Multiple (more than 2) monitor support

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hello,

For years I have been an NVIDIA user. Recently I started with the idea of building a monitor rig with an unusual setup: 4 x 1920x1080 monitors, 2 in landscape one stacked above the other, and 2 in portrait, framing the first 2.

I have seen that newer cards have 1 x DVI-D, 1 x DVI-I, 1 x HDMI and 1 x DP (or 2 HDMI). Is such a setup possible with one of these cards? Are there any resolution constraints, other than the limits each connector can output? Also, for the DP port, will I be needing an active DP adapter?

Last but not least: will this setup be possible using xrandr and not Xinerama? My need is for it to be one screen (I don’t care if I have to configure it using nvidia-settings, but I do not wish to use Xinerama for this).

Thanks in advance

Cheers

2

Gtx 600 (kepler) series have 4 heads (vs 2 heads) so it should be possible on them. The question is weather or not you can have it show as one monitor (twinview with noxinerama info option). I already do this with 2 displays to drive a 4k display via 2x dual link DVI. I am gonna give a try running it via 4x single link instead (960x2400 x4 to look like one monitor) and I will be able to let you know if it works or not with 4 monitors (seen as one monitor).

I will be driving it off the two DVI ports and then a HDMI → DVI and a DP → DVI.

3

Thanks! I do believe it is possible as I have done the same in the past with 2 monitors on a 550Ti card (one portrait, one landscape). Also, if the card has 4 heads (and none of those is DP/miniDP) there shouldn’t be any problems either connecting 4 inexpensive screens.

4

I am happy to report it worked but again your going to need a kepler graphics card (or check your logs to see how many heads). In my log I have:

(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): NVIDIA GPU GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (GK106) at PCI:134:0:0
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1):     (GPU-1)
(--) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Memory: 2097152 kBytes
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Board ID: 0xe307
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Chip SKU: 240
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Chip SKU Mod: 0
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Project: 2030
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Project SKU: 0012
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): GPU RAM Type: GDDR5
(--) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): VideoBIOS: 80.06.59.00.50
(--) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Found 4 heads on board
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Supported display device(s): CRT-0, DFP-0, DFP-1, DFP-2,
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1):     DFP-3, DFP-4
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Bus detected as PCI Express
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): SPS  : 3
(II) Jul 31 15:41:48 NVIDIA(1): User configuration of GPU PowerMizer is supported

I setup 4x 960x2400 stripes to get 41Hz:

Here is what my screen section lookedlike:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "9503-dgp"
    Device         "gtx_460_1"
    Monitor        "IBM 9503-dgp"
    DefaultDepth    24

    Option "DPI" "75 x 75"
    Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
    Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
    Option  "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0, DFP-3, DFP-1, DFP-4"
    Option     "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" "1"
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-3: 960x2400 +0+0, DFP-0: 960x2400 +960+0, DFP-4: 960x2400 +1920+0, DFP-1: 960x2400 +2880+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I actually swapped my T221 (that took 2x dual link DVI) with my dad because he recently got a 39 inch 4k (like I did) to replace his vp2290b at work and wanted to run dual vp2290b at home but on windows you can’t create multiple eyefinity display groups so instead of one of the displays being 17 Hz I decided to let him use my t221 that can do 30Hz over a single link and I took his vp2290b which only takes single link DVI and requires 4 links to do 41Hz.

I am also running a 39 inch 3840x2160 display over HDMI and a dell 3007wfp (2560x1600) via two gtx 650 ti boost’s. Here is a screenshot of them all together and the vp2290b at 41Hz:

External Media

And here is what the cables look like. The bottom graphics card is the driving the vp2290b. As you can see its got two DVI’s, an HDMI and a DP. The HDMI is HDMI → DVI cable and the DP is an active DP → DVI adapter (pretty sure you have to use an active adapter):

External Media

The result is a genlocked output too as the vp2290b will not display correctly if the output is not genlocked.

Very random that you asked about this as I was literally planning to test this today as I was upgrading my video cards to work properly with hdmi 1.4 with my 39 inch seiki. I think my gtx 460’s with the workaround I was using killed my old 39 inch seiki and had to get a replacement.

5

THANK YOU. Or not, now you’ve forced me to buy a new card xD

Actually I had bought a radeon SI card which had 4 heads because I’ve been meaning to do this setup for a long while now, and it was not possible with my 550 Ti (only two heads). But now I have a chance of buying a GTX650 Ti with 4 heads so I am definitely going to try this out.

It is a bit sad that the year is 2013 and the one driver that can properly and (almost) hassle free do this for newer/newest cards is still NVIDIA’s one, but I don’t care. I’m nearing 30 and I don’t have time (even though I have the will) to keep fighting this fight, heh.

Again, thanks a million sir. With your expertise, surely you should be hired to do these kinds of review/tests.

Cheers,

6

I’m happy to report that last Friday I bought a GTX650 Ti card from Zotac, and in under 10 minutes (the delay was due to the ugly workarounds I had in place for the previous card) I was driving all 4 heads flawlessly with TwinView, acceleration, and pretty much working beautifully. Thanks again houkouonchi for your research.

NVIDIA, I’m never leaving you again <3