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Topic: «Integrate 3 monitors on 3 sets , How make work? » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 3811
 
Gregg Edwards
Registered user
 
 Posts: 2
Joined: 10/28/2014
Posted: 10/28/2014 00:36:47
 
 
 Rig: 2 laptops, each w a ~40" TV, 2 desktop w a 65" TV, all arranged in a flat U, with no gaps.
I want to turn this into one big display, about 8' in length.
I have cataracts, so need the big screens an big space to work.
Do you offer a solution? I bout your products, and can't make it do what I need.
If not, may I install the product on my 3 computers to work across the three monitor. I use the FOSS Synergy so I only need one keyboard + mouse.
 
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Alexander Mihalkin
Administrator

-retired-
 
 Posts: 502
Joined: 04/21/2014
Posted: 10/29/2014 17:05:24
 
 
 Thank you for your post, Gregg!

According to the End-User License Agreement,
Quote
Once registered, you are granted a non-exclusive license to use the Software
for any legal purpose on as many computers as you need as long as the number of
simultaneous users of the Software (real human persons) does not exceed
the number of licensed users (which is equal to the number of copies purchased).

The best way you can get one big display is to connect all your monitors (TVs) to one PC and set it to Extend desktop over all connected displays. Actual Window Manager can help you operate that large desktop in a more convenient way, including maximizing windows over the whole desktop across the monitors boundaries in one click or easily positioning windows across several monitors using Desktop Divider. You should find other features helpful in that environment as well.

You can connect up to 6 extra monitors to your PC using USB Graphics Adapters like these for each extra monitor.

To actually make Windows recognize all your displays as one large monitor (mostly needed for multi-monitor gaming, I think) you need to have a video card with NVidia Surround, AMD Eyefinity or similar technology supported.

Please contact us whenever you have any questions, concerns, comments or ideas!
Best regards.

support@actualtools.com
 
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Gregg Edwards
Registered user
 
 Posts: 2
Joined: 10/28/2014
Posted: 11/02/2014 22:07:34
 
 
 Dear Alexander Mihalkin,

Thank you for your help!

To continue my search for a solution to my challenge, please take a moment to consider this:

Since you are far more active in this world than I, you likely know off the top of your head the current balance between distributed and centralized graphic services. I'd appreciate your off-the-cuff ideas on the better way to go in building a large graphics display. While I'm hoping to find corrective operations, my eyes are now so bad I need that kind of display in order to participate in my vocation.

There is a German product that uses only software (and assumes a current Ethernet connection) to aggregate all monitors into a full display.
Perhaps you might consider adding this feature to your product.

Pros: It is cheaper and much easier to buy the software than all the extra cables.
     It allow the graphics card to retain its full capacity for the main monitor.
     It avoids the extra trouble and expense of setting up a Remote Window service after each reboot in order to use the services of the other computers.

Cons: It cannot support Actual Tools' current feature set.

In addition, the costs of adding a computer behind each monitor can be quite low. Looking on eBay (or Amazon) there are many used/refurb computers available with respectable graphics for about $50, or less when bought several at a time. (By the way, this provides inexpensive backups to greatly improve run-time resilience.)

Again, I much appreciate your fully informative answer to my last post, and hope you might have a few minutes to answer this one.

With best regards,
Gregg Edwards
 
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Zardoz2293
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 302
Joined: 07/27/2010
Posted: 11/03/2014 05:13:16
 
 
 @Gregg,

I bet all those computers are great at keeping you warm during German winter.

Sincerely,
Lars
 
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Alexander Mihalkin
Administrator

-retired-
 
 Posts: 502
Joined: 04/21/2014
Posted: 11/07/2014 09:31:13
 
 
 Thank you for your posts, Gentlemen.

Gregg, actually I've never heard of building a multi-monitor setup using multiple PCs before. If you could name the German product you mentioned, I would be able to research it a bit and give some thoughts on whether Actual Tools products will ever support it. All I know is that most common solution to building the multi-monitor setup is to use a single PC.

What's your vocation by the way?

Best regards!

support@actualtools.com
 
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aph
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 50
Joined: 03/18/2014
Posted: 11/07/2014 12:17:18
 
 
 You can add multiple monitors with several PC's, sure, but there are considerable drawbacks. Video over IP is not as reliable as simply using video cables, and as you said, you need multiple computers to go back from IP to video at each screen. You are likely to notice the latency for the Ethernet transfer (~15ms) and for the conversion on each side (not sure how long). Given the average latency of a TN panel is 1ms and IPS panel 8ms, the extra few dozen ms will cause noticeable lag time in updating between screens. It introduces additional costs as well, due to the maintenance of multiple points of failure, and long-term cost of electricity (those old Pentiums suck up more power than almost any modern CPU.)

A much easier solution that does not have these drawbacks a single card like Alexander recommended.

I currently have a workstation class card (ATI FirePro V8800) that supports 4 monitors from a single computer. It can pair up with an identical card in CrossFire mode to support up to 8 from the same computer, and create a giant desktop seamlessly with Eyefinity. Practically all ATI/AMD have Eyefinity and CrossFire, and nVidia's versions are called Surround and SLI, respectively.

I believe consumer grade cards with 4 outputs are in the $200 range. For 3 outputs it's much less; if you don't mind a VGA signal on one of the ports the XFX AMD Radeon HD 5450 on NewEgg is $30. Cables can be had at any length (6-50 foot) at MonoPrice for $2-20. Any card like that will do the job with 1 computer, and includes the low-level driver support to ensure no conflicts arise with other software like AWM.
 
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aph
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 50
Joined: 03/18/2014
Posted: 11/07/2014 17:08:41
 
 
 Your best bet for data reliability is SSD drives. If that's cost prohibitive, a hardware or low level software RAID 5 solution will do. The two can be combined for a high level of protection against hardware failure.

For backup purposes, the days of copying entire volumes over on the file and folder level are gone. A solution that works at the hard disk cluster level will provide you with much more efficient storage and many more snapshots. I use Windows Server Backup built into Server 2012 and for about 30 days of backups of of a 220GB system volume, all those copies take only 256GB on my backup volume (a separate physical disk.)

The MFT identifies files that change, Server Backup takes that one step further by going to the block level and backing up only the changed clusters, and then compressing everything. It's reassembled on the fly with any installation or repair media by choosing the Repair option and selecting a snapshot.

Of course, backups can be scheduled to multiple independent physical disks, and/or combined with the reliability and redundancy solutions above to achieve any degree of data protection you're looking for.
 
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Alexander Mihalkin
Administrator

-retired-
 
 Posts: 502
Joined: 04/21/2014
Posted: 11/10/2014 09:10:37
 
 
 Wow, thank you very much for such a comprehensive reply, Aph!

support@actualtools.com
 
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