4 ms·

I'd gladly buy one, or even four, if they just worked. Unfortunately, high-res multimonitor setups are horrendously unstable, require specialized graphics card

by cpks 12y ago

I'd gladly buy one, or even four, if they just worked. Unfortunately, high-res multimonitor setups are horrendously unstable, require specialized graphics cards (which usually sound like rocket jets), and have a mess of incompatible standards. I'd probably need to spend a week or two figuring out what graphics cards I need, upgrading my motherboard to have enough slots to take them, figuring out if there's a way to make it talk to my laptop, etc. Getting four 1080p displays working was enough work. Basically, not a project I have time for. Anytime that hardware becomes a project, it reaches 5% of the market. Most of the market are people who just want to get work done. That means word processors, IDEs, spreadsheets, PPT, etc. USB is fine even for multi-monitor 5k for normal work if you update the screen incrementally and downsample/compress video. Video games aren't necessary. 200 watt graphics cards aren't desired. Stability and ease-of-use are critical. The trick would be making it Just Work. That means driver support (Linux, Vista, XP, MacOS, etc.). That means testing across a range of hardware and software. That means using a standard cable (USB or similar, not a pair of DisplayPort 1.3 with dual-link cables and a graphics card capable of virtual...). It also means performance testing for the stupid stuff (not issues of 60hz vs 10hz refresh, or 3d gaming, or even video -- just that there aren't funny issues where you wait 1 second for a screen refresh, or the system locks up for 30 seconds thinking).

