[PD] many DVI ports with Debian/Ubuntu and Gem

Thu Jun 3 23:34:26 CEST 2010

We run a 12-screen video wall in our data visualization research lab – the OpenGL integration has not be without...ahem....bumps, but for the stuff you are doing, if you can invest in the following (we have been running Debian and Ubuntu):

ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Eyefinity 6
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5870-eyefinity-6-edition/Pages/specifications.aspx

or

ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 Eyefinity 12
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5970/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5970-specifications.aspx

These are 6-port or 12-port cards.  Price point for 12-port is about $750 and 6-port is $500 - $550.  They have Windows and Linux drivers.   You DO need your displays to have DisplayPort as one of their interfaces.  The Dell 3008WFP has this but depending on what displays you may already have, you might need to go with another vendor solution like Nvidia.  They have multi-port cards as well.

Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner

Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner
Asst. Director, Academic Computing and User Services
The University of North Texas
ehinkle at unt.edu
940-565-4808 / 940-453-6938

On 6/3/10 4:17 PM, "Pedro Lopes" <pedro.lopes at ist.utl.pt> wrote:

>I can break it up across multiple computers if that's easier, I'm mostly trying to reduce the expense. >I am just showing images, so not heavy on the CPU/GPU
Its a possible solution, also you can split stuff with software and then send to separate render nodes (aka computers) that will deliver those to their screens (imagine each computer could have 2 screens), as cyrille pointed this things can be heavy when you aim for higher res.
In college we have a 12-projector array [1], it runs GL apps using openSG[2] cluster windows.

I'm really interested in seen that installation of yours come to life. Please share videos/photos of it running on those 10 screens!

[1] http://open5.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://www.opensg.org/

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:07 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at> wrote:

The screens we are currently specing are 1080p, so each output should be able to do 1080.  The idea is to have 10 contiguous screens all in a line show one Gem space.  They can show up on the computer as contiguous or separate screens, that doesn't matter, I can handle the difference in Gem.  I think it might be easier to have them show up as separate screens.

I can break it up across multiple computers if that's easier, I'm mostly trying to reduce the expense.  I am just showing images, so not heavy on the CPU/GPU.

.hc

On Jun 3, 2010, at 4:37 PM, cyrille henry wrote:

hello,

with things like doublehead2go, or triplehead2go  :
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/fr/products/gxm/th2go/
you can easily have lot's of screen on 1 computer.
(downside is that the screen are only horizontal)

i made a 6 screen installation with a 400€ desktop having good performance.
(GPU was a NVIDIA 9600 or something : only use nvidia gpu on linux if you need good performance and are not afraid of proprietary driver).

but what is the resolution of the screen?
to have a screen disposition like this :
x x x
x x x
is less a problem than like this :
x x x x x x
The size of openGL windows is hardware limited. usually 4096x4096, but can go up to 8192x8192 with GPU having lot's of memory (go for 1go video Ram).

cyrille

Le 03/06/2010 19:23, Hans-Christoph Steiner a écrit :

I am looking into doing a 10 screen installation using Pd/Gem. I'd like
to run it on as few computers as possible. Anyone have any
recommendations for Debian or Ubuntu setups that can have like many DVI
ports in one computer?

.hc
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