Resolume Forum

Hi Guys,

I want to play content 8K by Mac pro and use Matrox Dualhead 2go ( 6 Units ) for 12 Output each 1920x1080.

Is it ok? Anyone used to do like this.

I don't believe you can use more than 2 Matrox units per GPU so that probably won't work.

To get 12 HD outputs, you'll need to use 3 Datapath Fx4 preferably on 1 GPU.

If you want to play '8k' footage, that's 16 1080p images, not 12.

The current Mac Pro supports a total resolution of three 5k displays which is 44.2 million pixels, which is more than the area of four 4k displays. So it passes the issue of having such a physically large output.

Your method of using MST hubs/dh2go's is unlikely to work as this needs the ability for the GPU to create 16 different screens. Current consumer GPU's currently max out at about 6 displays, so the firepro chips in the mac Pro can be expected to be around that as well. Oaktown's suggestion of four fx4's could be expected to work as the separation from four to 16 screens is not done by the GPU.

However, the performance you could expect to get when rendering four 4k outputs from two GPU's, which aren't as powerful as what you could get if you were on windows, is unlikely to be usable. If you *must* use a Mac Pro, the. You should consider downsizing your composition, otherwise the end result is unlikely to be acceptable. Even on PC hardware you would still be looking at top of the line hardware, although due to apple pricing it might come out around the same cost.

Anothertom wrote: However, the performance you could expect to get when rendering four 4k outputs from two GPU's, which aren't as powerful as what you could get if you were on windows, is unlikely to be usable.

I assume it has a sli 980's in it. Running Resolume will only render on one card. So one 980 is the type of power he will get out of it.

Nope, they used a slightly custom amd firepro model, the d300 /d500 /d700 depending on the spec of the Mac Pro. Performance is approximately in line with a r9 270, so performance will be very poor and even worse over 8k.

Regardless what is in it. I've never heard of Resolume doing it's rendering on 2 cards in any machine. The 2nd card is just there to spit out what the 1st card renders. In most cases performance gets worse the second you use a single output on the 2nd card. Also AMD and Resolume, eww. No thanks.

I am aware of how resolume handles having two active cards in a system. My point was rather that because of the way resolume handles two cards, and the lack of detail from Apple, that we can expect the outputs to be split between cards which reduces the FPS further. Now I understand your point, I'd point out that i didn't suggest it would render using both cards, only that performance would be affected because it was running through two cards.

Must have been my misinterpretation. But yes you are right, splitting the outputs across multiple underpowered cards is probably going to lead to a bad day.

Surprisingly, displays on the Mac Pro are only ever connected to one GPU. Apple expects you to use the second GPU for "offline rendering", which is essentially their own software version of SLI. It's not so useful for Resolume, as it would require passing textures to the second GPU, then rendering on the second GPU, then copying back to the main GPU for display.

http://devstreaming.apple.com/videos/ww ... l.pdf?dl=1

I've never heard of Resolume doing it's rendering on 2 cards in any machine. The 2nd card is just there to spit out what the 1st card renders. In most cases performance gets worse the second you use a single output on the 2nd card.

You always jump to point this out every chance you get, as if it's some sort of intrinsic flaw that Resolume users need to be made aware of. I'm curious to hear about alternatives to create an OpenGL context spanning all outputs, uploading texture data to multiple GPUs, utilising all GPUs for rendering, and all this without locking Resolume down to specific hardware and thereby going into a locked mediaserver paradigm.

Joris wrote: You always jump to point this out every chance you get, as if it's some sort of intrinsic flaw that Resolume users need to be made aware of. I'm curious to hear about alternatives to create an OpenGL context spanning all outputs, utilising all GPUs for rendering, without locking Resolume down to specific hardware and thereby going into a locked mediaserver paradigm.

I think new users have a high level expectation multi gpu's will at least not make their performance worse and it wont until the second you use a output on it. If someone is attempting it which seems to happen often because not everyone has a big box of money for a data path so they should be informed. Because nobody told me.. And It's not a tip in your manual... And I found out the hard way which was rough. I've said this before that I'm not a programmer but I spent 9 years in my field as a character animator in the video game industry working with programmers on our proprietary engine. I do know it's not easy and I'm not looking for opportunities to crap on Resolume.

I actually love the software and think it's the best option for VJ's on the market. In fact I use it for more then VJing. I use it for even "power points" with clients that has nothing to do with shows. It really is brilliant stuff.