Keeping support for four monitors in the linux code probably meant adding a bunch of #ifdefs in various files.
They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to maintain.
We'll never know. That's a binary blob on your machine.
> That's a binary blob on your machine.
On my machine? It's less likely than you might think.
There is probably a lot of use cases for many monitors that don't really require Windows (perhaps pro power-users, like traders, who need lots of browser windows open at once), so they need to ensure that their premium cards retain their edge even on Linux.
That makes much more sense.
That's a good point; I cannot say. Perhaps they think they are dealing with people who think 3D performance is necessary, or dealing with people (IT organizations?) that prefer 1st party drivers to hardware savings.
I don't think Microsoft is really involved in this though.
People buy hardware to use their advertised features. If you are the type of person that only needs 2D rendering and video then you should use an Intel GPU. I would assume people who buy a state-of-the-art dedicated GPU want to use them for actual 3D acceleration.
Think full-screen apps that call APIs that aren't going to work across screen boundaries.
I have the 560 Ti and it's capable of playing most current games comfortably. The newer cards seem to be able to do 4 monitors, but the 500 series is being left behind by nvidia as they push the 600/700 series with their shield and shadowplay features.
Then again, I find the simplicity argument somewhat convincing as well. NVidia's unified driver model must be hellishly complicated anyway, anything they can do to keep control of the complexity is probably something they'd greet with open arms.