Displaying Windows Application using 8 Combined LCD Screen

[ivankwk]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of generating my command center using 8 LCD screens to show me various information about my company on Windows environment

Can someone advice on the best way to go about it?

 

[kmcferrin]

8 PCs? 4 dual-head PCs? 1 PC with 4 dual-head cards (3 of them PCI)? 2 PCs with 2 dual-head cards each? It shouldn't be hard to do, though I suspect that some PCs will have trouble powering 8 displays and the applications running on them all at once.

 

[garebo]

kmcferrin, i was thinking about that too. Wouldnt you need one heck of a good quality power supply to do this?
Would a standard, inexpensive power supply be able to handle this? I have some doubts on that.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[kmcferrin]

Able to handle what? If you go with two PCs each with a dual head card, you'll probably be fine. If you try to do 4 dual-head cards in a single PC you're probably looking for a headache, even with a high-end power supply. Your best bet if to go for older, low-end dual-head cards. nVidia had the GeForce MX line that were mostly dual head, and there were a number of PCI versions available. Being the lower-end cards they would probably draw less power, but I would still be leery of putting four of them in a single PC unless it had a very hefty PSU.

 

[garebo]

Well, silly me, i was thinking, i guess, that ivankwk was hoping to do all that with one pc. Got a lot on my mind, lol.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[kmcferrin]

It would be neat all in one PC, but you have potential issues with providing enough power, providing enough cooling, potential driver issues, and then when all is said and done having enough CPU power left over to run the applications. Running a dual-head card, the management of multiple displays is done by the card and the driver. Using multiple cards puts a higher load on the CPU since the OS is doing the patching together, and doing that many screens could be problematic.

I personally would use a couple PCs.

 

[felixc]

My guess is that you do not want to play games with your system. There are quad-head graphics cards available on the market. The most renowned one for business apps with multiple displays is Matrox. The cards are available for the PCI bus too, so you can theroretically fit two such cards in one system. In business applications, the total power consumption is not a concern, as there is no 3D involved (at least, until Vista takes the market) and these cards do not consume a lot of power. Nvidia also has a quad-head card, but I wouldn't bet on the low power consumption of those. You have to look at the drivers that are available, to make sure that your app could talk with with two such cards in a single system (I'd tend to favor Matrox for that purpose, as this is their niche market).

 

[felixc]

The Matrox G450MMS can be used to build a system with up to 16 monitors, with full driver support.

 

[ceh4702]

I wonder if You could take a Linux box and make one really big desktop with multiple windows the size of a giant plasma screen?

I dont think you can really do that with windows.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[kmcferrin]

The Matrox card sounds like a good idea, I wasn't aware that 4-head cards were widely available.

Regarding Windows ability to make a giant display, I'm not sure what Linux has going for it in this area that Windows doesn't. It would all be in the drivers, and I know for a fact that you can span your desktop across multiple displays on a dual-head card in Windows.

 

[mainegeek]

ivankwk,
This won't help but I thought it was pretty cool.

http://www.damnfunnypictures.com/html/The-Ultimate-Flight-Simulator.html

 

[phannah]

I used to use cards by Colorgraphic to output a PC's video to multiple displays using one card. I believe some trading systems also use these. Here is their product comparison:

http://www.colorgraphic.net/newsite/products/xentera_comparison.html