Surround Gaming

What is it?: A technique that gives a panorama view in some 3D games.
What computer or emulator will it run on?: A PC running Windows or RedHat with a Matrox Parhelia card or a TripleHead2Go adapter.

I first wrote this page in April 2005. Back then, Surround Gaming was supported only by the Matrox Parhelia family of cards. This card was introduced in 2002, but it works with several older games, starting with Quake III Arena. As of 2007-03-17, it seems not to be supported any more, at least the list of supported games has vanished from the Matrox website.

Matrox Parhelia
Anarchy Online	RPG	01
Return to Castle Wolfenstein	FPS	01
Morrowind	RPG	02	With FPS Optimizer
Neverwinter Nights	RPG
Serious Sam: Second Encounter	FPS

Meanwhile Matrox has brought out the TripleHead2Go adapter (or eXpansion module, as they call it). This is an external box that is connected to the video card with a standard VGA cable. It works with all the newer nVidia and ATI chipsets and supports 1280×1024 per monitor, while the Parhelia supported only 800×600 (officially; reviewers ran higher resolutions without problem). Note however that ATI chipsets support only smaller resolutions.

TripleHead2Go
Serious Sam	FPS	01
Morrowind	RPG	02
Neverwinter Nights	RPG	02
SimCity 4		03
Doom 3	FPS	04
The Sims 2		04
Oblivion	RPG	06

These lists are quite short due to the low number of newer 3D games on this website. Around a hundred games meanwhile support Surround Gaming with the Parhelia, around 150 with the TripleHead2go. Best effects are for racing and flying sims.

What You'll Need

A Matrox Parhelia card, starting at about $400, or a TripleHead2Go adapter, usually around $300.
Three monitors. Ideally they should be equally sized TFTs with as narrow a bezel as possible, but one reviewer was quite happy about the result he got with a 21" CRT in the center and two 17" CRTs on the flanks.
Windows (98, 2000, XP) or RedHat Linux. As far as I could find out, there are no Matrox Parhelia drivers for other systems. The TripleHead2Go, as a pure hardware solution, should work with any system, but I could find no evidence to confirm this.

Links