[rhelv6-list] Opinions on multi-head

[Krizak, Paul]

I would hesitate to be quite so harsh on ATI graphics on Linux.  I do agree that the drivers are less friendly than the nVidia drivers, but as long as you're using the binary blob drivers from AMD's website, they do work well.  And the Catalyst Control Center has been ported to Linux and is included with the binary drivers, which makes setting up multi-head (even massive 6-display Eyefinity setups) trivially easy.

----
Paul Krizak
Staff IT Engineer, IAS
Qualcomm, Inc

-----Original Message-----
From: rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Prentice Bisbal
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 8:50 AM
To: rhelv6-list at redhat.com
Subject: Re: [rhelv6-list] Opinions on multi-head

On 02/22/2012 07:04 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:
> Howdy All -
>
> I currently use a dual-head setup using a relatively inexpensive 
> nVidia Corporation G73 [GeForce 7300 GT] card. I use the DVI and the 
> VGA cables at the same time, and it works just fine. I can do wobbly 
> windows and spinny desktops and all that jazz (yeah, I like the eye 
> candy, sue me).
>
> I want to go to triple head. I am reasonably sure I can do it with 
> e.g. an NVidia Quadro NVS 450, but I am curious as to whether the 
> driver will do accelerated X? Three  monitors will be nice, but not if 
> I lose capabilities I have now with dual.
>
> So... anyone got any experience with triple-head or beyond? Any advice 
> on NVidia Quadro vs. maybe ATI's offering?
>
> I'd love to hear any stories - good or bad - about accelerated X on 
> more than two monitors.
>

I wouldn't use anything but NVidia with Linux. Open source zealots complain that the NVidia drivers aren't open source, but who cares?
NVidia gives them away for free, and they've been extremely supportive of Linux since day one. I used to support high-end 3D scientific visualization Linux workstations, and I always used Nvidia hardware. The performance is awesome, the driver provides lots of tweaking, and it's incredibly well documented! You will never go wrong using NVidia on Linux.

I think Intel provides good Linux support for their video cards, but I have no first hand knowledge.

ATI's support of Linux leaves something to be desired. Some people say the ATI support is good and open source, but after days of googling, I still couldn't tell with absolute certainty which driver was the correct one for the ATI chip I was working with. I recommend avoiding ATI altogether.

As far as whether or not your accelerated effects would work across all the monitors, the number of monitors your using shouldn't make a difference as long as the driver/video card you are using supports those 3D affects. If it works with one, it will work with 2, 3, 4, .... I would not try to mix-and-match video cards and drivers, however. This shouldn't be an issue with the Quadro NVS 450, since it's designed to support up to 4 displays from a single card.

--
Prentice

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