Skip to content
This repository was archived by the owner on Sep 23, 2025. It is now read-only.

quadro-sync.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
147 lines (89 loc) · 7.84 KB

quadro-sync.md

File metadata and controls

147 lines (89 loc) · 7.84 KB

Contents | Home > Quadro Sync setup

Quadro Sync setup

NVIDIA's NvAPI provides the capability to synchronize the buffer swaps of a group of DirectX swap chains when using Quadro Sync II boards. This extension also provides the capability to synchronize the buffer swaps of different swaps groups, which may reside on distributed systems on a network using a swap barrier. It’s essential to coordinate the back buffer swap between nodes, so it can stay perfectly synchronized (Frame Lock + Genlock) for a large number of displays.

Example WITHOUT Quadro Sync:

Without Quadro Sync

Notice that the camera cuts are NOT synchronized across the cluster.

Example WITH Quadro Sync:

With Quadro Sync

Notice that the camera cuts are perfectly synchronized across the cluster.

Requirements

Recommendations

  • Choose a motherboard that supports IPMI so you can remotely shutdown, restart and boot your nodes without needing physical access to the machines.
  • Place your emitter and repeater workstations on a dedicated network so that other network traffic does not interfere with the cluster.

Setup

  1. In Project Settings > Cluster Display, select the "Hardware" option in the Fence dropdown.

  2. Verify that your Unity project has Fullscreen Mode set to Exclusive Fullscreen

    Fullscreen Exclusive

  3. On each node in the cluster, verify that the display settings *Scale and Layout option is set to 100%:

    Scale and Layout to 100%

  4. On each node in the cluster, setup the following Nvidia Control Panel settings:

    • 3D Settings > Manage 3D Settings > Global Preset set to Workstation App–Dynamic Streaming

    Workstation App–Dynamic Streaming

    • Vertical Sync set to On. Note: must set Unity project to use V Sync

    Nvidia VSync

    • Set your desired resolution and frame rate.

    Resolution and Framerate

  5. On the "Synchronization master" node (often the emitter node), setup the following Nvidia Control Panel settings and make sure you set the server refresh rate to the HZ all your nodes are running at.

    Emitter settings

  6. On the "Synchronization slave" nodes (often the repeater nodes), setup the following Nvidia Control Panel settings.

    Repeaters settings

  7. If your using ethernet synchronization with your Quadro Sync cards, use Nvidia's recommendation regarding daisy chaining (DO NOT CONNECT the ethernet cables to a switch and daisy-chaining all servers from one port is not recommended):

    Connection diagram

  8. Configure synchronized Quadro frame presentation to "wait before presenting next frame" as opposed to "wait for presenting of current frame to be done". It allows the get a better frame rate by starting to work on the next frame while Quadro Sync is waiting for all nodes to be ready to present the frame. This should normally be done automatically by Mission Control installation but if you are not using it or want to do it manually, execute Nvidia's Configure Driver Utility in administrative mode and select option 11.

    configureDriver.exe

  9. Restart the cluster and the monitors for the repeater nodes briefly turn off, then back on after logging into the windows.

Multiviewers

Since both the Multiviewer and Nvidia Quadro Sync have reference input capability, you can use a tri-level sync generator from Black Magic to feed the reference signal to both the Multiviewer and Sync card.

For multiviewers, every server is output through DisplayPort and then converted to HDMI. The HDMI signal then goes to a Black Magic Design mini-converter and converted to SDI which goes directly in the Multiviewer.

Troubleshooting

You can use Nvidia's Configure Driver Utility to verify whether Quadro Sync is working as expected. Specifically option 8. and option 11.

configureDriver.exe

Option 8 will display a little driver debug GUI at the bottom left of any Direct X application.

If it looks like this, then Quadro Sync is working correctly:

Quadro Sync working

However, if it's not working then it will display something like this:

Quadro Sync not working

We recommend that you install this on each node within the cluster and setup a PSExec script to configure the driver on each node automatically:

# On the machine that your managing the cluster
for($i=41; $i -le 48; $i++) { # Loop through IP address range (41-48) for 192.168.5.*
    echo "Argument: $($args[0])"
    # Change this IP address
	psexec \\192.168.5.$i -h powershell "C:\cluster_applications\Tools\set-nvidia-config.ps1 $($args[0])"
    # The script were executing here is placed on each node.
}
# On each node, this script exists somewhere and gets executed by the script on the machine managing the cluster.
echo $args[0] | C:\cluster_applications\Tools\NvidiaTests\configureDriver.exe

Other Recommendations

PSExec

We do not recommend using PSExec or PSSessions to deploy and run your cluster as we've found that PSExec and PSSessions will start executables abnormally with extra security measures preventing Quadro Sync from working. Instead we recommend using Cluster Display's MissionControl application or writing a Python script that receives a message and executes the executable locally.

Operating system overlays – frame delay

Whenever you have operating system managed overlays (e.g. Windows Taskbar, TeamViewer windows, Windows File Explorer) on top of your Fullscreen Unity application, this may introduce a one-frame delay causing cluster synchronization artefacts.

Framerate drops – screen tearing

Framerate drops cause temporary loss of synchronization, which leads to temporary screen tearing until the framerate is back to the targeted one. For this reason, you should design your project experiences so that the framerate never drops.

Internal Test Hardware

We have tested the solution with the hardware and configuration detailed below.

Components