Can you run 3 monitors showing 3 different things?

**brianjmoser** · 08-23-2009, 03:22 PM

I have been running a bunch of ideas through my head and figured this would be the fastest route to get an answer. Correct me if im wrong but in CF you can have 2 monitors showing 2 different things. Just like you can on a laptop with a projector plugged in and setting it as an extended desk top. If im not mistaken there are programs that allow you to run 3 monitors all showing different things. Could something like this be used with CF? Any input would be great. My plan is movies playing on the rear. Upfront 1 for GPS and one for system control.

**hakkow** · 08-31-2009, 10:25 AM

Yes, this should be possible..
If all displays are configured as extended desktops, you could show 3 different things on each display..

I saw the Nvidia software is able to control which *.exe to show on which display.. but I don't know if that is compatible with centrafuse..

Then there is the audio thing..
If you play music on the rear right screen, you want the sound there too.. that would be area 1
DVD on rearleft would be area 2
and the nav on the front screen would be area 3..

I don't think Windows is able to have 3 different audio streams, moving through 1 soundcard.. Maybe multiple soundcards?
I know Centrafuse is able to shoot sound at different soundcards...

There it is.. Don't for sure, but with some experimenting you could come a long way..

**nitehawk** · 08-31-2009, 05:38 PM

Actualy, that makes me wonder if you could find or write some sort of software that would use a 6 channel sound card for all 3 areas. Might be something to look into if you have a 5.1 or 7.1 sound card.

**hakkow** · 09-01-2009, 02:07 AM

Should be possible I guess.. Every speaker should have it's own audio stream.. If there is (or could be made) a piece of software that takes different (stereo) audio streams, and combine those to one surround stream..

Image a stereo stream, only the left speaker plays something completely different then the right.. should be it right?

**HiJackZX1** · 09-05-2009, 01:47 PM

Anything is possible with imagination and know how. As far as CF is concerned though, I think the limit is 2. Front and Rear.

**nitehawk** · 09-05-2009, 03:25 PM

So CF isn't capable of running a full (5.1+) surround setup?

**ARN1382** · 09-05-2009, 03:52 PM

Multi display depends on your hardware along with the software, usually Nvidia/Ati's hardware manage 2 displays per video hardware using SLI or CF you can bypass it, if you want to do 3+ display with a single gpu you need something like a matrox card, but say good bye to good 3D and video decoding.
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/pr...play_software/

**HiJackZX1** · 09-05-2009, 04:16 PM

Originally Posted by nitehawk

So CF isn't capable of running a full (5.1+) surround setup?

sound wise I am honestly not sure. I have something similar to what you may be trying to do, but I went about it different. I have my main soundcard (X-Fi) and then a second soundcard for headphone jacks, and a third soundcard for phone. Instead of trying to get the main PC to split between 6 people so they can do different things, I instead installed a PC per seat. So the Main PC is for general shared mode, and the independant units they can do what they want. They toggle between units with a KVM. The KVM also has the ability to choose what PC sound they hear on the headphones. So say you want to hear the music from PC 1, but surf the web on PC 2, you can via keyboard commands.

I use 7.1 surround sound with Centrafuse. I cant configure with in CF, so I have to set up everything with the sound blaster software, which isn't bad. Once configured you never have to touch it again.