Some advice needed on PC with 14 outputs

[daan.hzndnk]

Hi Guys,

I was wondering what you are thinking about this setup for 1 PC, 14 projectors, all 1280x800. Driven by Resolume Arena ofcouse. All projectors will be edgeblended and corrected for keystone. It's being used in a setup where there's one very long wall (48m x 1,5m) to be projected on. For now, comp size will be around 14000x600 = 8,4 megapixel. That's like 4k resolution.

This is the setup:



I got some doubts whether the system will like 11 outputs, but according to the documentation, this videocard can handle a maximum of 6 outputs, especially using this MST hub. I read in another post about two videocards: NO SLI bridge, and that only one videocard will handle the load. For those interested: All outgoing connections will be VGA. So I use the Club3d Active DP-VGA adapter for the MST hub. And the Triplehead will be outputting VGA natively via an adapter.

What do you guys think? Is it crazy? Or do-able?

[Oaktown]

To start with, I see several issues with your system and looking at your diagram, I'd be surprised if you can get more than 3 or 4 FPS:

• - First, I don't think you system (GPU and CPUS) has the bandwidth to push this large of a comp.
  - You should think of your UI as #1 rather than #15
  - The Club 3D MST will get you 3 outputs not 4.
  - I believe that the Matrox T2G Digital Edition will max out at 1368x768

I could be wrong but in my opinion, getting a stable output to 14 projectors is going to require to invest some serious funds into pro gear and I doubt it can be pulled off using the rig you are planning. I just designed a similar system for a client in the Caribean with 1 @ 1920x1080 UI Monitor and 15 @ 1024x768 projectors. The comp was 15360x768 and it required 1 @ Gigabyte GV-N980G1 GAMING-4GD, 1 @ Datapath DL8 and 4 @ Datapath X4s to pull it off which was a fairly extensive set up. I used one 4K output (3840x2400 @ 30Hz) for all 15 projectors. I had to do some downscaling in advanced output and upscaling in the X4 units to fit everything on one output but the comp ran at 30FPS so it worked great.

[daan.hzndnk]

Hi there,
Oaktown, thanks for your input. Appreciate your thinking! I'm still going to test this system in real life. If I'm not happy with something, I will be able to downgrade the resolution, until I got a decent framerate. I upgraded the system to i7, and a faster GPU. For now, all parts are in order, and hope to build the system next week. Super excited here.

A few notes:
- I bought the MST 1-4 hub, which is able to connect up to four displays. At least, I hope because it has four outputs would be great wouldn't it? Or do you have other experience with MST?
- I used the triplehead2go digital a lot at 1280x800, so I'm sure that will work. Even higher resolutions are possible with Duallink DVI, the Matrox website even says 3x FULL HD. How I don't know.. Never tested or needed that though..

By the way, very nice setup you have there at the Carribean. If a ticket from Amsterdam wasn't that expensive I'd say I would love to take a look some time!

I'll keep you guys posted.

[daan.hzndnk]

Allright, Oaktown, you were kinda right.
As I finally read in other post on the forum, Resolume isn't made for multi-GPU. In my case: it does work, but not with a large comp and not with a lot of screens. The framerate drops really fast when adding more screens to the 2nd GPU. I was running a huge comp-size on 4x1080p outputs (2x GPU1 and 2x GPU2). The framerate was about 13fps. Trying to add more screens (5+) to the advanced output was a bit problematic: somehow it did some strange things. For example the 6th or 7th screen begins to flicker to black really fast like a strobe of 20hz. I was trying to add 10 screens total but didn't succeed to even run 7 screens. In some scenario's the 6th screen did work, but in what setup exactly (used Full-HD screens and some 800p VGA projectors) I can't recall. I used windows 7, windows 8.1 and different versions of the GPU-drivers. I have to mention, connecting the screens to windows was working. Only adding them to the advanced output was problematic.

Anyhow, it was clear this setup wasn't going to work. Meanwhile, the budget of the overall project was running short, so we decided to downscale the installation to 10 projectors.

I decided to use 2x Datapath x4 + MST-hub for the 2 extra projectors and 1 interface. For some reason, with my GPU (MSI R9 270x) two times Duallink + HDMI does not work (wanted to use HDMI for the interface). However, this setup runs great. I run a 14000x600px (= 8,4Mpix equals 4K) comp with a DXV 14000x600 on 60fps.

I also use a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k - for external VJ's to plug in. Does a great job!

For those from Amsterdam the setup will be ready in about one month in Club Canvas op de 7e, Volkshotel Amsterdam.

[daan.hzndnk]

One interesting thing I want to mention:

I said before Resolume had a hard time with adding 6+ screens in Advanced output. I found a solution for this by making an Eyefinity setup. In short: Eyefinity works like a triplehead by configuring 2,3 or 4 screens as one big expanded desktop. This way, Resolume only will 'see' 1 output instead of multiple.

One big con is once you disconnect one projector, your eyefinity setup will be 'broken' and to fix it again, there are some steps involved. So it's all a bit buggy. But I thought I just share it with you. In permanent installations this might be a fix. I honestly can't say a lot about performance, because that time I used the 2 GPU's together so my framerate wasn't that high.