[rhelv6-list] Opinions on multi-head

Thu Mar 1 22:16:44 UTC 2012

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Hey -

Since I want three displays (and I have three identical DVI-D
monitors), do you think the v4900 is better or worse than the NVS-450?

Any ideas?

TC

On 02/24/2012 10:57 AM, Krizak, Paul wrote:
> The FirePro V3900 is a nice dual-head entry level card:
> http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/v3900/Pages/v3900.aspx
>
>  Stepping up to the V4900 you get thee displays:
> http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/v4900/Pages/v4900.aspx
>
>  Pretty much anything that says it supports Eyefinity will work
> nicely with the latest  Catalyst drivers.  Note that the FirePro
> and FireGL cards use a different, more heavily tested driver than
> the Radeon cards.  I've personally never tried getting Eyefinity to
> work in Linux on a Radeon card, but that doesn't mean it won't
> work.
> 
> ---- Paul Krizak              cube: AR.250A8 Staff IT Engineer, IAS
> desk: 858-651-2467 Qualcomm, Inc            cell: 512-791-0686
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Thomas
> Cameron Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 7:09 AM To:
> rhelv6-list at redhat.com Subject: Re: [rhelv6-list] Opinions on
> multi-head
> 
> Paul, do you have any specific card recommendations? I see
> Eyefinity listed on everything from cheap desktop class cards to
> massively expensive workstation cards.
> 
> On 02/23/2012 11:05 AM, Krizak, Paul wrote:
>> I would hesitate to be quite so harsh on ATI graphics on Linux.
>> I do agree that the drivers are less friendly than the nVidia
>> drivers, but as long as you're using the binary blob drivers from
>> AMD's website, they do work well.  And the Catalyst Control
>> Center has been ported to Linux and is included with the binary
>> drivers, which makes setting up multi-head (even massive
>> 6-display Eyefinity setups) trivially easy.
>> 
>> ---- Paul Krizak Staff IT Engineer, IAS Qualcomm, Inc
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com 
>> [mailto:rhelv6-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Prentice
>> Bisbal Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 8:50 AM To:
>> rhelv6-list at redhat.com Subject: Re: [rhelv6-list] Opinions on
>> multi-head
>> 
>> On 02/22/2012 07:04 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:
>>> Howdy All -
>>> 
>>> I currently use a dual-head setup using a relatively
>>> inexpensive nVidia Corporation G73 [GeForce 7300 GT] card. I
>>> use the DVI and the VGA cables at the same time, and it works
>>> just fine. I can do wobbly windows and spinny desktops and all
>>> that jazz (yeah, I like the eye candy, sue me).
>>> 
>>> I want to go to triple head. I am reasonably sure I can do it
>>> with e.g. an NVidia Quadro NVS 450, but I am curious as to
>>> whether the driver will do accelerated X? Three  monitors will
>>> be nice, but not if I lose capabilities I have now with dual.
>>> 
>>> So... anyone got any experience with triple-head or beyond? Any
>>>  advice on NVidia Quadro vs. maybe ATI's offering?
>>> 
>>> I'd love to hear any stories - good or bad - about accelerated
>>> X on more than two monitors.
>>> 
>> 
>> I wouldn't use anything but NVidia with Linux. Open source
>> zealots complain that the NVidia drivers aren't open source, but
>> who cares? NVidia gives them away for free, and they've been
>> extremely supportive of Linux since day one. I used to support
>> high-end 3D scientific visualization Linux workstations, and I
>> always used Nvidia hardware. The performance is awesome, the
>> driver provides lots of tweaking, and it's incredibly well
>> documented! You will never go wrong using NVidia on Linux.
>> 
>> I think Intel provides good Linux support for their video cards,
>> but I have no first hand knowledge.
>> 
>> ATI's support of Linux leaves something to be desired. Some
>> people say the ATI support is good and open source, but after
>> days of googling, I still couldn't tell with absolute certainty
>> which driver was the correct one for the ATI chip I was working
>> with. I recommend avoiding ATI altogether.
>> 
>> As far as whether or not your accelerated effects would work
>> across all the monitors, the number of monitors your using
>> shouldn't make a difference as long as the driver/video card you
>> are using supports those 3D affects. If it works with one, it
>> will work with 2, 3, 4, .... I would not try to mix-and-match
>> video cards and drivers, however. This shouldn't be an issue with
>> the Quadro NVS 450, since it's designed to support up to 4
>> displays from a single card.
>> 
>> -- Prentice
>> 
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- -- 
Thomas Cameron, RHCA, RHCSS, RHCDS, RHCVA, RHCX
Chief Architect, Canada and Central US
512-241-0774 office / 512-585-5631 cell
http://people.redhat.com/tcameron/
IRC: choirboy / AIM: rhelguy / Yahoo: rhce_guy /Google+
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