[Mendel]

Okay so here is the problem. I have Radeon 5870 and I an apple cinema hd 30" display and I have two different televisions.

If I only connect the monitor with dvi, everything is great.

If I connect either or both televisions or an amplifier with an hdmi cable however, things start to go wrong. One television always gets detected as display number one, other television or amplifier gets detected as display number 3. This has happened to me on two different windows 7 installations (home premium 32 bit and now ultimate 64 bit). I connect one tv to integrated port of the asus maximus gene z mainboard and one to the radeon´s hdmi out. Or I can connect just one cable to either port, problem is the same either ways.

I can set the display number 2 as the main display, yes... but there are problems. This setting is not kept saved. The display occasionally becomes a non main display depending on whether or not the tvs or the amplifier are on or off. Most problematic it was today when the other tv in another room had to be on or else the monitor would become secondary display. Of course if I try to set it as main display the setting window is on primary display which is not on!

If I set monitor number two to main display while the display number 1 is on, this works until I turn off the tv and return to computer room to find that my monitor is again secondary and only displaying the desktop background... This happens even if I select to disconnect monitors (tvs) 1 and 3 from windows background right click screen resolution screen. So basically I can have a situation where I have two tvs disconnected by software and the remaining monitor is a secondary display and there is no primary display! The only way to correct this is to physically disconnect both hdmi cables and then the monitor automatically becomes primary display again. This is very frustrating.

Newest Catalyst installed from steam btw.

Can I somehow change the designation of which display gets designated as display 1? So that when I press the identify button, it would get the big number one and everything... I believe that would fix my problem.

edit: Just to note, my monitor is detected as number 1 in catalyst control center but it is number 2 if I right click on windows background and select "screen resolution"

[Davros]

you can set up you displays how you want them create a preset give it a hot key eg: shift 1
then anytime you want that exact layout just press shift 1

[Grall]

Mendel,
If you use Windows' own display control panel applet, does it make any difference? I've had huge issues with the display settings screen in the catalyst control center, it's been buggy as f*** in my experience with refusing to span the desktop across an additional screen, lettimg me change screen position in relation to each other and so on. It's just been a total bitch, put simply.

So most of the time I don't use it, and I don't even understand what function it serves, considering it just duplicates the built-in controls of the OS.

[Davros]

Win 7 has problems with 3 displays (no option for display 2)

[Mendel]

I changed to gtx580 and apparently grass isn´t greener on this side of fence either. Is it purely that Windows = Shite? Or is it just that nobody can make a decent multi monitor driver? Immediately when I connect a tv, my monitor gets assigned as display #2. When I force it to be primary, the setting works for a while but doesn´t "stick".

It sometimes becomes secondary display when I turn one or the other tv on... Also when I changed settings to remove overscan from my smaller tv and pressed ok, my monitor again became secondary and its positioning got changed to the other side of the tv.

Every time when booting up the computer, there is a drumroll to see which display/tv I should run to with my mouse in order to make my monitor the primary display

As an added bug, now the HDMI sound output randomly does not work, it´s totally muted even though it shows on the volume controls that sound is supposed to be coming out... I need to disable and re-enable tv to make sounds work again for random time before it stops working again.

What is this, I don´t even.

[Davros]

Mendel ati's multi monitor settings are excellent whats the problem with them (set manual detection in ccc so it wont know a monitor is turned off)

[Mendel]

Too late, as I don´t even have an AMD card anymore. When I had, I didn´t find that option, it always knew when a monitor was on and when it was off and all hell broke loose accordingly (didn´t find a way to disable automatic detection). At worst, the problem was that the tv (display 1) had to be on, or else my monitor (display 2) would become secondary display. At best, the problem was that placement of the monitors would change (if I set my tv to be on the right side of the monitor, it would sometimes be on the left side after running a game, restarting computer, changing resolution, whatever random).

BTW, I could not use CCC for each display because one was always connected through the integrated graphics hdmi out, but there were problems even with only two displays... and there still are with Nvidia card so it´s either just my windows install or then it´s me. I just bypass problems now by manually plugging off both hdmi cables and using only one display... and connecting them only when absolutely necessary and then I use cloning now even though that means losing native res on my monitor for a while. I´m done trying to get extended desktop to work. It does not for me. sigh.

