M11x and External monitors

Hey sup guys currently on a conquest to get a setup with multiple monitors.
I hear by default the m11x can push up to two 1920x1200 and have its own screen running at the same time, with regards to gaming im not sure how good it is but if anyone has any experiences let me know.

My dilemma comes up with regards to 30" monitors it seems they are all dual dvi and their resolutions are 2560x1600 im not sure if the m11x can handle that and im still confused if the m11x can connect at these resolutions

so anyone care to post their findings and help me find out what i need to do to possibly get this working? im looked into external gpu's aswell

 

It should run your monitors fine, it will just scale your monitors down to 1920x1200, which looks fine on a 30" which is what I use.

 

ah that should be perfect, i dont really have any real need for 2560x1600 tbh so 1920x1200 should be fine.

do you currently have a 30" connected?

im seeing that most of these 30" require dual dvi which afaik is different from normal dvi is this correct?

can i just plug in one monitor into my display port and the other via hdmi? if i wanted to possibly get 3 how would i go about it?

How is the performance aswell i assume the 540m can handle it all i hope

sorry for all the questions i appreciate the answers

 

You can only have two monitors on this card and only ATI has the ability to run Eyefinity on multiple monitors, this is something that Nvidia is bringing out in their new batch but the 540M GT does not have it and the M11x does not have the outputs.

The 540M works fine on an external monitor/s but you may have to still limit the resolution, the 128bit bus and only 30gb/s bandwidth means that higher resolutions will struggle with intensive games. Dead space 2 however should run fine.

 

The 540M can handle multiple monitors, just not for gaming or rendering i would imagine. Even with the 2GB GPU it would still have problems with multiple 1080p displays if you were doing anything heavy or demanding.

 

mm i would be doing video editing/cad across the screens and was worried about that im trying to look into external gpu's that would allow me to bypass this gpu restriction if it does come up

Matrox TripleHead2Go DisplayPort | Multi-Monitors for Laptops

I found this device which would be good shouldnt the gt 540 be able to handle it?

 

All that is going to do is stretch one screen across three monitors fella not display 3 separate outputs. It will only be able to produce 1080p over 3 screens. The M11x does not have a thunderbolt port so I dont know where you would connect it. The only output is HDMI.

On that basis no it would not work two screens is enough really for this little card.

 

i would be extending the desktop across the monitors so it shouldnt be much different right or is there something im missing?

that card connects through the display port so id be using that,

Id like some clearance on using 30" monitors this dual dvi thing has confused me am i good to plug normal dvi into it to my m11x or would i require some other connector?

 

Maybe I am getting confused what model are you talking about? The R3 only has a HDMI output it has not got thunderbolt and no DVI or VGA output and that is what that item you linked requires in order to display on three screens.

It will only stretch one display across three screens it will not display 3 separate displays on 3 screens the GPU can only display two displays on two screens. Thats it

 

the r3 has a display port right next to the hdmi, the matrox triple uses displayport hope that clears up your confusion.

stretching the screens is good for my purposes afaik it shouldnt make a difference from 3 stand alone right as i can move windows across each screen and leave them as i see fit.

I need to find a capable way of using 3 screens my main issue is the dual dvi case which arises with most 30" i cant tell if this is a problem any insight for me?

 

Sorry yes I didn't see that item said displayport thought it was thunderbolt run.

Just beware this GPU is not as powerful as some may think running windows at 1080p is fine but gaming on it may not produce the results you expect. Pushing one display across three screens I can see you running into problems.

As mentioned the GPU can only output to two displays the dual dvi wont work because of this all it would do is show the same display on two screens. There are hardly any laptops that can do this and it would require an ATI Eyefinity card but as most laptops do not have enough ports the mobile card cannot do what a desktop can.

 

hmm i see thankyou very much for your help and info, i was hoping of working an all in one solution somehow that i could just unplug when i need portablility and plug in for a work desk. theoretically is there anyway to do this?

if nothing will think it may be in best interests i build a desktop to do this seems alot of hassle to create tbh

 

Sadly the hardware is not possible. A desktop is capable of doing this because the GPU's come with multiple outputs on ATI cards and now Nvidia is jumping on the horse and doing the same.

ATI can run upto like 7 screens on a powerful card like the 6990 or 7970.

Two 1080p outputs on this little monster is pretty insane for current technology I remember when I had a Cyrix 166 processor.