Sambdala 12y ago
Do you (or anyone else) have any idea if this is getting better, and how quickly, if so? I'm of the same mind that I'm incredibly willing to shell out a bunch of money on super high resolution displays (and even more powerful video cards to drive them) just as soon as I'm sure I'm not going to be on the painful part of the adoption curve.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Display port works well enough for UHD, I'm not sure about this resolution, but it should be ok. Even a lowly Intel integrated GPU might be able to drive this for non gaming applications. Visual studio and X code already support 2X, I think Office and iWork do also. No displays, past present or future, can run over USB, sorry.
- sciurus 12y ago
  You can buy displays that run over USB. http://www.displaylink.com/technology/technology_overview.php http://www.displaylink.com/technology/technology_overview.ph...
  - yincrash 12y ago
    Yup. The quality is terrible though. Colors are washed out and artifacts are easy to see on 1080p.
- bhouston 12y ago
  > No displays, past present or future, can run over USB, sorry. Tons of USB to HDMI adapters are available though -- maybe that is what he means? Personally I've never tried it: http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/usb-to-hdmi-adapters http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/usb-to-hdmi-adapters
bhouston 12y ago
So what you are saying is that we need a new standard that gets wide adoption that support 2K and 4K (and soon 8K) monitors. I completely agree. And it should be a single cable as well. It would be best if it was a straight forward extension of an existing standard.
Tiksi 12y ago
I used a 39" 4k display for a while (before I moved and decided to use it as a "temporary" TV) and it "Just Worked" as I'd expect it to. While it's only 30Hz at 4k, that more than meets the requirements you put forth of word processors, IDEs, etc. It plugs in over HDMI and doesn't require the newer standard or any special cables to use. I ran that display along with a 1440p display off of a single Radeon 7850, which is neither super expensive, nor loud, and for normal use there were no issues to speak of. Games were a little bit iffy at 4k, but 30Hz wasn't great for most of the most power hungry games anyway. I just switched over to the other display. It was great, I could have a ton of terminals open, a browser, text editor, a video playing and it didn't feel cramped. Essentially having 4 19.5" 1080p monitors without the borders. Writing this out makes me want to take that back as my main monitor, I guess I'll have to find a TV to replace it.
- chuckledog 12y ago
  Agreed. Mine was an inexpensive Seiki. Super nice to have the real estate. Next one will hopefully be the 50" one, tilted like an drafting table.
  - slantyyz 12y ago
    They have some "pro" 60Hz screens coming in q1 2015, but I don't think 50" is one of the sizes. http://www.techpowerup.com/202448/seiki-announces-a-trio-of-seiki-pro-branded-4k-ultra-hd-displays.html http://www.techpowerup.com/202448/seiki-announces-a-trio-of-...
  - xur17 12y ago
    That's the same one I have - currently $339 on Amazon. I've been very happy with mine, especially for the price. What video card are you using with it?
  - Tiksi 12y ago
    Yup, that's the one. Surprisingly good looking panel for the price, once you change it to a limited color space and tune the color settings a little.
- 12y ago
JohnBooty 12y ago
I'd gladly buy one, or even four, if they just worked. Unfortunately, high-res multimonitor setups are horrendously unstable Trickle-down effect, friend! Today's bleeding edge is (usually) tomorrow's mainstream. This bleeding edge problems are (unfortunately) a necessary first step towards that.
joenathan 12y ago
Don't know why you are getting down voted, I have (3) 3k displays (ASUS PB278Q) and I have frequent problems getting them to come back up after reboots or sleep. I've tried 5 different brands of displayport cables, a MST HUB, drivers, mixed config (DVI, Onboard Intel, ect...). The AMD driver will report that there is not enough bandwidth, the only thing I can do to get them to come back up is unplug and replug the disport cable. Research online shows this is a common problem with Hires displays.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jrockway 12y ago
Depends on what OS you use. If you use Linux, yeah, you're screwed. They are still arguing over how to support monitors that expose themselves to the OS as two monitors. The current answer is "that's dumb, maybe they'll go away." It is dumb, but they're not going away. Over on Windows, Nvidia has some hacks in the driver to work around this. With a $70 current-gen card, I can drive two 4k monitors at 60Hz. One monitor connects via two HDMI cables; the other over Displayport MST. (I don't actually have two 4k monitors, but I did convince my computer that my one monitor was two to test this.) You're right about getting 4 monitors working. Probably possible with an SLI setup, but the current generation of video hardware makes 1-3 monitors easy and 4+ monitors hard. 3 monitors is better than a few years ago, though.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Are you saying that there is some kind of dropoff, where current GFX hardware has the horsepower to drive 3 large screens easily but not 4?
  - jrockway 12y ago
    I'm saying current-gen hardware puts three ports on the card by default. ATI does it, NVidia does it, and Intel does it.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      Ah, I see. My GFX card has something like 5-6 ports (4 mini-DP ports and 1-2 DVI) so I've never had that problem
- swah 12y ago
  Are you doing your development on a remote computer via putty then?
- jotm 12y ago
  Wait, how is a monitor that appears as two to the OS a problem? We've had multi monitor support for a long time, this is just the panels/pixels stitched closer together, isn't it?

by cpks 12y ago

Sambdala 12y ago

Do you (or anyone else) have any idea if this is getting better, and how quickly, if so? I'm of the same mind that I'm incredibly willing to shell out a bunch of money on super high resolution displays (and even more powerful video cards to drive them) just as soon as I'm sure I'm not going to be on the painful part of the adoption curve.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Display port works well enough for UHD, I'm not sure about this resolution, but it should be ok. Even a lowly Intel integrated GPU might be able to drive this for non gaming applications. Visual studio and X code already support 2X, I think Office and iWork do also. No displays, past present or future, can run over USB, sorry.

sciurus 12y ago
You can buy displays that run over USB. http://www.displaylink.com/technology/technology_overview.php http://www.displaylink.com/technology/technology_overview.ph...
- yincrash 12y ago
  Yup. The quality is terrible though. Colors are washed out and artifacts are easy to see on 1080p.
bhouston 12y ago
> No displays, past present or future, can run over USB, sorry. Tons of USB to HDMI adapters are available though -- maybe that is what he means? Personally I've never tried it: http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/usb-to-hdmi-adapters http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/usb-to-hdmi-adapters

bhouston 12y ago

So what you are saying is that we need a new standard that gets wide adoption that support 2K and 4K (and soon 8K) monitors. I completely agree. And it should be a single cable as well. It would be best if it was a straight forward extension of an existing standard.

