Help to get full quality from projector.

Matthewrextreme · January 4, 2023

I have a JVC sh7nlg projector in my media room and am having trouble finding a good way of driving it to its full capacity. The native resolution is 4096 x 2400 at 12 bit color but the only inputs are 4 dual link dvi. Currently I am driving it with my laptop through a display port splitter that outputs 4 display ports and then using an adapter to take those 4 display ports to dvi. My laptop has an rtx 2080 max p gpu and a i9900k cpu and drives the display with nvidia surround. With this I can get a 4096 x 2400 8 bit color image but I would like to get the full 12 bit color. The projector requires all 4 dvi ports at dual link to display 12 bit color. I can't seem to find any display port to dvi adapters that will output dual link dvi. I also looked into 2x2 video wall drivers but they only output 4 hdmi outputs and dont even support the quadrant resolutions of 2048x1200. I also couldn't find any graphics card that has 4 dual link dvi ports while also supporting nvidia surround.

emosun · January 4, 2023

That projector is 13 years old hence why its using such a weird interface to achieve not a very high resolution.

Have you checked the manual to see if you need a very legacy machine to run it with something like an old ati quad output gpu?

jaslion · January 4, 2023

Not really and it sucks why.

Dual link dvi is special special. Its not something that can be replicated on the cheap.

You firstly need an ACTIVE adapter for full bandwith. Then for your laptop it seems to allow 4 dp ports on a single header somehow which is lucky as that is normally not possible. a splitter cable normally is just supposed to duplicate the screen on each output.

So basically youd need an active dp to dual link adapter for each port and HOPE the cables have enough bandwith and agree with the projector. These are expensive as they are a niche product to solve a issue with old tech that is very uncommon

Bad5ector · January 4, 2023

While that projector sounds like it was ahead of its time... even going a tad higher in res than standard 4k. But unfortunately, like @jaslion said, you're going to need some more pricey active dp cables and even then, it's going to be a crap shoot if it just works.

Depending on how much your time is worth to you, it might be cheaper in the long run to get a newer 4k standard projector with more common inputs.

Angusticlavii · January 4, 2023

from the manual - it seems you need dual link for the 12bit color to work

BobVonBob · January 4, 2023

It's totally possible that you wouldn't get 12 bit color even with dual link DVI. I don't think consumer GPUs like the one in your laptop support 12 bit color currently, you'd probably need to use an old Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro GPU to get 12 bit.

Matthewrextreme · January 4, 2023

Is there any quadro gpu that has 4 dual-link dvi outputs, supports 12 bit color and can support nvidia surround.

emosun · January 5, 2023

10 hours ago, Matthewrextreme said:

Is there any quadro gpu that has 4 dual-link dvi outputs, supports 12 bit color and can support nvidia surround.

do you mind if its a decade old becuase thats the kind of gpu that would be expected to run a projector like that. You may have to build a legacy pc to use it as this is going to be windows xp/7 era hardware

Vishera · January 5, 2023

5 hours ago, emosun said:

do you mind if its a decade old becuase thats the kind of gpu that would be expected to run a projector like that. You may have to build a legacy pc to use it as this is going to be windows xp/7 era hardware

There are consumer cards that can do that on Windows 10 with the Amermine custom drivers.

Presenting to you the Visiontek HD 4670 X2 QUAD:

Techpowerup page: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/visiontek-hd-4670-x2-quad.b148

And it does indeed have 4x Dual-DVI ports as confirmed in this article:

https://www.legitreviews.com/visiontek-announces-an-ati-radeon-hd-4670-x2-quad-dvi-graphics-card_8763

There is also the Visiontek HD 2600 XT X2 QUAD: