3 or more monitors?

I've been doing some research into setting up 3 or more monitors on 1 PC and I thought I'd put it to the experts on here as I trust your opinions more!!

I've got dual monitors for my PC but I've also got my HDTV. My graphics card supports dual outputs so I can have 2 out of the above 3 devices plugged in, but I want to be able to use all 3 at the same time. I know there are switching ports which can have multiple inputs and then will output to one device but I'd rather have all 3 viewable at once!

I realise being able to specify what motherboard I have right now would be useful, but I can't remember off the top of my head (and I'm not at home to have a look.) My primary graphics card is pci express of course but throughout my research I have seen that you can install a second graphics card which, if it has dual outputs as well, can allow up to 4 monitors. I have also read that generally its a good idea to have cards from the same manufacturer e.g. both nvidia.

My question is basically if anyone can share their experience in this regard as to whether it is a simple process or if they experienced technical gremlins. I can't remember if my motherboard supports SLI, as if it did I would imagine this would be a very simple process. I have a number of pci express expansion slots, although they are not x16, so would I need to find a graphics card that fits into one of those?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :-)

If your running Win XP or Win 7, then it doesn't matter what make cards you have.....only Vista added the silly restriction of 1 video card driver model.

So, depending on what OS you have, buy a PCI or PCI-E (whichever you need/want) video card and slap it and connect the 3rd screen to it. It's the same procedure to setup as it was configuring your second screen.

Simples! *squeek*

As said, there is no fancy procedure, just that the card must use the same video drives as your current card.

Sadly I am running Vista! That was something else I had read that I have to be using the same graphics drivers for both cards? Is that right?

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

Sadly I am running Vista! That was something else I had read that I have to be using the same graphics drivers for both cards? Is that right?

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Yes. That is correct. Now because ATi and nV both use "catch all" driver packages this does not in any way limit your choice of graphics cards except that you cannot put an ATi card with an nV one.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Yes. That is correct. Now because ATi and nV both use "catch all" driver packages this does not in any way limit your choice of graphics cards except that you cannot put an ATi card with an nV one.

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Also worth noting that Nvidia Quadro cards have a different drive pack than the standard consumer cards, so you can't mix them under Vista. I think this is the same with ATIs FirePro and FireGL cards.

Well I'm running an Nvidia BFG 8800 GTOC2 so shouldn't be a problem

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Originally Posted by Funkstar

Also worth noting that Nvidia Quadro cards have a different drive pack than the standard consumer cards, so you can't mix them under Vista. I think this is the same with ATIs FirePro and FireGL cards.

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Didn't know this! I thought the Quadro and FirePro/FireGL cards were in the same drive pack as the consumer grade (GTX and Radeon) cards.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Didn't know this! I thought the Quadro and FirePro/FireGL cards were in the same drive pack as the consumer grade (GTX and Radeon) cards.

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My Quadro NVS definitely uses a different driver pack than the GTX range. Just had a look on AMDs site, and the Fire line also uses a different pack, although the actual driver might be the same, it's listed as Catalyst 8.633. There are different release notes and a different set of compatible products, so I guess Vists would have a fit if you tried to mix either manufacturers series.

If the additional monitors are for normal 2D use and no 3D work, you can always use the USB to VGA adaptors that allow upto 6 displays to be on one PC.

thouse USB to VGA ones are just horrible thou, they really slow down your system.

your better off with things like those matrox splitters if your on a laptop.

PCI gfx cards.

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Originally Posted by Blaineoliver

PCI gfx cards.

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Thank you for repeating a previously stated, and possibly redundant, suggestion.

They're relatively expensive, but if you're using low res monitors you could potentially consider a Triplehead2go.

Well I think I'll go for a second nVidia card as that is nice and straight forward however, I've never purchased a PCI card before - always AGP8x or PCIe - so would something like this be suitable, bearing in mind of course this card will not be for my main gaming or media watching useage:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PNY-NVIDIA-GeF...d=p3286.c0.m14

Yeah, that will almost certainly be fine....although personally I wouldn't pay 50quid for a card for the use you want it for!