[Davros]

Originally Posted by Mendel

BTW, I could not use CCC for each display because one was always connected through the integrated graphics hdmi out,

You could of connected 3 displays with the ati card

ps: monitor detection

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Mendel

Too late, as I don´t even have an AMD card anymore. When I had, I didn´t find that option, it always knew when a monitor was on and when it was off and all hell broke loose accordingly (didn´t find a way to disable automatic detection). At worst, the problem was that the tv (display 1) had to be on, or else my monitor (display 2) would become secondary display. At best, the problem was that placement of the monitors would change (if I set my tv to be on the right side of the monitor, it would sometimes be on the left side after running a game, restarting computer, changing resolution, whatever random).

BTW, I could not use CCC for each display because one was always connected through the integrated graphics hdmi out, but there were problems even with only two displays... and there still are with Nvidia card so it´s either just my windows install or then it´s me. I just bypass problems now by manually plugging off both hdmi cables and using only one display... and connecting them only when absolutely necessary and then I use cloning now even though that means losing native res on my monitor for a while. I´m done trying to get extended desktop to work. It does not for me. sigh.

Ouch, it's been a long time since I've had issues like that. I regularly turn one monitor or the other off depending on whether I actually need one or the other. The only time things might mess up is if I boot with only the secondary monitor on, I think. It's been a while since I've done that though. Don't currently have any Nvidia cards in any machine here so can't test to see if the driver is borked with multi-mon for Nvidia.

Hmm, although I haven't tried multi-mon with a TV and PC monitor. Maybe there's something funky with that config. Maybe if I get extra time (which never seems to happen), I'll try that out and see what happens.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

you could try unplug tv.
in device manager uninstall it
uninstall nv drivers reboot with the monitor you want to be display 1 on
when you get new hardware detected cancel it, reboot
if new hw wizard cancel again. run driver sweeper. reboot, cancel hw wizrd
install nv drivers reboot, install monitor drivers
reboot
turn on monitor 2 (tv) make sure its secondary install drivers for tv if there is any

[Nappe1]

Originally Posted by Mendel

I changed to gtx580 and apparently grass isn´t greener on this side of fence either. Is it purely that Windows = Shite? Or is it just that nobody can make a decent multi monitor driver?

There's still one manufacturer, from which no one here gives a darn... But to them, multimonitor support is their life or die. The M is only mentioned here as laughing stock, but in real world, their 3 year complete waranty and superior capablity to run up to 8 monitors per card makes a difference, when you need screen estate space in big scale.

...and you can betcha that you don't need to re-order (worst case) 16 displays in every single boot you make.

[Davros]

Do matrox make anything dx11 compliant ?

[Nappe1]

Originally Posted by Davros

Do matrox make anything dx11 compliant ?

I have no freaking clue. The systems where I have seen their M9188 cards being used, you don't need more than what's capable running Win7 Aero fluently. besides, when you have matrix of 16 full hd displays, what kind of fps you would be expecting with full featured DX11 title? To draw just the screens in 60 Hz you'll need 1920x1080x3x16x60= ~60Mpixels/s and that's with zero z-buffer overlap and no antialiasing what so ever.

They used to be only manufacturer providing hardware video layers / acceleration to all displays, which was critcal in multiscreen real time video editing, but that's all past stuff now when everything is ran via 3D pipeline.

If you really are interested, http://www.matrox.com

[Davros]

I meant dx11 for a little gaming on a single monitor not 16

I'm guessing all their stuff would be parhelia based as I dont remember any new gpu announcement from them

[Nappe1]

Originally Posted by Davros

I meant dx11 for a little gaming on a single monitor not 16

I'm guessing all their stuff would be parhelia based as I dont remember any new gpu announcement from them

you guessed wrong as m9xxx can run Aero, Which minimum requirement is PS2 / VS2.
So, m9xxx series are DX9. Parhelia was DX8.1 (PS 1.3 / VS 2.0 plus Adaptive Displacement Mapping)

Parhelia was not capable running more than 3 and it's MMS variant supported max of four displays. m9xxx series scale from dual up to 8 displays in single card.

[I.S.T.]

Originally Posted by Nappe1

you guessed wrong as m9xxx can run Aero, Which minimum requirement is PS2 / VS2.
So, m9xxx series are DX9. Parhelia was DX8.1 (PS 1.3 / VS 2.0 plus Adaptive Displacement Mapping)

Parhelia was not capable running more than 3 and it's MMS variant supported max of four displays. m9xxx series scale from dual up to 8 displays in single card.

