9/16/2014 8:07:01 AM

I understand that SSP does not currently support spanning objects, like video, across the boundary between multiple video output ports on the host PC.  Using a graphics expander like TripleHead2Go gets around this by taking a SINGLE DVI-D (Dual link) signal from the host machine and splitting it externally into three video signals.  However, any video expander which splits the signal from a single DVI-D dual link signal will be limited by the bandwidth of the DVI-D dual link signal coming out of the Host PCs video card.  And this bandwidth can not support full HD in triplewide (5760X1080 at 60 Hz).

So, my question is an SSP Roadmap question for SSP developers.  Is there any chance that the ability to span video across multiple video ports on the host PC "INSIDE THE SSP APPLICAITON" will ever be added to SSP (to enable full HD in Triplewide with SSP)?

thanks,
karl

9/16/2014 3:34:39 PM

The display settings for 8.x don't provide a "span" option, but you can set it up to do that. For this to work, you'll need to ensure that all three of your display devices are the same size and are adjacent to each other in Windows. You will then specify the Display Window 1 to be located in the left-most display device, set the Placement area to "Specified", then set the Width of the Specified Area to 300%. This should create a display window that spans the three output devices. We don't test with this configuration and I'm not sure how DirectX will perform in such a scenario, but I encourage you to give it a try.

9/16/2014 6:38:39 PM

Wow, Doug.  That is very intriguing!  If that works, that will be very cool indeed, and a very cool feature of SSP!!!  Ill let you know how the test goes.
thanks,
karl

9/17/2014 8:47:31 AM

Karl,
My recommendation is to use a single video card for the three outputs if possible, and if that isn't possible, to use two identical video cards, and if that's not possible, to use two video cards of the same brand and which are close to each other in models (i.e., two different but recent NVidia video cards).

Back in the true-Direct 9/Windows XP days, spanning across devices introduced performance problems, among other things. Due to fundamental changes made in Windows Vista, its possible that spanning like this has much better support. I look forward to hearing a report from you.