[TerranUp16]

Link to blog entry with short video.

So basically, my company has been working on developing technology that allows for full usage of multiple displays and multiple devices (graphics cards). The reason we're so interested in both technologies is that at their most useful, they will provide a much better end experience to the player, and even for players with a single device and single display configuration, our set-up still will offer advantages while giving up microscopically little- if anything- in return.

The multiple display technology extends well beyond, well, multiple displays. Because it provides us a desktop environment to create movable 3D render surfaces in, we can even use the technology to more easily make single screen GUI layout better and improve performance (there is no 3D render behind GUI in this as there is in most games, so that helps cut down on the amount of 3D pixels your graphics card has to push). We can also use it for easy splitscreen and all sorts of other quick, utilitarian purposes. And then, of course, there are the things we can do with multiple screens, which are many and varied.

The multiple device technology allows us to tap into the power of heterogeneous devices. Homogeneous devices- SLI, Crossfire, Hydra, etc... arrays- act like single devices and provide the same benefits they always have, no loss there. But we can also tap into secondary devices (even those using different DirectX versions- only the primary card's DirectX matters and all screens render at that DX level, no matter what devices those screens are hooked into) to aid in our unique render loop, render physics, help the CPU with game calculations, etc... Basically, you'll want to keep your old graphics cards because they'll help give you a nice performance boost.

We hope that eventually this technology will become standard for all game developers, providing a better experience for all PC gamers.

[SniperX]

So...... And.... or am I missing the point?

[TerranUp16]

SniperX, on 16 January 2012 - 06:47 PM, said:

So...... And.... or am I missing the point?

Missing the point, but that's ok.

So first, let me address multiple monitor support. Yes, many games offer multi-monitor support in some capacity, and of course you also have nV Surround and Eyefinity add that as well. However, their implementations are very, very limited. The vast majority of listed games in that Wiki article simply expand the resolution of the primary viewport and combine the output displays (provided they are all attached to a single graphics card). For racing games, particularly if there is any built-in GUI recognition of this, it's pretty nice. For first person games it can even be ok. But if you've ever tried an RTS game with Eyefinity or nV Surround, you'll immediately notice some issues- some nice things, but some major issues too. And the core issue is that these games are blind to the extra monitors.

You then have another (far smaller) subset of games like Supreme Commander that recognize they are offering multidisplay capability and try to tailor it to their game. However, these solutions tend to only support up to a specified number of displays, and possess little to no customization with what different displays can do. Furthermore, the vast majority of these games continue with the nV Surround/Eyefinity trend of treating all space on all monitors as 3D space, which overwhelms most single graphics cards. The real exception to the rule in existing games for multimonitor support unsurprisingly comes from Microsoft in the form of its Flight Simulator games, which allow you to drag UI elements between screens- and that's the tip of the iceberg for what we're aiming for.

Here are some diagrams of the most basic of basic multidisplay set-ups you can achieve in Under Gaia:

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Those were actually created before we nailed down our whole desktop GUI system that the video teased, so really there's far more that can be done, but it should give you a basic idea.

Nonetheless, as awesome as multiple display support is, without also providing some mechanism of tapping into the power of multiple graphics cards, it can quickly wear out its welcome. Simply look at how rare it is for even the highest of high-end cards to be able to run new games at max settings at Eyefinity/nV Surround resolutions without SLI/Crossfire (which, to achieve the desired effect, is quite expensive). We want to lower that barrier, and we want to allow ANY secondary, tertiary, etc... card to be just fine and do the trick.

HybridSLI, Lucid Hydra, etc... all require very specific hardware that most users do not have (be it a specific motherboard or specific combination of graphics cards). Our technology allows a user to designate one graphics card (or array of graphics cards- SLI, Crossfire) as the primary card. That (among other things) sets the DX-level of the set-up, and so the highest DirectX level of that primary card can be rendered to any screen (regardless whether the screen is connected to the primary card or not)- that means you can combine a DirectX 11 GTX 580 and render tessellation and so on and have it output on screens attached to both your GTX 580 AND GTX 280. This gives you incredible freedom for what you can use as secondary cards, and we allow them to contribute in numerous ways.

