Four Screens, two GPU's and one Big Desktop

[bridgman]

OK, let's go back to Matthew's post (mtippett) since that's the closest thing to definitive we have.

"To configure multiview, run the following aticonfig commands with a clean (ie: no fglrx sections).

aticonfig --inital=dual-head -f --adapters=all --xinerama=on

This tells aticonfig to configure for dual head (ie: :0.0 and :0.1 for each device), all devices and finally turns xinerama on.

For the record, this configuration is not yet fully supported without homogeneous FireGL proucts. The level of support for consumer cards is independent desktops (--xinerama=off). The heterogenous consumer support will come in a later release.

If you have problems, please post both your xorg.conf, lspci and finally your XOrg.0.log."

My reading of this is that (a) you need to use Xinerama to get all 4 screens into a single desktop, (b) use with Xinerama has been verified with FireGL products but not yet with consumer products, so some troubleshooting & fixing may be required, (c) current support for consumer cards seems to be independent desktops (presumably a separate 2-screen desktop for each card), and (d) if you post your full logs, conf, lspci output etc.. we might be able to help.

The above is *not* an official statement, just my interpretation of what Matthew said. I don't have much recent experience with multi-head systems (boo hoo, I only have one screen ) but I can ask for clarification next week.

In the meantime, Locksley could you please pastebin full logs, not the edited sections pasted into multiple posts ? The pastebin facility (or one of the others like it) should let you post a single link to the entire log.

Locksley;

1. Don't worry about the mess, with the smaller pic it doesn't show

2. This is an awkward time for multihead Xorg graphics; the move to randr kind of lost the ability to manage multiple GPUs the old way, but randr hasn't been extended with GPU objects to support multiple adapters the new way. The radeon driver supports "zaphod mode" (rather than randr-style multi-screen) but from previous discussions with agd5f I think randr still gets in the way when you try to have multiple GPUs.

3. The setup you ran years ago was pre-randr, so probably would have worked, but I don't think you would have had more than the most basic acceleration on most of the screens. Multiview is a completely different implementation, with full 3D acceleration on all heads.

ryansturmer;

Looks like you are trying to get basically the same configuration running, except with 3 screens rather than 4. Can you also please pastebin full logs etc.. as above ?

[locksley]

HI guys,

To start i just got the freak of the year and almost through the whole lot in the garbage.....

What ever you do if you are stacking monitors for instance:

2 3
1 4 5

DO NOT enable Hydra vision in Vista ........ i just upgraded to 9.3 and enabled Hydra vision after a reboot all my monitors leveled out and you can not stack them again. I was about to write ATI a very nasty letter. Luckily after disabling Hydra vision i can now re stack my monitors

OK back to the configuration/problem at hand.

Here's my setup I will have to reboot to linux to try whats mentioned.

MB: Asus M3A78-T with an ATI 3000 on board video card with VGA/DVI/HDMI out, currently monitor 1 is on the DVI out the other 4 are on the 4850's

In the BIOS of the MB i have set to boot from Onboard (i have tried turning this off and only using PCI-E with both cards but no difference, i can only get two big desktops, one for each card). I have also tried setting the Bios to PCI-E and with the On board as Surround (this is the proposed settings for using all cards) however Linux will not even boot with a IOUMMA error, says enable in the bios however there is no setting in the bios?

so currently it is boot from Onboard. I can get all cards up and monitors but only able to get one separate on on board and two big desktops one for each card with two monitors in it. This is using Multiview not xinerama.

However this is pretty usless as i need to be able to move windows between all screens.

I will boot into Linux and get the stuff you requested i will also upgrade to 9.3 in the Linux partition just in case.

Just a NOTE: if this is not doable there should be a HUGE warning put on the boxes of these cards this is going to be a very popular configuration as the prices plummeting for monitors and Linux is growing as a desktop environment.

Thanks for all the help i realize this is no one persons fault. but its a huge problem and waste of money if it can not work.

I am of course willing to try anything and help in anyway get to the bottom of this. Vista works fine (when not using Hydra) so it does not look like hardware. Its definitely Linux drivers or configuration.

I will post the info shortly.

[locksley]

ok, the old 8.10 install wouldn't even run any more it couldn't detect any screens, may be because of the installs and removals of drivers i tried even with the vesa driver.

I found out aft installing 9.04 that's its because of a bios setting. If you set your on-board card the 3300 to surround enabled instead of auto Unbunto can not detect any screens at all. strange it works fine in Vista.

I just installed 9.04 so have a completely new install and its running with the current settings:

primary display on boot [on board]
Surround for on-board [auto]

I have one screen configured and and its the on-board all other screens are not detected. Of course Ubuntu is telling me to activate the Proprietary drivers i have not do this.

Any suggestions on how to proceed. Just down load 9.3 and install?

One other note I dont care about 3d acceleration on any of the monitors, it would be nice but this is a work environment I don't play any games on it for now. My priority is working area?

Let me know.

[locksley]

I jumped a bit in the post before the first and second paragraph.

With 9.04 I tried booting from the PCI-E and it didn't detect any screens either as with 8.10 on by making the settings in the bios i mention it is now working but it seems ubuntu at least needs the 3300 as the primary card.

[locksley]

Progress, sort of,

I now have all screens running and advanced 3d graphics are working in all monitors but each screen is an individual session/desktop, some interesting behaviour

I have my screens stacked as in the picture so its like this

..3..1
4...5...6

1 being the primary and the on-board 3300

when i move my mouse from across the bottom it works perfectly how ever when moving acroos the top i can not get from 3 to 1 i can however move go from 4 to 3 to 5 to 1 to 6 go figure.

also everything i open (applications opens on the primary. i can however create a folder on each desktop and then open it on that desktop.
the setup is as follows :

clean and updated ubuntu 9.04, proprietary drivers activated.

I do not have the ability to activate Xinerama in cc if i do it in the config file X crashes and appears to take the machine with it.

Can you explain what you mean buy pastebin i still have trouble uploading the logs and configs.

I have backed all files to another machine and are about to rebuild 9.04 and try with the ATI 9.3 drivers on a clean install starting with the configs created at this step.

[bridgman]

There are pastebin sites in a lot of country domains, eg www.pastebin.ca, www.pastebin.com, www.pastebin.cz etc...

Pick one (start with .com I guess, or .ca 'cause I know that one works) and point your browser there. You'll get a page with a big text box in it. Paste your text there and hit "submit" or whatever the appropriate button is -- the site will save your stuff for 30 days (by default, more if you choose) and give you a link you can include in a web post.

Paste the URL you get from pastebin here, and then people can click on it and see your logs etc...