Ubuntu :: Multi-Monitors: Can ATI + Nvidia Video Cards Co-Exist
Apr 8, 2011
As described in further detail below I am looking for some help in Ubuntu 10.10 with a multi-monitor + multi-gpu setup using both ATI and Nvidia video cards installed within the same system (que scoffs and jeers). Is it possible to sucessfully run both ATI and NVidia GPU's and Drivers simultaneously in Ubuntu 10.10 (think multi-monitor environment)? I am asking b/c I am having trouble figuring out how to manage my video cards - particularly ATI - within a multi-monitor + multi-gpu video card environment.
Here's the setup:
Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
x2 - NVidia 6800XT SLi GPU's + 2 DVI outputs/per card (Serviceable card for my needs)
x1 - ATI Rage XL PCI Card + 1 VGA output (Yes, ancient hardware...I know)
I was just wondering if is an easy way to configure three monitors run across two video cards (Nvidia Leadtek GTS250 PCI-E 2.0 1G 2DVI ) 2 on one, 1 on the other under the one xserver? I tried to get it going using the Nvidia driver package with no luck - 2 monitors seemed to be simple to configure using Twinview setting on a single xserver (my current settings) and I was hoping their may be a simple extension for three and if so is there an easy way to go about this? (I am new to Ubuntu).
I've been using linux for roughly 12 years now but I've always avoided linux on the desktop since touching X back in the day was quite a hassle. I recently decided that rather than keeping my windows desktop full of 15 PuTTY instances, I should rock the *nix desktop.
I started by installing Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop. It detected my two monitors handing off a pci express card just fine. I decided to install the ATI drivers when it prompted me - the proprietary drivers would let me select to use the monitors separately, but would always just default back to mirroring the screens. I was unable to get it to stop that, so I had to go back to the open source drivers. Which is fine, I don't really need the 3d accel. Roll forward a week, I ordered another video card to add another screen. I purchased another ATI card, since word on the street is that same-vendor chipsets play best together. This one had to be PCI, if this matters.
dmesg reports the new card is fine and happy, but the Monitors GUI thing doesn't detect any monitors off the new card, or report anything about it. So: what should I do to make the second video card get noticed?[URL]...
Been looking around and have been trying for 4 days to get my 3 monitors to work with my 2 video cards , When the system starts up I get the bootup screens on the 3rd monitor , then the login box shows up on the 1st monitor and when logging out I see the shutdown screen on the 3rd monitor again , so I know ubuntu see's it , but not sure how to include it in the regular desktop . It's just a lighted very dark red and I can't move my mouse or any windows over to it , here is my xorg.conf that I modified and tried to get it to work with :
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 260.19.06 (buildd@palmer) Mon Oct 4 16:01:38 UTC 2010 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0"
I'm trying to get ubuntu working w/ 3 monitors. I have been given 2 video cards
lspci | grep VGA 20:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV620 LE [Radeon HD 3450] 25:05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)
I have had it working w/ two monitors plugged into the ATI correctly. and the nVidia monitor blank. Now I have the nVidia monitor working and one monitor from the ATI working, but I can't seem to get the last monitor to show anything. It does show the boot screen and works up until the point you are presented w/ the login screen for ubuntu, then it disappears and the nVidia monitor turns on. Might I have something wrong w/ my xorg.conf or do I need to do something more to get this to work? Currently I'm seeing this error in my Xorg.0.log file, but I'm not sure where to go from here:
[ 24.746] (EE) RADEON(2): reusing fd for second head /etc/X11/xorg.conf # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig # nvidia-xconfig: version 270.29 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-02.nvid
Is there a simple way to have both of the monitors on a system enabled? The video cards are both older ATI cards. One is a Radeon 9000 AGP 64MB, and the other is quite a bit older (ATI 3D Rage Pro 2x). When Ubuntu 10.10 is booting up, the splash screen appears nicely on the left-side monitor, and then the final desktop appears on the right-side monitor, but when I go to system --> preferences --> monitors, only one monitor is available. I'm guessing the right monitor is fed by the Radeon (I can check if it matters). If the splash screen appears on the left side when booting, why isn't that display available after the bootup has completed?
I'm about to start a new build for my primary machine at home. The plan is to load up a server/workstation motherboard (ASUS KGPE-D16) with two 8-core chip, as much RAM as it will take (32GB) and to put two graphics cards in it. One to power my main 24" monitor (ideally via HDMI) and the other card to power two screens, one 24" on each left and right side via DVI (unless I can find a dual-HDMI card that meets my needs).
Does that make sense? Here's my question for this awesome group of intelligent individuals: What video card model should I choose? Obviously, I'd like them to match so I can SLI / CrossFire if I really want to, but what setup should I plan on to have a good experience managing multiple displays on multiple video cards?
Oh, and budget is probably up to about $300 per card, maybe a little more if it makes a lot of sense.I'm not alone in having tons of problems with trying to get multi monitor support in the last few versions of Ubuntu, and honestly it's the only reason why I'm still running Windows7: the multi monitor support is just SO DAMNED easy! I shouldn't have to spend this much energy thinking about video card model- it should just work, shouldn't it?
