Samsung TV Setup

[Christiaan Lourens]

I have a 46" Samsung LED TV,

8 Series, that I bought last year in November. I am playing allot of Battlefield 3 and it seems I do really need the "3 monitor" setup I am getting owned from the flanks I need more awareness so I believe the time has come to fulfill this need.

I also dabble in design so a 3 monitor set up might do wonders, I have never really played around with more than 1 monitor, say for the odd occasion and it was only for around 15 minutes and 2 screens.

I emailed the company I bought my TV from and asked if they had any LED TV's they would like to sell (demo's of course) I am not Bill Gates, I can't afford 3 TV's so these 2 will have to substantially cheaper than the other 1, the bezels need to be small just like the other 1 so they will have to be LG or Samsung to fit in. They won't be smart TV's because that is not needed.

If any of you have any advice on this I would appreciate it, do 3 TV set ups work?

Would buying a different LED TV affect anything really?

Any advice, recommendation, anything in this matter would be appreciated I know nothing

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Panasonic's newer TVs also have quite thin bezels, and the picture is pretty good. Might be worth looking into.

You should be able to run fine with different brands, so long as they're the same resolution. Make sure you can drive 3 displays over HDMI (or DVI adapters, and on AMD cards you'll need an active DP>HDMI converter).

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

Panasonic's newer TVs also have quite thin bezels, and the picture is pretty good. Might be worth looking into.

You should be able to run fine with different brands, so long as they're the same resolution. Make sure you can drive 3 displays over HDMI (or DVI adapters, and on AMD cards you'll need an active DP>HDMI converter).

At the moment I am only running 1 GPU a MSI 660TI PE, will I need a more powerful card/ more than 1 card & run SLI? I don't mind going over to Radeon for triple monitor setup I have always jumped the fence between Nvidia Geforce & ATI Radeon. I see it as supporting both companies & giving both a fair chance.

Will plasma and LED make a big difference? I know Panasonic Plasma's are the best, I also know plasma's blacks are truer so not sure if that will look too odd maybe?

Can you link what adapter you are talking about? Something like this: http/www.amazon.com/HDMI-3-In-1-Out-Switch-Cable/dp/B0018DQYQ2

Or is it something else? At the moment I use a single HDMI cable directly into the VGA

 

[davedurg09]

What you will have to look out for when using a TV or Multiple TVs for gaming is input lag. On expensive TVs like the Samsung series 8 that you have this wont be an issue but on cheaper LED / LCD Tv's input lag can be a big problem.

"In video games, input lag is either the delay between the television or monitor receiving a signal and it being displayed on the screen (see display lag below), or the delay between pressing a button and seeing the game react."

This will be even more noticeable of you are mixing a high end TV with 1 or 2 low end TVs any may even make the game unplayable. I have a Samsung 40" LED tv and even with Game Mode enabled there is still some noticeable input lag.

The best TVs for gaming are Plasma TV's and I would highly recommend Panasonic.

 

[davedurg09]

Using the HDMI splitter that you have linked to will also just mirror the same output onto the three TVs so you will not have a bigger viewing angle while playing games.

You need to connect the three TV's directly to the outputs on the graphics card or cards to get True 3 monitor gaming.

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

What you will have to look out for when using a TV or Multiple TVs for gaming is input lag. On expensive TVs like the Samsung series 8 that you have this wont be an issue but on cheaper LED / LCD Tv's input lag can be a big problem.

"In video games, input lag is either the delay between the television or monitor receiving a signal and it being displayed on the screen (see display lag below), or the delay between pressing a button and seeing the game react."

This will be even more noticeable of you are mixing a high end TV with 1 or 2 low end TVs any may even make the game unplayable. I have a Samsung 40" LED tv and even with Game Mode enabled there is still some noticeable input lag.

The best TVs for gaming are Plasma TV's and I would highly recommend Panasonic.

This was very informative, I have a slow internet connection at home (1Mbps) due to living in South Africa. It's the fastest speed I can get and even now I am paying equal to £49.44 per month for that speed which is daylight robbery but I need the speed. The reason I mention that is I always thought it was my internet lagging. If I switch my TV to game mode the picture looks different, should I keep it in game mode and just adjust the settings or will any mode be fine? Even if I can reduce 0.0000001millisecond I would do it

Thank you very much I will take this information and use it, by the way by cheaper what I meant was: Either the:

LG 47LM5800 47'' Full HD LED Cinema 3D TV (I realise it's an " larger but that is marginal compared to the size) The big motivation for that 1 is price

The Samsung one is the following:

The one I inquired about, I hope they have demo's of it:
Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV

Other options are:
Samsung 46F5000 Full HD TV (Not sure about it since it's old gen)
Samsung 46F5500 Full HD TV
Samsung 46F6100 Full HD 3D LED TV
Samsung 46F6400 Full HD 3D

Unfortunately I have no Panasonic references since the store doesn't stock those, I will try and find a cheap store for them but at this time this is the store with the best prices. In this country at least...

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You basically want these: http/www.amazon.com/SANOXY-feet-HDMI-DVI-CABLE/dp/B000R9J5OG/ref=sr_1_52?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1376302638&sr=1-52&keywords=HDMI+DVI+cable

You'll almost certainly want a second or faster GPU. What MB/PSU do you have?

 

[davedurg09]

Yes If you are moving your mouse or pressing keys and you are noticing a slight delay before anything happens onscreen then this is definitely input lag and can seriously affect you in games like:

First Person Shooter ( takes longer to line up sights and your dead before you press the trigger)
Racing Games ( feels like your driving a boat and not a car)
Fighting games (no matter how hard you try you cannot get combinations moves to work. The reason for this is they require precision timing and the input lag destroys this)

Enabling "Game Mode" basically disables all post processing features that your TV applies to make the picture much better looking as they drastically increase input lag. So turning them off means a less appealing picture but more responsive gaming.

What I would do with your list of potential TVs is order them in the preference of which ones you would like most to least and then type the name into google along with the word "gaming" or "input lag" and do some research to find out which TVs will work this best for gaming.

For example type in "Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV for gaming" or "Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV input lag". Read as much as you can before making a purchase as you don't want to waste all that time and money to release that games are unplayable on the TV due to Input Lag.

And again if you can get a plasma I would go for that over LCD / LED.

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

You basically want these: http/www.amazon.com/SANOXY-feet-HDMI-DVI-CABLE/dp/B000R9J5OG/ref=sr_1_52?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1376302638&sr=1-52&keywords=HDMI+DVI+cable

You'll almost certainly want a second or faster GPU. What MB/PSU do you have?

Corsair 1200AX PSU, ASUS P77Z Deluxe motherboard, my pc is above average apart from the GPU (because I figuired I will only have it for 2 more years probably) The rest of the rig should last me much longer.

Yes If you are moving your mouse or pressing keys and you are noticing a slight delay before anything happens onscreen then this is definitely input lag and can seriously affect you in games like:

First Person Shooter ( takes longer to line up sights and your dead before you press the trigger)

Enabling "Game Mode" basically disables all post processing features that your TV applies to make the picture much better looking as they drastically increase input lag. So turning them off means a less appealing picture but more responsive gaming.

What I would do with your list of potential TVs is order them in the preference of which ones you would like most to least and then type the name into google along with the word "gaming" or "input lag" and do some research to find out which TVs will work this best for gaming.

For example type in "Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV for gaming" or "Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV input lag". Read as much as you can before making a purchase as you don't want to waste all that time and money to release that games are unplayable on the TV due to Input Lag.

And again if you can get a plasma I would go for that over LCD / LED.

Hmm My Razer Mamba 2012 doesn't have lag due to the reviews I read about it before purchase, I seriously thought it was my internet. So there is no way of having appealing picture & a nice gaming experience on a TV? I really feel the FPS scenario you are mentioning since I am actually quite good but I usually get killed off fast. Faster than I should

I appreciate both your comments, sorry for replying to both in 1 message

 

[davedurg09]

Your mouse may have Zero Input lag between the mouse and your PC, I don't doubt that. The Lag is coming from the connection from your PC to your TV.

So you move your mouse and your PC recognises instantly that the mouse has moved and sends a signal to your TV to update the image and move this mouse. Your TV then refreshes the image onscreen but then has to re-apply the post processing effects, this is where the lag is occurs.

Enabling game mode will disable this extra processing and therefore decrease input lag.

Remember that these post processing features are just extra effects that are applied to your image. If you have a high end graphics card and you are playing BF3 on ultra for example, its still going to look amazing, enabling game mode will not reduce the graphical settings of the game, it just wont apply any extra fancy effects so I wouldn't worry about enabling Game Mode.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

OK, you have no problem with another GPU...

Try it on gaming mode, and turn off any frame interposing etc.

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

Alright I will try what you 2 suggested, read up on the TV I highlighted in bold and get back to you guys tonight.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Don't worry too much about getting a current model - there's a lot less that changes compared to the computing world.

 

[Christiaan Lourens]

Don't worry too much about getting a current model - there's a lot less that changes compared to the computing world.

That's good news, so I tried gaming mode last night, it worked quite well I got allot more kills than usual, there was still a slight delay but it's allot less now, I think this delay is just because it's a TV and there will always be some latency. (Thanks for teaching me that guys )

So if older models aren't that different I should be fine with 2 more Samsung 46F6800 Full HD 3D TV's They are the closest resemblance to my current 1.

I just hope there are demo's out there, have either of you ever bought a demo TV? Would you recommend I stay clear or go for it if they are available? I am just looking for a massive price cut since these are extra goodies Or should I rather open a new thread for that?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

My current TV was a demo one. In many ways it's actually better, because you know it's working and there's no dead pixels or anything.