1 PC 18 Displays???

[Biz.Kid09]

Are they 12 completely independent 'machines', if so have you researched what you will need to do to be able to do that. I think Unraid is considered one of the better solutions.

 

[BillyMOO]

Are they 12 completely independent 'machines', if so have you researched what you will need to do to be able to do that. I think Unraid is considered one of the better solutions.

Not sure what you are getting at there. This thread is about connecting 12 displays to one PC.

However,

I am now looking at the Sapphire GPRO 6200 4G GDDR5 PCI-E EYEFINITY 6 EDITION card as a possible solution. Seems they are designed to run digital signage ect, are less taxing but still can provide high res to 6 monitors each. Should be able to run 2 or more of these side by side to give 12 or more displays!

 

[JonJ678]

Twelve simple computers on a network is likely to be less hassle. Managing that many displays from one keyboard/mouse is OK, if you decide to have twelve keyboards the configuration will be tedious.

 

[LuckyBenski]

I didn't think crossfire worked in respect that you can connect into both cards? I thought it was "just" the primary card that you could link into but it has been a long time since I've used CF.

No need for CrossFire - the graphics cards aren't working together on a single task. Just rendering several screens each.

OP, bear in mind the original Vegas you mentioned don't need 600W each, it's just recommended to have a 600W supply for the whole system with that card in. More like maximum 300W per card or so. 1000W would be plenty.

 

[Rroff]

Thanks,

If for arguments sake we require just 12, do you think the two GPU's will manage this? I know lots of people are mentioning MST expanders etc but the GPU's are only ~£300 each and the expanders will cost similar and just means they are external making more mess etc.

If you ran 12 displays then 2x GPUs that can do 6 outputs each should be OK - you might need third party software and/or using different connections a bit to work around Windows limitations maybe.

Something maybe worth bearing in mind is that some displays can do Displayport daisy chaining (MST) which might be useful - I know my Dell U2913wm does but not sure which others do.

 

[BillyMOO]

Ok Guys,

I need some urgent help. Seems this wasn't as straight forward as I thought/was advised by hardware suppliers.

I built a lovely machine with the following parts list:

MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC LGA 1151 DDR4 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 2666MHz C16 Memory Kit - Black 1.2V
Intel Core i5 9600KF Socket LGA 1151 Processor
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G1+
Crucial MX500 250GB SSD
Antec P110 Silent Mid Tower Case
Corsair Hydro Series H100x High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

And then fitted 2 x Sapphire 6200 GPRO 4GB cards into the top two PCI slots.

1st issue is that even whilst using just one card (even with the second removed), whilst 6 displays are functioning, I'm unable to play video on all 6 at the same time at 1080p without terrible lag. Aren't these cards supposed to be able to be used for video walls???

2nd issue is that with the second card installed in the second slot, I get nothing and windows crashes when booting. If however I move it to the 3rd slot, I am able to get 8 displays functioning (4 on each card) for desktop use (browsing, applications). But if i plug in a 9th (into either card), it is detected but doesn't get any signal.

My guess is that this is because these cards require a x16 slot to themselves and this motherboard only supports one card running at x16 unless using crossfire (which isn't supported by these GPU's). The second card I guess is running at either x4 or x8 and so between the two cards they can only support 8 displays rather than 12 due to the lane limitation across the slots?

Right now I'm left with a lovely new machine, but it's not doing what is needed right now

Any advice is appreciated. Support from Sapphire is non existent and the supplier aren't willing to admit that they gave me bad advice when they said that I would be able to support all 12 displays with this rig.

Thanks guys.

 

[Flubble]

if all the screens are to show the same thing could you set up the tvs with a raspberry pi each streaming the feed from the main pc onto it, then you would only need the gfx card to power 1 screen?

 

[BillyMOO]

if all the screens are to show the same thing could you set up the tvs with a raspberry pi each streaming the feed from the main pc onto it, then you would only need the gfx card to power 1 screen?

Thanks, but please see OP. Each screen needs to display different applications.

 

[Armageus]

And then fitted 2 x Sapphire 6200 GPRO 4GB cards into the top two PCI slots.

I hadn't even come across these cards before, but looks like they are a consumer Radeon card with tweaked drivers (Not sure as the download link doesn't work). Unsurprisingly they probably won't be as tested as a "proper" solution e.g Matrox cards, or Nvidia Quadro, AMD FirePro.


Fwiw: Quadro NVS810 will do 8 displays from a single card
https://www.pny.com/NVIDIA_NVS_810_for_Eight_DP_Displays

 

[BillyMOO]

I hadn't even come across these cards before, but looks like they are a consumer Radeon card with tweaked drivers (Not sure as the download link doesn't work). Unsurprisingly they probably won't be as tested as a "proper" solution e.g Matrox cards, or Nvidia Quadro, AMD FirePro.


Fwiw: Quadro NVS810 will do 8 displays from a single card
https://www.pny.com/NVIDIA_NVS_810_for_Eight_DP_Displays

Yeah I saw those beasts. Obviously budget goes up massively but I understand that they would be much more reliable and with better support.

Do you think two of those would be supported by the mobo I have? Or do they too require the full x16 lanes to operate at full capacity?

