Learning about mulit monitor

[JG14_Smil]

Hello,

 

I have started testing my multi monitor setup for the first time.

 

 

I currently have things hooked up on my GTX 680 x 2. Three HDTV's in PLP and no Helios monitor yet. Fraps FPS still are high, but I get some stutters that I have not been able to affect. I am guessing it may be the SLI causing the trouble.

 

I can also pull my 7970 from my other system to give that a try. I am looking forward to seeing the differences with it and the extra vram.

 

Questions:

 

What the *&^& is a Nvidia diplay adapter port? (first ime I have seen this type of plug).

 

What are the small connector plugs called for the AMD card? Is that mini HDMI?

 

I need to do a bunch of reading once I get back home today. Thanks for any advice.

Edited November 15, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[Kuky]

ATI uses MiniDP (Mini Display Port)

 

HD7970 has 2x MiniDP, 1xHDMI and 1xDL-DVI port

 

I have read that there are also adapters that can split 1 DP or MiniDP into 2x DVI and can run 2 monitors of 1 port on the card. The 2 monitors would be seen by the PC as 1 large screen but signal would be divided into 2, this way you could have 4 monitors run of 2 miniDP ports in Eyefinity. These adapters are little pricy (around $140-$150)

Edited November 15, 2012 by Kuky

[JG14_Smil]

Mini DP, thanks Kuki, will look for another one for the 7970.

[JG14_Smil]

OK, I am learning here...

 

I was going to try putting my 7970 in my system for a test, but I ran up against a problem: My GTX680's use (2x) PCI-E plugs with 6 posts. My 7970 uses one 6 post and one 8 post PCI-E plugs. I can't seem to come up with a plug that will fit the two different power supplies I have in my two different systems to allow me to test the 7970 in my i7-3770k system.

 

So anyhow, I scrub and reload my Nvidia stuff with latest 310.(something) drivers and now I am seeing friggin huge framerates in my three monitor rig. I cannot fly yet as my cockpit is apart, but running the 'attack insurgents' mission I actually saw 156 fps while being shot down. No idea why... I have all v syncs and limiters enabled. Stutters apeared to be smoother than my earlier tests.

 

I have my three HDTV's running through my first GTX 680: DVI, HDMI, DVI-.

 

I need one more hookup for my Helios 27" monitor. I do not have the Nvidia display adapter yet (no idea where to even find one). I don't think I can use the #2 GTX 680 as the SLI jumper is installed(?), so I may try the onboard video as an output.

Edited November 16, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[JG14_Smil]

I've spent some time in front of the screens while sitting in my cockpit seat. The screen is huge! I don't think I could use this for dogfighting as it could induce motion sickness. My framerates in the Attack Insurgents mission is staying near 85-90 fps (for what that is worth). Overall, it is quite smooth, but I get occasional stutters. I am wondering if a card with more vram than my 2 gig GTX 680 would prevent this.

 

If planning on a PLP monitor setup like this, consider 720p HDTVs. 1080p seems like overkill for the side monitors.

 

It is kind of difficult to get the computer located without some long cords for the TV's.

 

One cool thing I note is I notice that a whole battle is going on out my right side window. I never saw that before :)

Edited November 17, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[Kuky]

With those 3 monitors, are you using 3 camera viewpoints or 1? Saying you get high FPS like that makes me think you are using 1 camera viewpoint... bu then you get the ugly stretching.

[JG14_Smil]

Hi Kuky,

 

There is not as much or no stretching with the PLPi setup. It looks like a normal view but bigger. Yes, I am using the default 1camera.lua file and SoftTH. Only edits are my options.lua and softTh config. Best part is the sim cockpit is hidden from view and I'll be looking only at my real cockpit. The picture above shows the default KP5 view.

Edited November 17, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[BHawthorne]

Questions:

 

What the *&^& is a Nvidia diplay adapter port? (first ime I have seen this type of plug).

 

What are the small connector plugs called for the AMD card? Is that mini HDMI?

