Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition Review

I had reviewed the analog edition of the Matrox TripleHead2Go in February of this year and when asked to review the digital edition, my first thought was, "No problem!" However, it became more involved than I had originally guessed. The TripleHead2Go was, in my opinion, a fantastic eye-candy upgrade for any gamer. I enjoyed immensely having the "peripheral vision" that was missing before and it took me back into playing MMORPGs in first person view, improving the immersive aspect of a good role-playing game. How does one then review a new and improved version of the concept? What aspects of this eye-candy goodness could be improved? Would the speed difference from the analog to digital version even be noticeable visually? As it turns out, the improvements are to be found in more than one aspect of the package.

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Testing Methodology

I started out being determined to review the digital edition in comparison with the analog. Did I have the wherewithal to do an A-B comparison - that is, compare the two of them together? Remember that we're not a hardware review place with an office that has a bunch of hardware laying around. We do this for the love of the work. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for when I agreed to review this device!

I determined after the first weekend that it would be easier to cart the computer to the office than to cart all the monitors I needed back to my house. After several weekends over the month of September and into October where I played with different monitors and analog/digital connectors to see if I could see any real discernable differences. I realized that to be able to do a proper A-B comparison, I would require two identical equipment configurations with the Matrox unit and drivers being the only difference, and perhaps one comparison using DX10 on the computer with the digital edition and DX9 on the computer with the analog edition. Something that would be possible for a hardware review site - not for us at MMORPG.com (apart from MMORPGs not supporting DX10 yet).

I compared screenshots taken with the analog unit to screenshots taken with the digital unit. Is there any discernible difference? How would I show the differences to readers - not possible, since the quality of the screenshots would depend on the quality of the video card and viewing monitor. It would be like watching an ad for a wide-screen HD -TV on your old 12" TV and I finally concluded that I would have to review this unit on its own merits, then compare it to the merits of its younger brother - the analog version.

Device Description

The Matrox TripleHead2Go is what Matrox terms a Graphics eXpansion Module (GXM). It is a device which allows you to connect three monitors to your gaming rig for a resolution of up to 3840 x 1024. From the system's perspective, the TripleHead2Go acts like an ultra wide-screen monitor; the unit communicates to the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit on your video card) which resolutions it supports, the same way any flat panel would and the GPU decides whether or not to offer those resolutions to the user.

In laymen's terms; through the TripleHead2Go, your system thinks that it is feeding information to an ultra-widescreen monitor and your view of the game now covers a wide panorama over all the screens.

The device is a handsome, well ventilated black box, a little bigger than its analog predecessor, a little larger than three DVI connectors side by side, but still not much larger than a CD. Drawing power through a powered computer USB port, it has three DVI-D dual-link outputs on one face and a 15-pin VGA as well as DVI-D dual-link inputs on the opposite. Packaged with the box are one each of a USB cable, a DVI cable and a VGA cable. All cables have EMI/RFI (Electro-Magnetic Interference / Radio Frequency Interference) filtering on both ends and the

What's The Digital Hype Anyway?

DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface. It is a video interface technology designed to maximize the quality of digital display devices such as flat panel LCD monitors and modern video graphics cards. Just a year prior, gamers would have paid a premium for a digital LCD monitor. Today, most of the better flat panel LCD monitors are configured with dual DVI-D and Analog inputs. DVI-D stands for DVI-Digital which is used for direct digital connections between source video (namely, video cards) and digital LCD (or rare CRT) monitors.

DVI-D provides a faster, higher-quality image than analog, due to the nature of the digital format. All video cards initially produce a digital video signal. Previously, this signal would be converted into analog at the VGA output, the analog signal then travels to the monitor and is re-converted back into a digital signal. DVI-D eliminates the analog conversion process and improves the connection between source and display.

Moving further on, there's single-link and dual-link DVI-D. DVI cables send information using a digital information format called TMDS (transition minimized differential signaling). Single link cables use one TMDS 165Mhz transmitter, while dual links use two. The dual link DVI pins (and wires) effectively double the power of transmission and provide an increase of speed and signal quality; i.e. a DVI single link 60-Hz LCD can display a resolution of 1920 x 1080, while a DVI dual link can display a resolution of 2048 x 1536.

The Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition provides dual-link DVI-D. Are your eyes widening yet? What are your GPUs and monitors capable of? Check your video card's digital output. Three rows of eight pin receptacles and four around the blade? DVI-D dual-link. What does this mean for gamers? Bandwidth. Your speed of data transport is only limited by your cable quality (and length - DVI signal does deteriorate - the shorter the cable, the better the signal).

But wait. The Digital Edition of the TripleHead2Go supports Windows Vista and DX10 (8192 x 8192) so why a maximum resolution of 3840 x 1024? A query to Matrox resulted in this response.

