Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012 - Page 8  

Wow, I thought AMD was a nightmare to set up Eyefinity. I've been trying for many hours now to get my two 580's into Surround and I am about to pull my hair out. When I go to configure surround it just says "connect displays" and lists zero displays connected. So freaking frustrating.

Randomly selects resolutions etc. Hit my first major snag in this build, hope it doesn't take me out. Multi-GPU/Multi-display setups in both camps are such a HUGE pain in the ass.

You don't know how close I came to destroying stuff!




Success! Well, at least a majority success. My setup during portrait nVidia Surround testing:






So during testing I kept wondering why it would not go into Surround mode, even when I was getting three green check marks on the Surround config page. I had all the same FW900 .inf's loaded, everything was a go. But when it actually went to put them into Surround it would fail. It would put it back into non-SLI "activate all displays" mode, with it then showing two FW900's and a "generic non-PNP monitor". I tried like eight different drivers, moving the computer around, switching cables and stuff. Was a super frustrating 8 hours.

So I thought OK, maybe nVidia is super anal and wants actual EDID information from every display. So I disconnected all of my BNC5 cables and used regular VGA cables that could pass EDID. Sure enough, that got it working! So nVidia Surround requires EDID information. Surround is working, but I am stuck at the standard resolution and refresh rates that the monitor sends out over EDID like 2304x1440@80Hz, 1920x1200@85Hz. It won't let me adjust those at all. Not a deal breaker but not ideal either. Plus I think BNC cables have a slightly better image, so maybe in the future I will do some crazy cable hack-job monstrosity in which I can use the BNC cables and pull EDID info at the same time. Suggestions welcome here! I don't even know if the FW900 will send out EDID info if the BNC cables are plugged in. Anyone know where I can get super high quality VGA cables in 25 foot lengths? Or a way to breakout the VGA to my BNC cables yet still get the EDID signal to the GPU's?

Even with the huge bezel gaps during my testing, the FW900 portrait Surround setup is EPIC. You get super high resolution, ridiculous buttery smooth CRT motion, zero viewing angle problems, zero ghosting, zero back-light bleed or IPS glow or anti-glare coating problems that you get with LCD's. nVidia Surround/multi-GPU with the CRT's has no stuttering or any problems with any of the games I tested. FW900's work extremely well in portrait as you don't have to worry about pixel orientation, a change in viewing angles or any of that nonsense. Definitely motivated now to work on the bezel-less Fresnel lens portion of the project.

http://www.connectpro.com/prod_vid_ddcDVI.html

That looks very interesting. Allows you to program and emulate EDID info and then I'd be able to pass my analog signal along over BNC.