computer components & hardware - what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

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what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

I just saw an ad for an ASUS monitor showing 9 monitors in a 3x3 matrix
being used to show a picture. It got me curious.

Other than the monitors themselves, what hardware would be needed to do
that? For example, would something like that need 9 graphics cards,
one for each display? Instead, is that done using a specialized card?
Does it require custom software? Does it require high-end CPUs and/or
massive amounts of RAM? Or are there specially made electronic devices
produced to do that?

Thanks

John

what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

Yes wrote:
I just saw an ad for an ASUS monitor showing 9 monitors in a 3x3 matrix
being used to show a picture. It got me curious.

Other than the monitors themselves, what hardware would be needed to do
that? For example, would something like that need 9 graphics cards,
one for each display? Instead, is that done using a specialized card?
Does it require custom software? Does it require high-end CPUs and/or
massive amounts of RAM? Or are there specially made electronic devices
produced to do that?

Thanks

John

Usually video cards have overall resolution limits. The dimensions of
each screen would matter. One video card could not drive nine 4K monitors
for example. That would be too much.

The best video card, has six connectors on it. Features such
as Eyefinity, allow arranging the two "heads" of the video card,
as two strips of three monitors. (NVidia has a feature like this
too, but I don't know if the max config is also 2x3 like this.)

+-------+-------+-------+
| | | | six outputs, two heads
+-------+-------+-------+

+-------+-------+-------+
| | | |
+-------+-------+-------+

If you split the bottom three signals with Matrox
adapters, you might be able to get to nine that way.
Note that you have to research the resolution limits and
supported situations quite carefully when using these.
They're not a "free for all" device, and planning is required.

https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/p...go/digital_se/

I would think the Eyefinity idea works the best, if the top and
bottom 1x3 are the same. But the second 1x3 may be able to have
overall dimensions different than the first.

+-------+-------+-------+
| | | | six outputs, two heads
+-------+-------+-------+

+-------+-------+-------+ Then split each rectangle
| | | | into two vertical, with
| _ _ _ | _ _ _ | _ _ _ | a matrox splitter
| | | |
| | | |
+-------+-------+-------+

The main advantage of using a single video card, is maybe it
won't "tear" quite as bad. I've tested a couple low end cards
here once, and they don't update at quite the same split second,
spoiling the effect. YMMV.

There is an entire website, filled with pictures of customer
configurations involving multiple monitors. This one handles
sixteen monitors, powered via four video cards. It's possible
the video card has two GPUs on it.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon...lse&m on=desc

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-nvs-440.c1463

"Quadro NVS 440 combines two graphics processors to increase performance."

Paul

what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

Yes wrote:

I just saw an ad for an ASUS monitor showing 9 monitors in a 3x3 matrix
being used to show a picture. It got me curious.

Other than the monitors themselves, what hardware would be needed to do
that? For example, would something like that need 9 graphics cards,
one for each display? Instead, is that done using a specialized card?
Does it require custom software? Does it require high-end CPUs and/or
massive amounts of RAM? Or are there specially made electronic devices
produced to do that?

You could use hardware to present multiple displays (along with software
to split one monitor into multiple virtual monitors). How many
"monitors" a video card supports depends on its driver along with the
the software. The only reason to use hardware is to keep video
performance high for each monitor. If you just want to see multiple
virtual monitors on one real monitor and use one video card to support
them all, just get software, like Dexpot (www.dexpot.de) which is free
for personal use.

I've used Dexpot in the past as a virtual monitor manager. My single
real monitor was not large enough (23") to be showing multiple virtual
monitors; else, each would be rather tiny. I used it to toggle between
different virtual desktops. I'd have one for web surfing, another for
coding, and so one to group together similar program windows. As I
recall, you could have up to 9 virtual desktops, but I only configured
for 4 and even then usually only used 2 or 3.

