[Story] Studio Upgrade to UHD / 4K displays

Hi gang,

I want to share the story of upgrading my studio workstation (i7 980X, 24GB RAM, Win7 x64 Ultimate) to large displays (UHD/4K) just in case someone is thnking about doing the same. This whole endeavour took me a couple of days to get everything sorted. Here's what happened.

First I bought a new graphics card that supports UHD/4K displays. I went with a PNY GeForce GTX 970 first and I got 2 Samsung UHD/4K TV sets. Also I got a mini DisplayPort->HDMI adapter because the graphics cards only have one HDMI port so I needed to adapt a mini DisplayPort to HDMI.
Proud and highly motivated I reached my studio with all that gear and started to change the old GeForce GTX 285 with the newly acquired graphics card and hooked up the new monitors plus my old 30" Apple Cinema Display (via DVI). Result: one 4K display worked just fine, the other one (using the adapter) only worked at 1080p FullHD. Wow! What's wrong? Tried different adapters, different cables, flipped the displays. Nothing. Holy crap!

It took me a while to understand that this damn PNY card didn't support UHD/4K via its mini DisplayPort outputs. The product sheet said otherwise. So I returned that card and got me a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 card with DisplayPort connectors instead of the miniDP and a corresponting DP->HDMI adapter that supports 4K resolution. When I hooked it up, it just worked as expected ... almost.

As I mentioned above, I tried to use 2 x UHD/4K displays (via HDMI and DP) plus my old 30" Apple Cinema Display (via DVI). Both TV sets have to be set to HDMI UHD (simply activate this option in the UHD TV set). Looked really nice and perfect ... until I launched Cubase 8 Pro. Wow, can't run it because an error message tells me to activate Windows Aero. But for some unknown reason I couldn't activate it and Cubase 8 Pro won't run without Aero on Win7. A few hours (and a considerable amount of grey hair) later I found the solution:

Once I disconnect the Apple display everything was fine, UHD/4K looks GREAT, Aero is active, Cubase 8 Pro runs like a charm and I can enjoy the massive displays. phew, that was quite a task.

So if you think about doing the same (or similar), I hope I gave you an idea about potential troubles and how I solved them. If you have questions: Feel free to ask.

Cheers
Martin

PS: Once I've cleaned up the space I will post a picture what it looks like now.

Thanks, Gitarrenschlumpf. Nice to see that my post is already interesting to at least one.

I added 1 more piece of info in the above post: You need to set the TV sets to HDMI UHD mode!

I'm not sure you'll run into these troubles if you go for proper computer monitors that offer DisplayPort inputs. But I chose to use Samsung 40" TV sets because they are considerably cheaper and with 3840x2160 pixels each, I really want 40" per display. Now I'm happy and Cubase looks fantastic. Already looking forward to mix the next song with these huge screens.

Well, Rig Manager looks quite impressive, almost frightening:

And that's Cubase 8 Pro across 2 screens, yeehaw

Quote from MuddyFox

OK now we REALLY need some pics of your new desktop

Allright, here you go. My tiny home studio with 2 x 4K 40" monitors plus 1 x FullHD 27" monitor.

I mostly mix using my trusted headphones but I do have a pair of super-nice Elac active nearfield monitors which I use to doublecheck my mixes, especially for delay/reverb.
The Behringer X-Touch is switched off because I simply don't need it for the simple acoustic song I'm currently mixing. My favourite effects are a bit hidden, on top of the small rack below the table ... my Strymons (Mobius, Timeline, Big Sky). Also in the rack: TC Helicon Voicelive Rack, Focusrite Liquid Saffire Pro 56, Focusrite Octopre MkII Dynamic and 2 Behringer Sample Rate converters. Oh well, and then there is a Korg Kronos X 88 hidden in the image, haha.
But these 2 new displays are just fabulous. Pure joy to work with. Look at the Mixer window. Everything open, Routing, EQ, Strip, Sends ... I can see everything. No more folding, unfolding, scrolling, etc.

Cheers
Martin

Quote from MuddyFox

What exact models UHDs did you get?

The model is SAMSUNG UE40JU6450U
I could only get these 2 displays connected to the graphics card. If I connect more, then Windows Aero will be automatically off and Cubase 8 Pro won't work. Have to investigate this a bit more.
The 3rd display on top of the Kemper Profiler is connected to my Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme+ videocard at the moment.

I'm not sure you'll have similar problems using Win10 because afaik there is no such thing like Aero in Win10, not even in Win8.1.
Steinberg decided to make use of Aero features when Cubase is run on a Windows7 machine ... probably to get the meters render faster using the GPU. You might be lucky that you're going to use a more recent OS. I have no plans to upgrade the OS because I'm running a few important tools that will make problems with either Win8 or Win10.

When I bought all the gear for this UHD upgrade, I made sure I can return the gear within 14 days if I don't manage to get it to work. That saved me cause I had to return (exchange) the first graphics card and a few adapters I tried. As a bonus I told the guys my experience and findings so they learned something and should be prepared now if some other people come and ask for similar stuff. I think UHD displays on PCs will be the next big thing (if there's even something worth being called BIG in the "full fledged" computer market these days, hehe)..

I'm already looking forward to welcome the first tablet (iPad) audio warrior to come and see a decent audio workstation, compared to these jokes running on tablets, hahaha.