Displays 3x1600x1200 - HELP

NEW PROBLEM:

I need suggestions for a graphics card(s) to power a minimum of three 1600x1200 displays, purely for office work. I have (at present) one PCIe x16 slot available, and several PCI slots, though of course if your solution needs two PCIe slots please tell me anyway and I'll badger the boss to get a new computer altogether. Thanks in advance!

 

im suprised your running 3 displays on XP since it doesnt like different displays drivers.

the PC is perfectly fine for office use and the res is not the reason the PC is so slow.

displays are powered by the GPU in this case the ATI express 1 and the Nvidia powering the other 2 however they are classsed as seperate displays not a single screen of 4800x1600.

The processor does not get loaded to power the screens and it would make no difference at what res.

The reason its running slow is most likely due to been raped by what ever crap your boss has installed it either knowingly or not. a format should do wonders.

 

People seem really attached to it - with this many staff, I can't be arsed to persuade the entire office to go to 7.

The ATI is an on-board chipset. I'm not familiar with systems this old; I know with newer GMA HD etc the on-board GPU is a separate processing unit that works entirely independently of the CPU, but I really don't know how these old ones work. Where does the processing power for the on-board come from in this situation? Is there a physical GPU on the motherboard, that does it's own processing independently of the CPU, or is it a chipset thing (like RAID or similar) that makes the CPU do the actual work? The NVIDIA PCIe card I'm not familiar with either - again, is this a real independent processing unit, or is it merely some sort of multiscreen adapter and the CPU's doing the processing for it?

That's the reason I'm asking - last week I overhauled an identical Optiplex including a total reinstallation of Windows and an add-in PCIe GFX card at different points. It originally ran a single screen through the same on-board chipset, and ran considerably faster after the installation of the independent GPU, even though it was now coping with two screens. I assumed that implied a relationship between screen resolution on on-board chipsets and CPU load - as in, when you plug a monitor into old on-board graphics chipsets, the CPU does the processing a GPU would normally do. Was I wrong, then?

 

It goes slow, because the XP interface is drawn by the CPU and not your GPU. You can have 20 Tesla GPU's and it will be just as slow. You need to get a Windows Vista or 7 with Aero enabled (default turned on), so that the interface is drawn by your GPU.

 

The ATI GPU is a dedicated unit capable of powering a screen for office stuff but thats about it 3D apps its likely to fall down.

The nivida Card is quadro so its a work station GPU that is optimised for 3D apps such as autocad etc where point count is usally extremely high and speed isnt key but accuracy is. It is just like a normal GPU us consumers buy for gaming except its for work.

Onboard simply means that a GPU is present on the motherboard rather on an seperate PCB card it is independant of the CPU and does not offload work to it.

did you have the correct drivers installed for the onboard GPU ?

EDIT - thanks goodbytes i forgot XP is drawn by the CPU im so used to 7 im not een sure what XP is anymore lol

 

Ah-hah! That sounds more consistent with my symptoms! What do you mean by interface - the GUI? So the GPUs are not to blame - it's XP's fault, because the GUI is drawn by the CPU and not the GPU(s)? Like adam_bagpuss I'm so used to Vista and 7 I don't really know the ins and outs of XP.

So - it doesn't matter how powerful the GPUs are; this computer will always be very slow if I continue to use this high resolution with XP?

Last question, then - if he sticks with XP, is there a CPU that can handle drawing the interface for 3x 1600x1200 displays, and doing some basic office multitasking too? If there isn't, he either has to drop down to two displays, or upgrade to a newer OS, yes?

I'm asking because thus far I can see the solutions as;

1. Remove one screen. This will reduce the amount of drawing the CPU has to do.
2. Upgrade the CPU. This more powerful CPU will be able to handle drawing the '4800x1200' resolution and do some work on top of that. (Does anyone have any suggestions about what such an CPU might be?)
3. Upgrade the OS to one that uses the GPU to draw the GUI.

 

Yes, the GUI is drawn by the CPU under XP and older Windows. That means putting a simple background under XP will make the CPU work like no tomorrow with your setup. Look, take a folder window, and scale it big and small, then big and small again, notice on the task manager how the CPU spikes at 50% (well one processor among the 2 that you have will skyrocket to 100%). In Windows 7/Vista it is not case, it's much lower (it should be 0, but you have to consider the content of the window is drawn by the CPU.. so basically the only that the CPU needs to do is calculate how to "stretch" and place the element inside so that everything is aligned (for example: have the side column reach the bottom of the window), which is easy to do.

