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New hardware

vvvv beta general
#1

hi everyone!

i’m planning in building a new system for video-installations, thinkiking about an AMD opteron dual or quad board. has anyone any experience with these? is there a better solution?
also i’m lookink for a decent grafics card with three vga outputs that is affordable without being vorstand der deutschen bank?
what i intend to do with it:
live-mix multiple videofeeds (dv and analog) and filestreams to at least 2 different outputs + controlling small self-made electronic gimmix(samplers, synth, filters, lights…).
is it worth looking into sli, to get 2 vga-cards to drive 3 or 4 outputs?

any hints really appreciated
stØrfan

#2

also i’m lookink for a decent grafics card with three vga outputs that
is affordable without being vorstand der deutschen bank?

we actually used a matrox parhelia to convince the vorstand of the badische anilin at their jahreshauptversammlung. while amazingly slow and somehow pricey (500 eur) it is the only solution to get three video outputs from the same card and it works with the current vvvv release in span-mode. you might be able to overlay multiple videos with the parhelia, but dont expect a good 3d performance or shader effects with this card.

i am aware of no ati or nvidia based solutions with more than two outputs from the same chip. i am also not aware of any motherboard with multiple agp slots. while you can plug multiple pci cards into the same motherboard to get many vga outputs, i´d try to avoid it as the pci bus is inherently slow. anyway it should be fast enough for video playback, but it is a bottleneck-

for a new system i´d recommend getting a board with two pci express slots and two dualhead cards - check the compatibility charts - not every card will work with every motherboard. and expect to wait for the next release to get multi-adapter multi-head support in vvvv

controlling small self-made electronic gimmix
check the Connecting Things section on the Documentation page. make sure to get a motherboard with serial ports.

#3

not really released right now, but should provide some options for future vvvv dream machines…

Gigabyte to support four SLI graphics cards on one motherboard
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050526_155843.html

New bridge card allows user to use AGP-8x card in a PCI-Express Mainboard
http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/news/news_detail.asp?news_id=167

#4

What exactly ist that SLI-Mode? Its for using 2 (or 4 in this case) graphic cards in one machine… But that works only with SLI-enabled cards? and will the next vvvv version support this kind of cards?

#5

SLI mode is for using 2 cards to render 1 image. one card renders the upper half the other the lower or they render interlaced…there are several modes. not sure if there any special demands to the software (ie. vvvv) for using SLI mode. if i had to guess i’d say no. this is a driver-thing.

#6

Ok , i understand. and for using 2 cards in one machine to get several vga-outputs, theres no need for sli? Just put two cards in one machine and connect 4 beamers? or is there a need for special drivers? anyone actually ever tried that?

#7

no sli needed for multiple outputs. right. there are cards available that have 3 or 4 outputs. but i didn’t find any one interesting. they are all targeted at financialshit multiscreen output applications and lacking 3d-acceleration features and ram. still they would run vvvv if you don’t need extreme 3d-performance. advantage with those cards is that you could use span mode with them.

never tried that, but i guess with multiple cards in one pc you cannot use span-mode. therefore you’d have to wait for one of the upcomming vvvversions that will allow you to go fullscreen on multiple independent desktops.

#8

Thanks for your infos. Then i wait until the new version^with buying new hardware.

when is it out by the way ;) ?

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