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mtib

Member

Registered: 2016-11-21

Posts: 1

multi video card setup with nvidia-340xx -possible to run only one wm?

Hello, I am trying to connect multiple screens to my two video/graphics cards in my computer.

Linux tipc 4.8.8-2-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 17 14:51:03 CET 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I want to use i3wm. Both video cards get detected in lspci:

lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 750] (rev a2)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)

And I can "see" both cards in xrandr when using a Display prefix:

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
VGA-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1280x720      60.00  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    59.94  
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

$ DISPLAY=:0.1 xrandr
Screen 1: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1280x720      60.00  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    59.94  

I had to use nvidia-340xx-dkms to get the second card working. (Older cheaper card, basically just for the extra ports) My idea is to expand to 4 screens, but I wanted to test it with two first.

I can start a X session on one video card and the other display stays black, but I can move my curser over (black X cursor).

Is it possible to tell i3 to somehow merge/ use both displays combined? I can start two seperate dm/wm-s on the different cards, but that is not what I am going for.

My xorg.conf looks like:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    #Option          "Xinerama"      "on"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/nvidia"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName      "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GTX950TI"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GT210"
    BusID          "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1920x1080"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Viewport    0 0
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1920x1080"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

nvidia-settings isn't much help because it seg-faults.

(please also tell me if it is much easier to just buy a graphics card with four ports and connect all screens to that, as christmas is around the corner, I might buy myself a gift)

Last edited by mtib (2016-11-21 23:36:33)