What you can do to HELP, if your boss is anti Windows 7.. is use Windows Classic theme, where there is no theme texture to load from the CPU, so it makes it's life a bit better. But don't get your hopes too much up.

Correct.

Maybe a core i7 950?!
The problem is that the CPU is not designed for drawing. It was never designed to do so. It was excused back in the old days (before XP), because GPU's were massively expensive, and were still unable to provide descent performance. Today, it's not the case. Any 50-80$ dedicated GPU from ATi or Nvidia will 1920x1200 (or even more) without any struggle. (assuming you are using Windows Vitsa/7 with Aero)

It's like you come with this 3x Quadro SLI and try to run Microsoft Word on it.. ouch... that will not be pretty. GPU's are specifically designed for graphics, where it just happened to be that we discovered that with a bit of tweaking, we make them super fast at tasks such as calculating crazy physics and complex math equations. But running applications... no so much, that is why we need a CPU.

Your best bet is putting Windows7. Look it isn't so bad. Set it with a nice background/theme that comes with or available on Microsoft website, so that it looks really nice, and set the task bar to not combine items (a la: Windows Vista and older). Your boss should like it. It will nice and impressive for him to to use (yes, JUST because of the background.. it's a psychological thing), and the task bar will behave somewhat closely to XP. A quick training on WIn7 new features, like how to navigate the task bar, use Aero snap, and instant search (we will be impressed by that... just don't forget to add his personal drive (or wtv he puts his personal files) under Indexing so that it can find it's files and folder rapidly. Also, if he has a lot of files, leave the computer turned ON (and possibly log-in) to allow the index to do it's magic).

With ready boost, 64-bit support, and other features, the computer will feel much faster. And THAT is just from changing a OS. (be sure he has 4GB of RAM). Especially, if you tell him that a simple computer upgrade on select machines (assuming they are all Intel Core 2 Duo's, and Win7 ready, and have a powerful Intel GPU or any Nvidia or Ati graphic card newer than the Geforce FX 5000 series), such as RAM, will make the computer go faster. AND save power, due to the Balance power management of Windows 7.
http://www.neowin.net/news/upgrading-to-windows-7-can-save-lots-of-watts

If the Boss is happy with Win7, then I think your company will ditch XP very soon.

Don't forget about XP Mode (Pro, Enterprise, Ultimate edition only) for these pesky software that really doesn't run under Win7 no mater what you try under compatibility mode, or IE6 web based applications.
Note: When I switch to Vista 64-bit, I noticed several of my old games, where the setup were made in 16-bit, but the actual game was in 32-bit. As 64-bit Windows drop 16-bit application support, the trick to solve the problem, is go in XP Mode, install the game, copy the game extract/install files and put them in back to Vista where I wanted, remove the game in XP mode (so that it doesn't use XP Mode when I lunch it from the start menu, when I search for it on the start menu instance search), and run it in Vista... voila!

At my place of work, we are going to switch this coming summer, August 2011. The delay was more about training the staff to Win7 than anything. We had some important renovations, and problems which prevented us in getting Microsoft training thingy to train our staff.

 

Well - thanks everybody, +rep will be coming your way shortly.

I have indeed upgraded the boss to Windows 7, and this has wrought a new and interesting set of problems. The first is that the NVIDIA Quadro card does not have a Windows 7 driver. At all. NVIDIA apparently never wrote one.

The boss, unsatisfied with merely one screen, however, still wants three or four. I therefore need your advice on a graphics card that can support a minimum of three 1600x1200 screens, preferably four, over DVI. I have at present only one PCIe slot (a x16, I think) - the rest are old-fashioned PCI. I'm buying components that will survive the eventual upgrade to a whole new computer - did anyone else know how expensive Windows 7 Professional Retail is?! - and I need a solution to this problem that will also survive an upgrade.

Suggestions?

 

Wait wait what?!
You should do test BEFORE applying something. You should do test and verify these things BEFORE you touch someone else computer, let alone your BOSS.
Vista drivers should work for now...

But get any ATI Radeon with EyeFinity. be sure to get Display port to DVi adapters so that you can attach the monitors, if they don't have Display Port. If your boss GPU doesn't have Win7 drivers that means it's using a very old GPU...

Next time, make sure everything works, including your boss software BEFORE giving it to him.
Showing that switching Windows is very complicated... then forget it. The company will stick to XP for life, no mater what.

 

Matrox.

That's the cheapest 4 monitor card they do, iirc, and you might have to look around, but for business computing over crazy monitors, they are fantastic.

 

The problem is the boss is the only one with a computer in this configuration - there are plenty of similar Dells but none with that Quadro card. It's the first time I've ever seen a Quadro card, to be absolutely honest, which is why I'm not familiar with them. I think it's worth pointing out that the default driver Windows 7 applies is "VGA adapter" rather than recognising it as a GPU, and that when it's attached the computer slows down considerably. Also, when you say it's old, you're right; that's why as the only employee who (allegedly) knows his RSS from his elbow I'm being cut some slack - not only am I not employed (or paid!) as an IT tech, it's sufficiently elderly that I don't recognise most of it's components.

This is what I thought would make the most sense. However, these Dells don't have DisplayPort inputs, and Eyefinity cards only support two 'non-active' adapters; the third and fourth must be 'active' adapters (no, I don't know how it works) and these are £70-odd each. Can an ATI enthusiast suggest the cheapest 'card that can handle 3x 1600x1200 displays? I've heard about ATI 'cards that have a combination of DisplayPort and DVI ports - maybe that could help me circumvent the need for an active adapter? Also - does Eyefinity only support 'spanned' displays? I need mine as individuals.

I thought about those, but it's £400+ everywhere I look. Can anyone find them cheaper?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129158

Though as it's not a 5XXX series card, it won't support Eyefinity (though you don't need it if you don't plan on running the monitors together as a single one).

 

Bizarre, but almost exactly what I was looking for! That's going on the list of options, if I can find a UK distributor for a reasonable price.

Single-PCIe Solutions:

1. Matrox M9140 LP
2. ATI 5xxx (?) Eyefinity card + 2x 'active' DVI/DP converters - anyone know what 5xxx graphics card would suffice? 5770?
3. VisionTek HD 4670 x2

Dual-PCIe Solutions:

1. 2x NVIDIA GTS210
2. Other suggestions? Preferably single-slot cards with dual-DVI?

Anyone got any other suggestions? SLI'd/X-fire'd 'cards with two DVI outputs each, maybe?

 

For sure. 2 cheap Nvidia GPU's will do.
Your Boss doesn't do CAD nor gaming, nor anything that require really the GPU. So any old generation of the 9000 series even, will be more than good.

 

built a 6 display machine the other week using 3x GTS210 and its works perfectly.

you would need 2x PCI-e x4+ for 4 screens though.

alternatively you could use a matrix triple head 2 go digital edition which would allow 3x screens using 1 output from the quadro.

however using this method would trick your OS in to thinking your 3 screens are 1 and thus maximising and re-sizing windows would be across all 3 not indenpendantly

This method also relies on you finding a proper drive for the card otherwise it just be rubbish performance.

 

I figured I'd need a new motherboard for this option, but frankly the computer's pretty old anyway. I shall add that to the list of possibilities. Regarding the GTS210s, I've never seen one with dual-DVI. Could a fully-digital output be done with each card running DVI and an HDMI-DVI converter? Mind if I ask what resolutions (roughly) your machine was running?

I'm under strict orders not to invest money in anything that doesn't result in a guaranteed performance increase. Thankfully.

 

i used DVI-VGA converters as i was using VGA cables.

cant u use VGA or VGA-DVI converters

with regards to res it was running 5 x 1024x768 (yeah i know but they old plasmas and have a stupid native res of 1280x960 !!!) and 1 x 1920x1080.

shouldnt matter what res you have though as win 7 draws screen from GPU and therefore even a lowly GTS210 can run windows at any res

 

Afraid not. On the boss' orders, I therefore bought a Sapphire HD5550 and borrowed an Asus GTS210 to test on his Optiplex with Windows 7 to see if they were compatible. Neither worked. Apparently, though the Optiplex is supported by Windows 7, the graphics cards are supported by Windows 7, and the graphics cards work on the Optiplex under Windows XP, the combination of Optiplex, Windows 7 and graphics cards is a no go.

The staff at Yoyotech surmised that the machine was simply not supported under the more recent OS and drivers.

This has convinced my boss that what he needs now is an altogether new computer, which I'll be writing a thread for in just a few minutes.

As I now have the 5550 and a GTS210 to hand, and presumably will need another of one to pair up in this new machine, is either preferable for running 2 1600x1200 displays?

 

if you have a 5550 and a GTS210 then you can run up to 4 screens with that

if you just going for 2 displays only need the 1 GPU and im guessing the 5550 would be better proviing you got a HDMI-DVI adapter to keep your boss happy however

why is your boss so concerned over DVI and VGA ??? why must it be DVI ?

 

The GTS210 belongs in another Dell, so I can borrow it but it had to go back into it. The boss has decided that digital fidelity is what matters and since I only need converter cables to satisfy that I'm not hugely bothered.