Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012

[Vega]

Vega,

Having a look it seems the BNC connection is a one way connection, whereas VGA is a two-way hence getting the EDID back.

Found this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487330 deals with overriding the EDID info via an INF file, now I know you said you looked about masking it so not sure if you have tried this yet.

Either way hope it is of some help

Kimbie

Ya, whenever I try and mask or override the EDID it would not put my 3x FW900 in Surround. Only when I let the cards physically talk to the monitors would it allow Surround. I think nVidia made it this way to be super cautious as to getting Surround to work properly. I play to trick the ******** with EDID emulator hardware though!

 

[Vega]

Looking good

Just a point on the Asrock extreme 9. i have a Asrock Z68 Extreme7, what a big PAIN for eyefinity setups and multi gpu's i went to hell and back trying to get the thing running smooth with more than 1 card, 3x 6970's 2x 6990's 2x 7970's nothing would get the thing running with no mouse to screen lag or just poor perfomance, unless i used ether 1 screen or eyefinity with 1 card. The only thing i could put this down to was the NF200 chip, but as this is made by nvidia i think! It probably works with multi nvidia cards and surround.. Just something to keep in mind if you have any problems

Hm interesting. Where you the only one with this problem or did you locate others? Did you deal with ASRock support, and if so, how were they to deal with?

 

[Vega]

Above idea is fail... unless you dont like overclocking!

This project is win though!

Ya, if I wanted to have one of the most expensive and simultaneous slowest gaming computers, I'd go with an EVGA SR-X.

Hi Vega,

The only response I had from Asrock was to try different drivers etc nothing that I wouldn't do myself.. it was defiantly board related as I was running a Asrock Extreme4 at first but wanted to trifire so got the extreme7 then the problems started, I could even take out the board and put in a MSI GD55 with the same drivers etc and the thing was smooth again, in the end I sold my board to a mate that wanted it for 1 card use.. a couple of weeks later I got a 2nd one as I really wanted the pcie layout of this board and started again trying to find the fault but nothing would resolve it, it’s now in my HTPC overkill or what.. 

Forgot you asked if anyone else had this problem but at the time not many or any that I could find had multi amd cards with eyefinity so no I didn’t find anyone with the same problem, I think I will start again with the board next month and try again with newer driver and bios. :s

How are the ASRock BIOS's? I heard that may be their Achilles heal. Maybe with this new Z77 line they cleaned up their act a bit. That Extreme9 motherboard looks awesome.

 

[Vega]

Sweet! This ASRock guy confirmed the Z77 Extreme9 can do Quad-SLI at Quad-8x PCI-E 3.0 with the PLX chip in the video below. Me excite!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIWslBON6gA&feature=player_embedded

 

[Vega]

Ambient radiator fans all mounted and wiring soldered. These things push some serious air and pretty darn quiet to boot.

 

[Vega]

Testing custom mounts/stands for the portrait FW900's. These things are harder than you think to securely portrait mount and hold 100lbs!

 

[Vega]

Wish you wouldn't post things like this Vega, as I'm now getting symptoms of 'Upgrade Itch' again.

Ya, isn't playing with new hardware great?

wow amazing build thread. Love the choice of motherboard

Ya, looks like a bunch of manufacturers are making 4-way SLI boards with Z77. The Gigabyte Sniper 3 has been confirmed to support 4-way. So many to choose from!

Great build, some really innovative ideas with the setup. I'm just wondering about the FW900s. I like high quality crts, I used a 21" trinitron for years (dell p1110 i think) but after 6-7 years the colours were not as saturated/seemed washed out and it was not as sharp as it used to be, it seemed it was just worn out. Sony stopped manufacturing the FW900 in 2003 I think, surely after 9 years none of them are as good as they were new?

You'd be surprised at how long CRT's can last if properly maintained. But yes, if you had a 9-year old FW900 that has seen decent use and has never been adjusted, it will most likely look faded and dull. All of my FW900's are professionally tuned up and calibrated. (not cheap) They look virtually new.

 

[Vega]

Monitor supports done, testing setup before working on the Fresnel lens frames/brackets. New keyboard tray mounted to desk.

 

[Vega]

That's what the lens is for...

Yup. The bezel gaps right now are at 4.4 inches and will go down to less than .1 inch (near seem-less) with the Fresnel lens setup installed.

 

[Vega]

I've got the fans all wired up and mounted. I had to switch from an under-mount setup that I had before as it put the fan's electric motor too close to the electron guns and it introduced a very faint wobble to the picture. So now they are mounted a good 2.5 inches further and the picture is crystal clear.

Testing the setup with the Skyrim AFK camera spin that is very good for testing for motion problems (blur/ghosting/stuttering etc).


http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=FScNdwuIm64&feature=youtu.be&vq=hd720


The motion, clarity and picture quality is far higher than my previous LCD setups. This is going to make for epic gaming! At 4320x2304 @ 80Hz, it has become very apparent that I need some upgraded video cards. Especially trying to keep a minimum of 80 FPS under all circumstances pushing 10-megapixel's. Every single game I ran required more than 2GB of memory, so it looks like I will have to hold off on the vanilla 2GB GTX 680's and get 4GB FTX 680's for 4-way SLI. Almost positive I will be pairing a 3770K up with Gigabyte's Sniper 3 Z77 motherboard that has confirmed 4-way SLI support.





Tomorrow the Fresnel lens frame build begins.

 

[Vega]

During Fresnel lens fitting I found that my estimations were off a bit. With the magnification I want and seem-less borders, I need to get the monitors over an inch closer to each other. This build just got a lot more difficult! I've already removed the FW900's swivel mounts but it looks like I will have to remove the entire base supporting structure. Whether I have to remove the picture tube from the chassis to accomplish that is still up in the air.

Par for the course. Usually the difficult projects are the only ones worth doing in the first place!

My initial testing results in BF3 are phenomenal.

 

[Vega]

Start with this:

And about 13 hours of work end up with this:

Complete lower platform on all FW900's removed, internal wires re-routed and modified, brackets cut, OSD control modules and power switches relocated and mounted on the top. It is impossible to get the FW900's any closer, the metal CRT casings are physically touching one another.

I went from a 4.4 inch gap between each lit image to a 2.75 inch gap. That is a smaller gap than some multi-LCD setups! Now I think I can finally start working on the Fresnel mounts.

 

[Vega]

Wow just Wow. Signed up just for you Vega. 1st post and all. Subbed

Great!


One more shot of the mod's:

 

[Vega]

View the video in 720P. Resolution 4320x2304, 80Hz of CRT smoothness. Initial placement testing of the lenses (not final position and bracketing). If you sit just right in your normal viewing position, both bezel gaps can get as low as 1-2mm in width. Now if you do move your head a lot the gaps will change a bit.

Side benefits are a larger image than three displays without the lenses. Also a slight "depth" effect is added to the image which I quite like. With the lenses magnification and sitting at the designed eye-point, the display setup is around 50 inches running at 10-megapixel and 80Hz. It is hard for a camera to capture some of what I am describing accurately. Camera hand is also not too steady!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=CBj3RfMGOV0&feature=youtu.be&vq=hd720

 

[Vega]

Playing around a little more in Skyrim. Besides the awesome resolution and unparalleled CRT motion, the lenses add a little depth effect and it feels like I could craw through the lenses and into the Skyrim world. The camera does not do it justice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tFunVKsoFH8&feature=youtu.be&vq=hd720

 

[Vega]

EPIC!

Gaming Vid please.

I can see the added "depth" effect. It must be amazing in person!

Could you run 3D on this setup? Could be very immersive! 80Hz on CRTs sounds like it could work.

Actually, people do run 3D on the FW900 if you lower the resolution a tad and set 100Hz. I personally wouldn't want to do that as I don't care for 3D much.

 

[Vega]

4x EVGA GTX 680's inbound.

 

[Vega]

How much!!!

Not too terrible, around $2100 US.

This forum needs a crying smiley added.....and it should also be green to represent sheer jealousy

Just curious vega but do you have an insanely good job or did you win your money? (going by your skills im guessing job but you never know)

Absolute madness but I love it! Vega what do you do for a living if you don't mind me asking? I've also seen your YouTube channel, why don't you post some build log videos?

Just a decent job, military pilot.


Surprisingly in Surround tests the 2GB limit doesn't seem to be hurting the 680, even in games with high-res texture packs:

 

[Vega]

I bet I'm still a better helicopter in bf3

Your a helicopter?


Two of my 4 GTX 680's came in. Hopefully they run my 3x FW900's without a hitch.

It is amazing how small and light these cards are. The 7970 isn't that large of a card (quite a bit smaller than the 6990's), but for nVidia to get more performance than a 7970 out of such a small package is mighty impressive.

 

[Vega]

Well, I found out that in nVidia's infinite wisdom they replaced the dual DVI-I slots found on GTX 580's with a single DVI-I and one DVI-D so each GTX 680 can only output to one analog monitor.

So I need a minimum of three 680's to run my setup which is normally fine, but I only have two 680's at the moment (two others inbound) but only a Z68 MB that can do two card SLI. So I have 680's and I basically cannot use them until Z77 comes out or I just use one monitor. I am tossing around the idea of getting a 3-way SLI capable Z68 from Amazon for temp use and just return it when the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 Z77 launches.

I had 3GB 580 benchmarks done and everything. Blasted! Right now 680's are making good paper weights. Maybe I will load up some games on my FW900's at 2560x1600 and crank everything to max and do some benchmarks/memory testing until I get the Surround monitor setup to 680's sorted.