Actually, I wonder if the M9 series is a modified Parhelia... I can't find any info on it other than how many monitors each model supports and whatnot, though.

[Mendel]

I just had a computing moment when I shut down something called persistence module on the task manager and started witcher 2. Talk about asking for trouble.

Oh boy did all hell break loose or what. Lost image on my monitor. Reboot. Image comes on for 2 seconds, disappears, comes back again, there´s a message about gpu recovery, image goes out again, keeps blinking like that for a while. Reboot in safe mode, try to set 1280x800 as something that should work... still blinking on next reboot. Image appearing on tv on the next boot but main monitor staying blank... had to uninstall newest nvidia drivers in safe mode and... still no image on main monitor on the next boot!

But I had a stable image now on my tv coming from the integrated graphics. Uninstalled Virtu, shutdown, change to other dvi out, plug off both tvs... and the image is back on my monitor on the next boot and everything seemingly works again.

Is there a way to disable automatic detection of displays on Nvidia cards or how do I set hotkeys to change which monitor is primary? The problem is when I run Nvidia 3dtvplay I have to set my 3dtv as the main. Then when I just turn off the tv, now my monitor becomes primary monitor on the next boot... until my wife turns on the tv that is! That is when now the tv automatically becomes main monitor and my monitor becomes secondary unless I plug off the hdmi cable of course. And it is seemingly impossible to change from secondary to primary when the primary is in another room and of course nvidia control panel opens there even if I try to open it on the secondary screen

The solution so far is to keep tv plugged off and to forget the whole 3d nonsense for now.

[Bludd]

I have had the same problem as you, Mendel. For some reason Windows prefers a TV over a monitor of both are connected and does not care about which connector on the video card you are using. It sucks so much.

[Davros]

It would be more nv than windows i think

[Bludd]

True I haven't tested this with an AMD card, so all I have is anecdotal evidence.

[Davros]

I know in ccc you can choose what monitor to have as primary and secondary and even monitor number 3

[nutball]

Originally Posted by Davros

I know in ccc you can choose what monitor to have as primary and secondary and even monitor number 3

You can indeed. And last time I owned an AMD card, it would forget this vital information at every driver upgrade.

At that time my primary monitor was a 30" 2560x1600 landscape and the secondary 21" 1600x1200 portrait. After an upgrade the driver would decide that the 21" was the primary monitor, and that it should be fed with a virtualised 2560x1600 desktop. Which was at 90 degrees to my head of course. Cue a lot of mousing-the-wrong-way fun and sitting with head on one side.

The regular driver upgrades were necessary because of a performance issue with one of the more popular MMORPGs (>10M subscribers, if you believe the press), which never seemed to get sorted.

Later on, cue an order for an NVIDIA graphics card.

[Nappe1]

Originally Posted by I.S.T.

Actually, I wonder if the M9 series is a modified Parhelia... I can't find any info on it other than how many monitors each model supports and whatnot, though.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=51551

...As I said, no one is interested. The closest place to find some info is right here.

And what is "modified" ? Parhelia had VS 2.0 already (though based on fact that it was capable doing adaptive displacement mapping, someone could call it beyond VS2.0), so they only needed to update the PS units. There was relatively lot memory bandwidth to go around, as the Parhelia had 256Bit Memory interface (with latter revision having 4 channel memory controller. The reason was it's slowness was in two things: a lot slower core clocks than planned and their wrong guess about the graphics future: 4 pipelines with 4 texture units in each. Problems in their 16 sample edge detect AA was the final nail in the coffin.)

Yet, I don't think M-series having that much of common with Parhelia or P-series. The target market is completely different and M-series has been designed to support Aero and the weighting other than that is put in to extensive multimonitor support.

The only proper way would be the Beyond 3D's way; call to Matrox and ask if octal card would be available for testing and reviewing.

EDIT: this is wayyy off topic now, but 3DCenter's thread last page ( http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulle...=443218&page=3 ) reveals that Matrox started to support even SM4 / Geometry Shaders with just driver update. So, IF M-series is based on parhelia (or it's later respin) design, could Parhelia's, now 8 years old Displacement Mapping, to be so close SM4 Geometry Shaders that they could implement it with just driver update?

[I.S.T.]

Well, the PS2.0 stuff is the kind of modifications I had in mind... >_> Even so, why would they build a whole new chip in this case? Would it have been easier/cheaper than just modifying the old Parhelia?