PC with 6 monitors (no 1+ 5 slaves but 6 active ones) : how to do that ?

[toni64]

Good morning,
To follow the financial markets on which I work, I need to have a PC with 6
monitors : of course each monitor will show different charts , so I dont
want a master + 5 slaves.

I have been told that I need to put together two identical quad video cards,
connected with a wire,
Is it true ??

If I find a motherboard with 3 PCI, cannot I connect 3 dualmonitor video
cards?

Many thanks for any contribution.
Regards.

TOnio

 

[First of One]

I have been told that I need to put together two identical quad video
cards, connected with a wire,
Is it true ??

Not true, especially the part about connecting the two cards with a wire.

If I find a motherboard with 3 PCI, cannot I connect 3 dualmonitor video
cards?

Yes, or any mix of PCIe and PCI cards. The cards don't have to be identical.
You can save some headaches if you pick cards that are all supported by the
same driver set.

 

[DaveW]

You are talking about needing a PROFESSIONALLY designed custom setup. Your
setup cannot be done with standard PC parts, especially the video cards
(there are no quad GPU video cards manufactured for consumers) and the video
card drivers and software. Basically you need a Bloomberg setup. Hope you
have LOTS of cash available...

 

[Augustus]

You are talking about needing a PROFESSIONALLY designed custom setup.
Your setup cannot be done with standard PC parts, especially the video
cards (there are no quad GPU video cards manufactured for consumers) and
the video card drivers and software. Basically you need a Bloomberg
setup. Hope you have LOTS of cash available...

****, where do you get this stuff from? The OP isn't talking about a getting
two QUAD CORE cards, he's asking whether or not it's better to get two QUAD
HEAD cards or a mix of PCI cards with his existing video card. And he can
mix and match to get what he wants. He doesn't need a
"PROFESSIONALLY" designed custom setup.

 

[pjp]

Theoretically it should work, e.g. even 98 stated it supported up to 10
displays.

The problem is getting the drivers for all the video cards to work together.
Your best bet is to read what cards are supported by Windows directly (98 &
SE had a list, never seen one for XP) and use just those cards along with
Window's native support. The problem there is that most of those cards would
be hard to find now.

The driver problem will manifest itself in two different ways. 1 - driver
wants "that" card to be primary or it don't work and 2 - driver will see
only one of the maybe multipule cards of same brand (ATI - ARGH!!!). My
actual best luck has been with a good primary dual-head (ATI & nVidia) and
an old supported by Windows itself Cyrix of some sort.

I've personally not gone past triple setup.

 

[Augustus]

Theoretically it should work, e.g. even 98 stated it supported up to 10
displays.

The problem is getting the drivers for all the video cards to work
together.
Your best bet is to read what cards are supported by Windows directly (98
&
SE had a list, never seen one for XP) and use just those cards along with
Window's native support. The problem there is that most of those cards
would
be hard to find now.

Not hard to find at all, and driver integration isn't an issue with two of
these PCI Quadro cards:
http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp;jsessionid=aHrTEQ2-j2ua-F7KVI?iid=158584
This will driver 8 separate monitors without issue in XP.
There are other easily workable solutions readily available.

 

[toni64]

Not hard to find at all, and driver integration isn't an issue with two of

these PCI Quadro cards:
http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp;jsessionid=aHrTEQ2-j2ua-F7KVI?iid=158584
This will driver 8 separate monitors without issue in XP.
There are other easily workable solutions readily available.

i do thank all of you for your extremely interesting suggestions, even DaveW
who was quite pessimistic I know that it s possible to have 6 monitors
but i am also aware that some conflicts may arise among the different
components.
I saw the link you added above, but 64 MB isnt too little ?? the price is
not high, considering that I m in Italy thus 299 usd = 200 euro, but I have
some doubts re. the 64 mb...

 

[Augustus]

i do thank all of you for your extremely interesting suggestions, even
DaveW who was quite pessimistic I know that it s possible to have 6
monitors but i am also aware that some conflicts may arise among the
different components.
I saw the link you added above, but 64 MB isnt too little ?? the price is
not high, considering that I m in Italy thus 299 usd = 200 euro, but I
have some doubts re. the 64 mb...

Remember that large amounts of video memory are only necessary for for 3D
rendering work and in 3d games where large amounts of textures are loaded
into memory. Suppose you are planning on using six 16000x1200 monitors
running at 32 bit color. In 2D displays what's displayed on the screen is
simply represented by the calculation of resolution (1600x1200) divided by
the color depth in bits divided by 8 because there are 8 bytes per bit bit.
Therefore the video memory required for a single 2D 1600x1200 32bit screen
is around 8Mb. (7,680,000 bytes) Driving three and three would require 24Mb
per card. Driving four and two would require 32Mb and 16Mb per card. The
calculation is really a simple one.

 

[Augustus]

. Suppose you are planning on using six 16000x1200 monitors running at 32

bit color.

Umm, that particular monitor would require a really long desk. 1600x1200

 

[William]

Remember that large amounts of video memory are only necessary for for 3D
rendering work and in 3d games where large amounts of textures are loaded
into memory. Suppose you are planning on using six 16000x1200 monitors
running at 32 bit color. In 2D displays what's displayed on the screen is
simply represented by the calculation of resolution (1600x1200) divided by
the color depth in bits divided by 8 because there are 8 bytes per bit
bit. Therefore the video memory required for a single 2D 1600x1200 32bit
screen is around 8Mb. (7,680,000 bytes) Driving three and three would
require 24Mb per card. Driving four and two would require 32Mb and 16Mb
per card. The calculation is really a simple one.

Augustus:

Did they change that formula again? The last time I checked, it's height
times width times 24 for 2d RGB color. 32 bits is for RGB + alpha (key)
channel (or CMYK for print work) for drop-out work when doing imposition
(key, outline, whatever,) work in photography or video. OR:

H*W*24 = 1600*1200*24 = 46,080,000 = 46 meg give or take a little.

Why are you dividing? I don't understand. Maybe you know something new?
Check the specks on JPG, it's H*W*24 before lossie compression. Tiff and
PNG is H*W*32 before losless compression, it has an alpha channel.

RAW data and capable monitors use 10 bits for each color or 40 bits for
RGBA. I noticed an improvement in color fidelity when ATI CCC started
supporting 10 bit color depth last year on my video card and monitor.

One quick way to check the ram requirements is to open an image in a photo
editing program the size you are going to use as a monitor and look at the
image info. It will show you what ram is being used. (Before compression.)

Hope this helps.

William

 

[Mercury]

H*W*24 = 1600*1200*24 = 46,080,000 = 46 meg give or take a little.

46 megabits = 5.76 megabytes give or take a little.

Augustus' numbers are right, but he needs to replace his first "divide" by
"multiply".

 

[Augustus]

46 megabits = 5.76 megabytes give or take a little.

Augustus' numbers are right, but he needs to replace his first "divide" by
"multiply".

http://www.monitorworld.com/faq_pages/q34_page.html

 

[William]

46 megabits = 5.76 megabytes give or take a little.

Augustus' numbers are right, but he needs to replace his first "divide" by
"multiply".

Ah - bits to bytes. I forgot that one. H*W*3 for bytes. Much better.

Thank you

William

 

[Mercury]

http://www.monitorworld.com/faq_pages/q34_page.html

And your point is what? :-/