[rhelv6-list] Opinions on multi-head

Krizak, Paul pkrizak at qualcomm.com
Thu Mar 1 22:27:37 UTC 2012 

As far as I know, ATI cards can only drive more than two displays if you're using pure DisplayPort protocol.  Using passive DP->DVI adapters you can only drive two monitors.

So if your monitors don't have DP ports, you may not be able to drive more than two of them with either card.  You should check the specs carefully.

But as far as which card to choose -- the NVS450 has 4 ports, the v4900 has three.  The NVS is passively cooled, which is nice.

::shrug:: not sure which way I'd go there.  They're both nice cards.  The main point I was trying to make was that when it comes to configuring large multi-display environments, the Eyefinity stuff makes it very easy, even if the drivers themselves are a bit of a chore to deal with.

----
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 thomas at redhat.com
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 2:17 PM
To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (Santiago) discussion mailing-list
Subject: Re: [rhelv6-list] Opinions on multi-head

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Hey -

Since I want three displays (and I have three identical DVI-D monitors), do you think the v4900 is better or worse than the NVS-450?

Any ideas?

TC

On 02/24/2012 10:57 AM, Krizak, Paul wrote:
> The FirePro V3900 is a nice dual-head entry level card:
> http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/v39
> 00/Pages/v3900.aspx
>
>  Stepping up to the V4900 you get thee displays:
> http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/v49
> 00/Pages/v4900.aspx
>
>  Pretty much anything that says it supports Eyefinity will work nicely 
> with the latest  Catalyst drivers.  Note that the FirePro and FireGL 
> cards use a different, more heavily tested driver than the Radeon 
> cards.  I've personally never tried getting Eyefinity to work in Linux 
> on a Radeon card, but that doesn't mean it won't work.
> 
> ---- Paul Krizak              cube: AR.250A8 Staff IT Engineer, IAS
> desk: 858-651-2467 Qualcomm, Inc            cell: 512-791-0686
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com 
> [mailto:rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Thomas Cameron 
> Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 7:09 AM To:
> rhelv6-list at redhat.com Subject: Re: [rhelv6-list] Opinions on 
> multi-head
> 
> Paul, do you have any specific card recommendations? I see Eyefinity 
> listed on everything from cheap desktop class cards to massively 
> expensive workstation cards.
> 
> On 02/23/2012 11:05 AM, Krizak, Paul wrote:
>> 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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- --
Thomas Cameron, RHCA, RHCSS, RHCDS, RHCVA, RHCX Chief Architect, Canada and Central US
512-241-0774 office / 512-585-5631 cell
http://people.redhat.com/tcameron/
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