Hi Guys,
I'm planning a new build that may be a while coming into fruition.
I'm looking for card(s) that can easily handle multi monitor set-up's on a linux platform. I've often found it tricky to get working with more than 2 monitors my self, but then never really had the equipment brought to spec. So if any one out there has any experiences and give advice on the best set-up's GPU wise it would be much appreciated.
Probably won't help you but I run 4 monitors under Fedora 22 powered by 3 R9 270x cards (yeah I know...but wait for it)
So my original configuration had 3 monitors driven by one card and the 4th driven by a single card which I eventually used as a GPU pass through to a KVM with Win7 running in it. Then I added a 3rd 270x which became the pass through GPU and the other three monitors are driven from the DVI outputs of the other two cards.
This is all well and fine, I'm using the open source AMD drivers and the three monitors act as a single spanned desktop which is fine for what I'm doing, when I tested other distros I could usually get three of the 4 monitors to work but not all 4 without using proprietary drivers, under Ubuntu I could get two to work but not any of the others for some odd reason.
I don't think most of the modern distros will have a problem with more than one monitor but I've only tested Ubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, openSuse and Fedora. ( both Suse and Fedora powered all 4 monitors from the start) I'm pretty sure the 270x cards (probably way too old for you) will support 4 monitors per card if you use the 2 DVI, the HDMI, and the display port so I'd think most modern cards would have the same capabilities.
Thanks for sharing your experiances with me Blanger.
I do beleive that most modern GPU should work. However, I've only been dealing with server / laptops the last few years and wanted to be sure before investing in what ever solution that it will work.
I've seen linux do multi monitor under Virtual Box on my macPro and that's surely got to have one of the most basic video drivers available....
The fact it's driver is so basic is why it deals with it so well. I've seen that some of the Intel cards do a good job of this for little money. Even 2 of them are way cheaper than a single higher end option so I'm looking into that.
I built an i7/x97/GTX980 last week but I've only got one screen otherwise I'd be a little better informed on the crazy card/dual screen front. I do know that the built in card worked fine on a Samsung TV on HDMI and the NVidia was fine on the same tv on HDMI and on my old Apple Cinema Display 20" screen @ 1680 × 1050 via DVI->AppleDisplay Connector convertor. Would love a 4k screen but no where to put it at the moment and this current screen is very nice compared to some of the newer cheaper monitors.
For me using 3 monitors on one 760 using Ubuntu Gnome, it works great, even without any drivers. I only have a problem with when I start up my computer, everything important goes to my VGA monitor, but it has a DVI to VGA adapter, so that could be why.