Tiksi 12y ago

I used a 39" 4k display for a while (before I moved and decided to use it as a "temporary" TV) and it "Just Worked" as I'd expect it to. While it's only 30Hz at 4k, that more than meets the requirements you put forth of word processors, IDEs, etc. It plugs in over HDMI and doesn't require the newer standard or any special cables to use. I ran that display along with a 1440p display off of a single Radeon 7850, which is neither super expensive, nor loud, and for normal use there were no issues to speak of. Games were a little bit iffy at 4k, but 30Hz wasn't great for most of the most power hungry games anyway. I just switched over to the other display. It was great, I could have a ton of terminals open, a browser, text editor, a video playing and it didn't feel cramped. Essentially having 4 19.5" 1080p monitors without the borders. Writing this out makes me want to take that back as my main monitor, I guess I'll have to find a TV to replace it.

chuckledog 12y ago
Agreed. Mine was an inexpensive Seiki. Super nice to have the real estate. Next one will hopefully be the 50" one, tilted like an drafting table.
- slantyyz 12y ago
  They have some "pro" 60Hz screens coming in q1 2015, but I don't think 50" is one of the sizes. http://www.techpowerup.com/202448/seiki-announces-a-trio-of-seiki-pro-branded-4k-ultra-hd-displays.html http://www.techpowerup.com/202448/seiki-announces-a-trio-of-...
- xur17 12y ago
  That's the same one I have - currently $339 on Amazon. I've been very happy with mine, especially for the price. What video card are you using with it?
- Tiksi 12y ago
  Yup, that's the one. Surprisingly good looking panel for the price, once you change it to a limited color space and tune the color settings a little.
12y ago

JohnBooty 12y ago

I'd gladly buy one, or even four, if they just worked. Unfortunately, high-res multimonitor setups are horrendously unstable Trickle-down effect, friend! Today's bleeding edge is (usually) tomorrow's mainstream. This bleeding edge problems are (unfortunately) a necessary first step towards that.

joenathan 12y ago

Don't know why you are getting down voted, I have (3) 3k displays (ASUS PB278Q) and I have frequent problems getting them to come back up after reboots or sleep. I've tried 5 different brands of displayport cables, a MST HUB, drivers, mixed config (DVI, Onboard Intel, ect...). The AMD driver will report that there is not enough bandwidth, the only thing I can do to get them to come back up is unplug and replug the disport cable. Research online shows this is a common problem with Hires displays.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jrockway 12y ago

Depends on what OS you use. If you use Linux, yeah, you're screwed. They are still arguing over how to support monitors that expose themselves to the OS as two monitors. The current answer is "that's dumb, maybe they'll go away." It is dumb, but they're not going away. Over on Windows, Nvidia has some hacks in the driver to work around this. With a $70 current-gen card, I can drive two 4k monitors at 60Hz. One monitor connects via two HDMI cables; the other over Displayport MST. (I don't actually have two 4k monitors, but I did convince my computer that my one monitor was two to test this.) You're right about getting 4 monitors working. Probably possible with an SLI setup, but the current generation of video hardware makes 1-3 monitors easy and 4+ monitors hard. 3 monitors is better than a few years ago, though.

sliverstorm 12y ago
Are you saying that there is some kind of dropoff, where current GFX hardware has the horsepower to drive 3 large screens easily but not 4?
- jrockway 12y ago
  I'm saying current-gen hardware puts three ports on the card by default. ATI does it, NVidia does it, and Intel does it.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Ah, I see. My GFX card has something like 5-6 ports (4 mini-DP ports and 1-2 DVI) so I've never had that problem
swah 12y ago
Are you doing your development on a remote computer via putty then?
jotm 12y ago
Wait, how is a monitor that appears as two to the OS a problem? We've had multi monitor support for a long time, this is just the panels/pixels stitched closer together, isn't it?