As we mentioned earlier in the article NVIDIA have recently launched a new driver which improves the user experience for those using 3D Vision or multiple displays. This improved experience starts with a new installer which walks us through the process in simple steps. We start by choosing Express or Custom install, the latter offering the ability to choose the components we add (from Display, 3D Vision, HDMI audio and PhysX). This ensures that almost all of our NVIDIA ecosystem is updated with each driver install. Custom install also allows us to select "Clean Install" which completely removes any older drivers before installing the new version.
 |
The only component which is not installed when running the new Release 260 installer is the USB controller driver for our 3D Vision kit. For this reason we suggest that 3D Vision users download and run the 3D Vision CD from NVIDIA's website and use the wizard within that to launch the Release 260 installer. Through the CD menu we can then launch the USB installer and follow this with the 3D Vision Video player install.
Once the driver and software are installed we can enter the NVIDIA control panel and access the various surround and 3D options. There is a tab which assists us in enabling/disabling displays, another to turn on/off 3D Vision and a third which is the most important for Surround gaming. Through this third screen we can select the target card for our PhysX calculations and the display options from Single Display SLI (Max performance) to Multiple Display Surround.
Enabling surround and clicking configure takes us to a setup wizard which walks the user through multi-display configuration. We first select Displays and are shown the connectors which we should plug our screens into. (
NOTE: NVIDIA Surround requires 2 cards for 3 Screen operation).
With the displays connected we then hit Apply and the software enables each, spanning the Windows desktop across all three. Depending on how each has been positioned on the desk we may not have the three portions of the desktop in the correct order and so a third step allows us to drag an on-screen representation of our displays to the layout we have been given. When this is done the system configures each output so the images are all displayed on the correct screen.
From that point on our Surround experience is ready to use however NVIDIA offer one further option; the addition of special resolutions to compensate for the bezels at the edge of each display. Here we can tweak the outputs so that each image appears to run naturally from one display to the next.
The end result of our configuration is shown above.
