Is there a display gadget to join displays on one screen?

[pcm81]

I am currently running a still decent rig by today's standards... I7 980X with 2x Radeon 6990s in xfire. All this is water cooled and I don't want to mess with the machine (still works perfectly as far as horse power requirements are concerned; running linux, so not gaming at the moment).

I'd like to upgrade my 27" 1920x1080 HD monitor for a higher resolution 4K or 8K monitor. What is holding me back is that 6990s do not output higher than 1920x1080 resolution. I would like to take "a gadget", connect several HDMI outputs from my 6990s and run 4K or 8K monitor off all that.

Am I crazy or does such a converter actually exist?

Thanks ahead

 

[Bacon1]

Some monitors would actually allow you to connect multiple cables, but I think those actually had multiple smaller panels under a single bezel (think early ultra-widescreen did this, and the 8k does).

However, you can do more than 1080p with HDMI.

HDMI is 1080p, DL DVI is 2560x1600 and DP 1.2 should go to 2560x1600 as well and maybe even 4k. It isn't officially listed on AMD's website specs, but that might just be because there weren't 4k resolutions at the time. DP 1.2 has enough bandwidth.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/commu...x-series-and-4k-displays.226759/#post-1512044

That thread should help. But if nothing else you should be able to use a 1440p monitor w/o any kind of issue.

 

[nathanddrews]

Ugh, 4K at 45Hz...

Can't you use just multi-GPU to utilize the motherboard video output, but still render on the discrete GPUs? Do Nehalem boards support that? I know that I could do it with my Ivy Bridge machine - I bought a 290X, but couldn't use my CRT with it, so I used the Intel VGA output and it worked just fine.

 

[pcm81]

Ugh, 4K at 45Hz...

Can't you use just multi-GPU to utilize the motherboard video output, but still render on the discrete GPUs? Do Nehalem boards support that? I know that I could do it with my Ivy Bridge machine - I bought a 290X, but couldn't use my CRT with it, so I used the Intel VGA output and it worked just fine.

Umm... QXVGA is 1600x1200... not even close to 4K or 8K
I thought you need DVI or display port to go 4K and 8K on one cable...
The 2x 6990s can drive 12 displays, each at 1920x1080, so I was hoping for a hardware gadget to merge the streams into a single screen.

Found this after starting the thread:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1283573988/skreens-lets-every-device-stream-at-once-with-no-l

Thought that a commercial off the shelf model of something like that might exist by now.

 

[pcm81]

Some monitors would actually allow you to connect multiple cables, but I think those actually had multiple smaller panels under a single bezel (think early ultra-widescreen did this, and the 8k does).

I am drooling now; dell 8K monitor: http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/5/14098224/dell-up3218k-8k-computer-monitor-price-features-ces-2017

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Might be easier to add a small extra gpu if there's space.

 

[Tweak155]

The 4K monitor I have will accept 4 inputs and you can pick which quadrant they appear in. I would think all you have to do is organize them in Display options so it just acts as 1 monitor (at least in Windows). I have the 40" Seiki Pro, but I'm sure there are others that work the same way.

 

[nathanddrews]

Umm... QXVGA is 1600x1200... not even close to 4K or 8K
I thought you need DVI or display port to go 4K and 8K on one cable...
The 2x 6990s can drive 12 displays, each at 1920x1080, so I was hoping for a hardware gadget to merge the streams into a single screen.

That's not what I was suggesting.

In my example, I used the multi-GPU setup to take what my 290X was rendering (2560x1600@75Hz) and output it from my motherboard's VGA port because my 290X did not support analog connections, but the Intel IGP did. I had to enable multi-GPU support in the BIOS to make it work. 290X Render > Magic Shared Buffer > Intel IGP > Motherboard VGA Display Output.

Using that example, what I'm suggesting that you do is use your motherboard's DVI or DisplayPort output (if it has either of those) to attempt to drive something higher resolution than what the 6990 can do on its own. Presumably, you could use another low cost GPU like a RX460 (if you have an available slot) to provide you with HDMI 2.0/DP1.4 if your motherboard isn't up to the task.

Or get a monitor that supports the type of tiling you need, like @Tweak155 suggests.

How well does your quadfire setup perform compared to modern GPUs? Do you play mostly old games or newer games? I only ask because I haven't seen any recent benchmarks of the 6990 on YouTube or other sites. I'd like to know if the latest AMD driver improvements have impacted your setup at all. Do you have any videos or data about your setup's performance you could share?