Configuring a 4 monitor system using twinview and xinerama together

skryking

Thought I'd post this interesting X config file that uses both twinview and Xinerama together to get a 4 monitor system working. This uses 2 nvidia cards with 2 heads each. The reason for doing it this way was 2 fold. Firstly twinview only works on a single card as far as I can tell. Secondly you can setup Xinerama to use 4 monitors, but there is some sort of memory leak in the xinerama protocol that really slows down the window interaction when you use more than 2 monitors. So I setup two twinviews and linked them together with xinerama.

here's the important parts of the config file.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Screen0" 0 0
Screen "Screen2" RightOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "Xinerama"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Dell 1901FP (Analog)"
DisplaySize 760 310
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor2"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "CM812"
DisplaySize 760 310
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 76.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0-1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "VESA driver (generic)"
Option "TwinView"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT-0,CRT-1"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-80"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "56-76"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1-1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "VESA driver (generic)"
Option "TwinView"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT-0,CRT-1"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-80"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "56-76"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024, 1280x1024"
BusID "PCI:4:1:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0-1"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen2"
Device "Videocard1-1"
Monitor "Monitor2"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection



Skryking

JimBowen

Skryking, I have a three monitor setup, using pure xinerama, and I have _awful_ 2D performance:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=81800

When I tried xinerama and twinview together, it broke stuff, because the xinerama borders set by twinview were overwritten by xinerama, or vice versa, so in effect I had one 1280x1024 screen, and one 2560x1024 "screen" spread across two monitors, so when I maximise a window on that side it goes on two monitors, same goes for the panel etc..
Have you found a way to fix that? Or do you just use two 2560x1024 screens?

skryking

JimBowen wrote:

Skryking, I have a three monitor setup, using pure xinerama, and I have _awful_ 2D performance:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=81800

When I tried xinerama and twinview together, it broke stuff, because the xinerama borders set by twinview were overwritten by xinerama, or vice versa, so in effect I had one 1280x1024 screen, and one 2560x1024 "screen" spread across two monitors, so when I maximise a window on that side it goes on two monitors, same goes for the panel etc..
Have you found a way to fix that? Or do you just use two 2560x1024 screens?

hmm... post your config file so I can have a look.

Skryking.

JimBowen

And here's the config: