Triple Headed Desktop Display for Fast 3D Apps?

Once Was SGI Customer asks: "My group was once a big SGI user. We run a Powerwall display center with 3 large screens, currently driven by an SGI Onyx Infinite Reality (IR) to provide a single desktop with 3D acceleration across all screens. The Onyx is now old and very slow compared to our Nvidia cards, that do a great job at TwinView display, but not 'TripleView'. I'd like to know if there are any PC manufacturers who make a card that can do what the IR can do (in terms of a single desktop across 3D displays with fast 3D acceleration), but for Windows and Red Hat (now Fedora Core) Linux?"

Comments

The quick cheap way

[RingDev]

Get a machine with Graphics on the motherboard. Add in a top of the line ATI car for dual monitor support and blammo! 3 monitors ready to go. Works in windows, not sure about *nix though. -Rick

Re:The quick cheap way

[deicide]

The reason on-board video is disabled is because it is using the same AGP bus which can only support one device. Think of it as an AGP video card soldered into your motherboard, with an option of being turned off when something is inserted into AGP slot.

Re:The quick cheap way

[DeadMeat (TM)]

ATI cards have two modes in Linux: 2D mode and crash mode.

OK, ATI's Linux drivers aren't quite that bad. But all sorts of random things (like the Composite extension) are broken; performance is absymal compared to the Windows drivers -- and, in the case of 2D, often worse than the open-source driver that ships with X.org; and it seems like every other kernel patch breaks the kernel module. If you're doing something serious enough to warrant three monitors and you need something the open-source drivers don't provide (e.g., 3D acceleration for the R300 series or newer), I'd strongly recommend against going with ATI.

I use an nVidia card at work. The documentation is a little obtuse (getting TwinView working is a challenge without using a third-party HOWTO) but the drivers work once they're set up.

Easy fix

[XeresRazor]

Simple, get one of the newer motherboards that supports SLI Nvidia cards and plop in a pair of AGP GeForce 6600's or 6800's, instant support for up to 4 monitors if you run in non-SLI mode.

Re:

[kerbawya]

actually http://www.matrox.com/mga/multidisplay/product_cha rt.cfm this shows a breakdown of all their multidisplay cards.

Maybe I'm missing something...

[malakai]

but just add another graphics card.

You can put in as many NVIDIA 6600 PCI cards as you have slots. Each of those can drive two panels. I've got clients with 6 panel desktops.

You can mix AGP and PCI, but depending on BIOS/MB you may have issues. I've seen mix mode work and not work. Seemed to work fine on Dells.

Often time, the built in MB GPU can not be enabled if you're also using an AGP card (because the mboard on-board GPU is using the AGP bus). So be mindfull of that if you go down that path.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something...

[deicide]

You are confusing PCI and PCI Express. NVIDIA 6600 does not come in "PCI" form factor. None of video cards made in last handful of years do.

There is no way to have multiple AGP slots, but there are indeed boards with two PCI Express slots - for example, the infamous Asus A8N-SLI.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something...

[alan_dershowitz]

I've been running multiple video cards in Windows and Linux for several years now. My experience has been the following:

1) 3D across video cards does not work well. I assume this is because DirectX has to map to a virtual framebuffer before rendering to the screen. Dragging 3D apps across screens (on different video cards) causes slowdown.
2) Some apps have to be specially programmed to use 3D across multiple cards. Particularly true with games or anything that is going to change screen resolutions on you.
3) Configuration can be a cast iron BITCH. Particularly on Linux. For example, the proprietary ATI radeon drivers give you unresolved symbol errors when trying to use Xinerama across multiple ATI cards. In Windows, the drivers' bugginess seems to double once you have multiple cards.

Your mileage may vary. As a matter of fact, this ask slashdot question is going to be a godsend for me, because just this day I decided I was going to sell my two Radeon cards and try to find a single card that would support triple monitor for EXACTLY the reasons I listed. Configuration and use of multiple cards has ranged from merely acceptable to gun-in-mouth torturous for me over the years.

Matrox Parahelia

[VargrX]

you may want to look at the Parahelia line from Matrox

They do triple-head out of the box, nice cards.

Nvidia, OpenGL and Xinerama

[Ford Prefect]

I note that the latest Nvidia drivers for Linux have added 'initial support for Xinerama + OpenGL' - in other words, I gather you can have a single OpenGL context spanned over multiple graphics cards.

