# Four monitors with two GeForce dual-head



## afberendsen (Aug 27, 2014)

Hi There

I have three questions on the same subject.

Software: FreeBSD 10.0 for AMD64

Hardware:

Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 http://www.gigabyte.co.nz/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2287#ov
4GB RAM (2x 2GB PC2-6400)
1 x PCIe x16 GeForce 7200 GS dual-head video card http://www.gigabyte.co.nz/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2584#ov
1 x PCIe x16 GeForce 8500 GT duakl-head video card http://www.gigabyte.co.nz/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2574#ov
2 x PCI Radeon 7000 [RV100] dual-head video card

Recently I came across a lot of 30 17" LCD monitors (just a single $1.00 each). My plan is to build a video-wall with 8 monitors.

I have two GeForce dual-head video cards (PCIex16), for a total of 4 video monitors. After a lot of struggle, I managed to activate three of those monitors with a static xorg.conf file. After duplicating the same configuration from the first card for the second card, I only managed to have three monitors used by *Xorg*. I found a post on the internet stating that the *nvidia* driver is limited, for some unknown reason, to three monitors. If this is a fact, is there anyway that I can successfully use all the four ports at the same time? I have another desktop running Windows 7 where I can successfully use four monitors attached to two GeForce dual-head video cards.


What is the correct xorg.conf configuration to activate four monitors with two GeForce dual-head *PCIe* video cards?
On the same line of questioning, this same computer also have two RV100 [Radeon 7000] dual-head PCI video cards. Adjusting the same xorg.conf file from above, but activating only the Radeon devices (*radeon* driver) the X, when running `Xorg -config ~/xorg.conf.new -retro`, simply freezes my desktop. The only viable solution is to reset the computer.


What is the correct xorg.conf configuration to activate four monitors with two Radeon RV100 dual-head *PCI* video cards?
What is the correct xorg.conf configuration to activate eight video monitors with two GeForce dual-head *PCIe* video cards and two Radeon RV100 dual-head *PCI* video cards?


----------



## SirDice (Aug 27, 2014)

I wouldn't mix Radeon and NVidia. Not while using the nvidia-driver. The nvidia-driver overwrites/replaces some Xorg libraries and those are bound to clash with the Radeon drivers (which expects the original Xorg libraries).


----------



## afberendsen (Aug 27, 2014)

Thanks for the reply

The nv video driver has limited set of features to deal with multiple monitors. For example, I cannot set which video monitor, from a dual-head video card, is on the left or on the right. To accomplished that, and only that, my decision was to use the nvidia video driver.

However, let's say that hypothetically the order of the video monitors is not important. Will the radeon video driver work with the nv video drivers, so I can have all four video cards activate at one time?


----------



## SirDice (Aug 28, 2014)

As far as I know the nv driver only supports one monitor but it should play nicely with the radeon driver.


----------



## wblock@ (Aug 28, 2014)

The first step would be to check that multiple video cards work at the same time.  I tried that recently with no real success, but that may have been due to the hardware I had available.


----------



## DJ9 (Sep 1, 2014)

I really don't see the system performing very well with just 4MB of memory.  Good thing is your motherboard can go up to 16MB.

Also, make sure that if you add those video cards your power supply is capable of handling it.


----------



## afberendsen (Sep 2, 2014)

Hi DJ9. In fact my MoBo supports 16GB. My current configuration is 4GB. 

I have a second MoBo, with 5 PCI slots. I also have 5 identical PCI video cards. I will try with it. Will pots the results here.


----------



## afberendsen (Sep 4, 2014)

As promised, I am running the test in a second MoBo.

Software:

FreeBSD 10.0 i386


```
root@h0000003:/var/log # uname -a
FreeBSD h0000003 10.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE #0 r260789: Fri Jan 17 01:46:25 UTC 2014     root@snap.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
```
Hardware:

Gigabyte GA-7VT600
1 x AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2000+ (1674.47-MHz 686-class CPU)
3GB RAM (3 x 1GB DDR 400 MHz)
1 x AGP GeForce2 MX/MX 400
5 x PCI Tseng Labs Inc ET4000/W32p rev C


```
root@h0000003:/var/log # pciconf -l
hostb0@pci0:0:0:0:	class=0x060000 card=0x50001458 chip=0x31891106 rev=0x80 hdr=0x00
pcib1@pci0:0:1:0:	class=0x060400 card=0x00000000 chip=0xb1981106 rev=0x00 hdr=0x01
vgapci1@pci0:0:9:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x3206100c rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vgapci2@pci0:0:10:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x3206100c rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vgapci3@pci0:0:11:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x3206100c rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vgapci4@pci0:0:12:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x3206100c rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
vgapci5@pci0:0:13:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x3206100c rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
atapci0@pci0:0:15:0:	class=0x01018a card=0x50021458 chip=0x05711106 rev=0x06 hdr=0x00
uhci0@pci0:0:16:0:	class=0x0c0300 card=0x50041458 chip=0x30381106 rev=0x81 hdr=0x00
uhci1@pci0:0:16:1:	class=0x0c0300 card=0x50041458 chip=0x30381106 rev=0x81 hdr=0x00
uhci2@pci0:0:16:2:	class=0x0c0300 card=0x50041458 chip=0x30381106 rev=0x81 hdr=0x00
uhci3@pci0:0:16:3:	class=0x0c0300 card=0x50041458 chip=0x30381106 rev=0x81 hdr=0x00
ehci0@pci0:0:16:4:	class=0x0c0320 card=0x50041458 chip=0x31041106 rev=0x86 hdr=0x00
isab0@pci0:0:17:0:	class=0x060100 card=0x50011458 chip=0x32271106 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
pcm0@pci0:0:17:5:	class=0x040100 card=0xa0021458 chip=0x30591106 rev=0x60 hdr=0x00
vr0@pci0:0:18:0:	class=0x020000 card=0xe0001458 chip=0x30651106 rev=0x78 hdr=0x00
vgapci0@pci0:1:0:0:	class=0x030000 card=0x000110b0 chip=0x011010de rev=0xb2 hdr=0x00
```

Xorg configuration file works very well with the GeForce. However, for all Tseng video cards, an error message is presented. So, before I cna move forward to setup the X for mutiple displays (six in total), I need to solve this problem

```
(II) TSENG(1): initializing int10
(==) TSENG(1): Write-combining range (0xa0000,0x20000) was already clear
(II) TSENG(1): vgaHWGetIOBase: hwp->IOBase is 0x03d0, hwp->PIOOffset is 0x0000
(--) TSENG(1): Chipset: "ET4000/W32P (rev D)"
(EE) TSENG(1): Unable to probe RAMDAC
```


```
root@h0000003:/var/log # grep RAMDAC Xorg.0.log
(EE) TSENG(1): Unable to probe RAMDAC
(EE) TSENG(2): Unable to probe RAMDAC
(EE) TSENG(3): Unable to probe RAMDAC
(EE) TSENG(4): Unable to probe RAMDAC
(EE) TSENG(5): Unable to probe RAMDAC
```

EDIT: Seems that this is an old problem: https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11106. Can someone tell me if this problem was fixed? Yes, I know. This is a *FreeBSD* forum, not *Xorg*. But, who knows, maybe there is a new *tseng* driver for FreeBSD?


----------