The key is, you don't need special hardware to make this work. You just need hardware. All you need to do is keep your old graphics card when you buy your new one. Or go out and grab a used GTX 280 which is probably super-undervalued in aftermarket sales right now because it only supports up to DX10 (but if your primary is a GTX 560, boom, you don't even care that your 280 is DX10-only because it doesn't matter). Or we can tap rather nicely into integrated gpus to help out dedicated gpus without slowing the dedicated gpus down to do so (which was a constant problem for HybridSLI).

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TLDR: Most games with multiple display support only offer a very specific, minimally customizable implementation. We effectively run our games in a second desktop (that when you fullscreen will be fullscreen window for fast alt+tab) that allows us enormous flexibility in GUI creation and allows massive user customization. This desktop system is made feasible for average use because our multiple device support allows countless additional configurations to bear any additional load from multiple displays better.

This post has been edited by TerranUp16: 16 January 2012 - 10:57 PM

[SniperX]

If I remember correctly X3 uses that sort of system. Place consoles/maps/readouts on the second display. While i found that useful, I feel as if this would only be useful in other crazy sim types.

edit: Or EVE but only because that game made me retarded while I was playing it.

This post has been edited by SniperX: 17 January 2012 - 09:22 AM

[TerranUp16]

SniperX, on 17 January 2012 - 09:22 AM, said:

If I remember correctly X3 uses that sort of system. Place consoles/maps/readouts on the second display. While i found that useful, I feel as if this would only be useful in other crazy sim types.

Unless X3 revamped its support at some point, X2 was the standard there really. Still, the X games just make creative use of span which only works on a single graphics card or array of graphics cards. Technical differences, but significant in flexibility.

In terms of utility, our current project is Under Gaia, which is an RTS. Oddly, Supreme Commander is one of the few RTS games to offer any sort of proper multidisplay support, but the utility factor is huge. Supreme Commander and its sequel both offered a fixed configuration of one camera per screen (recall though that in Supreme Commander, you can zoom all the way out with your camera to view the entire map) and even that minimal functionality was a major improvement over other RTS games in terms of control and awareness.

Outside strategy games, MMOs, sims, etc... the most basic application of multiple display and multiple device is local (not LAN, but splitscreen per se) multiplayer. Still, even in an FPS, I'd much prefer to offload the minimap to one screen and chat, kill/death logs, and an always-on scoreboard to another screen.

[SniperX]

Split screen local play is not an application I considered,and as far as FPS goes I feel like the "extra" would be distracting although I could see where it would be useful to some. Has your company considered porting this into a standalone platform that you could use to modify existing games? I know that many people already use GUI edits in the MMO field.

And while I don't have a multi-display setup at the moment I do vividly recall being able right click and send to 2nd monitor.

edit: Also why am I not trolling you yet? Uhhh..... too many words.... I don't like to read.

This post has been edited by SniperX: 17 January 2012 - 12:19 PM

[TerranUp16]

SniperX, on 17 January 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Split screen local play is not an application I considered,and as far as FPS goes I feel like the "extra" would be distracting although I could see where it would be useful to some. Has your company considered porting this into a standalone platform that you could use to modify existing games? I know that many people already use GUI edits in the MMO field.

Yeah, when we made our presentation to IONStar (developers of the SQUID GUI library), they recommended as much. We're certainly interested in pursuing further advances with the technology, but right now we want to keep things (relatively) simple and push it with Under Gaia first. That will give us a chance to iron out the kinks and give the world a first-class view of what it can do.

SniperX, on 17 January 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

And while I don't have a multi-display setup at the moment I do vividly recall being able right click and send to 2nd monitor.

On Windows 7 currently I have to use a third party program to get something like that, though dragging between monitors and devices is easy. Translating that to in-application 3D has been something we haven't really seen much of from game (and even application) developers, and it largely comes down to the rendering pipeline- we handle that a little differently than industry-standard.

Side note, from the Dev Preview of Windows 8 I've been running on my secondary install, Microsoft is nicely stepping-up their multi-monitor support. Able to finally get a task bar on multiple screens without span or third party.

[SniperX]

SniperX, on 17 January 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

And while I don't have a multi-display setup at the moment I do vividly recall being able right click and send to 2nd monitor.

I meant that in regards to X3 sorry.

This post has been edited by SniperX: 17 January 2012 - 01:06 PM