4 x LCD monitors?

[Carnage4]

I'm building a client system that requires support for 4 x Samsung SyncMaster 971P monitors running @ 1600x1200. They want 4-monitor support, but they also want the ability to play more recent games (Orange Box, Crysis, etc.) during downtime. I'm looking at a 8800GT as the primary card. The motherboard has 2 x PCI-E 2.0 16x slots. Power is not an issue (Silverstone ST85ZF).

Here's my question: can I use a different PCI or PCI-E card in conjunction with the 8800GT to drive the 4-monitor setup and have only the 8800GT be used when gaming? This system won't be running SLI, but I also don't want to buy an additional 8800GT to drive 2 more monitors if a cheaper card in either PCI or PCI-E will work. Buying a single card with support for 4 monitors is not an option.

Also, would there be problems if the secondary card is not of the same chip manufacturer (ATI vs NVidia?)

Thoughts? If anyone's successfully done this before, input and your specs would be appreciated!

 

[cboath]

I don't know how it works in Vista these days with two separate cards between different makers. In 2000 and the original XP, it was not wise to mix cards from different makers because they weren't always guaranteed to be compatible. If you have an 8800GT and a second card, you'd obviously need a the 2nd PCI card to be dual headed to get to 4 cards. Getting an Nvidia PCI card would likely be the easiest route to go for compatibility sake since they'd likely use the same driver. There are also 3 or 4 head cards out there too, but I don't know if any of them are game-able.

I know you weren't interested in an SLI board, but your choices are much easier on an SLI board. You have two PCIe16 slots to work with and would have greater choices in picking that 2nd video card. An 8800gt and something like an 8400 would be a cheap 2nd card that shouldn't have much of an issue being used as a secondary card.

 

[Sheninat0r]

I know there's some multi-monitor software [might be Ultramon] that can have a "primary" card render the frame at full res, then break it into parts for the "secondary" card to output to its monitors, so that one card is doing all of the work and the other is just giving you extra resolution. I'll do some googling if I remember and get back to you.

 

[Carnage4]

Thanks for the replies!

cboath, The board I'm looking is an SLI board, but I've read that the NVidia drivers offer you the option to disable SLI. I'm just not sure that this will allow me to have the 4 outputs required. I mainly want to avoid doubling up on the high-end cards if one of them will only get used for non-intensive video output.

Has anyone tried using 2 PCIE cards of different models (say 8800 & 8300) and had success using 4 monitors & gaming on one?

 

[Carnage4]

TTT

 

[ZoNtO]

Visiontek makes a 2600xt quad, basically two 2600xts but has 4 DVI outputs. I don't know if that would fit the bill.

http://visiontek.com/products/...etail/2600XT_quad.html

EDIT: sorry, didn't see your no single card line in OP. I'll leave the link for geeks that want to stare at the card though, I was intrigued.

 

[Carnage4]

Bump

 

[Chaotic42]

If I understand correctly, you want two cards to run four monitors for work, but only the main card to be used to game only on the primary monitor. Is that correct?

 

[lopri]

On OS level, two different vender cards will co-exist due to the new driver model of Vista. But when it comes to applications.. I'd say going with cards from same vendor is a wiser choice. Even better if they're in same family. (GF 8 series, HD 3xxx series, etc.)

 

[Furen]

Have you looked at those 3870 X2s with 4 DVI outputs? It would simplify matters quite a bit, since you would only need one video card and one driver set. Personally, I'm quite intrigued by the concept but I have no personal experience with these cards.

Of course, Nvidia should be pushing out the 9800GX2 relatively soon but I wouldn't recommend commiting to that until we see just how well the drivers work.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: lopri
On OS level, two different vender cards will co-exist due to the new driver model of Vista. But when it comes to applications.. I'd say going with cards from same vendor is a wiser choice. Even better if they're in same family. (GF 8 series, HD 3xxx series, etc.)

Mixing display adapter vendors on Vista is explicitly not supported if you want to use WDDM(which you do). All display adapters must use the same WDDM driver.