If you have a spare PCI-E slot (16x size, although it does not need to be 16x electronically connected) then I would start looking for something dirt cheap second hand.....even a 6 or 7 series.

Yes, but it's cheaper from scan:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DVI-I-S-Video

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

Well I think I'll go for a second nVidia card as that is nice and straight forward however, I've never purchased a PCI card before - always AGP8x or PCIe - so would something like this be suitable, bearing in mind of course this card will not be for my main gaming or media watching useage:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PNY-NVIDIA-GeF...d=p3286.c0.m14

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Yep. That will be perfectly acceptable. Just check with the reseller that it IS PCI and not PCIe... it is eBay afterall.

That'd do the job, but I recommend buying it from a reliable etailer for less moneys ;)

EDIT: I also recommend that I learn to post quicker :embarrassed:

On another note, if you have a laptop or another PC you wouldn't mind running and would like to keep the systems independent, you could use Synergy like I do.

Here is my current setup... still working out the bugs with things like keyboard shortcuts, but for the most part it works quite well.

It is, from left to right 22" at 1440x900, 24" at 1720x1200 and 15.4" at 1440x900.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2...enshotd.th.png

How about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GEFORCE-84...d=p3286.c0.m14

Whoops, just realised that's PCI express... lets see what else I can find!

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

How about this one?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XFX-GEFORCE-84...d=p3286.c0.m14

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Interface: PCI Express

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Nope. Not a PCI graphics card... see what I mean about checking around particulary when using eBay? You'll be better off going with Scan, that way you can be assured of what you are getting, and yell at them on these forums if you don't get what your ordered! ;)

Oh and did I mention the free shipping if you make over 20 posts? :rockon2:

Free shipping you say? Sold! I think I'll go with that one :-) How do I get the free shipping?

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

Free shipping you say? Sold! I think I'll go with that one :-) How do I get the free shipping?

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The guide will tell you what you need to know.

Lovely, all done! Thanks to everyone I believe that has well and truely answered all of my questions... Although now I'm looking at new monitors to go with the setup despite not really being able to afford to buy new ones!!

That Synergy thing looks rather sexy...will it work on 2 Vista Machines?

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Originally Posted by Kata

That Synergy thing looks rather sexy...will it work on 2 Vista Machines?

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Most certeinly. It support, in order of comptability, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and Mac OS X. And even the Mac OS X version is usable enough. :)

I sense a 4 screen beast coming on...

4 monitor beast is the plan! Although, I have now installed the card and had three screens running at once but I've noticed a lag in display on all screens. For example video is very jumpy and when opening new windows or browsers etc they take longer to open and the opening animation if you will seems jerky. Any ideas as to why? If I disable any screens on the pci card it goes back to normal so I'm starting to think my motherboard can't handle that much desktop space?

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

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Great man... great... completely ignore the entirety of the post, including the bit that said he has no free PCIe x16 slots... I gotta love your style there. :stupid:

On a more serious note.... mcfstep, sounds like you will need to replace to motherboard with one with two PCIe x16 slots (don't worry if they're only 8x enabled, 8x at 2.0 is still plenty fast for graphics. :) )

What is your processor and motherboard chipset, etc... and do you have anything nasty like a RAID setup, and finally, are you willing to spend a week setting up a fresh install of Windows? :O_o1:

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

hate to break it to you but its because you've got the PCI card in there.

Pull it out, everything goes fine?

PCI is just too slow for graphics.

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Because it takes so much graphics power to render the desktop... o_o
Honestly...

I have 2 pci8x slots free on the motherboard, are there graphics cards that slot into these inputs?

What I don't understand is that the PCI graphics card I'm using, as mentioned before, is only for desktop space, but I don't see how watching media on the PCIe desktop would be affected? Fair enough if I was watching media through the pci card or moving the video from monitor to monitor but I'm not, but just having it enabled seems to lag down the system...

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

I have 2 pci8x slots free on the motherboard, are there graphics cards that slot into these inputs?

