Originally Posted by Ieyasu
you can run eyefinty from a single card for the past 2 generation of amd/ati and current gen nvidia 6 series gpus. you can also toss 3 22" monitors together for about 350$ I can build an eyefinity setup today for around 600$
how is my running 5760x1080 a huge advantage over someone running 1920x1080 (relatively common res nowadays) compared to someone running 2560x1200 vs someone else on 800x600 monitor resolution? Think its pretty clear from your post that you are one of the ones who cannot afford a setup so dont want others to be able to use theirs...
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What part of "Yes, I could go and order some cheap monitors today, but am waiting for the fall to get IPS monitors" says that I'm "one of the ones who cannot afford a setup so don't want others to use theirs..."? Unless, you know, you're just outright calling me a liar, in which case you're just rude instead of incapable of (or unwilling to try) reading. Or trolling, I suppose.
The advantage of the 5760 horizontal resolution doesn't come from the resolution itself, but in the ability to run wider fields of view. "Virtual" peripheral vision is very advantageous when you're playing games where threats can come from any direction, and that's what widening the Field of View gives you. Your 3-monitor setup with a 225 degree FOV lets you see the Light Assault sneaking up on you from the side, or allows you to actually SEE forward in your tank while you've got the turret rotated 90 degrees without messing with freelook controls.
I don't think I can spell it out any more than that why this is an obvious advantage over somebody not able to drop your $600. Which, by the way -- yes, the latest and greatest cards can run it without a dual-card setup, sure; but not as well as dual cards and they're expensive cards to boot. So whether you spend $500 on a new GeForce 680 or $200 on a new motherboard and then $300 on a second of whatever your prior graphics card was, you've still dropped half a grand before even getting the monitors to upgrade your non-Eyefinity/Surround computer.
And maybe you're just fine with that. But take a look at Planetside 1 and its population even before its graphics were dated. That's the potential market for a game that requires a higher than normal financial investment from an FPS player -- for PS1 it was a subscription. If you go and make all the people not willing to put in a higher than normal financial investment not want to lose to people who are... you'll get the same degree of "success" that PS1 did. And I'd rather play against jam-packed servers full of players who are drawn in by a free game that their computer can run competitively as-is.