Monitor & two video cards

[Szymon]

Hello all,
I have one Firestream 9250 and one HD4870.I just need HD4870 to connect to the monitor and Firestream 9250 only used to compute. How to configure the system (xorg.conf)? I'm using Ubuntu 8.04.

[Eldon]

• You can use Firestream 9250 as any other video card. While setting up the system, the only thing you need to be remember is that the 9250 does not need to be connected to a monitor to be active, while Radeon cards (HD4870) do need to be hooked up to a monitor.
  
  
• So, to answer your question, configure xorg.conf as you would for any two video cards. No need to do anything special. If you have set up everything correctly, the CAL sample FindNumDevices should show two devices.
  
  
• BTW, FireStream cards can live alone without another video card -- they can drive 2D video without much stress on their compute ability. But that is not to say that you should not have a HD4870 along with a Firestream 9250 -- you now have two powerful GPUs!
  
  
• When using CAL, there are APIs to specify which card you want to run your compute programs on. When using Brook+, you set the BRT_ADAPTER environment variable to 0 or to 1 to direct your program to run on the first or the second GPU.

[Szymon]

Thanks for Nice Reply. But I'm afraid that it is not my expected answer. Note this statement "Ensure a monitor is plugged into the graphics card. A monitor is required for each card in a system with multiple cards." I only have one monitor .

[Eldon]

Let me Explain you:

1. Imagine you have two 4870s. The xorg.conf file that you will use in that case is the same as the file you will use for 4870+9250 configuration. I cannot test it for you right now; but i am sure the driver help files and google will turn up something for you.
   
   
2. Trust me, 9250 will work without being connected to a monitor -- remember to use FireStream drivers. 4870 will not work if it is not plugged to a monitor.
   
   
3. If the setup is giving you trouble, take out the 4870 and use the 9250 to do both jobs -- driving the monitor and doing compute.

Hope this helps.