One video card per monitor?

[Payne]

I have been successfully dualboxing WoW with a Geforce GTX 260 graphics card. I recently purchased a GTX 470 to replace it. It occurred to me that I now have two usable graphics cards, either of which can easily handle an instance of WoW by itself.

Is it possible to have both graphics cards installed at the same time (I have the slots on my motherboard), and to have each card running one monitor. So basically the 470 powering my primary display with my main copy of WoW, and the 260 powering my secondary display with my second copy of WoW? If I can do this, is there a performance gain?

This is on Windows Vista 32-bit (although after Christmas it will probably be Windows 7 64-bit), using Keyclone.

Thanks very much for any info.

(Sorry if this has been asked before. I've looked around the forums for an hour or so and didn't find a consensus.)

[MiRai]

ISBoxer is currently the only software that offers the ability to use multiple video cards, however, if the screen(s) attached to
the 260's monitor moves over to the 470's monitor, there will be a performance hit. At the moment, if you have the option to
run a single card setup for WoW then I would do just that.

[Payne]

So trying this with Keyclone wouldn't work at all? Or it would just be a performance loss? I use Keyclone to assign each instance of WoW to its own monitor, and the windows don't move, so there shouldn't be any overlap of the game(s) between screens). They should each just fill their own screen.

I'm not totally against the idea of just using 1 card (the 470). I would just feel bad if there was additional performance to be gained out of my 260 that was going to waste.

[MiRai]

So trying this with Keyclone wouldn't work at all? Or it would just be a performance loss? I use Keyclone to assign each instance of WoW to its own monitor, and the windows don't move, so there shouldn't be any overlap of the game(s) between screens). They should each just fill their own screen.

I'm not totally against the idea of just using 1 card (the 470). I would just feel bad if there was additional performance to be gained out of my 260 that was going to waste.

Oh, actually... now with that option added right into WoW's video settings you can use whatever software you'd like to do it.
I apologize I am still adjusting to Cataclysm as I'm sure most people are.

I'm not 100% sure you would gain performance, if you've got the cards you might as well run some tests yourself. I would say
the 470 should be sufficient to run 5 games on, let alone 2.

[Payne]

Oh yes, I'm confident the 470 will do a good job. I'm just a bit of a graphics whore. I'd like to play with reasonable framerates with the eye candy turned up as high as is practical, so I'm looking to steal whatever performance I can. I guess when all else fails, I can always try it both ways and see what works better. Was just wondering if anyone had any experience doing something similar that might save me some time.

Thanks very much!

[Ualaa]

I'd run both monitors off of the 470, but have both cards installed in the system.

[Payne]

I'd run both monitors off of the 470, but have both cards installed in the system.

That's an interesting option that I hadn't considered. If you don't mind my asking, could you explain how that would help? If no monitor is connected to the second card, and they're not in SLI (which I hear is bad for WoW anyway), what is the second card doing?

Many thanks.

[ILikeTwins]

I believe you can run non matched nvidia video cards so that one of them processes all of the physics and the main one processes all of the rest. It isn't sli since they don't match but I think it can speed up gpu processing.

I am not sure if there is anything special you need to do in order to configure it but a quick google search would probably give you any answers you needed in that regard.

[Payne]

Interesting link regarding PhysX and multiple cards:
http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_cuda_learn.html
I suppose my situation is the one they label "Multi Card". Seems it's possible to "Use the NVIDIA control panel to take complete control over your PhysX configuration. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Or, use 2 or 3 identical graphics cards to do both SLI and PhysX to experience maximum, heart-stopping realism."

As I understand it, WoW doesn't really benefit from PhysX. But I suppose if I have any other games that use it, it will be nice.

[MiRai]

That's an interesting option that I hadn't considered. If you don't mind my asking, could you explain how that would help? If no monitor is connected to the second card, and they're not in SLI (which I hear is bad for WoW anyway), what is the second card doing?

Many thanks.

The 260 would be doing nothing and could either be used to hook up more monitors to your computer or could be safely
placed wherever the rest of your old computer hardware goes. By using 2 monitors on 1 card this lets you not take a
performance hit when swapping characters between screens.