup better than I ever expected (with some compromises, obviously) I realised this was definitely the way forward. So it wasn't long before I bought three matched LCDs and a 260 GTX, and I've never looked back.
However it's mainly driving sims where the three screen system earns its keep. The super-widescreen view I now have is a big bonus when side-by-side, and it just adds to the experience immeasurably. But that's not the machine I spend most of my time on, so was able to gamble with cheaper monitors for my gaming system.
This machine I'm typing on is old and 'slow' but it does everything I need for mainstream PC use. It has a great Dell 4:3 LCD, which is much better than the cheap Samsungs I bought for the other box. In fact it cost more than the three of them put together when I bought it! However they're still pretty decent monitors, I just (probably) couldn't 'live' with them permanently. They work very well as windows into a gaming universe though, and that's all that matters.
One thing that has impressed me is how just about every game works easily in ultra-widescreen modes. There are quirks and occasional problems, but on the whole my Triplehead box (and presumably the AMD drivers) just informs games I have a silly-wide monitor and the game fills that silly-wide resolution to the best of its ability. DirectX seems to be well designed in that respect.
Anyway, enough on this subject from me.
Andrew McP