What I don't understand is that the PCI graphics card I'm using, as mentioned before, is only for desktop space, but I don't see how watching media on the PCIe desktop would be affected? Fair enough if I was watching media through the pci card or moving the video from monitor to monitor but I'm not, but just having it enabled seems to lag down the system...

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Are they 16x long or 8x long, and are the closed or open ended?

i.e. are they the same length as your primary graphics card, or are they half the length? And if they are half the length, are the built in such a way that you could put your graphics card in it but it would hang off the end, i.e. open ended?

As for your other question, it quite simply shouldn't happen, but it is, so we must deal with it. I have a feeling that it is either the motherboard playing silly buggers, or a faulty card. The former might have the same problem even if we put a PCIe card in, the latter can be fixed with a replacement, either PCI or PCIe, assuming you can fit a PCIe card on your board.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Great man... great... completely ignore the entirety of the post, including the bit that said he has no free PCIe x16 slots... I gotta love your style there. :stupid:

On a more serious note.... mcfstep, sounds like you will need to replace to motherboard with one with two PCIe x16 slots (don't worry if they're only 8x enabled, 8x at 2.0 is still plenty fast for graphics. :) )

What is your processor and motherboard chipset, etc... and do you have anything nasty like a RAID setup, and finally, are you willing to spend a week setting up a fresh install of Windows? :O_o1:

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Joke all you want, but its a heck of a lot of pixels, so start doing the maths, 33MB/s BUS, shifting 32bits per pixel, 60 times a second. Guess what starts to happen.

This becomes really apparent when you are scrolling something large like a browser accross all the screens. You get big 'steps' because its not able to exchange the video memory fast enough.

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Originally Posted by sammorris

Because it takes so much graphics power to render the desktop... o_o
Honestly...

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Seriously, the old matrox cards cause greif, i was able to slow down someones app by having a real time ticking graph that was only about 400px accross because the machine spent all day locking on the PCI bus.

Inrestingly even the quanty matlab users found a performance increase of 20% by just going to a PCIe card.

My motherboard is an ABIT IP35E if that helps determine any possible issues...

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

Joke all you want, but its a heck of a lot of pixels, so start doing the maths, 33MB/s BUS, shifting 24bits per pixel, 60 times a second. Guess what starts to happen.

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NB: there are only 24bits per pixel, not 32bits, on the final raw output, the 8 bit alpha is processed internally and is used in situations when you have one image superimposed over another. This could change when OLED screens become more popular as you could have a "see-through" screen, thus the 8bit alpha will have to processed with the final output image as well.

I guess you do have a point, even a small display (by today's standards) of 1440x900 would require bandwidth of 226.8 MB/s (that's megabytes, not megibytes, can't be bothered doing binary based division). But you also have to remember that in very rare circumstances will a complete "dump" of the video need to be given over the bus. Even moving windows between screen shouldn't require a complete dump, but you're right, I didn't realise the bus for PCI was only 33MiB/s...

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

My motherboard is an ABIT IP35E if that helps determine any possible issues...

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From the spec page: 1 x PCI-E X16, 2 x PCI-E X1, 3 x PCI

Conclusion: No you don't have 2x PCIe 8x slots, you need a new motherboard. Sorry. :(

I did not realise just how limited the PCI bus would be when it game to video memory. I am sure your system would be fine if you didn\'t have another video card installed, i.e. just the PCI card... the problem occurs when transfering windows between one screen and another... or basicly anything that requires constant updating of the picture, video for example, may overload the 33MiB/s bus.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

NB: there are only 24bits per pixel, not 32bits, on the final raw output, the 8 bit alpha is processed internally and is used in situations when you have one image superimposed over another. This could change when OLED screens become more popular as you could have a "see-through" screen, thus the 8bit alpha will have to processed with the final output image as well.

I guess you do have a point, even a small display (by today's standards) of 1440x900 would require bandwidth of 226.8 MB/s (that's megabytes, not megibytes, can't be bothered doing binary based division). But you also have to remember that in very rare circumstances will a complete "dump" of the video need to be given over the bus. Even moving windows between screen shouldn't require a complete dump, but you're right, I didn't realise the bus for PCI was only 33MiB/s...

