Ron S 2004-11-08 08:16
I am building a new system with eight 20.1" 2001FP DVI montitors. I'm looking at running two Quad cards; the ones that stick out are:
Appian Phoenix QD (Radeon 9000)
Colorgraphic Xentera GT (Radeon 9000)
Matrox QID Pro - ?
Matrox G450 - ?
Any other Quad cards out there?
Does anyone have any feeling for the relative performance of these cards? I'm most interested in 2D performance, and running them on a Dell Precision 670 workstation.
If I can find a good combination of hardware, I'll be building 20 more identical systems. So I want to get this right.
Thanks!
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ECarlson 2004-11-08 13:27
Whatever you get, if you plan to run all monitors at native resolution, make sure each card can put out 4x1600x1200@32-bit DVI, and at the recommended refresh rate for the monitors. That's a pretty hefty task for a video card.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Kyle 2004-11-08 23:57
Well if you aren't required to use DVI they make a 8-head video card. Xentera makes it, but it comes with a price that takes a bnch out of your wallet.
Xentera GT 8
I am almost sure that your way is cheaper, but if not then this will work for you.
www.beyondthefield.ssbm.org
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ECarlson 2004-11-09 13:24
Looks like two of those PCI cards would drive all 8 monitors via DVI at the native resolution, but at almost $800 each, they aren't cheap, but no solution will be cheap to drive 8 DVI's at that resolution.
These are going to be expensive systems anyway, just for the monitors, so it's a safe bet that you're not expecting $150 quad video cards anyway, though it might be possible with four $150-200 dual-DVI video cards, as long as you have enough PCI slots.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Mark 2004-11-14 12:31
I bought an Appian Phoenix Radeon 9000 Quad a few months ago (running 4 DVI SyncMaster 191Ts). My XP system has been unstable since, requiring me to either cycle through the boot-up process twice. or cycle through twice and then go through the safe mode screen.
Appian walked me through a few things and then told me is wasn't the card and that I would have to reformat my hard drive and start from scratch if I wanted it to work.
Well I did, and I still have the same issue. I would be interested to know whether others have had any similar experiences.
Mark
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ronschaaf 2004-11-21 04:12
Well, I've built the system and am now testing various video card configurations. BTW, I'm only using cards that can provide native resolutions over DVI.
So far, the pair of Matrox Qid Pro cards is performing the best. The card seems pretty fast at 2D work, which mostly what this system is for. It requires just two drivers, one for each card, and each card drives four monitors. Each Matrox QID card appears as a single virtual monitor to Windows (6400x1200), but that virtual monitor is displayed across four physical monitors, each with the same resolution. The taskbar streatches across the bottom of four monitors.
The Appian Radeon Phoenix QD cards seem to be unstable and slow. I'm going to full re-test them, but I'm not holding out too much luck for Appian.
Does anybody know of any other quad-display cards that can drive 1600x1200 per monitor, DVI? I want to compare as many cards as possible.
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ECarlson 2004-11-21 05:54
Thanks for the update. Did you try the card Kyle mentioned?
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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rschaaf 2004-11-22 02:57
No, I haven't tested the Colorgraphic. I may still.
The Colorgraphic Xentera 8 card displays eight monitors simultaneously in analog mode. You have to drop to four monitors per card for DVI.
Since the Colorgraphic cards use the Radeon 9000, I'm assuming that its performance is comparible to the Appian QD, which also used the 9000.
Here is a list of four-headed DVI display adapters that I've identified as of Nov 22, 2004:
- Matrox Qid Pro 256
- Appian Phoenix Radeon QD
- Nvidia Quadro NVS 400
- Colorgraphic Xentera GT
- Matrox G450 MMS
The Matrox G450 MMS limits out at 1280x1024 on DVI. The Matrox Qid Pro is the only quad card, I believe, that supports both 32-bit and 64-bit PCI. I'm testing it in 64-bit mode.
Ron
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simon long 2004-11-30 03:10
I need to run 4 monitors from my pc, BUT... i need one to run windows xp and the 3 others to run diffrent slide shows of photos, its a bit like when you go to a theme park and get your photo taken on a ride then see all the photos cycling thro on the monitors at the end when u get off...
CAN ANY ONE HELP ME!!!!
email me at sykemedia@hotmail.com
PLEASE HELP ME IF YOU CAN!!!!!!!!!
Sj Long
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rschaaf 2004-11-30 17:36
There are lots of ways to tackle this. Here are the first two that come to mind:
1. Create a standard four-monitor setup. One is the primary monitor. The other three are dedicated to software that shows still frames. You can have slide-show software maximized on those screens.
2. Again, create a four-monitor setup. Do not extend the Windows XP desktop to the extra three monitors. Even if you don't extend the desktop, you can still access those monitors with multi-monitor aware software, which you will probably have to write yourself. I did something similar to this when I wrote some remote helms monitor software that was used on a boat.
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tladuke 2004-12-03 12:13
Powershow is a plug in for Powerpoint 2003 and it claims to offer multi-monitor support. I have not tried it but it appears it can sync multiple streams as well as trigger multiple synched Powerpoint shows.
Good luck
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