Due to the miss of proprietary drivers from AMD for Fedora 12, I have installed a second video card in my system (a Nvidia one) for BOINC calculation. This card is not connected to a monitor.
So in the system I have this two cards: ATI Shappire Radeon HD2600XT (256MB) Asus Nvidia Geoforce 6600 (356MB)
The ATI is in the first PCI express device, the Nvidia to the second PCI express:
Code:
So I have used this Xorg configuration file (if I let Xorg to configure without the configuration file, it sets NVidia to default card and X files to start):
Code:
The Nvidia driver were installed as described in some forum:
1) disabling nouveau in grub configuration
Code:
2) Take SElinux to alow the driver:
Quote:
With this, the driver is correctly loaded in memory:
Code:
But the Xorg says that not Nvidia Driver where found (see the attack file).
I recently upgraded to Lucid from Karmic and shortly before the release upgraded from a geforce 8400gs to my geforce GT240 and noticed no difference on Karmic. I read somewhere that the capability of video cards would be applied further with Lucid. Since installing Lucid I've noticed a severely reduced sharpness and severely increased contrast, changing the contrast in X server has no effect. My hardware driver is activated but not in use and no online fix I've attempted has been successful in resolving the issue. Is it possible to use a gt240 on lucid with no hassle and is there any way I can maximize my video cards capabilities?
Both cards have monitors plugged into their VGA ports, but only one of the monitors shows a display. The other monitor goes into power saver mode right after start up. Nvidia X Server settings only shows a single graphics card (the 8200) and a single monitor (detect monitor finds nothing). Going through Prefences: Monitors also only shows a single monitor and doesn't detect a thing when detect monitors is clicked.
Monitor one has 1440 x 900 resolution and I'm not sure what the resolution of Monitor two is supposed to be, but it displays rather nicely at being set to 1440 x 900.
Both graphics cards are detected and usable in Vista, but a quick switch of the plugs shows that only the 8200 is registering in Ubuntu.
Ideally I want to have a dual monitor set up, with one screen showing documents or pictures with the other using Gimp or Blender.
Edit: FIXED, see 2nd 1/2 for correct config...Id like for someone to look over my xorg.conf and tell me what I'm doing wrong. Just a bit of background I'm using an Matrox G450 Multihead and a Nvidia MX4000 and have three monitors. Id like the G450 multi head to fire on the far left and far right and the nvidia to run in the center. The desktop should be extended across all three.
I have an ACER Veriton 7600GT, with an internal Intel 82865G, which drives the main monitor and a Radeon 9250 which drives a second monitor (on its first port) - it all works fine under XP.I've had no luck at all trying to get any version of linux to cope with this. I've been trying live cds..PCLinuxOS and Mandriva will not boot except in 'safe mode' and then run with the wrong resolution for the main monitor and ignore the second one.
Ubuntu boots OK for primary but ignores the second monitor (I'm not keen on ubuntu anyway because of instability on other machines).OpenSUSE boots OK for primary and seemed to offer some hope of setting up the second monitor. However, after this discussion it seems to have come down to trying the latest development milestone.There is quite a lot of diagnostics in the above discussion and I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience of this sort of thing? The problem seems very fundamental in the sense that (even with all the tests) I've never seen the second monitor even receive a signal and wake up under any version of linux.
After working on trying to get my 3 monitors to work with Ubuntu 10.4 and my ATI Radeon HD3200 (IGP) and HD4850 cards, I just had to share the xorg.conf. I am using the default open source drivers that came with 10.4 and I kept KMS enabled (it wouldn't work without it).
I have 2 nvidia gfx cards, if I use the nvidia settings tool to view 2 monitors with the same gfx card works fine, when i use one gfx card for one monitor and the other gfx card for the other monitor X doesnt start and just cycles through monitor flashes.
I have just bought 2 monitors to be used as a x3 multi setup and 2 graphics cards the same make and model (ATI Sapphire Radeon HD5450). This all works in Windows 7 but I have just booted into Ubuntu and removed the old nVidia drivers and got the supported driver. The problem is only 2 monitors are detected as it would seem that it's only picking up 1 card.
I've got an ACER Veriton 7600GT, with an internal Intel 82865G, which drives the main monitor and a Radeon 9250 which drives a second monitor (on its first port).The configuration seems to kill many live cds but not opensuse - that's the good news. The bad news is that, if I've understood this; Configuring graphics cards/Dual Head Mode - openSUSE, it should be detected and started in clone mode - it isn't. Running sax2 doesn't help (and that's the first thing in the XRandR instructions too. I've yet to see my second monitor so much as flicker. I would like to see this working on the live cd before I commit to installing opensuse.