 

 

Both are based on DisplayPort or DP for short. The smaller port is Mini-DisplayPort or mDP. There is a specification group called VESA. They're the ones that wrote the spec for DVI. DVI was frozen as a spec years ago and VESA in the last few years have been developing DP as a direct replacement for DVI. DVI and DP are not compatible with each other on a protocol level. They speak different languages. This is why when people often do multi-display setups that you hear about something called ACTIVE adapters. They are called active because they have active transcoding circuitry within them that takes the DP protocol and transcodes it into DVI for output to legacy port types. If you plan on doing multi-display remembering active DP adapters are needed will be important. It's one of those things that neither NVIDIA nor AMD bother to tell anyone.

 

NVIDIA cards tend to have a single full sized DP port while AMD depending on the card port layout might either have multiple DP or mDP ports.

 

DP can do some pretty interesting things that noone talks about yet. They allow daisy-chaining of multiple DP 1.2 displays off of a single DP video card port. Also DP was designed to have significantly more bandwidth capability so you can push much higher resolutions through a single cable than DVI could. With DP you can run UHD/4kHD through a single video cable. That wasn't possible before.

 

Probably a lot of useless trivia in this post for you but I'm sure some of you will find something useful in it. :)

Edited November 17, 2012 by BHawthorne

[JG14_Smil]

Outstanding! Thank you very much for that great info.

[JG14_Smil]

OK, Dumbdumb has finally seen the proper power adapter that was there the whole time and I can now do:

 

AMD 7970 3G vs 2x EVGA GTX 680 2G

 

In a nutshell: AMD gives me even more FPS (like 140 fps in "take off Belsan"). No stutters seen in my quick test.

 

Colors are less vibrant.

 

Wing monitors will not scale and appear to be using a centered timing, leaving black space on each side of the HDTV. Hope to get that fixed.

 

Dog needs a walk and I need fresh air... more later.

[JG14_Smil]

Just amazing.

 

My 7970 setup is taking everything I throw at it and still giving me smooth fps with almost no stutter. Mirrors on, full tree distance, almost 1km of ground clutter. Still a beautiful 100 fps.

 

I've tried everything to get my portrait and inverted portrait monitors to scale correctly, but when I run DCS/SoftTH, they appear to be in centered timing. The settings to change this in Windows are grayed out. Perhaps AMD has a bit of trouble with PLP setups? The Nvidia setup was plug and play perfect.

 

If I can get the scaling fixed, I'll be 100% satisfied. I don't think the Nvidia stuff is going back in.

 

PETER... help! :)

[Flim]

you might want to switch to 3 camera...

[JG14_Smil]

Thanks for the suggestion Flim,

 

I did a quick edit on 3cameras.lua and gave her a test. Wing monitors still look like center timing. FPS dropped to 50. Back to 1camera and the magic is back.

 

UPDATE:

 

I found the fix and have to overscan the two monitors a bit to fix the problem.

 

All works great now. Monitors with dull colors are most likely caused by having to use adapters with the DVI ports. HDMI connection colors are fine.

Edited November 17, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[JG14_Smil]

to hell with AMD.

 

I tried using an mDP/HDMI adapter to get my Helios monitor working and now 7970 seems to be screwed. Will no longer do more than two monitors.

 

taking a long break.

[walker450]

Hate to hear you are having such problems! Hope you get it worked out!

 

What are your system specs? I am thinking about building a new rig. Description here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1608625#post1608625

[BHawthorne]

to hell with AMD.

 

I tried using an mDP/HDMI adapter to get my Helios monitor working and now 7970 seems to be screwed. Will no longer do more than two monitors.

 

taking a long break.

 

 

Be mindful like I said earlier that DP and DVI/HDMI are not compatible protocols. You need an active adapter for DP to DVI or HDMI. They cost $20-25. That'll get you fixed up.

 

Some businesses sell passive DP-HDMI adapters that are useless to AMD cards.

 

A bit of background on how AMD works with more than 2 ports out enabled. All modern AMD cards since the 5000-series have 6 port clocks for DP and 2 port clocks for legacy DVI/HDMI. Here is where things get tricky. Say you want to connect more than two displays that have DVI/HDMI. You need to use active adapters to give you extra external DVI/HDMI port clocks. Passive DVI/HDMI adapters don't work on displays 3, 4, 5, or 6.