See Appendix V in the drivers README - I haven't tried it, but it sounds like you'll be able to expand to three or more heads, so long as the resulting window is less than 4096 pixels across.

Any use? I've only got experience with OpenGL on a single, dual-head graphics card thanks to Twinview, but I have to admit that works brilliantly for me. Who knows what this new thing is like. :-)

Re:Nvidia, OpenGL and Xinerama

[Shewmaker]

If you want an OpenGL window with more than 4096 pixels across, then you'll have to go distributed for now. Chromium is used by many visualization clusters in combination with Distributed Multihead X (DMX). Chromium distributes OpenGL and DMX provides the unified desktop.

I've recently heard of a commercial product, VGP, but I don't know how well it works yet.

Re:Matrox

[FullCircle]

No, they don't support 3D in Linux.

I haven't checked in a while, but it was a horrible situation the last time I checked their user forums.

Also, the Parhelia is dog slow at 3D compared to any basic Nvidia or ATI card.

SLI in non-SLI mode

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Get an NForce4 SLI board and run two GeForce PCIe graphics cards (or two ATI PCIe graphics cards). You will be able to support up to four monitors.

The Matrox Parhelia is slow, as are PCI (not PCIe) cards.

Beware of transitioning away from SGI machines.

[CyricZ]

SGI machines are built to last. They are built to perform. Even if they aren't the fastest or most powerful computers out there, they are amongst the most reliable and industructable systems built. You might get minor performance boosts from an nVidia-based PC, but don't be surprised if that PC overheats and dies within a year. SGI has military-grade strength and quality. PC hardware does not.

Re:Beware of transitioning away from SGI machines.

[(H)elix1]

You might get minor performance boosts from an nVidia-based PC, but don't be surprised if that PC overheats and dies within a year. SGI has military-grade strength and quality. PC hardware does not.

A better comment might have been you get what you pay for. Buy a cheapo machine, odds are you will have problems. Buy quality kit, and your expectations of what a workstation should be will remain solid. I suspect I paid more for my power supply and cooling equipment than some complete machines at Wal-Mart... The SGI kit is what I learned how to code on, back in the early days of bioinformatics and it was solid kit. The NVIDIA Quadro series cards are not slouches or some overclocked gamers card either. Just have to keep in mind that with PC's, just like any workstation platform, thought has to be put into designing the entire system. Had some great white box systems and some Dells that made our IT guys embarrassed to call them workstations.

Use a s/w cluster instead

[happynut]

You could use ModVis to image a single data set across multiple monitors. They distribute the image across a cluster of hosts, each of which have a slightly different view. It might be overkill for just three screens, but works very well if you can't do it in hardware.

Re:Matrox

[abrotman]

they do support 3d in linux .. but those cards just don't push pixels like the competition .. matrox is great for 2d .. and depending on your needs .. "Good Enough" for 3d

Wildcat Multiview

[miyako]

If your currently using SGI, then I would assume that your not looking for a gaming card. If your doing 3D design work, then you might look into The Wildcat Multiview Card. It only works in conjunction with the Wildcat Realizm cards. Not cheap, at $825 for a midrange card, and nearly $3,000 for the top-of-the-line card and another $420 for the multiview card, but then they are professional cards, not intended for hobbiest or gaming machines.

Boring commodity graphics

[prefect42]

Speaking as an SGI admin (Onyx3400 IR2 probably the closest to what you're using) I know where you're coming from.

a) Don't buy a Prism. It's just got 1 generation old ATI cards in, and the performance is... disappointing.

b) I reckon to not bother with a single card solution. We've used a Matrox Parhelia under windows, and mostly due to driver shoddiness it wasn't that great.

c) I'd be tempted (and will be testing a cheaper varient of this out soon to run an IBM 3840x2400 screen) to try a twin Quadro FX 4400 on one of the Nvidia Pro based boards (Tyan seem to be the leader with this at the moment) with twin 16x PCI-E. Nvidia have recently changed their drivers to allow you to use Xinerama and OpenGL across multiple identical cards. Seeing as you've come from SGI, this should be easy to sell financially. The performance is cracking on the FX4400 too, blowing everything else we've got out of the water. You'd manage to put together a dual Xeon 3.6 4Gb machine for something under 8,000 UK pounds.