They don't have to be the same card of course, or even necessarily from the same generation as long as they can use the same driver version.

Also, keep in mind that Aero's video RAM requirements scale with the number of displays. IIRC, you will need 128MB of video RAM per display @1600x1200. Not a big deal, just make sure both display adapters have at least 256MB of onboard video RAM.

 

[lopri]

Stand corrected. Thank you, aka1nas.

 

[SonicIce]

If you get it working make sure to try this
http://strlen.com/gfxengine/panquake/

 

[Carnage4]

Thanks for the replies!

Originally posted by: Furen
Have you looked at those 3870 X2s with 4 DVI outputs?

Far too expensive for this. They start around $450 for the card, whereas I'm looking to spend ~$320 for both proposed cards.

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
If I understand correctly, you want two cards to run four monitors for work, but only the main card to be used to game only on the primary monitor. Is that correct?

Yep, that's the plan.

Also: XP Professional or Vista are both options, but they're leaning toward XP Pro.

Haven't found a solid resolution or anyone who's tried this and reported detailed results unfortunately....

Originally posted by: SonicIce
If you get it working make sure to try this
http://strlen.com/gfxengine/panquake/

It's things like this that make me not get things done at work

Bump!

 

[Carnage4]

Bump

 

[legoman666]

Back in 2004-2005, I had three monitors running on dual video cards. One card was an 3dfx voodoo 2000 agp (yes, not kidding) and the other card was a PCI radeon 7000. Worked fine.

Now I am running 3 monitors on Vista x64. My main monitor (Samsung 226BW) is being powered by an HD3870 and my other 2 19inchers are being run by an x1800xt.

Both setups have no problems. Any game played will display on whatever display is designated as the primary. In my case this means that the HD3870 is solely powering the Samsung 226BW. I have had no issues with this. If I change my primary display to one of the 19inchers, any game will open on it instead.

And give your client UltraMon. Best multi monitor killer app ever.

win: http://i28.photobucket.com/alb...an666/IMG_0432_sfs.jpg

 

[phaxmohdem]

I have been running a quad monitor setup for quite some time now, and have done some extensive personal mix-n-matching of video cards.

My current setup is just about exactly what you are looking for in the system you are building I believe. I have an 8800GTX that drives two of the displays, and this is also the card I use for my gaming fix. The other two monitors, which only do 2D desktop work, light 3D work, and video playback are powered by a less powerful, inexpensive 6600GT card. (Both on an SLI motherboard with SLI disabled)

When mixing video cards my strong recommendation is to "keep it all in the family". Which means, either buy two nVidia cards, or two ATI cards. You can mix and match brands such as XFX, MSI, or eVGA as long as they are sporting the same brand GPU. It is possible (and I have done it) to get an nVidia card and an ATI card working in the same system, however the drivers are constantly doing battle with each other. You use up more resources because you have to load two driver sets instead of one, and the configuration utilities for the two manufacturers are dramatically different, and annoying to work with both instead of having everything in one place.

Here is my recommendation for you. I would go with an nVidia 8800GT/GTS 512MB Card as the primary/gaming card, and for the other two monitors, I would purchase an 8500gt card (unless you need dual DVI outputs, in which case I would purchase an 8600GT for the secondary card) This way you are saving money, and electricity on a card to drive the monitors that likely will not see much 3D action. You could also purchase an older card like my 6600gt and that would work just fine, however I would recommend sticking with a GeForce 8000 series card for its DX10 compatibility, as well as Stream Processor architecture (which appears to the the design of the foreseeable future as GPUs, and GP-GPU's go)

Also when selecting your secondary card I would recommend one with a >= 128-bit memory system (crap cards such as the 8400gs use 64 bit) This will prove useful if your client ever upgrades to Vista, and wants to use Aero smoothly, also this will help with some professional Apps such as 3D programs, or video editing software which utilize the video card a lot more.

