multiple graphics cards.... dual ATI cards

English Hardware
1

I have been using opensuse 12.2 for awhile with 3 monitors on a ATI HD 5850 for awhile now, i wanted to add a 4th IPS monitor. I added monitor opensuse recognized it and worked but it was slowing down, so I installed a second ATI card (HD7570) i split the displays up with 2 on one and 2 on the other. now opensuse only sees 2 of the monitors (the 2 on the 5850). I can see the other video card is installed and linux recognizes it but it wont let me use the displays.

Not sure where to go from here, sadly I had to jump back to Win7 partition and im not happy about it. Any help would be much appreciated.

2

outdated url. But might help https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Multiple_Monitors
This post claims a success https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/458904-config-problem-ati-v4800-running-quad-monitors-opensuse-11-4-a.html

3

I installed a second ATI card (HD7570) i split the displays up with 2 on one and 2 on the other. now opensuse only sees 2 of the monitors (the 2 on the 5850). I can see the other video card is installed and linux recognizes it but it wont let me use the displays.

It’s a given that you’ll have to manually configure the X-server via the config files located in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory. KDE (and Gnome) DEs currently only provide limited support for multi-headed configurations. In fact, I’m not sure that it is possible to have all 4 monitors working in a single graphical X-session.

This might be useful to you:

How to set up multiple monitors in linux

4

You can;

  1. to do it such that the desktop is contiguous:
    a) you need an eyefinity adapter that is quad-output capable. If I read the OP’s post correctly, he has such and tried just that but found it (for some unspecified reason but which I’ll assume was to do with rendering and desktop effects) too slow:

or
b) you use multiple graphics adapters and use Xinerama (or the equivalent if using the prop driver) to join everything

2, to do it such that the desktop is fragmented:
a) you could set up a single X Display session, with multiple Screens (“Screens” as in an X Display’s “Screens” and not colloquial screens/monitors/display/panel/thing_that_shows_pretty_pictures )
or
b) you could set up multiple X Display session, with single (or multiple if you so liked and were capable) Screens per Display

I’ve written some further background here: