3D, NVidia, and 3 Monitors?

[BabySpiceEmma]

Has anybody tried 3 side-by-side monitors and the NVidia 3D Vision glasses?

Their latest cards support 3 monitors (I think) and probably 3D, so has anyone married the two?

I'm looking to 3 monitors next (not doing 3D atm though) partly for the "wraparound" but more so the center is in the middle of a monitor rather than at the spit between two in a 2-monitor system.

Some of you richey riches need to try this!

 

[elel]

Each of the new cards has only two outputs that you can use at a time, so you will need SLI to do 3 monitor 3D.

 

[jay2tall]

Each of the new cards has only two outputs that you can use at a time, so you will need SLI to do 3 monitor 3D.

Correct. The new Nvidia cards only support 2 displays and require 2 cards in SLI to support 3 or 4 displays. I also believe that a 3D monitor requires you to use a dual link DVI connection and a display that runs 120Hz. The dual link is required because you are doubling the bandwidth.

The 5000 series ATI cards support 3 displays, one needing to use the displayport (adapter available).

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The 5000 series ATI cards support 3 displays, one needing to use the displayport (adapter available).

or

The 5000 series ATI cards support 6 displays, all needing to use displayport (adapter available).




(*edit caveat: HD5400/5500 series only supports up to 4 monitors on chip [usually 2-3 by AIB design] *)

Personally 6 to me is more for productivity than gaming (at least until seamless monitors arrive), I use 3 at work (sometimes 4) and want to do the say at home, just waiting for the laptop multi-DP support (so I don't have a laggy PCI/USB screen).

 

[strangestranger]

There are currently no drivers publically available I believe that support this feature. Whether or not they will be available this month even I do not know.

Perhaps someone else knows more.

 

[BabySpiceEmma]

So what does dual-link mean in practice? The back of the card has 2 DVI outs, and this takes up both, and goes into one input in the monitor?

That would seem to limit it to 2 monitors in a 2-card SLI setup.

 

[elel]

Dual link DVI is able to support higher resolutions than single link. Other than that, I believe that all dual link parts are compatible with single link standards. You just need all three of your parts (card, cable, monitor) to be dual link in order to use its capabilities.

 

[strangestranger]

Just to make clear, a dual link connector is only one port, not dual ports.

 

[notty22]

Yes
All you need is the correct cable for dual link dvi.
Found a good explanation, a question was asked, here is the answer :

Your information is incorrect. To run at 2560x1600 you need a video card with a dual-link DVI output. A dual-link DVI port is just a single DVI port but using all of the pins in the connector. It does not mean using two separate DVI ports. Look at the wikipedia entry and you will see the difference in pinout from single link to dual link. Basically single link does not use all of the pins. Most of the cables on newegg.com list whether they support dual link or not. As an extra check look at the pictures of both ends of the cable and make sure all of extra pins for dual link are shown on both. A cheap manufacturer would save wire by only having internal wires for single link. Just FYI, I have a $60 EVGA nvidia card that supports two separate dual-link DVI outputs so I can run 2 30" LCDs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00SuBV

 

[elel]

^Very nice! Thanks for linking that!^

 

[strangestranger]

Actually it is not just wires, there are two signal transmitters also. You cannot just add more wires to a single link one and make it a dual link AFAIK.

 

[elel]

Exactly. Everything in the 'signal path' needs to be up to standards.

 

[notty22]

The point was, I think , confusion around what people have already with their current video cards. We have dual link dvi outputs, Nvidia gtx 470 cards(2) per card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-127-501-S03&SCList=14-127-501-S01%2c14-127-501-S02%2c14-127-501-S03%2c14-127-501-S04&S7ImageFlag=2&Item=N82E16814127501&Depa=0&WaterMark=0&Description=MSI%20N470GTX-M2D12-B%20GeForce%20GTX%20470%20%28Fermi%29%201280MB%20320-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.0%20x16%20HDCP%20Ready%20SLI%20Support%20Video%20Card

You can see from the pic, all you need is the 'right' cable for dual link dvi and X2 if you want.

 

[BabySpiceEmma]

Yeeha: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-surround-technology.html