"The maximum supported resolution is linked to the system's existing graphics card capability. DX9 GPUs have a 4K horizontal resolution limit, with DX10 this limit is now 8K. This definitely opens up the opportunity to support higher resolutions with the TripleHead2Go products. Having said that, the GPUs need to support this resolution not only to render 3D images, but to also drive a windows desktop. The latest DX10 GPUs that we tested in house still support a maximum of 4K resolution for the windows desktops - the situation could change with new driver releases from ATI or Nvidia. Right now, with DX10 GPUs, the maximum resolution that we can support with Triplehead2Go is 3840x1024 (3x1280x1024)."

Oh snap... my GPU only supports 2560 x 1600. So, when GPUs and standard (read "cheap") flat panel monitors are available that make use of the Quad eXtended Graphics Array standard, your Matrox GXM will be ready and waiting.

Software & Configuration

Matrox's PowerDesk SE application is the TripleHead2Go's control center and access is via an icon on your system tray. This program allows you to change or tweak every setting that's available to you to change or tweak. For example, the GXM receives EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) and displays the capabilities of all your attached monitors on the GXM setup. Using PowerDesk SE, you can add or remove resolutions depending on the number of displays you have, and also whether they're a standard or widescreen aspect ratio.

Within the PowerDesk SE suite is Monitor Bezel Management (configure desktop divider). Extremely useful in adding to gaming immersion. This allows you to tweak what each monitor displays to create a smooth continuous panorama. Just like you were looking out of a window or cockpit - with window bars in the way. The only drawback might be text that gets hidden behind those bars when your groupmates move that-a-way instead of this-a-way, and their chat bubbles end up behind the bars (or bezel of your monitors).

Let me get a plug in for a utility embedded in PowerDesk SE that's more for productivity than gaming, the Desktop Management Utility. This utility allows you to configure how you want Windows to maximize applications. Normally, Windows will maximize across the entire desktop and since the GXM fools your computer into thinking there's only one monitor, it would spread the application across all three displays. With the Desktop Management Utility, you can manage where your application launches.

The Matrox Surround Gaming Utility (SGU) assists you in setting up your games for the TripleHead2Go. When you start the program, it searches for the usual suspects - that is, it looks for game executables in the usual places, not in the more profound places you might like hiding your games in, but it also provides the ability to browse as well as search your hard disk. Once you have identified the game.exe file, you can select the resolution to optimize the game in. It creates a game configuration file to have proper settings enabled for TripleHead2Go resolutions. It does not replace your current file and this version gives you the option to place an icon on your desktop with the word "Surround" appended to the name of the game. The SGU also provides the ability to reverse all of this with the push of a single button.

Testing

I like to think that I have plenty of graphical power for MMOG gaming, and I do. Two graphics cards in SLI (Scalable Link Interface) enabling the load of rendering a 3-D game to be split between two GPUs. As with the previous analog version of the TripleHead2Go unit, the displays were clear and crisp. No rendering slowness could be perceived. Although unable to do a proper A-B comparison with the analog unit, I fancied that the picture was better with the digital unit, less jagged edges, with better colors and a crisper black, especially when used with a digital monitor.

I tested this in Dual monitor mode as well. So, well, yes... this is certainly not recommended, as the center of your screen falls smack in the middle of the bezel between your monitors.

The hardware and software were easy to set up. With your computer off, you plugged the unit in and set the monitors up. The graphics printed on the unit itself clued you in on where things needed to go. Once powered up, I installed the software. All in all, it took me about 15 minutes and with the software suite installed, I was ready to game in ultra-widescreen wonder.

What's the Improvement?

It's Digital - 'nuff said. This unit is rather future proof. It is self contained in a single external box. You may upgrade your monitors, your video cards, your software, but you aren't going to get better than DVI-D - not in the near foreseeable future. Improved User Interface: PowerdeskSE and SGU - this suite of utilities makes the GXM a doddle to use.

Flexibility: Being able to use the unit with up to as few as two to as many as four monitors (using a laptop and the unit as a TripleHead) can't be beat. This new unit will still take regular VGA as a source, and outputs to three different monitors. To add even more flexibility, you can mix and match monitors however you wish: not all of your monitors have to be digital. Your multi-monitor setup can include 2 analog monitors and a digital LCD panel, a 3-LCD setup, or any other combination. If you can't scrounge together 3 monitors, then don't worry: the unit will also function as a DualHead2Go, and you can add another monitor later.

The value-add: The USB Power makes it a much more compact set up without having to fuss with an additional power cord and DC transformer, heaven forbid you lose that DC transformer. EMI/RFI shielded cables - just that little extra. Is that better than gold-plated terminals? I think so.

The only drawback that I can see is that at two feet, some may deem the cables a little too short. For me, they were quite long enough for the unit to sit on top of my computer tower.

As for being able to game with your playing field extended - extended, not stretched - over the length of three monitors? Kick-ass.

Kudos to Matrox for taking one sweet gamer eye-candy upgrade and kicking it up not just one, but a few notches.