 

I'm not sure what you're asking then. Because my R1 could drive 4 monitors: Built-in, VGA, HDMI, and DP simultaneously when I used the Beta Optimus. I swear I've heard people here say you can run 3 simultaneously on the R3, but I've never been able to try it yet (it's a pain to borrow my buddy's DVI monitor right now).

 

The OP is wanting 3 seperate outputs to display on three separate displays not 1 display on 4 screens.

 

I can only speak about the M11xR1 with any conviction, as that's all I have.

If one for example has two 'extended' screens one of which is the M11x, then it'd transition to the screen size of each display.

It's only when the screen is 'duplicated' that it falls back on the smallest size for both displays, mostly that being the M11x screen.

In the old days, before beta drivers (M11xR1 can now have three or more discrete displays) the M11x could only support two active screens. So I'd be REALLY surprised if the M11xR3 couldn't support two displays, either duplicate or extended with 'standard' drivers. However in standard configuration it probably won't support more than two.

A little snippet of info, on an M11xR1 I am able to pipe a discrete audio stream down the HDMI and DisplayPort connection to monitors with audio in/out. This means one could watch two DVD's with their respective audio tracks at the same time on an Mx11R1. Should work on M11xR3 too.

And yes the M11x can support 2560x1600 screens using HDMI and/or DisplayPort. 2560x1600 was the maximum res for the GT335M on the M11xR1/R2. Admittedly the M11xR3 has a GT540M, but this also indicates a max res of 2560x1600. I read of one NotebookReview poster that had a Dell U2711 and it worked at 2560x1600 on an M11xR2. I only have two Dell U2410 so my ability to test is reduced to 1920x1200.

 

just to make sure we are on the same page i was looking to extend the laptop screen with the monitors

thankyou for the info so could it be possible to run 2 2560x1600 screens or would that be pushing the 540m?

 

For desktop apps there should be plenty of GPU. I'm using the R1 with FOUR independent screens for work. The res is lower but two of them are 1920. No issues.

The confusion comes where one may need to manage their screens using both intel and nvidia control panels.

 

There is very little load placed on a GPU just to project a desktop on multiple screens it is going to be the programs you run at the higher resolution that will struggle more because of the low bandwidth.

Yep we are on the same page fella The problem is that can only have 2 outputs from the GPU and the M11x only has 3 display outputs. What you could do is have the M11x screen as one display. Plug in a monitor to the HDMI and the Displayport and then try and extend the second output to those two monitors. I really think that is your limit on the R3 the R1 had the additional VGA port as well meaning 2 outputs on 4 displays, they got lazy not putting a VGA on the R3.

Although it is trial and error have a play if you can and see what you achieve if it works please tell me how

 

Okay, I just plugged in 2 DVI monitors, DP->DVI and HDMI->DVI, and I have 3 monitors at the same time. I am using stock drivers from Dell's website. My laptop screen is the main one in the middle, with one monitor on either side. It works. You apparently can have 3 simultaneous outputs from the GPU. The way the R1 achieved this was by activating both GPUs at the same time. I imagine the R3 does it the same way but I don't know.

 

Is that 3 extended? or three actual separate screens?

If so great news do some testing and post back. Does the Nvidia control panel allow you to set which screen runs on which GPU?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by 3 actual separate screens vs extended, but I have a Cinema Display, the M11x screen, and a Dell 17-incher all showing the desktop, and I can drag windows from one side to the middle then to the other side.

It appears that the Nvidia Control Panel is only showing the 2 external monitors (but not the laptop screen), but when I rightclick the desktop and adjust the screen resolution, it gives me all three screens. NVidiaCP and WindowsCP have them numbered differently. I'm sure this means that only the Apple and Dell monitors are accelerated. I may check this out later.

This seems to confirm my suspicion that it's an Optimus benefit.

 

Sounds about right optimus on the lappy and Nvidia on the big boys.

Still pretty awesome for an M11x the R1 seems to own the external scene with that damn extra VGA port.

 

I plugged in two 23" ultrasharp dell monitors (1x minidisplay, 1x DVI->HDMI) and got all three screens (including laptop screen) working at their native resolutions, in extended mode. Sorry i didn't check which gpu was controlling each screen.

edit: just out of curiosity, at home i have a tv with hdmi, vga port and also the netgear p2tv WiDi. so i could possibly get a total of 4 possible displays. so far i have tried connecting WiDi, HDMI and laptop screen together (3 displays) and while it worked, the WiDi kept giving an error message but kept working, albeit with the mouse cursor now invisible in WiDi... unfortunately i dont have a vga cable to try a possible 4th display.

edit: 4 screen success! http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/667276-four-displays-working-m11x-r3.html