PC rig for 6 outputs

Bro, does your rig even lift?
Puckapao
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PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Puckapao »

Hello there,

I've looked up the resolume's performance benchmark but there's not many 6 outputs rigs in there and I still have a questions.
First, I would like to know which graphics card I could use for 5 720p or above outputs and a GUI. OR any graphics card that working fine with my old Matrox Triple Head To Go Digital Edition. Is GTX 1080 worth it? or overkill.
Second, Do I need to use 32Gb or 64Gb RAM? if entire video is 6400x720 or 9600x1080 resolution(if possible) and 1-2 minutes long at 30fps.

Thanks in Advance,
Puckapao

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Arvol
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Arvol »

First, Let's start with this:
https://resolume.com/manual/_media/en/r ... upport.pdf

Secondly, will all of your outputs be used to blend together on one screen? From the looks of your post, the answer is probably yes.
If you need multiple outputs to blend together on 1 canvas, you will want all of your outputs to be sync'd, Otherwise you will get something nasty called "screen tearing", where one output lags behind another output.

Nvidia cards only allow for 4 physical outputs to be used.
AMD cards allow for 6 physical outputs to be used at once. **However** AMD doesn't play well with Resolume (or at least as good as Nvidia does...)

SLI or Crossfire doesn't give you any advantages in power or outputs so I wouldn't go that route.

Having multiple cards will give you more outputs, but I would personally recommend matching cards. So for an example use 2 GTX1080's or 2 GTX1060's rather than using 1 GTX1080 and 1 GTX1060

Nvidia's Geforce (GTX) series cards will not allow for onboard port syncing, but Nvidia's Quadro series cards will.
I personally am very interested in getting a few Quadro's to do some testing here in the shop to see how well a current gen Quadro compares to a GTX1060/1070 in performance. If I can find a Quadro card that can push 20+ layers at 1080p for under $1k, I'd be interested in using that since I can sync my outputs at the GPU level.

The last solution for sync'ing your outputs would be to use a Datapath or a MST. Datapath's are expensive but their quality is much better than your standard run of the mill MST. You can send a large resolution to the Datapath (and MST) and then have that broken up into multiple screens. The Datapath will automatically syn'c the outputs so there won't be any screen tearing.

Having a Nvidia Geforce (GTX) card sending out 2 outputs into 2 Datapaths will still put you back at the same problem. Half of your screens will be out of sync with the other half since the Geforece cards do not do any port sync'ing. So I would only recommend using a single Datapath with this setup. Datapath's come in many flavor's such as DVI, HDMI, DP, and SDI (my favorite).

Something else that was being discussed earlier this week was an AJA HA54K. It appears to be very similar to the SDI version of the Datapath for for a quarter of the price. I'm very interested to get my hands on one and try it out.

Hope this info will get you started down the right path.

And again, please check out the following page:
https://resolume.com/manual/_media/en/r ... upport.pdf

In regards to ram, you'll want 6-12GB of GPU memory (8 is a good number) CPU memory isn't as crucial, 16GB would probably be fine.
Check out the GTX1080ti card. For the money, it's a beast!

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Oaktown
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Oaktown »

Great post Arvol!

A couple of notes:
The last solution for sync'ing your outputs would be to use a Datapath or a MST
Multi-Stream Transport (MST) doesn't increase the number of outputs your card can support. So if you use MST with a GTX, you're still limited to 4 but you can push 3 on the same output.
Having a Nvidia Geforce (GTX) card sending out 2 outputs into 2 Datapaths will still put you back at the same problem. Half of your screens will be out of sync with the other half since the Geforece cards do not do any port sync'ing. So I would only recommend using a single Datapath with this setup. Datapath's come in many flavor's such as DVI, HDMI, DP, and SDI (my favorite).
The max input surface for a Datapath FX4 is 8k x 8k so it'd be easy to push 7680x2160 on one GTX1080ti output (7680x4320@60Hz max), break it down into 8 HD outputs using 2 FX4 units, and retain synchronization.


EDIT: Puckapao, here is a video I made a while back to explain how to setup your advanced output in Resolume for a Datapath FX4 unit:

phpBB [video]

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Arvol
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Arvol »

Oaktown wrote:The max input surface for a Datapath FX4 is 8k x 8k so it'd be easy to push 7680x2160 on one GTX1080ti output (7680x4320@60Hz max), break it down into 8 HD outputs using 2 FX4 units, and retain synchronization.
Sorry if this is taking the OP off route a bit :lol:
But what you are saying:
You would take 2 output from the GPU into 2 FX4's?
Or one output from the GPU into 1 FX4, then using the "through" port on that FX4 to connect to the "in" port on the second FX4 and then sync them using the sync port?
The second option sounds like it would work.

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Oaktown
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Oaktown »

I would take
one output from the GPU into 1 FX4, then using the "through" port on that FX4 to connect to the "in" port on the second FX4 and then sync them using the sync port...
...and that way you could probably even do a third and fourth FX4 unit to a total of 16 HD outputs since you can easily push 7680x4320 from a GTX1080ti!

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Arvol
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Arvol »

Nice!

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subpixel
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by subpixel »

Note, although the max input size for the FX4 is 8k x 8k, it has a limit on the number of pixels per second.

Video Input Connections
DisplayPort1.2 or 2x HDMI1.4 (2160p at 60 or equivalent up to 616 MP/s)

So max framerate for 7680x4320 would be around 18fps
And Max framerate for 7680x2160 is around 37fps.

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Oaktown
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Oaktown »

And Max framerate for 7680x2160 is around 37fps.
Yeah, so 7680x2160 @ 30Hz would work perfect and it can be reclocked to 59.94Hz or 60Hz as needed on the outputs.

The other thing I do when I max out the clock of the Datapath unit is I scale my comp down until I can get to 30Hz and scale the outputs back up.

jaydeeshow
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by jaydeeshow »

Arvol wrote:
Having a Nvidia Geforce (GTX) card sending out 2 outputs into 2 Datapaths will still put you back at the same problem. Half of your screens will be out of sync with the other half since the Geforece cards do not do any port sync'ing. So I would only recommend using a single Datapath with this setup. Datapath's come in many flavor's such as DVI, HDMI, DP, and SDI (my favorite).
!
Hi Oaktown we already discussed about a project with one 1080Ti and 4 datapath divided in two ports and linked with the Through. Should I be concerned for this “out of sync”

Thank you,

Best,

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Arvol
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Re: PC rig for 6 outputs

Post by Arvol »

4K Resolution: 3,840px x 2160px : 8,294,400px
GTX1080 Max Resolution: 7,680px x 4,320px (@60fps) : 33,177,600px
Subpixel's specs for the Datapath FX4's input resolution: 7,680px x 2,160px : 16,588,800px

Your Composition Size: 6,400px x 720px : 4,608,000px


If you are going of the pixel count as listed above, Your composition size is about half the pixels of a standard 4K screen. To keep everything in Sync, Just have a single output from your GPU going into a Datapath FX4, then daisy chain the input source cable through the Datapath FX4's "Through" port into the next Datapath FX4 and so on and so on until you achieve the amount of output ports you need. Then connect ALL of the Datapath FX4's together via the "Sync" port and this will prevent any screen tearing.

Datapath FX4's come in many "flavors" I prefer the 3G-SDI "flavor" myself. It makes for a cheap solution for long signal path cable runs, as 3G-SDI cables (300') are relativity cheap and insanely durable.
If you need to have multiple screens sharing the same content (perhaps in different rooms or locations?), you can then just add a SDI-DA/Re-Clocker to one of the outputs of the Datapath FX4 and you can achieve an in-sync split at that point (some DA's might add 1-2 frames of delay? If so, you should be able to compensate withing the Datapath FX4, but this entire section of the post may not be relative to your needs? Just trying to give you as much info as possible on this :)

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