Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey all, so I have an xfx 5870 eyefinity 6 fully populated by 6 DLP projectors.
They are attached via 6 active display port to DVI adapters and then to 6x35' DVI to HDMI cables.
I went with 6 active adapters as when I was only using 4 active adapters the non active adapters would occasionally drop out...
Adding an additional 2 active adapters seemed to solve this problem; kinda...

So when I use CC to extend my desktop I can get all 6 outputs to run with zero issues....
However when I try to create a display group I start getting strange issues where CC will act like im unplugging and plugging in the projectors over and over again and ultimately not power up more than a few displays at the same time...
Is this something other people have seen before? Is this likely an issue of cable length or something else?

any recommendations for powered DVI boosters?

thanks for the input!

-walk

My first question would be do you really need 35' of cable between the computer and projectors? That cable length is really pushing things. I'm surprised it's working at all with 6 at that length. I suggest the computer be put closer to the projectors and you use a longer length of USB to the mouse and keyboard to compensate. It's a heck of a lot more cost effective to use long USB cables.

On my personal setup I use 15' cables to my projectors and 15' USB to the mouse and keyboard.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10303

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Unfortunately due to noise/cooling/building requirements the 35' length is a hard number and no longer changeable at this point in time...
Money isn't a massive issue (IE if I need to drop $1000 on boosters Im fine with it)
However getting the contractor to relocate the server room may be pushing the budget a bit.

So its reasonably possible that my problem may be related to to the cable length issue then?

these are the exact cables I used:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023101&p_id=2809&seq=1&format=2
with x12 of these:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024011&p_id=4154&seq=1&format=2

thinking of getting 6x of these if it is reasonably possible it may solve the issues I'm running into:
http://www.datapro.net/products/dvi-inline-repeater-booster.html

Yes, those boosters might help.

Had a Samsung display on a wall once, with a 7m HDMI cable from a PC, and the picture was all blue pixelated in the top left corner only. Putting an amplifier into that run fixed the problem, because it also retimes the signal.

I would be suprised if that did not fix your problem.

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So its reasonably possible that my problem may be related to to the cable length issue then?

Yes, imho your dropouts are related to cable length. Since you can't compromise on cable length signal boosters will have to do. I have no experience in using them though. If you're planning to do stereoscopic 3D there are already several impediments in your setup design though. The GT720 are 3D shutter glass capable.

What pre-warping software are you using? Sol7? Warpalizer? I'm assuming you're doing some sort of advanced simulator projection?

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Back when I was first looking at this i considered 3D as a nice bonus, but considering that ATI (as far as I know) still doesn't have the bugs worked out in its 3D stuff I was out of luck. (The program I am building this thing for is unable to talk to more than one GPU at a time so adding 2xNvidia cards would have been pointless.) -on a related note has anyone got a warped screen to work with 3d?

It is for a flight sim project, using X-plane on a cylindrical screen. I had sent an email to the guys at SOL7 but as mentioned before the price point was way outside of my budget, so I ended up going with Warpalizer as it was more or less the same price minus a zero.

Would it make sense that the video card/displays work fine when running as an extended desktop but when put into eyefinity mode I get dropouts?


Does anyone know if the cable length limitation is related to a signal to noise issue or a line drop issue?

thanks all!
-walk

-on a related note has anyone got a warped screen to work with 3d?

Yes, actually I had NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround working with three GT720's via the VGA analog connectors and the standard NVIDIA 3D Vision kit for a weekend. I have both NVIDIA Surround and AMD Eyefinity 6 systems I use. On my projection system I have licenses for NTHUSIM, Sol7 and SimVisuals from Immersaview. My Sol7 and SimVisuals installs are licensed up to 8 projectors, but my pockets aren't that deep at the moment to have the hardware. It helps that I assist with their NTHUSIM side of things, so I got Sol7 and SimVisuals as a perk.

There are a few things I don't like about the GT720, but overall the price is right and they have a decent short throw spec. I used the GT720 at several AMD events in the last few months.

As the signal sent through an HDMI cable is digital is a signal dropout issue, not a noise issue. Noise issues are only relevant to analog signals.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Solved,
added a SINGLE booster to ONE of the outputs and all is now fine....
one of my local brick and mortar shops happens to have a bus powered HDMI booster in stock for cheep. I bought it so I could disassemble is and see how easy it would be to feed it its own power; decided just for the heck of it to plug it in and see what happened, low and behold I can get into eyefinity mode without issue now (well kinda but that's a different problem for a different thread)

Still going to order more and put them in line anyway though

Solved,
added a SINGLE booster to ONE of the outputs and all is now fine....
one of my local brick and mortar shops happens to have a bus powered HDMI booster in stock for cheep. I bought it so I could disassemble is and see how easy it would be to feed it its own power; decided just for the heck of it to plug it in and see what happened, low and behold I can get into eyefinity mode without issue now (well kinda but that's a different problem for a different thread)

Still going to order more and put them in line anyway though

Sounds like progress. Looking forward to seeing the 6 projector setup in action. I would be cool to take progress shots of the build to help others who might want to do something similar.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Actually iv been bad and haven't taken that many, and of the once iv taken they have all been with a crummy 3mp smart phone (even though iv had my SLR sitting 30' away almost every day...
Once its all up and running ill be sure to spend some time with a proper writeup etc...
:)