[bjames]

Hi all,

Will adding a SI gfx card to the V12 gfx board negatively affect the performance of the v12?  Goal is to increase desktop area, however not if it will result in any performance hits.

[Raion]

No, but it's a tricky setup and you probably don't want to do it. Opengl will only work on one of the displays and it's not going to function reliably in many cases from what I understand

[bjames]

So if I understand correctly, in theory there is no loss of performance, but may result in instability of the gfx system. If that’s the case, or if there is a risk of damaging the v12 board, then I may rethink things. I know the dual channel display adapter is made to run dual dvi off the V12 and would be the best solution, but the $950 euro costs is a lot to invest into this machine.

[Raion]

The problem is that the graphic subsystems were not designed to coexist. you will get opengl on your primary display but not on your secondary one. you will continuously have issues because you're using what was an unsupported configuration.

[drmadison]

I can definitely give thumbs-ups to the DCD route. Just hooked up the second monitor tonight... running dual 1080p on my Octane2 now.
Plus, and this is huge in itself - digital signal vs. analog so text and everything is a lot crisper!

[Raion]

DCD is definitely /better/ but last time I did it I noticed something peculiar. I think the DCD on IRIX actually segments the VPro memory into two sections (so each screen only has 64M of Texture RAM). Obviously the better solution is dual head, but that is hard to do.

[kaigan]

As someone who is running more or less this exact configuration (to support the Octane Digital Video option), I can attest that it's flaky. The PROM will only display on the ESI, certain full-screen demos won't run, and you do only get GL support on one screen as Raion said. You can link the screens into one large desktop, but there will be no GL support at all. Definitely not worth the trouble in my mind.

I've had an idea for a while to try using a CADDuo (which I have, and which are relatively inexpensive on eBay when they show up) to see how well that isolates each card, but I don't have a PCI card cage for my Octane yet. I'll certainly report on how things go when that changes, though!

[bjames]

I thought the cad dual required 2 keyboards as it was meant to have 2 users share 1 octane, hence the dual display and dual keyboard, mouse inputs.

When I was reading through DCD manual, I noticed there is a dual channel v12 gfx board that has dual 13w3, dual bnc and stereo. I think they referred to it as the dual head vpro. IDK..

[Raion]

Yeah that's a special VPro that is incredibly rare.

[hamei]

Yeah that's a special VPro that is incredibly rare.

It's just two V12's on a single carrier. People have modded the stock carrier to do this.