Hey all, I have a weird setup I'm working on. I recently bought a Treadmill Desk so I can get some exercise in while I do my work. I'm a work-at-home game developer, so 95% of my work life is spent sitting down, and I love to game, so hey, that's more sitting! So I bought the treadmill desk to fix the problem.
Anyway, I also bought 2 more monitors for my treadmill desk, and the plan is to run 2 displays on the treadmill and 2 on my traditional desk hooked up to the same PC. The two on the treadmill side are going to be in Clone/Duplicate mode, so I'll basically be running 2 different dual monitor setups.
Now, the problem is, I've read you can only run 4 displays at once on a GTX980, but the GTX980 actually has 5 ports. 3 DisplayPort, 1 HDMI and 1 DVI.
Now, the information on how many monitors you can use is really fuzzy. For starters my fifth display is the Rift anyway, and for two, I'm not running 4 monitors all extended off one another for one massive desktop, I'm really just running two dual monitor setups.
But currently I'm waiting on cables to arrive (I need big ole' 15 footers for the treadmill desk!) so while I was waiting I was wondering if anyone had any advice/feedback/confirmation. 🙂
So, you can definitely do 3 monitors plus Rift. That's what I'm doing. As far as I can tell, the 980 is limited to 4 monitors. I don't believe it matters if you are cloning/mirroring, as it's still outputting to the display.
However, if you are always cloning, you can get two splitters for the cloned monitors. This will allow the video card to think there are only two monitors (plus Rift) which should be fine.
So, you can definitely do 3 monitors plus Rift. That's what I'm doing. As far as I can tell, the 980 is limited to 4 monitors. I don't believe it matters if you are cloning/mirroring, as it's still outputting to the display.
However, if you are always cloning, you can get two splitters for the cloned monitors. This will allow the video card to think there are only two monitors (plus Rift) which should be fine.
I also had a random thought; Only 2 of the 4 monitors will ever be turned on at once anyway, since I'll either be at the desk, or at the treadmill. So it may be a non-issue as the graphics card will only ever actively being using 2 of them?
I suppose a display splitter would work, might take some weird wiring though, because as far as I know there are no proper splitters for DisplayPort, and the treadmill monitors don't have DisplayPort plugs anyway.
My current setup plan is; - Desk DP1 - Monitor 1 DP2 - Monitor 2 DP3 - Rift (Via passive converter)
- Treadmill Desk DVI - Monitor 1 HDMI - Monitor 2
I'd have to do something like take the monitor on DP1 and put it into the DVI, with a signal splitter. So Monitor 1 on both desks are running off DVI. Totally doable (and cheap since you can pickup a DVI splitter for hardly nothing), just a little weird cabling. heh.
You could buy a port replicator like the Targus Dock ACP70USZ to add more monitors, I have done that with two docks (as a test) and had 7 monitors going at once, truth, it was to many monitors for one system, I had to keep checking my monitors for a window I wanted to look at.
You could buy a port replicator like the Targus Dock ACP70USZ to add more monitors, I have done that with two docks (as a test) and had 7 monitors going at once, truth, it was to many monitors for one system, I had to keep checking my monitors for a window I wanted to look at.
I'll probably do something similar if my current setup doesn't work, but it'll probably take the route of a DVI splitter like this one
The new cables still haven't arrived yet, so I have no way to test the setup reasonably (without unhooking half my stuff and rearranging the desk). But I figure if it doesnt work, I can simply split one of the displays with the splitter I linked and be good to go.
I suppose another option is to buy a proper KVM switch, but one that suits my needs (2 in 4 out via Displayport or HDMI) get expensive, real fast. 🙂
Update: All cables arrived, and even with the displays in duplicate mode (and even with 2 monitors turned off) the Rift won't turn on. You have to physically unplug one of the monitors to get the Rift up, then the Rift takes one of the 4 slots and the other monitor wont work until you unhook the Rift.
So, either a DVI or HDMI splitter looks like the route I'll be going. 🙂