This is a hardware newsgroup. You never mentioned your operating
system. Dexpot is a Windows program supporting Windows XP, Vista, 7,
and 8.x. Windows 10 is not listed at their site but I suspect it won't
have any problems on that OS. If you are using Windows 10, that OS
already supports virtualized desktops. Might be why they don't bother
listing Windows 10 as supported. Very likely Dexpot supports Windows 10
(but likely with far more features) but virtual desktops is already in
Windows. This is like Microsoft bundling Paint, Wordpad, Defender, and
other apps in their OS but 3rd party solutions are far better. See:

https://www.howtogeek.com/197625/how...in-windows-10/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8NrWUMD2c

Thanks for the info what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

Thank all of you for the responses. I asked those questions because,
as I said originally, it piqued my curiousity and i almost always get
fascinated with wondering how they do that. At some time in the
future, I might add aa second monitor to my gear, but that's not likely
to happen any time soon.

P.S.: @ VanguardLH, I use Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit and am starting to
play around with virtual machines, pretty much out of curiosity
instead of for any real need. At the moment, I have successfully used
VirtualBox 6 to make VMs for Mint and Ubuntu 18.10 but am stuck trying
to make an android VM. I know VirtualBox doesn't support android, but
it's been interesting to see the YouTube videos showing that some
people have successfully made an android VM in VirtualBox. Just
requires more experimentation on my part.

John

Thanks for the info what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

Yes wrote:

Thank all of you for the responses. I asked those questions because,
as I said originally, it piqued my curiousity and i almost always get
fascinated with wondering how they do that. At some time in the
future, I might add aa second monitor to my gear, but that's not likely
to happen any time soon.

P.S.: @ VanguardLH, I use Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit and am starting to
play around with virtual machines, pretty much out of curiosity
instead of for any real need. At the moment, I have successfully used
VirtualBox 6 to make VMs for Mint and Ubuntu 18.10 but am stuck trying
to make an android VM. I know VirtualBox doesn't support android, but
it's been interesting to see the YouTube videos showing that some
people have successfully made an android VM in VirtualBox. Just
requires more experimentation on my part.

John

Multiple virtual monitors or virtual desktops (on the same monitor) have
nothing to do with virtual machines (running an *OS* in an isolated
sandbox). I suppose I could do multiple virtual monitors inside a
virtual machine but that seems redundant and definitely a waste of
resources, especially memory, just to have virtual desktops. A virtual
machine is running an isolated guest OS atop a parent OS. Virtual
monitors aka virtual desktops are running within the *same* OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_desktop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

what hardware is needed for multiple-screen displays

On Mon, 15 Apr 2019 15:04:16 -0000 (UTC), "Yes"
wrote:

I just saw an ad for an ASUS monitor showing 9 monitors in a 3x3 matrix
being used to show a picture. It got me curious.

Other than the monitors themselves, what hardware would be needed to do
that? For example, would something like that need 9 graphics cards,
one for each display? Instead, is that done using a specialized card?
Does it require custom software? Does it require high-end CPUs and/or
massive amounts of RAM? Or are there specially made electronic devices
produced to do that?

Thanks

Whatever it takes. Day trading is one. How financial instruments are
analyzed, or whence, withal, realtime feeds and network updates come
from, as they may involve various networking and contiguous computer
hardware support.

A single dedicated monitor is one ideally suited for specialized
software/hardware customization. I believe, unless I'm mistaken, the
largest such monitor, among specialization purposes of course, is the
size of a double-decker bus. They're an analogy often associated with
London, stacked buses, to transport twice as many people, twice as
high. I didn't note to inquire for a set purchase price.

And, I don't have handy a lower limit on a day-trader exchange
challenge. The amount of money it takes to "challenge", or walk
through the door, plunk down funds, and use in-house equipment over a
world-exchange and available global stock facilities. (Day trading,
otherwise, requires certified training for specialist licensing.)

Every second, or millisecond, apparently counts. Shall we initially
offer $500,000/US for an appropriate figure to challenge advantageous
facilities in select localities equipped appropriate means?