 

 

Get one of these. Note in the close up product pics that it has ACTIVE written on the adapter:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815129012

 

and the appropriate length DVI-HDMI cable. One end will be DVI and the other HDMI on the cable.

 

http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?spcDB=10231&spcWord=Video+Cables+-+%3Cb%3EHDMI+%26+DVI%3C%2Fb%3E&keyword=hdmi%20dvi

 

The devil is in the details with multi-display. Let me know if you need any more help. I've learned it all the hard way over the years and would rather my experience be useful to others.

Edited November 18, 2012 by BHawthorne

[Druid_]

Trouble is your gtx680s don't run well in SLi in DCS. In fact my old 2 GPU ATI card only had 1 core actively running in DCS at any one instance, you might find that one of your 680s in SLi is almost idle in DCS. Nvidia or ATI just don't produce optimised drivers for DCS yet (still hoping!).

 

The test I would like to see would be ATI7970 vs GTX 680 4gb.

[JG14_Smil]

Hello guys, happy to report that after a night of sleep I whipped her into shape.

 

Please note my previous candor is part of the learning process!

 

 

- It took hours, but I found I had to re- "extend" my screens to get them to operate again. It was no longer a PnP process after trying that adapter. It was scary, but I did not... (next on the list)

 

- Trying the adapter did not damage the card and the adapter even worked by itself.

 

- I see exactly what BHawthornes words mean now about the 'active display ports. You can do three screens, that's it, unless you spend more for the adapters.

 

- I was able to finally get my 4th monitor to show up on my on-board GFX by loading the Intel drivers.

 

- Biggest scam in computer hardware, these funky adapters that costs huge money above and beyond the card itself. Dp is supposed to be such a great thing for bandwidth, but the other end of the adapter still goes through an outdated DVI plug.

 

I'll attach the files I used when I get it all like I want.

 

Things are going quite well. I am off for more editing...

Edited November 18, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[walker450]

Looking good! A few questions:

 

When you hook them up PLP: Does the computer have to render a huge 4080x1920 display.... where the middle 1920x840 area "under" the middle screen isn't displayed???

 

What motherboard do you have? I hope my new Z77/i7 will work to run another monitor for guages like you did....

 

As far as adapters go... if you have good monitors they already have a displayport plugin... no adapter needed... however, they don't come with the damn cables... so you still have to buy them. Monoprice has reasonable prices.

[JG14_Smil]

Thank you for the buying advice. When I do need the DP, I'll look into it.

 

Yes, the area under the middle display is not rendered in DCS. That is what I like as I am building the cockpit and I don't want to see it in the sim. SoftTH has a setting to not render unused space so it is not a problem. Windows desktop is not the same way and draws only the desktop space. No dead space in the desktop. Windows does not like when a program sits halfway between the P and L monitors. If I resize the window smaller then the portrait width, all is OK. If you work out the total pixels used, the PLP/fourth monitor setup is more efficient than the side by side by side by side setup.

 

I am using a 4480x1920 resolution, with 100 pixels added for each bezel.

 

I have an ASUS P8Z77-V motherboard. Any onboard GFX will do for the extra Helios monitor.

Edited November 20, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[JG14_Smil]

I flown a bit with joystick, rudders, TIR and no sound in quick tests and found the following:

 

TIR mounted in the O/H panel is too close and needs more room for the camera FOV to expand. If I can't fudge it better, I will see about mounting it in the proper location next to the HUD controller. I rely on the TIR much less and stay in forward view.

 

Right side portrait monitor is great. Left side has no leading lines to bring your eye back into the cockpit, so it looks a bit different in angle. The r/s cockpit frame does this well in the right side.

 

If you like or need to look all over the place with TIR, PLP this large is not for you. (IMHO)

 

If you need look-down capability to see gauges, PLP is not for you. Cockpit builders only.

 

Framerates are smooth as normal monitor for me. Fraps no longer displays FPS when I am in the sim, not sure why.

 

I now plan to build the physical cockpit pillars to support the overhead panel. It just seems to beg for it.

 

so far, so good.

Edited November 21, 2012 by JG14_Smil