2

I've tried everything and I am convinced that there's no way to drive more than 2 monitors per physical card. I believe this is due to a CRTC limitation, but I am not entirely sure. I've tested using the Open Source drive "nouveau" (latest and greatest version that comes with OpenSUSE 13.2) and I couldn't manage to enable all of my three monitors at the same time. Usually, two of them were enabled and one of the turned of. Even if I explicitly force it to turn on, it didn't.

All the configuration I found using Google, are referring to dual-head setup with Nouveau. Yes, that's working.

All the configuration I found, that is related to more than two monitors, are with (at least) two GPUs. So, one GPU is using 2 monitors, and the other GPU the rest (either 1 or 2 monitors).

So, this is my research, but as a last change I would like to ask you: Have you ever managed to use 3 Displays (VGA, HDMI, DVI) with one single card using the open source driver nouveau ?

PS: I am talking to Single Cards that they have three outputs: VGA, HDMI and DVI

Here you can find my story.

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1

I've just found out that this due to limitation of my hardware and not an issue with the driver. Firing up the nVIDIA proprietary, I've got the message: MetaMode 1 of Screen 0 has more than 2 active display devices. and after some googling around, I found a reference for nVidia cards older than the Kepler architecture (released March 22, 2012) that they are not supporting more than 2 displays (even if they have 3 outpus).

So, one good way, that would save others from frustration, is to check

CRTCs >= number of displays

then try to configure X.org, otherwise X Server could not enable all monitors due to hardware limitation.

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  • Glad you found the reason. I postponed buying my 4 port card because it had been so hard to setup my 2 port one when I bought that many years before (2005 or so). – Anthon Jun 11 '15 at 14:34
1

I've managed to setup 3 monitors correctly.

Here is my xrandr --listproviders

Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0x1b9 cap: 0x1, Source Output crtcs: 4 outputs: 6 associated providers: 0 name:NVIDIA-0

You can see your with 3 monitors with xrandr -q

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 5760 x 1200, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 298mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  60.00  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x1024     60.02  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      70.07    60.00  
   800x600       60.32    56.25  
   640x480       59.94  
HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  59.94    50.00    60.00    50.04  
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1280x720      60.00    59.94    50.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       59.94  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    59.94    59.93  
DP-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1200+3840+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 518mm x 324mm
   1920x1200     59.95*+
   1600x1200     60.00  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    59.94

You can see 3 monitors connected and now you can set them up

xrandr --output DVI-I-1 --auto --left-of DVI-D-0 \
       --output DVI-I-0 --auto \
       --output HDMI-0 --auto --left-of DVI-I-1
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0

I am running xserver-xorg-video-nouveau version 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2 that comes with Linux Mint 17.1 (Rebecca). I have a four port videocard of which I use three ( two landscape, one portrait as in my avatar picture).

From lspci -v:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK104 [GeForce GTX 760] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 847a
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 89
        Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Memory at f8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
        Expansion ROM at fe000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: nouveau

xrandr --query:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 5040 x 1920, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-1 connected primary 1920x1200+0+720 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
   1920x1080      60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1920x1080i     60.1     50.0     60.0  
   1600x1200      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x720       60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   720x576        50.0  
   720x480        60.0     59.9  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     66.7     60.0     59.9  
   720x400        70.1  
DVI-D-1 connected 1200x1920+3840+0 left (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 518mm x 324mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
   1920x1080      60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1920x1080i     60.1     50.0     60.0  
   1600x1200      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x720       60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     66.7     60.0     59.9  
   720x400        70.1  
HDMI-1 connected 1920x1200+1920+720 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 518mm x 324mm
   1920x1200      60.0*+
   1920x1080      60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1920x1080i     60.1     50.0     60.0  
   1600x1200      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1280x720       60.0     50.0     59.9  
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     66.7     60.0     59.9  
   720x400        70.1  
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

xrandr --verbose | grep CRTC:

    CRTC:       0
    CRTCs:      0 1 2 3
    CRTC:       1
    CRTCs:      0 1 2 3
    CRTC:       2
    CRTCs:      0 1 2 3
    CRTCs:      0 1 2 3

So I think it can be done, and I don't recall that many problems setting this up after my old, two port, graphics board fried (I used the 3rd monitor until then on a separate system driven via x2vnc). Not sure what you are missing though.

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  • Could you provide me the output of xrandr --verbose | grep CRTC and your xorg.conf ? This is how I am trying to setup the whole thing. – drpaneas Jun 11 '15 at 13:40
  • @drpaneas I edited the output from xrandr in my answer. I don't have an xorg.conf only /usr/share/X11/Xxorg.conf.d with a few files. – Anthon Jun 11 '15 at 13:48
  • thanks. Yes it makes sense to work for you. I see that you have 4 CTCRs, which means that you can enable 4 displays altogether. In my has I have only two CTCRs (0 and 1). I just don't understand why my GPU has less CRTCs than the number of its outputs. – drpaneas Jun 11 '15 at 14:01
  • Are the just alternative outputs for the same graphics port? (Not sure how to phrase that). I used to have mainboards with 3 connectors (VGA, DVI, HDMI), but you could only use 2 at a time (or even just VGA and one of the others). – Anthon Jun 11 '15 at 14:03
  • I've just found out that this due to limitation of my hardware and not an issue with the driver. Firing up the nVIDIA proprietary, I've got the message: – drpaneas Jun 11 '15 at 14:09
0

I just got it to work with a Zotac (nvidia) GT 730 64 bit DDR3 card. Specs says it drives three monitors but as you noticed, it isn't easy. "X -configure" didn't do anything but report "no devices to configure" and randr was no help at all, but this xorg.conf worked:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Layout"

    Screen  0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen  1  "Screen1" LeftOf "Screen0"
    Screen  2  "Screen2" RightOf "Screen0"

EndSection

#Screen 0: ===========================================

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "Monitor0"
    Option     "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Device0"
    Driver      "nouveau"
    Option      "ShadowFB"  "true"
    Option      "WrappedFB" "true"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen      0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen0"
    Device      "Device0"
    Monitor     "Monitor0"
EndSection

#Screen 1: ===========================================

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Monitor1"
    Option      "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Device1"
    Driver      "nouveau"
    Option      "ShadowFB"   "true"
    Option      "WrappedFB"  "true"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen1"
    Device      "Device1"
    Monitor     "Monitor1"
EndSection

#Screen 2: ===========================================

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Monitor2"
    Option      "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Device2"
    Driver      "nouveau"
    Option      "ShadowFB"   "true"
    Option      "WrappedFB"  "true"  
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option      "ZaphodHeads" "VGA-1"
    Screen      2
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen2"
    Device     "Device2"
    Monitor    "Monitor2"

EndSection

... as you see "ZaphodHeads" was the key. Note, this xorg.conf is cut down to the essentials, most of them have a huge amount of other stuff, but none of it seems needed here. This is of course using nouveau and produces three distinct X screens rather than any sort of twinview or xinerama.

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