One Video Card, 12 Monitors

Jamie found a story that might make your jaw drop if you happen to have some need to put 12 video cards in your machine. Although if that isn't enough, you can always install two of these. I don't think I'm kidding.

Comments

Multi-seat Computing

[timeOday]

I think a 4 or 6 core CPU could support 12 users in many cases. I could see building a computer lab at a school this way to minimize administrative burden. But it's too bad multi-seat linux doesn't work better. I have struggled with it on and off over the years, and it just doesn't seem to have critical mass of interest to gain real distro support.

Re:You can always install HOW many?

[DeadDecoy]

The summary is poorly worded. ATI's Powercolor HD5970 video card supports 12 display outputs. If you have two, you go up to 24 display outputs. At that point, you could monitor the whole of the matrix.

Re:The summary . . .

[mujadaddy]

Indeed. The summary and title were so at odds... I had to RTFA!

...I'll be in the corner of shame.

One Dozen picture frames?

[vlm]

Would this card drive one dozen monitors set up as digital picture frames?

I have a linux based file server in the basement that does not really do anything with its video output.

If I could hook up 12 picture frame monitors in various rooms of my house, that would be fun.

I don't want the extreme headache of manually updating 12 SDHC or CF cards. I don't want 12 individual stupid yearly subscriptions to some internet ripoff company that'll probably go out of business and make my investment obsolete the week after I buy them.

I just want to drop .jpgs into certain folders on my pre-existing file server and have the pictures randomly displayed thru the house, shuffling perhaps every 10 minutes. Also I'll have certain webcams periodically downloaded and added to the mix. And a cron job to display certain pictures at certain times, etc. A couple lines of perl, bash, and wget, thats what I'm talking about.

Re:One Dozen picture frames?

[Zerth]

How about 12 USB mini-monitors, with USB->network adapters.

A fair bit cheaper, unless you want 15"+ frames.

i have two of these 26" suckers:

[circletimessquare]

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16824255011

each is 1920x1200

i put one in landscape mode, then i bought an articulating monitor arm, and i put the other one in portrait mode. the setup looks schizophrenic, but listen up folks:

browsing the internet on a 16:9 monitor in portrait mode is a dream

try it some day. you capture so much of a webpage you are usually peering at through a slit you are constantly scrolling through with lots of unused screen real estate on either side

as a web developer, it helps too, believe me: the landscape mode screen for code/ packet inspection/ debugging/ email, etc... the other screen for a really good 10,000 foot overview of what you are actually putting up in the browser in terms of page layout

trust me folks: get a 16:9 monitor and put it in portrait mode if you browse a lot on the internet. it is about as good as it gets in terms of ui experience

yours may be bigger than mine

[circletimessquare]

but mine is vertical and erect while yours is horizontal and flaccid

so my equipment is superior, at least that's what your mom and your girlfriend always tell me