Before you say, "What? Quake 3? Come on!" there's a reason behind the madness! In all seriousness, I picked Quake 3 simply because I felt this feature did a lot to really enhance this game. It really did make the whole deathmatch experience better.
SETTINGS
Quake 3 was tested using the following settings:
Surround Gaming - 2400x600 resolution
Normal - 1024x768 resolution
Trilinear filtering forced via driver
16X FAA enabled where noted
In-game graphics settings at maximum quality
SCREENSHOTS
Let's take a look at a comparison between a single monitor screenshot and that of Surround Gaming.
Normal
Surround
As I stated earlier, I found Quake 3 to have taken on new life in Surround Gaming. First person shooters really do benefit from this technology simply because in widening the field of view, you get a chance to not only see more of the 3D world, but you also see your enemies in situations that you wouldn't have seem them under normal circumstances.
I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of an issue that all Quake 3 based games had with Surround Gaming. Has anybody noticed a slew of Quake 3 engine patches as of late? Under Surround Gaming, there wouldbe maps that would cause the game to fall back to the desktop. The folks at Matrox investigated this issue with id Software, and a bug was identified. Since that time, the latest patches have fixed this issue.
I wanted to bring this to your attention in order to demonstrate Matrox's effort and willingness to get problems fixed/resolved.
PERFORMANCE
Let's see how the hardware handles the task.
Quake 3 Performance
Test Mode
Average Frame Rate
Normal
150
Surround Gaming
90
Surround Gaming with FAA
65
Quake 3 is an older game and doesn't impose a serious challenge when running at such a high resolution. In addition, let's also put one thing into perspective: the "normal" framerate. There will be those that would scoff at the 150 FPS mark because it pales in comparison to, say, a GeForce4 Ti 4600. That's fine and dandy, but what exactly does that 300 FPS really buy you for this particular title, other than the "wow" factor?
I've also tossed in FAA numbers as well. At 2400x600, 65 FPS isn't too shabby. As a point of reference, a GeForce4 Ti 4600 yields under 50 frames per second at 1600x1200 with 4X antialiasing.
In conclusion, I really do believe that a lot of FPS gamers would find Quake 3 to have a new lease on life, so to speak, under this mode.
