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Oculus Rift vs Multiple Monitors

Brodie
Explorer
Hello,

I'm not sure the best form to place this, i'm after some advice.
I'm going to be ordering an Oculus shortly (pay day at the end of month in fact) and cant wait to dive in and start experimenting.

But i have a few concerns, firstly i need to tell you about my PC set up.

I have:

2x Sapphire 7970 Vapour X 6gb Graphics Cards running in CrossfireX mode
3x 24" Widescreen Monitors in Eyefinity (ATI's software to create one giant ultra widescreen 5888x1090 desktop)
1x 22" Widescreen Monitor sat in the middle and above the 3 24" screens

Note that all 4 monitors are connected to the one graphics card so that i can put the two cards in CrossfireX mode so i cant plug anything else in to any of the graphics cards without major hassle.

The advice i'm after is what is the best way of connecting my Oculus Rift when it arrives without having to start unplugging monitors? I'm also concerned that if i somehow manage to get the Rift connected it will either freak out at my ultra wide screen resolution (which i believe it tries to emulate?) or will it mess up my Eyefinity set up meaning i'll have to re-align everything again when i finish using the Rift (a major hassle sorting out screen placement and bezel compensation).

I could in theory connect the centre top single 22" monitor to a DVI switch but ive read that you would be looking at over a hundred pounds for a decent one as the cheaper ones do not give you a 1080p transfer which on top of the Developers Kit Oculus would create a muddy mess of whatever game i play through it.

Maybe a loose DVI Extender connected to the 2nd Graphics Card which i hope would still run the system in CrossfireX until something gets plugged in (or switched on?) to the DVI Extender cable?

Any of you had any similar concerns or issues, or anyone able to point out a solution?
I'm hoping for something obvious i've not thought of.

Cheers
Brodie
8 REPLIES 8

cybereality
Grand Champion
I'm not sure anyone here at Oculus has tested with Eyefinity setups. We briefly built an Nvidia Surround setup, and eventually got it working (3x surround + Rift as accessory display). I imagine you might be able to get Eyefinity working as well.

Keep in mind, you will not be able to drive the Rift at ultra-widescreen resolutions. However you may be able to get it to work as a 4th display. If you already have a 4th display, then maybe you can use a splitter to mirror the image between the Rift and the monitor. This is probably your best bet.

Just keep in mind that none of this has been tested, I am just really guessing that it might work.
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Brodie
Explorer
Probably a daft question, but will a DVI splitter give any loss in resolution or frame rates?
Is there any way to force a fullscreen games to launch on a specific monitor, because they open on the 3 monitors by default.

cybereality
Grand Champion
DVI splitters will not harm resolution or refresh (assuming both the monitor and Rift can support the same mode). For normal games you usually won't be able to select the monitor to use (it will use primary).

With the Rift C++ demos you can press F9 to cycle through available displays. For UDK press F11.

For the Unity demos you can create a shortcut to the exe and add "-Adapter N" to the command line parameters, where N is the number of the Rift monitor (i.e. 1).

I believe HL2 and TF2 will target the Rift directly, you just have to be careful because sometimes the splitter will block the the PC from recognizing the Rift.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV

everygamer
Explorer
"cybereality" wrote:
DVI splitters will not harm resolution or refresh (assuming both the monitor and Rift can support the same mode). For normal games you usually won't be able to select the monitor to use (it will use primary).

With the Rift C++ demos you can press F9 to cycle through available displays. For UDK press F11.

For the Unity demos you can create a shortcut to the exe and add "-Adapter N" to the command line parameters, where N is the number of the Rift monitor (i.e. 1).

I believe HL2 and TF2 will target the Rift directly, you just have to be careful because sometimes the splitter will block the the PC from recognizing the Rift.


This is a really good bit of info, thanks.

