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I need to connect 24 monitors to one PC. The requirement is to run different web browsers windows on each monitor for exhibition purposes.

Is there any way to accomplish this mission?

Does anybody know about some kind of splitter that makes this?

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Do i understand correctly that every monitor has to show a different image ? – Sibster May 15 '12 at 10:52
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You should look into more computers. One computer with 24 monitors is hard enough if even possible, but 24 web browsers? That could potentially be very laggy. Especially if it involves animations. – Bob May 15 '12 at 10:53
Not to mention your VGA / whatever cables would have to be long as hell. – ekaj May 15 '12 at 12:12
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some companies sell that kind of solution. Problably costs much more than buying web-pcs – woliveirajr May 15 '12 at 14:20
As Bob has mentioned, this seems unfeasible.. If it were me, I would be be looking at trying to scrounge some old machines that someone else is looking to throw away, install linux on them, and then buy an old switch to connect them all to your server. It might not get around IE/Safari, but it should cut your numbers down for Opera, Chrome, Firefox.. – indifferentDrum Jul 3 '12 at 13:25

9 Answers

up vote 10 down vote

The possibilities for 24 monitors are a bit limited. There are Video Signal Splitters, but those will be of no use for you as they can only show the same image as far as I know. There are also graphics cards with more than one output, but that would mean that you need 6-12 graphics cards, depending on the number of outputs your card has. There are Graphics cards with 12 outputs, but I don't see them as really feasible.

Depending on what your Web Browsers have to display, the possible solutions may vary.

Do your Web Browser Windows have to display local files? If so, do these Web Browser Windows have to run on the same computer? If not, you can share your files to other computers, have them display it. This would require 6-12, maybe 24 computers. Those clients could be really thin, you could even use netbooks.

If the Files need to be displayed/run on the same computer, you could use a Remote Desktop Solution allowing more than one screen, like Windows Server has. If you use the Windows Remote Terminal Services Server though you'd have to buy licenses for each unique Session you can show simultanuously. Other free RDP Tools might help you.

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Yes, it seems that way, but that was not exactly what I meant. I meant that with RDP you can create a new Session for every time you log in, meaning 10 people with the same user can log in, each having a separate session/desktop and open applications. You could run a browser in each of those. They would be somewhat independent, yet running on the same hardware. – Andreas May 15 '12 at 14:34
up vote 3 down vote

What kind of budget do you have? There are External USB to DVI devices on the market one such device is made by NewerTech.

I suppose you could purchase 24 of these devices and hook them up to 2 16-port USB Hubs.

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Budget is not an issue. Thank you. – kuzulio May 16 '12 at 5:11
up vote 3 down vote

Is it a strict requirement that only 1 PC is used to control the 24 monitors? A larger number of PCs with fewer monitors each could be controlled via the use of KVM switches so that you only need 1 mouse and keyboard. Each of these lesser PCs would be relatively simple to set up.

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up vote 2 down vote

For something like that you will need to get specialist hardware, which will be quite expensive.

Since Matrox left the consumer graphics card market, they have concentrated on specialist display technologies, including display walls.

The Matrox Mura MPX Series may be what you are looking for.

Matrox Mura MPX Series

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up vote 2 down vote

There exist motherboards with 4x PCI-E x16 slots (e.g. MSI X48). If you were careful how you populated that board you could do it, e.g. on that example board:

  1. 4x 4 monitor graphics cards (e.g. Quadro NVS 420) gives 16 straight off
  2. There's 2 additional PCI-E x1 slots, populating them (e.g. Quadro NVS 295s come in PCI-E x1 dual output variants) takes you to 20.
  3. There's also one plain old PCI slot, populating that with a suitable quad output card (e.g. Matrox made quite a few that can be picked up still) takes you up to 24.

So it's theoretically possible with off the shelf hardware. That's going to set you back quite a lot though! It would probably be cheaper to get several machines and use software (e.g. Xdmx) to merge them (if you even really want to merge them)

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There are 6-port ATI cards. If the driver supports four cards it might work. – fstx May 15 '12 at 18:08
@fstx - I was thinking of doing the software side with Linux and my experience of the ATI drivers for Linux lead me to rule them out pretty much immediately. – Flexo May 15 '12 at 18:10
up vote 1 down vote

You'll need to add several new video cards and make clever use of VGA splitters. It's easy to hook up to three monitors to a single PC, 24 is possible but pretty hard (and costly) to accomplish.

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The original poster said "different web browsers windows on each monitor". A splitter can only show the same image on multiple monitors. – Dave Becker May 15 '12 at 16:26
up vote -1 down vote

This won't solve your problem completly, but it should help. Matrox has products that multiply your video outputs by three: TripleHead2Go DisplayPort for DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt and TripleHead2Go Digital for Dual-link DVI or VGA. They create a stretched desktop with a maximum resolution of 5760x1080 (3x 1920x1080) across three displays.

TripleHead2Go DisplayPort adds up to three monitors to your notebook or desktop computer

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up vote -2 down vote

Must be a simple task. You need a video distribution amplifier (or 2 or 3 or more depending on the number of channels) http://www.keene.co.uk/electronics/multi.php?mycode=VM92 http://www.mcmelectronics.com/search.aspx?&K=Ce%20labs

Connect all your monitors to it. The input is going to be your computer (you might need splitters for that). Then (depending on the resolution) open multiple browser windows in tile mode in your computer and match them to each monitor position.

Buy several of these http://teqdigital.com/Products.aspx?categoryid=Pdo104&productid=PVW3x31007 and do the same in your one computer.

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The original poster said "different web browsers windows on each monitor". A distribution amplifier can only send the same image to multiple monitors – Dave Becker May 15 '12 at 16:27
up vote -4 down vote

I think this may help you a little bit.I am sharing a link where a setup is made of three screens for one computer - http://daggle.com/my-multimonitor-setup-three-screens-for-one-computer-76

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There's a giant difference between attaching three monitors and twenty four monitors. This is not really a useful answer. – slhck♦ May 15 '12 at 11:11

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