Need Help - Sapphire 6950 with 4 displays

[Manito]

I have 3 monitors and 1 HDTV. 2 monitors are DVI, 1 has a DisplayPort, and the HDTV has an HDMI interface. I want to use all of these at the same time, so I bought this graphics card, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102987 .

After hooking everything up, and trying to setup my displays, I went to the eyefinity section, only to have my HDTV show up as disabled, however the other 3 monitors are working fine. I click to enable the HDTV, but it then has to disable one of my monitors to make this work. So after some research, apparently this video card can only display 3 devices simultaneously, even though it has 4 outputs. Based on this page, http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...6950/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6950-overview.aspx#2 , I thought I would be able to use 4 devices at the same time, since this page says, "Native support for up to 4 simultaneous displays", but either that's not the case, or I'm doing something wrong.

So my question is, how can I use these 4 displays at once? Will I need to buy another video card, and if so, will I at least be able to use CrossFire with these 4 displays? I'm just not sure what to do as a path forward to get this to work.

Thanks in advance!

 

[KingFatty]

I think the AMD website you cite above corresponds to what AMD's chip is capable of, and/or may require using multiple DisplayPort outputs. However, the actual implementation of video out will vary from vendor to vendor, so the limitation may be imposed by your specific video card and how it connects the ports. I know with the 5870 video card, it could support six simultaneous displays (Eyefinity6) and some cards were supporting that many outputs simultaneously, but most vendors only supported 3 simultaneous displays on the 5870.

Can you find out any more information from your vendor, to see if they support 4 displays simultaneously using both of the minidisplay ports on your 6950? otherwise, you may have to get an adapter that supports the multi-stream transport (I think that's like daisy-chaining multiple displayport displays through one mini displayport)? Sorry I don't have a 6950 card so I don't know any more specifics.

 

[gorobei]

the default 6950 normally has 2 mini displayport outs along with 2 TMDS outs through any combination of the dvi/dvi/hdmi. that is the 4 displays the amd page refers to.

your card has the older full size displayport instead of 2 mini. so you cannot run the tv at the same time.

 

[Manito]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Unfortunately, my card does have 2 DVI ports, 1 HDMI, and 1 DisplayPort; so I don't have the mini-DisplayPorts. Is there anyway I can make my setup work, like with another one of the cards I have, or am I going to have to just get a different video card and monitor combination?

 

[KingFatty]

You can definitely connect all 4 monitors to your 6950, and then use the control panel or other software to choose 3 of the 4 to be active simultaneously. A quick trick is to use Win+P to toggle between different settings. You'd just configure the preferred monitor arrangement for each of those settings that pop up when you hit win+P. For example, I use the "duplicate" setting to activate an eyefinity configuration across 3 monitors, and then I use the "projector" setting to activate my far right monitor and disable the middle/left monitors.

If you want 4 active monitors simultaneously, yes you can use two video cards. You could add a dedicated video card, or maybe your motherboard has a built-in/integrated video card you can activate. However, a game won't span across all 4 monitors. So if you plan to do eyefinity, I'd suggest plugging 3 monitors into the 6950, and one monitor into your secondary video card. That way, you could eyefinity game on three monitors, and keep a reference page or map etc. on the 4th monitor.

 

[Manito]

You can definitely connect all 4 monitors to your 6950, and then use the control panel or other software to choose 3 of the 4 to be active simultaneously. A quick trick is to use Win+P to toggle between different settings. You'd just configure the preferred monitor arrangement for each of those settings that pop up when you hit win+P. For example, I use the "duplicate" setting to activate an eyefinity configuration across 3 monitors, and then I use the "projector" setting to activate my far right monitor and disable the middle/left monitors.

If you want 4 active monitors simultaneously, yes you can use two video cards. You could add a dedicated video card, or maybe your motherboard has a built-in/integrated video card you can activate. However, a game won't span across all 4 monitors. So if you plan to do eyefinity, I'd suggest plugging 3 monitors into the 6950, and one monitor into your secondary video card. That way, you could eyefinity game on three monitors, and keep a reference page or map etc. on the 4th monitor.

Thank you very much! This is exactly the answer I was looking for. I'll get an additional card to make this work; I do want to use all 4 displays at the same time.

I wasn't sure I could run two video cards at the same time without them being in CrossFire mode, but I have heard that in CF mode, the second video card ports can't be used, so I wasn't sure how to approach this.

 

[digitaldurandal]

The question of the number of monitors you can run at once does not necessarily correspond to the number of outputs. The question has to do with the type of output and the number of DACs. The DACs limit the number of HDMI/DVI/VGA outputs. So if your card has two DACs it may be able to run 2 hdmi/dvi outputs (even if it has 3 total outputs of these types) + any number of displayport outputs.

In other words even the newest one may not be able to run all the displays at once.

 

[gorobei]

The question of the number of monitors you can run at once does not necessarily correspond to the number of outputs. The question has to do with the type of output and the number of DACs. The DACs limit the number of HDMI/DVI/VGA outputs. So if your card has two DACs it may be able to run 2 hdmi/dvi outputs (even if it has 3 total outputs of these types) + any number of displayport outputs.

DAC is for outputing thru analog/vga. the correct term is Transition-Minimized Differential Signaling. it is used for setting up a reference clock signal for the monitor to synch with in digital displays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMDS

if you can still exchange or get a store credit, the saphire flex series have a third tmds signal generator which allows you to use 2dvi+1hdmi+dp.

otherwise take the time to see if you can use the igp for the 4th output.

 

[digitaldurandal]

DAC is for outputing thru analog/vga. the correct term is Transition-Minimized Differential Signaling. it is used for setting up a reference clock signal for the monitor to synch with in digital displays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMDS

if you can still exchange or get a store credit, the saphire flex series have a third tmds signal generator which allows you to use 2dvi+1hdmi+dp.

otherwise take the time to see if you can use the igp for the 4th output.

Oh, thanks Gorobei I did not realize there was a different term for the digital outputs. Appreciate it.