Alpha Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 right here goes. doin a gig, were having 4 projectors, paired, now my question is is there anyway of projects with 4 projectors so 1 pair project one thing and the other another from one pc. another question as ive been looking at a video desk is does anyone know where VGA / DVI to composite (yellow) can be got hold of as cheap as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 To have two separate outputs you either need a two channel graphics card, or two separate graphics cards. If you want to be able to have 1 control screen and two projector channels, you need 3 graphics cards/channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewR Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Anyone involved who plays computer games? Cause I can almost guarantee they will have a graphics card with 2 outputs. As mentioned you can use this to send 2 different things to the projectors. Just hook them up to the PC and tell windows to extend the desktop over both. You can then run different things in each screen. If you projectors dont have a VGA out then you will need a VGA splitter to give you enough outputs. (be warned that some graphics cards only output a signal on the second port when they detect a monitor, and you will have to connect a projector directly first and only put in a splitter when its working. (Keeps happening to me, grrrrrr) You should in theory be able to also connect a PCI graphics card as well to give you 1 or 2 outputs extra. (never actually tried myself) (The cards with more than 2 ports tend to be very expensive, ATI quattro etc) Although If you are planning on running things like video or some such on several different screens be warned!..... It will take a high speed machine, (windows isnt really designed to handle multi streaming video) and you will also have to install several different playback programs. As media player will only play one thing at a time, and you can only run 1 copy of it at a time too. But if you have a friend who can help you with the kit it should be a very cheap way to playback lots of video. What will you be running on it actually? Grrrr speel chunker! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted February 14, 2006 Author Share Posted February 14, 2006 hmm, ive got 2 outputs on my graphics, but I need 1 of these for my control screen for the software and the other goes off to a pair of projects, I dont know how to run another 2 software wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 You cannot run another two "Software Wise" as you put it. If you mean you do not know how to get the OS to recognise more outputs - it is automagic. You need PHYSICAL stuff - HARDWARE. Go and buy a cheap PCI graphics card and shove it in. It is often a bit hit and miss on first boot to find which graphics card has been selected as the 'primary' card, but usually, if you have onboard graphics and shove a PCI or AGP card in, then it will become the primary card. This really only matters in the boot sequence as you can change the rest from within doze. Re the "machine specs" - unless you are doing 3d stuff, or extreamly dynamic stuff, you shouldn't need anything too powerful. I had a machine that ran 6 montors, by default in a 3x2 matrix which was extreamly low spec - all it ran was terminal emmulators and a very light weight window manager - that was when I went through a phase of having a bunch of linux boxes made out of old hardware, just because I could and I wanted to have each one visable when playing arround with distributed computing etc. But if you are thinking 3 outputs, and 2 of those are going to be rendered on the fly graphics... It would not hurt to have some grunt behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted February 16, 2006 Author Share Posted February 16, 2006 the hardware isnt a problem, I can do that, I know more about computers than I could ever need to (system admistrator). You mention a very interesting point, will it work if I have onboard graphics and then a Gcard with a VGA and a DVI out?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 You mention a very interesting point, will it work if I have onboard graphics and then a Gcard with a VGA and a DVI out?. This is a very tricky area - it depends on a number of factors. Some pain in the rear motherboards automagically disable onboard systems when they detect an external version, and depending on the bios writter/designer/whatever they are occasionally real biatches to get them to stay enabled. Some will crack a spaz at having an offboard graphics card, and some will just accept it and become the 'secondary' display adaptor. In the case where you are using two channels on a two channel card, I think it is very much a card/bios specific thing. Some will crack a spaz, some wont. Not all MoBo's are created equal, and some are just extreamly picky. The main ones to crack spazzes will probably be the 'mass produced' PC, as opposed to the corner PC shop assembled, on the home brew pc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henny Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 have a look at http://www.datapath.co.uk Four Port PCI graphics adapter Four Delta Chrome GPU's each with 32Mb DDR 250Mhz frame buffers (Total 128Mb Four Analog VGA outputs upto 2048 x 1536 Four DVI outputs up to 1600 x 1200 Support for 1400 x 1050 resolution Four TV outputs. PAL/NTSC/S-video, HDTV. With high quality flicker filters Support for up to sixteen cards providing outputs for up to sixty-four displays Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted February 16, 2006 Author Share Posted February 16, 2006 ooo wow, how much to they cost! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Well, I've always said, that if you have to ask, then the price is probably far too much.... they wait until you're at the checkout and then they slam you with it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted February 16, 2006 Share Posted February 16, 2006 Whilst the cards are good, they do not mount in your standard ATX style case by the looks of them. They look like they fit rackmount cases. It is also only a small amount of onboard memory, so anything that needs rendering by the GPU will take a bit of effort - that said, in a decent media server, you have a lot of ram in the box, so it would be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted February 16, 2006 Author Share Posted February 16, 2006 I dont really need too much power, its just simple mpgs that we r gunna be playing and then a video stream. im guessing ill go for the two pc option and use a vga splitter to connect them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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