The Ultimate Guide to Multiscreen Output with Resolume

[Joris]

Photo by Diana Gheorghiu

“I want to connect a dozen and then some screens, what hardware should I get?”

We get this question quite often.

The question sounds simple, the answer is always complicated. It’s the same as asking: “I want to buy a house, which house should I buy?”

Consider us your multiscreen real estate managers. We like to help you make the right decisions and find the house that’s right for you. After gathering lots of use cases, possible problems and possible solutions, we came to this document. This document will guide you through the overwhelming multiscreen adventure.

The adventure starts here!

You’ll find some essentials explained on the do’s and don’ts when using Resolume for multiple outputs. The different options are listed in order of preference and it even contains a flowchart. Yay. Just answer the questions and you will be guided to your ideal dream home. One click and you’ll be taken to all the essential information you need on that snazzy 3 story condo with all copper plumbing. We’ll try to avoid the shady parts of town, but if you like, we can show you some options in the extender hub ghettos as well.

Always remember, buying a large house is a big investment. Before going house hunting, you need to make sure your computer has enough pixel power in the bank to build that pretty picture. It would suck if you get all the gear together to run a beautiful 4 story pixel map and then realise your Intel Iris Pro chokes at more than a single bedroom NY apartment. When in doubt, check them benchmarks.

Here's that URL one more time, in case you missed it the first time

[jate]

Thanks for this Joris!
It would have answered a lot of questions when I was starting out on my multi-screen journey!
I'll hopefully have a bit more to contribute to this in the near future after I get my setup a bit more stable.

[Arvol]

Fantastic! This is very well put together. Should be a great tool everyone could learn something from.

[Zenithik]

Thanks for this guide, very helpful!

When you are able, is it possible you could do some research into eGPU solutions like the Razer Core and how they might apply here? For example, my Razer Blade can only output to one device at a time, but theoretically with an eGPU it should be able to achieve more (though I am experiencing problems with that). I don't want to start troubleshooting that in this thread obviously, but it may be a solution more VJs will be looking at in the near future.

[Meptik]

I assume this answers the question of which nVidia GPU's you all prefer for Resolume... a GTX 1080 vs, say, a Quadro P4000 or P5000?

[Arvol]

Quadro uses OpenCL and Resolume is focused around OpenGL (GTX and Geforce series)

[Joris]

Quadro uses OpenCL and Resolume is focused around OpenGL (GTX and Geforce series)

I'm all in favour of making things as simple as possible. but as we say in the Netherlands, that's taking a very tight turn through the curve.

Both the Quadro and GTX series use OpenGL, both Quadro, GTX and also AMD, Matrox and Intel can use OpenCL. The primary use of OpenCL is using the GPU to do calculations that would otherwise clog up your CPU. Think large physics based stuff for scientific purposes, or 1 million+ particle systems.

OpenCL is not so interesting for Resolume. Most of what we do is drawing pictures, so OpenGL covers everything we need.

a GTX 1080 vs, say, a Quadro P4000 or P5000?

Because we don't need any of the extras available on Quadros, there is no reason to invest in the more expensive Quadro line. A similar specced GTX performs the same, if not better, for a lot less money.

That will probably change once we start supporting stuff like GPU Affinity, at which point this document will probably read: "Get as many Quadro cards as you need"

When you are able, is it possible you could do some research into eGPU solutions like the Razer Core and how they might apply here?

eGPUs don't really add anything fundamentally different. In most cases, they either take over for your built-in GPU, in which case they fall under the "single-computer-single-GPU" category, or they're used as a second GPU next to your built-in GPU, in which case they fall under the "single-computer-two-GPUs" category.

[Arvol]

Thank you for clarifying. All this time I thought the Quadro cards was an 80/20 focus on CL and GL (80% focus on CL with a 20% small focus on GL), But what you're saying is that they both provide the same focus on GL and that the Quadro has the additional processing power of CL that pushes beyond the capabilities of the GTX and GeForce series?

eGPUs don't really add anything fundamentally different. In most cases, they either take over for your built-in GPU, in which case they fall under the "single-computer-single-GPU" category, or they're used as a second GPU next to your built-in GPU, in which case they fall under the "single-computer-two-GPUs" category.

That was always my understanding as well. I figured it would be no different than connecting, let's say, a usb video adapter. It would either become the primary driver (you would want to connect your GUI monitor to this card, otherwise it would be no different than connecting 2 PCIe cards in a desktop). The eGPU option might interest people with a cheaper laptop with an integrated Intel GPU but has a TB3 port, right?

[Joel_Dittrich]

Here´s the open "standard" for eGPU; Akitio Thunder 3. I built an earlier, inofficial version, with their Thunder 2.

https://www.akitio.com/expansion/node

https://twitter.com/joeldittrich/status ... 8901895168

[millst]

Probably the best way of getting lots and lots of outputs is to use a Blackmagic Decklink Quad card which has 8 SDI outputs. You could use two to get 16 outputs or 4 to get 32 outputs.

It saves a lot of messing around with conversions and you can also run SDI for over 100m before running into problems using cheap coax cable.