One last tid-bit of randomness: I just ordered an 8600GT card to replace my 6600GT, mostly because of the nVidia/Ageia merger. I'm hoping that I'll be able to use that 8600GT in the future as a sort of physics co-processor when gaming. This may just be a pipe-dream of mine, but even if that doesn't pan out, I'll at least have video cards that use the same version of DirectX now, and better video playback features.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: legoman666
win: http://i28.photobucket.com/alb...an666/IMG_0432_sfs.jpg

Hmm. Using school yearbooks to make up for not having height-ajustable monitors FTL.

 

[legoman666]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: legoman666
win: http://i28.photobucket.com/alb...an666/IMG_0432_sfs.jpg

Hmm. Using school yearbooks to make up for not having height-ajustable monitors FTL.

LOL. I wish they would just include height adjustment.

 

[lloydxd]

Originally posted by: phaxmohdem
I have been running a quad monitor setup for quite some time now, and have done some extensive personal mix-n-matching of video cards.

My current setup is just about exactly what you are looking for in the system you are building I believe. I have an 8800GTX that drives two of the displays, and this is also the card I use for my gaming fix. The other two monitors, which only do 2D desktop work, light 3D work, and video playback are powered by a less powerful, inexpensive 6600GT card. (Both on an SLI motherboard with SLI disabled)

When mixing video cards my strong recommendation is to "keep it all in the family". Which means, either buy two nVidia cards, or two ATI cards. You can mix and match brands such as XFX, MSI, or eVGA as long as they are sporting the same brand GPU. It is possible (and I have done it) to get an nVidia card and an ATI card working in the same system, however the drivers are constantly doing battle with each other. You use up more resources because you have to load two driver sets instead of one, and the configuration utilities for the two manufacturers are dramatically different, and annoying to work with both instead of having everything in one place.

Here is my recommendation for you. I would go with an nVidia 8800GT/GTS 512MB Card as the primary/gaming card, and for the other two monitors, I would purchase an 8500gt card (unless you need dual DVI outputs, in which case I would purchase an 8600GT for the secondary card) This way you are saving money, and electricity on a card to drive the monitors that likely will not see much 3D action. You could also purchase an older card like my 6600gt and that would work just fine, however I would recommend sticking with a GeForce 8000 series card for its DX10 compatibility, as well as Stream Processor architecture (which appears to the the design of the foreseeable future as GPUs, and GP-GPU's go)

Also when selecting your secondary card I would recommend one with a >= 128-bit memory system (crap cards such as the 8400gs use 64 bit) This will prove useful if your client ever upgrades to Vista, and wants to use Aero smoothly, also this will help with some professional Apps such as 3D programs, or video editing software which utilize the video card a lot more.

One last tid-bit of randomness: I just ordered an 8600GT card to replace my 6600GT, mostly because of the nVidia/Ageia merger. I'm hoping that I'll be able to use that 8600GT in the future as a sort of physics co-processor when gaming. This may just be a pipe-dream of mine, but even if that doesn't pan out, I'll at least have video cards that use the same version of DirectX now, and better video playback features.

Wow that just inspired me. Awesome advice Thanks.

 

[Carnage4]

Originally posted by: phaxmohdem
I have been running a quad monitor setup for quite some time now, and have done some extensive personal mix-n-matching of video cards.....
(etc)

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you VERY much for the detailed info. (Wish there was some sort of rep system on Anandtech....)

Thankfully I've been able to wait on the build for this since the 9xxx series NVIDIA cards were just released. They're waiting for a 9800GT or GTS to get released.

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: legoman666
win: http://i28.photobucket.com/alb...an666/IMG_0432_sfs.jpg

Hmm. Using school yearbooks to make up for not having height-ajustable monitors FTL.

Hey, they obviously have a headcrab problem to worry about before dealing with monitor height

 

[Lonyo]

Running 7800GT and 7200GS here with 3 monitors, 2 on the main card one of the GS. Could add another monitor to the GS if I had one.
Using nForce 4 SLI motherboard, one card in each PCIe slot. Windows XP SP2.