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Fraid when your transfering the VIDEO MEMORY, that its 32bits, not 24bits.

you don't constantly update the video memory either, even when watching a film or something.... But i digress.
(i can remeber a suprising amount of 2D video controller theory stuff)

Any suggestions as to what motherboard might be suitable?

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Originally Posted by mcfstep

Any suggestions as to what motherboard might be suitable?

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More information required. Can we get a complete system specification?

actually can't you get some decent enough PCIe x1 cards?

http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/86...LAID=338740571

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

actually can't you get some decent enough PCIe x1 cards?

http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/86...LAID=338740571

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Touche.

I don't know what that card is like, its probably higher end that what OP wants, but someone must know something about PCIe x1 cards!

Well, there have been some reviews of 1x cards and they have fared well.

No, you shouldn't get one to game on but that's not what the OP wants them for.

Can't see any around cheap but there are 2 alternate solutions:

1. Buy a VERY cheap PCI-E gfx card and use a hacksaw to cut the connector back to the 1x size........this DOES work if your careful, as mad as it sounds.

2. Buy something like this - probably the better solution ;)

or, very carefully open end one of the PCIe x1 slots so you don't have to massacre a perfectly good x16 graphics card you may want to sell later.

The Lycom extension item seems like a good idea. I take it that it simply plugs into one of the pci1x slots and then a pcie card goes into that?

Anyone know where I can get one as Scan seem to have been out of stock and overdue for some time now :-S

http://www.pconestopshop.com/products.asp?partno=DT-116

Only place I see them in stock although I have no experience with ordering from them.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Thank you for repeating a previously stated, and possibly redundant, suggestion.

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Originally Posted by nightkhaos

Great man... great... completely ignore the entirety of the post, including the bit that said he has no free PCIe x16 slots... I gotta love your style there. :stupid:

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Lo nightkhaos :)

While myself and others welcome your input, can you please be a little less....well....harsh in your posting? :)

A few people are flagging your posts up as being a bit rude where there is no need to be. You could have pointed out those things above without needing to be so abrupt.

Cheers mate

There is also a motherboard which has two 16x long slots, one which is 4x enabled, that is worth considering. Same chipset as yours, unfortunately quite expensive. :(

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Originally Posted by Agent

Lo nightkhaos :)

While myself and others welcome your input, can you please be a little less....well....harsh in your posting? :)

A few people are flagging your posts up as being a bit rude where there is no need to be. You could have pointed out those things above without needing to be so abrupt.

Cheers mate

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I apologise. It was the way I was taught when it comes to computer stuff. Ever been on a Linux support IRC channel? You get two types, the cuddle everyone and send them over to the relevent wiki page and then "why should I be helping you with such a newbie question, you clearly don't want to be a Linux enthusist!" types.

I unfortunately attended the latter, which meant that I learned to make 200 similarly pharsed Google Searchs, 20 Ask Jeeves Searches, check 408 different forums for similar threads, transend the fabric of reality and check if someone if someone in the future asks my question, and then finally, spending twenty minutes in Word or a similar text editor (OOo Writer) formualtling my query to be free of spelling mistakes, grammar errors, then translating it into 22 different lanuages, including a werid variant of Russian spoken by three people in the world, before resorting to asking for "help".

Compared to the people I used to deal with I would say those comments are a ray of sunshine. I will of course try from now on to be a little more polite. I didn't realise just how much the School of Hard Knocks of Computer Enthusism I apparently attened has rubbed off on me. :embarrassed:

Rather weirdly, I've just tried restarting my machine and now all of a sudden there doesn't seem to be the lag problem! I still can't run video in full screen using the PCI card (but I never planned to) but the rest of the system seems to be fine now, no stepping at all!! What a random gremlin! I still think I might buy one of the Lycom items as I happen to have a spare PCIe card laying around so once again I think all problems have been solved! *touch wood*