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Driving FOUR 24" LCDs

madoka

madoka

Diamond Member
I have a friend who wants to run four 24" LCDs (Dell 2405s) off his computer. Yes, yes, I've already explained to him the cons, impracticalities, ridiculousness, etc. He still insists on doing it.

We've been arguing over what dual DVI video cards would be sufficient to each drive 24" monitors. I suspect you need fairly decent cards such as a 6800GT in SLI, but he thinks he could get away with a pair of cheap 6600 in SLI. (Yes, I've already chastised him for trying to drive $4000 worth of monitors with $200 worth of cards.) Who is correct though? Anyone have experience driving this much real estate?
 
If you don't want to do any gaming on those monitors, then yeah, any 6600 should work as long as it's got dual DVI (and you'd need two of them obviously).

Glad to hear that you've at least tried to talk some sense into him though....what possessed him to want this kind of a setup?? 😕
 
As long as he doesn't plan on gaming on them with high settings he should be fine. Also I don't think SLI will work with dual monitors on each Even if he had a 6800GT it don't think it would work.
 
WTF does he need 4-24" monitors for? I could understand 2 but 4? He's gonna get major neck strain from moving his head around all the time just to find what he's looking for.
 
Originally posted by: jammur21
Is he going to view them in a quad formation, if so, why not a 50" HD plasma?
Click to expand...

If I may (briefly) play devil's advocate...

No plasma (or any other HDTV) display is going to have a total resolution anywhere near 3840x2400. :Q:evil:


.....But I'm still at a loss as to why anyone would really need (or even want) a setup like that. 😕
 
Originally posted by: g3pro
Porn on every screen, 4 full-size DVDs going on at the same time.
Click to expand...

ROLFMAO!!

As for getting it done, you will need to go with a DFI board with their Dual Express Graphics setup, like the Ultra-D so that you can have 2 PCIe cards and up to 4 monitors. Which BTW is NUTS. Can I have some of your friends cash?

Please...?
 
Matrox have a quad-DVI card.

When you're going for multiple "normal" cards, be aware that you exactly do not SLI them. You want independent operation of the cards.
 
Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
Originally posted by: jammur21
Is he going to view them in a quad formation, if so, why not a 50" HD plasma?
Click to expand...

If I may (briefly) play devil's advocate...

No plasma (or any other HDTV) display is going to have a total resolution anywhere near 3840x2400. :Q:evil:


.....But I'm still at a loss as to why anyone would really need (or even want) a setup like that. 😕
Click to expand...



As am I, I assumed he thought it would look awesome (which I don't argue), based on size of picture primarily, and resolution secondly.
 
SLI doesnt work with dual monitors. It only powers one monitor. You need a dual pci-e board and get two dual dvi 6600gts(I dont believe there is a dual dvi 6600) in non SLI mode. X800 series boards might also be a better choice as their DVI controllers tend to follow dvi specifications closer, which makes a difference at high resolutions.

Also, you will have to use window's built in multimonitor support, or use a 3rd parties. Ati/Nvidia consumer drivers were made with dual monitors in mind, not quad.

If he is serious, hell need to purchase a professional card. He also wont be able to play games on all 4 monitors, but seeing as he wants 6600's then hes probably not concerned.

Also, you will not be able to play videos across the 4 monitors because each card only has one overlay. Unless you use the vmr 9 renderless overlay(which is horribly buggy) using 4 monitors for multimedia/gaming is pretty pointless.
 
The reason that SLI doesnt work with dual monitors is because it defeats the purpose.

You are combining the power of two cards to power one screen in SLI.

With two screens, to put them into SLI introduces the inefficiency inherent with any dual graphcis config.. theres no point. Give each monitor its own, 100% efficient 6600GT instead if you want to span.

You'd get better performance dedicating a video card to each monitor and running them out of SLI mode. In this guys case, he'll be running 4 lcds on two cards which should work fine.
But I just wanted to make it clear about SLI with dual monitor, it doestn make any sense to do spanning and run SLI on two screens.

Now, with the Nvidia 80.xx drivers you are able to do seamless SLI switching with no reboots.. so you can switch between single screen SLI mode or quad-mode on the fly without restarting.
If you want to span your games across multiple screens, non-sli mode is the way. If you want better performance you enable SLI, then only one DVI will output and you'll be ready for that too.
 
Chromium allows you to take an OpenGL game and display it across a tiled array of monitors. In my case I run across of 4x3 array of 20" Viewsonics for a total pixel count of 6400x3600. It is pretty cool to play Quake 3 Arena that way.
 
Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Chromium allows you to take an OpenGL game and display it across a tiled array of monitors. In my case I run across of 4x3 array of 20" Viewsonics for a total pixel count of 6400x3600. It is pretty cool to play Quake 3 Arena that way.
Click to expand...

what's your rig for such a setup? how do you get that to work? screenshots/a photo of it in action?
 
Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Chromium allows you to take an OpenGL game and display it across a tiled array of monitors. In my case I run across of 4x3 array of 20" Viewsonics for a total pixel count of 6400x3600. It is pretty cool to play Quake 3 Arena that way.
Click to expand...

I demand pictures.

/so that I may drool intensely.
 
I'm not sure the matrox card will be a good choice even if he's not gaming. Pay very very close attention to their specs, as some of their cards are limited in their support of high resolutions off of DVI (Example: G550 runs nicely at 1600x1200 on dual screens in analog mode, but the DVI output is limited to 1280x1024). I believe their "medical solutions" are black-and-white only, so don't get that either. ;-)
The limited output size may also be true for the second output on some of the ATi/nVIDIA powered solutions, although I have not researched this subject properly. The 6800 DDL (same as for mac) is sure to work though.

Ask your friend why he does not "just" get two 30" cinema displays... ;-)
 
man, your friend is hardcore, he's thinking exactly the same what I am thinking right now.🙂

I think dual 6600GTs on a dual PCI-E mobo like the DFI Ultra-D or SLI board is a good try. Although last time I heard, people were having problems running both DVI ports over 1600x1200 resolution each. I think this issue has been fixed by latest NVidia drivers.

Please keep us updated man....with pictures. I have been itching to upgrade to this exact same solution man.....i am sick of the PCI card driving my third screen
 
Originally posted by: jtvang125
WTF does he need 4-24" monitors for? I could understand 2 but 4? He's gonna get major neck strain from moving his head around all the time just to find what he's looking for.
Click to expand...

Eh, just turn them sideways and run 4, it won't be much wider then three 2005s next to one another, pretty sweet for spreadsheets.
 
We've been arguing over what dual DVI video cards would be sufficient to each drive 24" monitors. I suspect you need fairly decent cards such as a 6800GT in SLI, but he thinks he could get away with a pair of cheap 6600 in SLI. (Yes, I've already chastised him for trying to drive $4000 worth of monitors with $200 worth of cards.) Who is correct though? Anyone have experience driving this much real estate?
Click to expand...

Actually I think the 6600's would be better suited for 2d then 6800 GT's. Why?...Less noise/heat/power issues. Also the wmv hardware assist actually works on the 6600's, and not on the 6800's.

 
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