Brodie
Explorer
Ok brilliant, thankyou very much for the replies

canteli
Honored Guest
"Brodie" wrote:
Hello,

I'm not sure the best form to place this, i'm after some advice.
I'm going to be ordering an Oculus shortly (pay day at the end of month in fact) and cant wait to dive in and start experimenting.

But i have a few concerns, firstly i need to tell you about my PC set up.

I have:

2x Sapphire 7970 Vapour X 6gb Graphics Cards running in CrossfireX mode
3x 24" Widescreen Monitors in Eyefinity (ATI's software to create one giant ultra widescreen 5888x1090 desktop)
1x 22" Widescreen Monitor sat in the middle and above the 3 24" screens

Note that all 4 monitors are connected to the one graphics card so that i can put the two cards in CrossfireX mode so i cant plug anything else in to any of the graphics cards without major hassle.

The advice i'm after is what is the best way of connecting my Oculus Rift when it arrives without having to start unplugging monitors? I'm also concerned that if i somehow manage to get the Rift connected it will either freak out at my ultra wide screen resolution (which i believe it tries to emulate?) or will it mess up my Eyefinity set up meaning i'll have to re-align everything again when i finish using the Rift (a major hassle sorting out screen placement and bezel compensation).

I could in theory connect the centre top single 22" monitor to a DVI switch but ive read that you would be looking at over a hundred pounds for a decent one as the cheaper ones do not give you a 1080p transfer which on top of the Developers Kit Oculus would create a muddy mess of whatever game i play through it.

Maybe a loose DVI Extender connected to the 2nd Graphics Card which i hope would still run the system in CrossfireX until something gets plugged in (or switched on?) to the DVI Extender cable?

Any of you had any similar concerns or issues, or anyone able to point out a solution?
I'm hoping for something obvious i've not thought of.

Cheers
Brodie


Hi Brodie,

I run an eyefinity setup with the Rift without any problem. I have 5 24'' displays in portrait mode attached to a 6990 (so I've also got Xfire since it's a dual card).
When you unplug a monitor in an eyefinity setup, Catalyst automatically switch to an extended desktop setup (so Windows detects each individual screen instead of the combined one) and when you plug that screen back, it reverts automatically to the original setup (which includes the bezel compensation). When I plug in the Rift in place of one of the screens (I have 4 dp ports and 1 DVI , so I always swap the latter with the Rift) it's picked up just like any other display, so you can change it's resolution, set it to mirror one of the other screens or extend the desktop. Inside Catalyst there's an option to set the primary display, so using that avoids any need to do targeting of displays in shortcuts and such...Pretty much everything wants to run in full-screen on the "primary display" . Occasionally, I've found some software running in full-screen on the display where you originally launched the exe. Literally, moving the explorer window on the primary monitor and double-clicking on the executable from there cures the issue.

I'm pretty sure you can't have Xfire working if you plug screens in both cards, so you shouldn't get your hopes up about the DVI extender plan...
But speaking of extensions, while I'm not using a DVI switch, I have the Rift hanging from the ceiling (so I don't get tangled in wires as I spin in my chair!!) connected to a 25' DVI extension cable (24AWG) and can at least say there's no degradation of signal quality despite the length, if that can help you in any way.

Cheers

Brodie
Explorer
"canteli" wrote:


Hi Brodie,

I run an eyefinity setup with the Rift without any problem. I have 5 24'' displays in portrait mode attached to a 6990 (so I've also got Xfire since it's a dual card).
When you unplug a monitor in an eyefinity setup, Catalyst automatically switch to an extended desktop setup (so Windows detects each individual screen instead of the combined one) and when you plug that screen back, it reverts automatically to the original setup (which includes the bezel compensation). When I plug in the Rift in place of one of the screens (I have 4 dp ports and 1 DVI , so I always swap the latter with the Rift) it's picked up just like any other display, so you can change it's resolution, set it to mirror one of the other screens or extend the desktop. Inside Catalyst there's an option to set the primary display, so using that avoids any need to do targeting of displays in shortcuts and such...Pretty much everything wants to run in full-screen on the "primary display" . Occasionally, I've found some software running in full-screen on the display where you originally launched the exe. Literally, moving the explorer window on the primary monitor and double-clicking on the executable from there cures the issue.

