Communigate Pro AE-List@media-motion.tv Message 44552

Greg, thanks for the link and all the info! That was another option I was looking at. If the MPD to DP adapters do not work, then I will give those a go. Not a big deal with the screen tearing, seems pretty minor. I am guessing that I do not have eyefinity on the Mac either so I am not sure if that will make things more or less complicated...

Robert

    From: Greg Balint <greg@delrazor.com>
 To: After Effects
 Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv> 
 Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 8:20 PM
 Subject: Re: [AE] OT: Radeon HD 5570 3 monitors MDP cable to DP cable work?

FYI. 

Running on a pc here with a 6970 card triple head. 

I bought this. 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12-200-944

Then hooked two monitors up via the 2 DVI ports on the back of the card, and connected the third monitor using that adapter to DVI. 

WORD OF WARNING:
Depending on how you setup the eyefinity/ desktop layout settings, for 3 screens you'll have screen tearing on either the monitor you use the adapter for, or the other two. ATI cards do not have a secondary frequency clock adjustment for multiple monitors from what I've read.  In other words, either your adapter fed monitor will be at a "wrong refresh rate" to try matching the other two, or the other two will be the wrong ones to try matching the displayport
 one. 

It's not horrible tearing or anything, but there is a noticeable line where when dragging windows around or watching video on the screen it will be a fraction of a second behind the top portion of the screen. Here's a video of the extent of the tearing while dragging a window around. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saG2mr6qM_8

Mine, the line where the tear happens actually slowly moves down the screen, so it's not like it was avoidable for certain uses. 

I set mine up with the Adapter fed screen being the incorrect frequency, which allowed me to put that one on my right, like in that video, and use it for documents, photoshop, or whatever, while I work on the middle monitor with most of my tools and timeline, and my left monitor has the comp viewer and effects palette along the vertical near the middle
 monitor. 

As far as I know, the only way not to get this to happen is to have a card with enough MDP or DP jacks to feed your monitors correctly, or to buy a "plug into the wall" powered hub that's like $130 that feeds 3 monitors via one MDP off of the back of the card.  

Hope this helps. 

////Greg Balint///Art Director / Motion Graphics Designer
delRAZOR.com/

On Jun 18, 2012, at 10:10 PM, Robert Behnke <robert_behnke@yahoo.com> wrote:

Thanks. It is a Mac
 and replacing the current card is not an option. I will just order either the cables or the adapters and see that happens. If it doesn't work I will only be out 30.00 or so. 

Robert
    From: Stephen van Vuuren <stephen@sv2studios.com>
 To: After Effects Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv> 
 Sent:
 Monday, June 18, 2012 12:23 PM
 Subject: Re: [AE] OT: Radeon HD 5570 3 monitors MDP cable to DP cable work?

> In my opinion, I'd grab another nvidia card flashed to mac firmware (or not, it will still work) instead of the ATI, like a gtx 580.

Most nVidia cards, including the GTX 580, only support 2 monitors at one time, no matter how many connections on the card. I have a second GPU for my third monitor. The 680 does support 3 (and maybe another model) but if going nVidia, read carefully.

stephen van vuuren
336.202.4777

http://www.sv2dcp.com/
http://www.sv2studios.com/
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