I'm trying to get 4 monitors working in Ubuntu 11.04 the way I would like to. I have two Radeon video cards with two monitors connected to each. With proprietary ATI drivers and the Catalyst Control Center I'm able to see all the monitors and Have Multi-Display setups, but they're separated for each video card. I can move items to and from Monitor 1 to Monitor 2, and Monitor 3 to Monitor 4. I'm not able to move windows from 2 to 3 or 4. The two separate display setups have their own set of workspaces too. I've tried enabling xinerama, but when I log back in after a restart the screen is just black and I'm forced to reboot manually. The two separate displays wouldn't be that much of a problem except that my keyboard doesn't seem to work on any application opened on monitors 3 and 4 after I've clicked on something in Monitor 1 or 2.
Below is one of the configs I've been messing around with:
xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 1920x1920 (desired size 3200x1080)
Googling about this error i found a old post,it could be outfated that sugested editing xorg.conf. I created a xorg.conf using "Xorg -configure" and i modified the screen section to this:
Currently I'm running 3 operating systems on my machine; Windows XP, Windows 7 and Fedora 14. I've installed them in the following order: XP -> Win7 -> Fedora14, with the idea that this would work fine regarding operating system selection at boot time.
But unfortunately, I just installed Fedora, and now I'm unable to boot Windows 7/XP. When I select the "Other" option in the Grub menu, I get the following error: Code: Error 21: selected disk does not exist To provide as much info as possible, here is a boot info script log:
Currently I'm running 3 operating systems on my machine (in order of installation); Windows XP, Windows 7 and Fedora 14. Unfortunately, after I installed Fedora I'm no longer able to boot Windows 7/XP. When I select the "Other" option in the Grub menu, I get the following error:
Code: Error 21: Selected disk does not exist To provide more info, here is a boot info script result: Code: Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
Boot Info Summary: => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda => Grub 0.97 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks on the same drive in partition #3 for /grub/stage2 and /grub/grub.conf. => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc .....
mdadm: No arrays found in config file or automatically
I am trying to resolve an ongoing fight involving /dev/video node assignment between 2 TV Tuner cards and a USB video camera.
Each time I reboot the three devices seem to shuffle their /dev/video assignment. i.e. what was /dev/video0 (USB camera) after a reboot magically becomes /dev/video1.
This causes all kinds of grief between my MythBackend and ZoneMinder who expect the devices to have static assignments.
how to best solve this? I did a brief search and one solution appears to be to statically assign the devices.
I'm trying to set up my monitor and tv for dual display but I'm having some problems. I want them to display the same thing so I've enabled twinview and I figured the second display position should be set as clone but when I save xorg and restart the x server the position reverts to absolute. Anyway, the monitor is set as the primary display and it's the one I'm having problems with. The tv is fine but the monitor's display is stretched off the screen so I can't see the far right or bottom of the screen. I'm very new to linux and I'm just finding my feet so if there's any other info needed you'll probably have to be very specific.
I am running Ubuntu 9.10. My work requires me to frequently swap video cards between an ATI Radeon 5870 card and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX card. My question is: can the ATI driver (fglrx - catalyst 10.2) and the NVIDIA driver (nvidia 190.29) co-exist? Or do I need to reinstall the driver every time I change the card? I would like for the drivers to be able to co-exist so it would only be a matter of restarting my machine with the new card and choose the right xorg.conf file (perhaps from the GRUB menu).
Did an upgrade to Natty - on first boot, when I log in, it tells me I don't have the hardware to run Unity (not likely - it's an NVidia GTX460, not even a year old). I assume it's a driver problem, so I install the restricted NVidia binary drivers through jockey. That's the ubuntu way, I figure, let it do its thing. So with those enabled, I have 3d acceleration (hi, World of Warcraft!) but still no Unity. I blow away .gconf* and .gnome* (as I'm used to doing whenever something gnome-related goes wonky which, in Ubuntu, seems to be every single Ubuntu release) and absolutely no love. I log in and again, it tells me I don't have the hardware. I scoff at this dialog box as I fire up WoW and frag some orcs in glorious 3d. No, Mr. Dialog box, you're a filthy liar. How do I coax Unity into running on this thing? Or does it just... not? Switching to Nouveau isn't an option, as I need my games (and anyway, I don't think it was even in use originally).
I just built a system with an Nvidia GT240 and Ubuntu 10.10. I have two monitors and am trying to get them set up. I currently have them working fine in twin view but I'd like to have set up as separate X screens. However, whenever I do that X crashes. I've got the latest drivers set up from the x-sane PPA so I'm not sure what more I can do. My driver version is 270.29.
I'm running a lenovo laptop with an nVidia Quadro FX 570M and Ubuntu 9.10.
I cannot get my external monitor to work properly for me (using nvidia-settings). It basically creates a single continuous monitor space across both the external and the inbuilt monitor (maximising a window, covers BOTH monitors and the gnomepanels run across both monitors)
I think its related to my xorg.conf settings, which are as following, Can any one help: (It used to work for me when I was using ubuntu 8.4)
I am looking into buying a better graphics card, most likely Nvidia, for my HP D330 DT.How do you tell if the graphics card is compatible with your machine?One more thing, is there a way to tell if my GPU is an, AGP, PCI, or PCI express without opening my computer??
