Linux & SLI and extra graphics card

brakezone · Jan 4, 2007

Although I have SLI working fine under gentoo, I have a 3rd graphics card that I want to display extra desktop space on a 2nd monitor. The problem is that when I enable SLI under linux it causes all screens but the first screen to go blank (even the card that is PCI and shouldn't be part of the SLI configuration).

I've tried moving the 3rd monitor configuration to the front of the xorg.conf file and turning SLI off on that monitor and on for the SLI cards but it still causes every monitor to go off but the primary. Anybody got any ideas?

splat · Jan 4, 2007

you said "desktop sapce on a 2nd monitor" then you said "every monitor but the primary" and "moving the 3rd monitor config" which means you are trying to run 3 montiors. How many monitors are you running. I don't know much about sli, so all i can really think of is have you tried this setup in windows and did it work as you expect it to?

PYROMANIAC · Jan 4, 2007

are you using anything like twinview or xinerama?

brakezone · Jan 4, 2007

This is my xorg.conf file

I have 3 graphics cards but only 2 monitors. Graphics card 0 & 1 are supposed to be in SLI (both working on screen0). The problem is i can't get rid of the 2nd monitor because thats where you say that SLI is enabled or disabled. I'm not sure how to get the layout I want to work but I have it working in Windows XP fine.

I want it so that cards 0 & 1 are SLI on screen 0 and card 2 is showing an extra desktop on screen 1 or 2. As you can see, SLI is set to off now but when it is set to ON it shuts off every monitor but the main one. When SLI is shut off it renders to 3 monitors (but I only actually have 2). I have documented that SLI mode increases rendering performance significantly, so I am pretty sure that it works correctly.

edit: After looking at it I think maybe i should append the correct device board names.

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    Screen      2  "Screen2" LeftOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath         "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/CID/"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "record"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "xtrap"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName      "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName      "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor2"
    VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName      "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "Unknown Board"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "Unknown Board"
    BusID          "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card2"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x]"
    BusID          "PCI:5:7:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen2"
    Device         "Card2"
    Monitor        "Monitor2"
    Option         "SLI" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection



Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    Option         "SLI" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Card1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    Option         "SLI" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

splat · Jan 4, 2007

i don't know how SLI is set up in xorg, but It sounds odd to me that you are setting up 3 screens, when you only have 2 monitors

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Monitors here is the dual monitor howto in the gentoo wiki, might give you some ideas

brakezone · Jan 4, 2007

Yeah I really am totally in agreement with you... it is very odd that I have 3 screens setup if I only have 2 monitors. Therin lies the problem, that you have to enable SLI on a card in the screen section.

I'm not really having a problem with multimonitors i'm having a problem with multimonitors while SLI is enabled.

splat · Jan 4, 2007

i think you would have card0, card1, and card2, monitor0 and monitor1, then screen0 and screen1, screen0 would use card0 and card1 and monitor0 with SLI on, and screen1 would use card2 with monitor1 with sli off

brakezone · Jan 4, 2007

Thats what I would think but thats not how the nvidia utility enables SLI. I asked over in the nvidia linux forums so hopefully i'll get a answer over there.

splat · Jan 5, 2007

after some searching, it appears to me that you only need to define one card for the sli.

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Device"
# SLI CARD
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Device"
# PCI CARD
    Identifier     "Card1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000 AGP 8x]"
    BusID          "PCI:5:7:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    Option         "SLI" "on"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Card1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

OSGentoo · Jan 5, 2007

i think you will have to use the opensource nv driver for the second monitor on the third card and use the nvidia driver on the sli cards, then you will have to set it up for xinerama, twinview is not supported with sli.

I had a setup where i had an ati card and a nvidia card and ran 2 monitors both with opensource drivers and it worked fine, what i said above may be more complicated but i have no experience with with it. i will try to dig up my xf86.conf (yes, it was still xfree) from when i ran that setup...... i think i have a backup of the file somewhere.

Linux & SLI and extra graphics card

brakezone

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