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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, 2012 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, 2012 at 10:53
  • Not to mention your VGA / whatever cables would have to be long as hell.
    – cutrightjm
    May 15, 2012 at 12:12
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    some companies sell that kind of solution. Problably costs much more than buying web-pcs May 15, 2012 at 14:20
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    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.. Jul 3, 2012 at 13:25

14 Answers 14

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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, 2012 at 14:34
  • Beware--that 12 port card is Powercolor. Many years ago I had a run-in with one of their engineers who insisted that multiple video cards could not coexist. (And, at least at that time, two of theirs were not able to play nice with each other. I had contacted support because of the problem, ended up directed to this engineer who insisted Windows did not support multiple cards.) Hopefully they have learned better by now. Aug 22, 2017 at 2:15
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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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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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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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We are using in our company VGA over LAN units that allow you to connect up to 20 screens to a single PC and the screens can be located anywhere in your establishment. Also, each screen is showing different content.

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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, 2012 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, 2012 at 18:10
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This won't solve your problem completly, but it should help. Matrox has products that multiply your video outputs by three:

They create a stretched desktop with a maximum resolution of 5760 x 1080 (3 x 1920x1080) across three displays.

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

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  • Which takes it down to 8 ports--easily within the range of what you can put in a PC. Aug 22, 2017 at 2:09
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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. May 15, 2012 at 16:26
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I think you need more graphic cards because it will be very laggy if 24 screens are running on 1 graphic card. (24 screens on a Intel Core i8 overclocked has still lag so don't try that...)

A tip if you play HD games like COD, GTA or Minecraft, you should use one graphic card for each screen (but if you only need 1 screen for HD games you can also do 1 graphic card for that screen and the other screens use 1 for 2).

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Old question but it is technically possible.

Something like the AMD W9000 firepro can drive 6 displays simultaneously.

If you put 4 of those into a dual CPU motherboard with 4 x PCIe 16X slots it should and give you 24 independent displays.

I do believe it has been tried before.

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A powered USB hub and a bunch of HDMI-USB adapters.

The make, "Plugable", seems to make both a USB hub with a good amount of amps, and a bunch of USB-HDMI adapters.

Apparently may be OK with USB3.

This guy is doing it, not with 24, but there is no reason why he couldn't have another USB hub connected.

enter image description here

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You can do this with three NVIDIA NVS 810 cards (Amazon link). Each card supports up to eight displays, so three of them means you can hook up 24 displays to the system.

The maximum supported configuration is 32 displays using four NVS 810 cards.

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You're not going to be able to plug all of them into one box. However, you can build your own virtual 'splitter' out of other machines using XDMX or one of its alternatives.

xdmx - http://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.6/doc/man/man1/Xdmx.1.xhtml It can be complicated to set up but lets you extend your desktop across any number of remote machines. Many people use this to create budget display walls.

There are also alternatives for other OS. Screenrecycler is one for Mac. See other alternatives here: http://alternativeto.net/software/screenrecycler/

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  • You're wrong on the very first sentence!
    – hookenz
    Jul 16, 2014 at 2:33
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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 May 15, 2012 at 16:27

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