just wondering on the best method of getting 5 displays active in windows. is it best to have 3x graphics cards and simply use 5 DVI ports. or get a triple head to go and a dual head to go and run it through 1 GPU will it hack it for video play back ?
What would be your main purpose of the extra screens, is it just for playing videos, if so, what video content you looking at? HD1080p? Playback of a single video across thus many screens could well get choppy, as it often did with just 3 screens in the past using just xvids and an interesting screen saver application called "Video Saver" found on the ultramon? site, which enables you to playback a video spanned across all monitors in full screen, however it is a bit dated now and does not support HD conent as far as I am aware. Personally I use 3 cards to drive 6 displays, however the tripple head to go had appealed at first also. I've not much experience with the dual/tripple head to go units, but from what I understand, the PC sees 1 giant monitor with large res, which then gets split to the indivdual monitors dy the device. So when watching video or playing games, the image would be spanned across them monitors, instead of each monitor working independantly. As such if you intend to operate a spanned mode, then you would do well to get a fairly powerfull card to run the games at these hi res. With my own setup using 3 gfx cards, if i wish to play gaming in tri screen, then i simply run the game in windowed mode and drag it across the desktop/monitors I want it on, for any games that dont support a felxible window size there is the matrox tripple head to go game software which can patch some game .exes in order to force it to run these custom resolutions. You may like to check out ATI's 5xxx series, which can handle 3 monitors per card (DVI+DVI/HDMI+Display Port)
IIRC there was also a 4850 with 4 DVIs. Which doesn't really matter as you'd still need another card for 5 monitors but i thought i'd mention it anyways.
well its not for films or anything its for CCTV so pretty low-res stuff to be honest. dont really need giant display need 5 seperate ones to drive each camera matrix. seems like 3 cards is the way to go then. now need a mobo with 3x PCI-e slots then i guess
any suggestion for a fairly cheap 3c PCI-e slot mobo. dont really need the x16 slots as its not heavy use. only low-res cameras on each screen with a directx overlay. so x4 will probly do i reckon
I would've thought any Tri-Sli board would work, just putting in three £30 graphics cards instead of three £300 cards lol If you really don't need that much grunt why not just buy cheap PCI gfx? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...DDR2-567MHz-GPU-D-Sub-Dual-Link-DVI-I-S-Video - £40 and supports dual head. If you use a motherboard with onboard gfx you then only need two cards to give your total outputs - so you could pick a £50 matx board, a PCI-E gfx card and one of them above for a PCI slot.
If it is just fior displaying the low res CCTV, then you could also try using just a standard PCI gfx card, I know that Nvidia still have some cards kicking around. Nvidia 6200 @ £35 Nvidia 8400GS @ £40 If looking for a mobo with 3x pci clots.. which will have to be 16x in length with at least 8x electrical for most cards such as the 8800gts and upwards. Then I would proberbly recommend checking out the intel P45 chipset mobo's, or you may even be able to pick up a cheap nforce 650/680i board which again will have 3x PCI-E 16x length with each being provided with at least 8x PCI-E lanes. However I feel a simpler mobo and using the standard PCI cards would prove to be a cheaper solution for you. EDIT. heh just beaten to it by Zoon, for which I second his comments
Werent ATi going to release a 5870 with 6 displayport connectors so you caould add 6 monitors to 1 card? Only problem is you'd then need all the monitors to have displayport connections.
And you'd have to pay £300 and the premium it charges for the 6 monitor capability I'd still like it though
Indeed they where planning on releaseing a 6port card some time soon, with a mighty price tag also. Just as another thought... Multiple gfx cards by multiple manufactures wont work in Vista, as Vista will only allow a single display driver to be loaded at any time, so a mobo with onboard gfx that is say intel, and the pci cards as nvidia, you will find difficulties. As such, use XP and Win7 which both allow you to load multiple video drivers, OR ensure that all the gfx cards are supported in the same driver. A single driver shall be able to operate multiple cards in Vista, for example the nvidia drivers provide support for cards from the 6x00 range right the way though to the GTX2xx series.
If this is not for gaming and you don't want to replace the motherboard, look into Matrox. They have cards which can support up to 8 displays on a single PCIe as well as output splitters so that one DVI port can power 3 monitors.
surely one of the new ATI's with its 4 ports (you can use converters for displayport/hdmi - DVI) and an AMD motherboard with ATI onboard would do the trick. That way you only need the one card and one slot
the best way to do it is use two 5750 cards from Ati. They can each handle 3 screens, and are under 100 pound each. Add any mobo you want with two PCIe slots and presto! Edit: or you could use DisplayLink, to add screens over USB. For low-res, it works absolutely fine
looked at the matrox cards, they are just way to expensive and they are not supported by the software i use so would be a gamble if i got one. thought about 5750 as this provides the least amount of hardware but realistically its expensive to setup. £75 ex VAT for 5750 each and 20 ex VAT for adpater is alot more expensive than using IGD and 2x PCI-e cards. oh and the new ATI cards dont support 4 displays only 3 as you can only use 1 DVI/HDMI + DVI or 2xDVI not all at the same time.
Have you thought of using USB-> DVI/VGA converters or a USB monitor? No need for any extra graphics cards at all. Xtrafresh got there before me... Moriquendi
What about a board with integrated ATI graphics (would a 790GX work?) and either a 4850x2 (has 4 display outs, and can be had fairly cheaply) or two smaller cards (4670 or the like?)?
yeah thats what ive just spec'd up near enough ASUS M4A78-E - onboard ATI3200 2x ATI 4550 im guessing this would be ok and i can use onboard and PCI-e at the same time ?
