ArKaos MediaMaster now fully supports multi-screen output in Windows Vista & 7 for Multi-head graphics cards. This means you can connect several displays to one graphic card and MediaMaster will spread the output across those connected displays.

To illustrate this, we’ve filmed the results of the tests we’ve done with a six-heads graphics card – the “ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition” – installed in an A10 media server which we connected to a bunch of DVI screens.

The interesting point with this card is that this setup can come as an alternative to the now commonly used “two-heads graphic card + two Matrox TripleHead2Go” setup. Below is the video, read further for the details..

Note that, on the six Mini DisplayPort outputs of the card, only two can directly support DVI displays (other will only accept Mini DisplayPort) so we converted the four others to DVI with USB powered active boxes.

Dead-simple configuration in MediaMaster:

• Most importantly you should start by setting up the correct display arrangement in Windows before you launch MediaMaster, because it will take this display arrangement as a reference.
• Once in MediaMaster, in the preference dialog, under the “Display” tab, check out “Full Screen Monitor” and you will notice that the number of outputs is indicated (e.g. “ATI Radeon HD 5870 x 6?).  Then “Display Resolution” shows the resolution per display (e.g. “1680 x 1050 x 6?).

• If it’s correct, you just have to select in “Multi-Monitor Arrangement” the option corresponding to your physical setup so MediaMaster knows in which order you have arranged the displays.

Ta-da! Your multi-screen configuration is done..