 

[d_brennen]

Sounds like a job for something that isn't cobbled together consumer gear... Regarding the content, what are you trying to display? What's the CPU usage like? If it's pegged at 100%, the cards aren't doing any decoding

I use Screenly at work to run 6 screens, each independently displaying content. They can run video no problems, assuming it's encoded correctly. Seems like a lot less hassle, even if you pay for the pro version

 

[james.miller]

1st issue is that even whilst using just one card (even with the second removed), whilst 6 displays are functioning, I'm unable to play video on all 6 at the same time at 1080p without terrible lag. Aren't these cards supposed to be able to be used for video walls???

The6200 gpro only support hardware decoding of two video streams. Try software decoding instead.

 

[LuckyBenski]

TBF "driving video walls" means display output, not video decode. The ability to decode one/multiple streams comes down to the power of the card rather than its outputs.

I don't believe the number of PCIe lanes affects number of displays. Overall bandwidth sure, but not a hard limit on number of outputs. Check what the lane saturation is like.

How come you didn't check the required bandwidth and what your motherboard could offer? N.B. you won't find a desktop CPU with 32 PCIe lanes for 2 cards, you'll need HEDT for that.

 

[BillyMOO]

Sounds like a job for something that isn't cobbled together consumer gear... Regarding the content, what are you trying to display? What's the CPU usage like? If it's pegged at 100%, the cards aren't doing any decoding.

The CPU is on idle when playing video and the GPU goes up to ~30% when just playing one video. So I guess it's definitely the GPU's that are bottlenecking. Is it possible to get the CPU to decode/share the load?

Even though I'm asking about its ability to run video on multiple screens, I don't need it. I just thought it should be able to. I'm only needing to display browser windows and office applications. Boring stuff.

The6200 gpro only support hardware decoding of two video streams. Try software decoding instead.

That makes sense along with the above. So software decoding is getting the CPU on board with the work?

TBF "driving video walls" means display output, not video decode. The ability to decode one/multiple streams comes down to the power of the card rather than its outputs.

I don't believe the number of PCIe lanes affects number of displays. Overall bandwidth sure, but not a hard limit on number of outputs. Check what the lane saturation is like.

How come you didn't check the required bandwidth and what your motherboard could offer? N.B. you won't find a desktop CPU with 32 PCIe lanes for 2 cards, you'll need HEDT for that.

Thanks man that's useful information. Sadly I relied on the advice of a supplier who seemed adamant that this would work fine. I should have done more of my own research in hindsight. But that's a wonderful thing.

 

[james.miller]

Yes that's right. Let the cup do the decoding, itll work fine providing whatever other software you are running isn't too cpu intensive.

 

[BillyMOO]

Yes that's right. Let the cup do the decoding, itll work fine providing whatever other software you are running isn't too cpu intensive.

Forgive my ignorance, how do you force the CPU to handle the decoding? Is that a setting in VLC or similar?

 

[labcoattech]

Still think it would have been easier, cheaper, more robust if you had gone with a Raspberry Pi 4 attached to each display, then remote onto each one if and when you need to change something.

If your single PC fails for whatever reason then all your displays will be down.

 

[Armageus]

Do you think two of those would be supported by the mobo I have? Or do they too require the full x16 lanes to operate at full capacity?

I think they'd probably be fine, I don't think the issue with your current cards is in any way related to the 8x slot - more just a driver/compatibility issue with such an "odd" card.

I'd try and return the cards, especially if you have it in writing that they would support 12 screens and they currently can't.

Sounds like a job for something that isn't cobbled together consumer gear... Regarding the content, what are you trying to display?

How come you didn't check the required bandwidth and what your motherboard could offer? N.B. you won't find a desktop CPU with 32 PCIe lanes for 2 cards, you'll need HEDT for that.

Personally for this sort of purpose (E.g. almost enterprise grade, and multiple pci-e slots), then I would be looking at a used HP Z820 or Dell Precision T7600 workstation. Both will do 3x PCI-E 16x Gen 3 slots as long as a 2nd CPU is installed, have high capacity PSUs and are fairly "enterprise" in terms of build quality/reliability.

3x PCI-E slots also means you could do 3x 4 Output GPUs e.g. Quadro P600 (or even the older Quadro K1200 or Quadro NVS510 which can be picked up a lot cheaper)

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x PNY Nvidia Quadro P600 Low Profile Graphics Card - 2GB GDDR5 - 384 CUDA Core= £199.99

Total: £199.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)
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references:
http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c04111526
https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/precn/en/Dell-Precision-T7600-Spec-Sheet.pdf

 

[BillyMOO]

Still think it would have been easier, cheaper, more robust if you had gone with a Raspberry Pi 4 attached to each display, then remote onto each one if and when you need to change something.

If your single PC fails for whatever reason then all your displays will be down.

I didn't think they could run windows? The customer wanted windows 10 as they need to display excel spreadsheets on some. Also they use 64-bit office as some of their spreadsheets are pretty crazy with macros/etc.

Also we would have to license windows 10 on every one! Probably wouldn't come out cheaper in the end.

 

[SupraWez]

rPi on each display, could manage them with VNC.

Has the added bonus that an issue would likely only affect one screen, where as a single PC driving 18 screens would knock them all out.