More than two monitors possible?

Z038 · 11-17-2015, 10:31 AM

I would like to have at least two external monitors attached to my laptop, giving me a total of three displays. Is this possible?

I have a HP ZBook 15 laptop that I use for work. Currently I have an old 19 inch ViewSonic monitor with DVI and VGA connectors attached to my laptop's Thunderbolt port via a Thunderbolt-to-DVI adaptor.

I need more screen real estate, so I'd like to add another monitor between my laptop and the ViewSonic via a Thunderbolt or Displayport daisy chain.

My laptop has an NVIDIA Quadro K1100M graphics card, and I'm using the Nvidia driver.

I just want to make sure I'll be able to daisy chain two monitors off my laptop's Thunderbolt or Displayport before I spend money on the new monitor.

Emerson · 11-17-2015, 10:37 AM

I'd google for "nVidia Quadro Linux". Last time I checked only two displays were supported by Linux driver.

Z038 · 11-17-2015, 10:58 AM

NVidia says my K1100M graphics card supports four displays. But I can't find any information about the number of monitors supported by the Nvidia Linux driver.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature...tion-gpus.html

Quote:

Ultra-high resolution visualization
You can now drive up to four displays simultaneously1 and get full support for the next-generation DisplayPort 1.2 standard—capable of resolutions of 3840x2160 at 60 Hz.

This makes it easy to deploy multiple displays across a desktop, using optional OEM docking stations.

linuxtinker · 11-17-2015, 11:06 AM

Quote:

This makes it easy to deploy multiple displays across a desktop, using optional OEM docking stations

Do you have a docking station? If not you might need that to start.. But not sure if you can get the 3 displays working in Linux..

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocu...e=4AA6-2693ENW

Z038 · 11-17-2015, 11:21 AM

I have an HP laptop docking station with lots of extra ports of various kinds on it, but I don't use it at work, so it wouldn't help me in this case anyway. Also, it doesn't look anything like that one in the picture from the link you posted. My HP laptop already has those ports, so I'm not sure why it would be required.

Z038 · 11-17-2015, 11:35 AM

Ok, I may have found what I was looking for. This is from the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide at http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree8...DME/index.html

Quote:

Chapter 12. Configuring Multiple Display Devices on One X Screen

Multiple display devices (digital flat panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the contents of a single X screen in any arbitrary configuration. Configuring multiple display devices on a single X screen has several distinct advantages over other techniques (such as Xinerama):

A single X screen is used. The NVIDIA driver conceals all information about multiple display devices from the X server; as far as X is concerned, there is only one screen.

Both display devices share one frame buffer. Thus, all the functionality present on a single display (e.g., accelerated OpenGL) is available with multiple display devices.

No additional overhead is needed to emulate having a single desktop.

If you are interested in using each display device as a separate X screen, see Chapter 14, Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card.
Relevant X Configuration Options

When the NVIDIA X driver starts, by default it will enable as many display devices as are connected and as the GPU supports driving simultaneously. Most NVIDIA GPUs based on the Kepler architecture, or newer, support driving up to four display devices simultaneously. Most NVIDIA GPUs older than Kepler support driving up to two display devices simultaneously.

If multiple X screens are configured on the GPU, the NVIDIA X driver will attempt to reserve display devices and GPU resources for those other X screens (honoring the "UseDisplayDevice" and "MetaModes" X configuration options of each X screen) and then allocate all remaining resources to the first X screen configured on the GPU.

So based on the above, the Linux driver should be able to support the four displays that my graphics card supports.