DS-59 Triple-Split

Question

Is it possible to split a DMS-59 to three (individual non-mirrored) DVI monitors? I haven't found any such cables available for purchase on the Internet. If not through a cable, how would I accomplish this?

Answer 1

Considering that the DMS-59 only contains two sets of DVI pins I would not expect to be able to split it to three separate DVI connectors. At most I would expect to see a DMS to two DVI connector cables.

In the image below the purplish colour is DVI2, and the light green is DVI1, I cannot find a third DVI.

If you want three monitors out of a graphics card then you will need to buy a card that specifically states support for three monitors. Matrox have a series of devices that are specifically made for this such as their "TripleHead2Go" and I believe that high end ATi cards with Eyefinity can also drive three monitors as long as certain requirements are met. I believe as long as you get a card with three display outputs (with at least one "DisplayPort") then you should be able to use 3 or more monitors.

ATi have a "configurator" to choose a graphics card that supports more monitors.

Nvidia cannot apparently do similar on their older (pre-500 series) cards as without buying a second graphics card as this review and their own page for the GTX480 seems to suggest:

Use two GeForce GTX 480 cards in NVIDIA® SLI® configuration to project across three displays with NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround technology

Nvidias 3D Vision Surround Requirements page only lists SLI systems as supporting more than two monitors.

If you only have a card with a DMS-59 output then you will only be able to split the output to two DVI connectors using a cable such as this one which looks a little like this

Without fitting another graphics card into your computer or getting a card that supports more displays there is no way you will be able to drive more than two monitors.