Multipl NVidia Cards and Xinerama

[stefanadelbert]

I'm trying to setup four monitors on two NVidia cards, 8600GT (PCIe) and GeForce 6200 (PCI).

Extract from lspci:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GT (rev a1)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

So far I have used nvidia-settings to setup two X screens successfully, but if I enable Xinerama I am unable to restart X (continually flicks displays on and off) and I need to manually run 'gdm stop' and switch back to a working xorg.conf.

Has anyone successfully got a similar setup working?

[65 mustang]

I'm trying to setup four monitors on two NVidia cards, 8600GT (PCIe) and GeForce 6200 (PCI).

Extract from lspci:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GT (rev a1)
05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

So far I have used nvidia-settings to setup two X screens successfully, but if I enable Xinerama I am unable to restart X (continually flicks displays on and off) and I need to manually run 'gdm stop' and switch back to a working xorg.conf.

Has anyone successfully got a similar setup working?

+1 have this same problem on 9.04 and 9.10

[Tallivant]

You'll need to dual head both the 6200 and 8600. I have a dual-head setup running two monitors (a 32" widescreen hdtv and 15.4" laptop screen) on my nvidia 8600 using xinerama, here's the xorg.conf file basics:


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 720
Screen 1 "Screen1" Above "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "LPL"
HorizSync 30.0 - 75.0
VertRefresh 60.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "PRI HDMI TV"
HorizSync 15.0 - 68.0
VertRefresh 48.0 - 76.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8600M GT"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8600M GT"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "DynamicTwinView" "true"
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1440x900 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "DynamicTwinView" "true"
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-1: 1280x720 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
I would recommend using this setup on your nvidia 8600 (customized to your screen resolutions and positionings), and then duplicating it for the 6200 (for a total of 4 devices, 4 screens, and 4 monitors)

[stefanadelbert]

Thanks, Tallivant. I'll give it a go!