I'm pretty sure you can't have Xfire working if you plug screens in both cards, so you shouldn't get your hopes up about the DVI extender plan...
But speaking of extensions, while I'm not using a DVI switch, I have the Rift hanging from the ceiling (so I don't get tangled in wires as I spin in my chair!!) connected to a 25' DVI extension cable (24AWG) and can at least say there's no degradation of signal quality despite the length, if that can help you in any way.

Cheers


Brilliant, thank you very very much for your reply, that is really helpfull.
But just to make sure i fully understand, you physically unplug the DVI cable from the back of your monitor and plug it into the Rift, or you have the DVI cable coming from the ceiling mounted Rift handy near the back of the PC and swap the monitor cable with that one.

I suppose it doesnt make too much difference really, I only ask as its easier for me to get to the cable at the back of my monitor than it would be to get to the back of the PC.

canteli
Honored Guest
"Brodie" wrote:
"canteli" wrote:


Hi Brodie,

I run an eyefinity setup with the Rift without any problem. I have 5 24'' displays in portrait mode attached to a 6990 (so I've also got Xfire since it's a dual card).
When you unplug a monitor in an eyefinity setup, Catalyst automatically switch to an extended desktop setup (so Windows detects each individual screen instead of the combined one) and when you plug that screen back, it reverts automatically to the original setup (which includes the bezel compensation). When I plug in the Rift in place of one of the screens (I have 4 dp ports and 1 DVI , so I always swap the latter with the Rift) it's picked up just like any other display, so you can change it's resolution, set it to mirror one of the other screens or extend the desktop. Inside Catalyst there's an option to set the primary display, so using that avoids any need to do targeting of displays in shortcuts and such...Pretty much everything wants to run in full-screen on the "primary display" . Occasionally, I've found some software running in full-screen on the display where you originally launched the exe. Literally, moving the explorer window on the primary monitor and double-clicking on the executable from there cures the issue.

I'm pretty sure you can't have Xfire working if you plug screens in both cards, so you shouldn't get your hopes up about the DVI extender plan...
But speaking of extensions, while I'm not using a DVI switch, I have the Rift hanging from the ceiling (so I don't get tangled in wires as I spin in my chair!!) connected to a 25' DVI extension cable (24AWG) and can at least say there's no degradation of signal quality despite the length, if that can help you in any way.

Cheers


Brilliant, thank you very very much for your reply, that is really helpfull.
But just to make sure i fully understand, you physically unplug the DVI cable from the back of your monitor and plug it into the Rift, or you have the DVI cable coming from the ceiling mounted Rift handy near the back of the PC and swap the monitor cable with that one.

I suppose it doesnt make too much difference really, I only ask as its easier for me to get to the cable at the back of my monitor than it would be to get to the back of the PC.


I do the latter, plug the extended cord coming from the Rift control box (that's on the ceiling) in the back of my PC.
I actually don't use an "extension cable" (I was wrong saying that earlier). An extension cable has opposite gender plugs at each end(M/F), while in this case I'm using a cable with male plugs on each end(M/M), like this one: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10209&cs_id=1020901&p_id=2097&seq=1&for...
To be able to plug the Rift to the cable that goes from your PC to your monitor instead (which is a M/M one), you need a real extension cord (opposite gender)(M/F), like this: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10209&cs_id=1020903&p_id=3546&seq=1&for...
Basically, the cord I use is just a very long M/M cable, so obviously it can't be plugged into another M/M cable (but it can be plugged to a gender changer https://www.google.com/search?q=dvi+gender+changer&num=50&safe=off&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&e..., which can then allow you to connect to the M/M that goes from the display to the PC).

Cheers