one desktop on four monitors ?

one desktop on four monitors ?

[DJ Delorie]

I've been trying for a while to get my setup to work with nouveau.
I'm currently using the nvidia blob with Fedora 12 with success, but
certain types of X operations kill performance.

I have two Nvidia 9800 GT video cards, each driving two monitors.

Card 0
     Monitor 0 = Dell 3008FP 2560x1600, in the middle of the cluster
     Monitor 1 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, above the middle
Card 1
     Monitor 0 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, left of middle, rotated right
     Monitor 1 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, right of middle, rotated right

So far, with Fedora 14 beta, I can do one of two things:

1. Each card is a separate randr display pair (i.e. two virtual
   monitors, two desktops)

2. Monitor 0 of each card is a xinerama pair, and each Monitor 1 is a
   clone of its Monitor 0.

While I'd prefer to use xrandr for these monitors, I've read that it's
just not supported yet (sigh).  At this point, I'd be happy if
xinerama worked!  Even if it only gave comparable performance to the
binary blob, it would make updating Fedora much easier.

Has *anyone* gotten a single desktop on >1 cards and >2 monitors yet?

DJ

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Younes Manton]

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 12:26 AM, DJ Delorie <dj-Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> I've been trying for a while to get my setup to work with nouveau.
> I'm currently using the nvidia blob with Fedora 12 with success, but
> certain types of X operations kill performance.
>
> I have two Nvidia 9800 GT video cards, each driving two monitors.
>
> Card 0
>     Monitor 0 = Dell 3008FP 2560x1600, in the middle of the cluster
>     Monitor 1 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, above the middle
> Card 1
>     Monitor 0 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, left of middle, rotated right
>     Monitor 1 = Dell 2001FP 1600x1200, right of middle, rotated right
>
> So far, with Fedora 14 beta, I can do one of two things:
>
> 1. Each card is a separate randr display pair (i.e. two virtual
>   monitors, two desktops)
>
> 2. Monitor 0 of each card is a xinerama pair, and each Monitor 1 is a
>   clone of its Monitor 0.
>
> While I'd prefer to use xrandr for these monitors, I've read that it's
> just not supported yet (sigh).  At this point, I'd be happy if
> xinerama worked!  Even if it only gave comparable performance to the
> binary blob, it would make updating Fedora much easier.
>
> Has *anyone* gotten a single desktop on >1 cards and >2 monitors yet?
>
> DJ

Most of whats needed to get this working in a RandR based driver is
just not implemented in the server yet. All of the RandR drivers are
basically in the same boat, not just Nouveau. Nvidia's RandR support
is basically a wrapper around their NVCONTROL extension if I recall
correctly, so they can still support it.

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[DJ Delorie]

> > While I'd prefer to use xrandr for these monitors, I've read that it's
> > just not supported yet (sigh).
> 
> Most of whats needed to get this working in a RandR based driver is
> just not implemented in the server yet.

What about *without* RandR ?  I can get it to bring up all four
monitors sort-of, I'm OK with Xinerama for now, I just want something
that works...

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Younes Manton]

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 10:11 PM, DJ Delorie <dj-Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>> > While I'd prefer to use xrandr for these monitors, I've read that it's
>> > just not supported yet (sigh).
>>
>> Most of whats needed to get this working in a RandR based driver is
>> just not implemented in the server yet.
>
> What about *without* RandR ?  I can get it to bring up all four
> monitors sort-of, I'm OK with Xinerama for now, I just want something
> that works...
>

Nouveau doesn't support anything other than RandR. Most of the
server's old Xinerama code is also long gone, but clients can still
use the Xinerama extension and RandR will provide the screen geometry
info. However, without the proper server-side support for multiple
cards driving a single desktop all Xinerama is good for on RandR based
drivers is supporting multiple monitors on a *single* card for old
clients that only support Xinerama for screen geometry instead of
RandR. Any other configuration is likely broken. I don't think anyone
is working on multiple cards driving a single desktop so unfortunately
your #1 setup is the best you can do on 2 cards for the foreseeable
future.

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[DJ Delorie]

Grrr.  Can the nouveau driver grab two cards at a time and tell the X
server it's one card?

Does nouveau support any cards that can drive four monitors with one
card, with at least one monitor at 2560x1600 ?  Would that get me what
I want?

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Younes Manton]

On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:44 PM, DJ Delorie <dj-Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> Grrr.  Can the nouveau driver grab two cards at a time and tell the X
> server it's one card?

No. It would be pretty tricky to do, especially with different chip
versions and generations, but even with identical cards it's probably
a fair bit of effort that would be better spent on proper X server
support. X server internals aren't really my area of interest so I
can't tell you much more.

> Does nouveau support any cards that can drive four monitors with one
> card, with at least one monitor at 2560x1600 ?  Would that get me what
> I want?
>

Current Nvidia cards that support 4 heads are actually dual-GPUs on a
single card, so the problem is largely the same. Sorry to be the
bearer of bad news.

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Felix Blanke]

That are exact the same informations I got.

I wanted to get 3 screen working like one single screen. No chance with
nouveau.

What you could do (I hope you guys don't kill me :)):

If your displays got displayport use an AMD card with eyefinity. If
your displays dont have displayport you need to buy 4x active
dvi->displyport adapters :/


Regards,
Felix


Am Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:10:32 -0400
schrieb Younes Manton <younes.m-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>:

> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:44 PM, DJ Delorie <dj-Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >
> > Grrr.  Can the nouveau driver grab two cards at a time and tell the
> > X server it's one card?
> 
> No. It would be pretty tricky to do, especially with different chip
> versions and generations, but even with identical cards it's probably
> a fair bit of effort that would be better spent on proper X server
> support. X server internals aren't really my area of interest so I
> can't tell you much more.
> 
> > Does nouveau support any cards that can drive four monitors with one
> > card, with at least one monitor at 2560x1600 ?  Would that get me
> > what I want?
> >
> 
> Current Nvidia cards that support 4 heads are actually dual-GPUs on a
> single card, so the problem is largely the same. Sorry to be the
> bearer of bad news.
> _______________________________________________
> Nouveau mailing list
> Nouveau-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/nouveau

Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Maarten Maathuis]

This may be of interest to some
(http://cgit.freedesktop.org/nouveau/xf86-video-nouveau/commit/?id=9737a812aacbc544b93eeaa031cf1c2e8adbd661),
no idea if it works well, but you can try.

Maarten.

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Felix Blanke <felixblanke-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> That are exact the same informations I got.
>
> I wanted to get 3 screen working like one single screen. No chance with
> nouveau.
>
> What you could do (I hope you guys don't kill me :)):
>
> If your displays got displayport use an AMD card with eyefinity. If
> your displays dont have displayport you need to buy 4x active
> dvi->displyport adapters :/
>
>
> Regards,
> Felix
>
>
> Am Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:10:32 -0400
> schrieb Younes Manton <younes.m-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:44 PM, DJ Delorie <dj-Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Grrr.  Can the nouveau driver grab two cards at a time and tell the
>> > X server it's one card?
>>
>> No. It would be pretty tricky to do, especially with different chip
>> versions and generations, but even with identical cards it's probably
>> a fair bit of effort that would be better spent on proper X server
>> support. X server internals aren't really my area of interest so I
>> can't tell you much more.
>>
>> > Does nouveau support any cards that can drive four monitors with one
>> > card, with at least one monitor at 2560x1600 ?  Would that get me
>> > what I want?
>> >
>>
>> Current Nvidia cards that support 4 heads are actually dual-GPUs on a
>> single card, so the problem is largely the same. Sorry to be the
>> bearer of bad news.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nouveau mailing list
>> Nouveau-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/nouveau
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nouveau mailing list
> Nouveau-PD4FTy7X32lNgt0PjOBp9y5qC8QIuHrW@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/nouveau
>



-- 
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OT: Eyefinity with four monitors (was: Re: one desktop on four monitors ?)

[Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn]

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Felix Blanke schrieb:
> That are exact the same informations I got.
>
> I wanted to get 3 screen working like one single screen. No chance with
> nouveau.
>
> What you could do (I hope you guys don't kill me :)):
>
> If your displays got displayport use an AMD card with eyefinity. If
> your displays dont have displayport you need to buy 4x active
> dvi->displyport adapters :/

A Sapphire 5770 Flex should support the described setup without any
adapters (except maybe a passive DVI->HDMI one).


Best regards,
Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn



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Re: OT: Eyefinity with four monitors (was: Re: one desktop on four monitors ?)

[Felix Blanke]

Well the Flex only got a build in adapter.

But you can't use the hdmi output for a 3. monitor while using 2x dvi.
That hat something to do with clock..whatever :D I talked about that
issue at the radeon mailing list. I got a 5750 and I can't use the hdmi
output while  using 2xdvi (I tried it with the newest kernel). For the
third monitor I've now an active dvi->dp adapter from sapphire (single
link only). The price in germany is about 25euro, that was fine for
me :)

If you really want to use 4 displays you'll need displayport and a card
with min. 2xdvi + 2xdp (I guess there is no such a card) or a card with
4x dp (and active adapters if your have non-dp displays).

Regards,
Felix

Am Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:05:07 +0200
schrieb Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn <chithanh@cs.tu-berlin.de>:

> Felix Blanke schrieb:
> > That are exact the same informations I got.
> >
> > I wanted to get 3 screen working like one single screen. No chance
> > with nouveau.
> >
> > What you could do (I hope you guys don't kill me :)):
> >
> > If your displays got displayport use an AMD card with eyefinity. If
> > your displays dont have displayport you need to buy 4x active
> > dvi->displyport adapters :/
> 
> A Sapphire 5770 Flex should support the described setup without any
> adapters (except maybe a passive DVI->HDMI one).
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Chí-Thanh Christopher Nguyễn
> 
> 
> 

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Re: one desktop on four monitors ?

[Gerd v. Egidy]

Hi,

> I wanted to get 3 screen working like one single screen. No chance with
> nouveau.

I have 3 Screens working with one desktop here:

           HDMI ----------------------- Monitor1
           |
8400 card -|
           |                      DVI-- Monitor2
           DVI ---- TripleHead2Go-|
                                  DVI-- Monitor3

You just need a Matrox TripleHead2Go. To use 4 screens you'd need two of them.

Nouveau works, but currently the xinerama-info can not be tweaked. That means 
my KDE doesn't know about the 3 screens and pops up windows in between. I've 
read that it can be tweaked with a custom libxinerama but I haven't looked 
into it yet.

So I'm currently still running the Nvidia blob.

Just as note: I'm not using xinerama, but 1 big screen on one card. 
Nonetheless xinerama information is used to tell the desktop about the screens 
in use.

Kind regards,

Gerd

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