Multiple Monitor Setup

[MiRai]

Hey guys. I figured if I had a hardware question that this was the best forum to ask a question in [as opposed to General]. So after seeing this pic of Elo's setup I got so excited I immediately bought a second nVidia GTX 260 for my system. Only to find out that 2 GPUs [non-SLi] across 2 [or 3 or 4] monitors only destroys the FPS on my main window. After searching on these forums about 2 GPUs it seems like "that's the way it is". So my question is...if I'm going to run 4 monitors [with 5 accounts] like in Elo's setup I would need the following:

System 1 - 2x Monitors [1 - Main Account / 1 - Whatever I Want]
System 2 - 2x Monitors [1 - Slaves x2 [Portrait] / 1 - Slaves x2 [Portrait]]

Correct?

Thanks for the help!

[Enndo]

Yeah for a setup like that you would need 2 pc's. Unfortunately WoW isn't smart enough to be rendered properly across 2 video cards in a single machine. I've got a kick ass i7 rig but i'm gonna build a cheaper amd quad core to run slaves on so I'll soon be using a duel pc boxing setup. Not that I really need to, 5 instances on my i7 is cake but i'm the grinch when it comes to resources so i need more!! lol

[Lax]

You can do it on the same PC, but you have to have the game launching the Direct3D instance on the desired video card, and then the window is restricted to the monitors driven by that card (consider it just like using 2 PCs, your windows are restricted to the PC they are launched on). There is (currently) no efficient way to transfer the buffers stored for rendering by card 1 to card 2 (or vice versa) and therefore it is always going to be slow if you move it to the other card. So yeah, "that's the way it is".

However, someone recently pointed this out to me: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/ which I believe would allow you to run 4 monitors off 1 card if you had 2 of those dual head bad boys, one for each output on the video card. That'd give you the monitor count you're looking for on one PC, and not drop your framerate like a rock if you move the windows around on all of them.

If you want to go 2 PCs, what you are thinking of would be fine.

[MiRai]

Yeah for a setup like that you would need 2 pc's. Unfortunately WoW isn't smart enough to be rendered properly across 2 video cards in a single machine. I've got a kick ass i7 rig but i'm gonna build a cheaper amd quad core to run slaves on so I'll soon be using a duel pc boxing setup. Not that I really need to, 5 instances on my i7 is cake but i'm the grinch when it comes to resources so i need more!! lol

I almost built an i7 system specifically for this...so maybe this is a sign Have my old C2D handle my 4 slaves and the new i7 handle whatever's on the main system. Almost seems like a waste though to just run one WoW account on the i7 system...but I'd be jealous if the better system was running my slaves. I think I'm just going to build a C2Q system and maybe overclock it a bit if need be.

You can do it on the same PC, but you have to have the game launching the Direct3D instance on the desired video card, and then the window is restricted to the monitors driven by that card (consider it just like using 2 PCs, your windows are restricted to the PC they are launched on). There is (currently) no efficient way to transfer the buffers stored for rendering by card 1 to card 2 (or vice versa) and therefore it is always going to be slow if you move it to the other card. So yeah, "that's the way it is".

However, someone recently pointed this out to me: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/ which I believe would allow you to run 4 monitors off 1 card if you had 2 of those dual head bad boys, one for each output on the video card. That'd give you the monitor count you're looking for on one PC, and not drop your framerate like a rock if you move the windows around on all of them.

If you want to go 2 PCs, what you are thinking of would be fine.

I have known about those Dual/TripleHead2Go's for awhile but never thought of what you're saying to try. I would maybe think that 4 monitors [2 giant screens] would almost be overkill for a single GPU card. Both out puts would be running at my card's max resolution of 2560x1600. Perhaps if I had a GTX 285 or GTX 295 [nVidia fanboy here ] that would be a route I'd be willing to take. But, with each of my monitors wanting a 'recommended resolution' of 1920x1080 and my GTX 260's max resolution at 2560x1600...that would force my monitors into 1280x800 and could possibly look distorted? Either way it's food for thought for someone who's hardcore enough to want more than 2 monitors but not willing to dish out the extra cash for a second system.

[Enndo]

Lol ya I considered putting my main on my AMD in progress and slaves on my i7, but like you said I would be jealous of my slaves lol. I want all the power to myself lol.

[falsfire3401]

I know there's an issue with 32-bit Windows, nVidia graphics, and running a DirectX game on the 2nd head of the video card (ie the 2nd monitor, plugged into the 2nd DVI port)

I know this because that's exactly my setup lol. Which is part of why I'm going to be switching to Win7-64.

[Frappuccino]

Hi guys,

You can do this. You just need to change the primary monitor before you launch the session of wow and it will render okay. When you change the primary monitor back to a monitor on your other gfx card the FPS will stay the same. As long as you don't 'cross the beams' so to speak and move the wow session from the monitor/vid card it was opened on to the other one, it'll stay at a normal, rendered fps.

I've got 3 monitors and 2x gtx 280's (H setup), my maximiser settings are set to open all 5 sessions on teh same monitor, but I need to change the primary monitor every time I open each wow session to their specific area. I have 2 on the left vertically stacked, monitor conencted to secondary vid card, 2 vertically stacked on the right monitor, connected to primary vid card, one in the centre, on the primary card too. As long as you change each monitor to the primary one in your display options you won't have a problem.

Edit - if my explanation about keyclone maximiser settings being set to the same window don't make sense I'll paste it from my config file when I get home. BTW someone should add this to the wiki probably, it caused me hell when I bought my system


-Frapp

[Drecan]

You can do it on the same PC, but you have to have the game launching the Direct3D instance on the desired video card, and then the window is restricted to the monitors driven by that card (consider it just like using 2 PCs, your windows are restricted to the PC they are launched on). There is (currently) no efficient way to transfer the buffers stored for rendering by card 1 to card 2 (or vice versa) and therefore it is always going to be slow if you move it to the other card. So yeah, "that's the way it is".

However, someone recently pointed this out to me: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/ which I believe would allow you to run 4 monitors off 1 card if you had 2 of those dual head bad boys, one for each output on the video card. That'd give you the monitor count you're looking for on one PC, and not drop your framerate like a rock if you move the windows around on all of them.

If you want to go 2 PCs, what you are thinking of would be fine.

ummm i want that box and i would probably run dual monitors on my desktop and the 2 slaves on my laptop lmao. that thing is awesome

[keyclone]

I've got 3 monitors and 2x gtx 280's (H setup), my maximiser settings are set to open all 5 sessions on teh same monitor, but I need to change the primary monitor every time I open each wow session to their specific area. I have 2 on the left vertically stacked, monitor conencted to secondary vid card, 2 vertically stacked on the right monitor, connected to primary vid card, one in the centre, on the primary card too. As long as you change each monitor to the primary one in your display options you won't have a problem.

ok.. first, please screenshot the whole desktop into one pic and show us? how about a camera pic of the monitors in action?

also.. what is this about setting something to primary monitor before launching wow? does that establish the graphics memory/card that wow will run on? and can you 'pip swap' screens after they are laid out? (i'm guessing not, for the 'crossing the streams' issue mentioned earlier)

thanks,

Rob

[MiRai]

Hi guys,

You can do this. You just need to change the primary monitor before you launch the session of wow and it will render okay. When you change the primary monitor back to a monitor on your other gfx card the FPS will stay the same. As long as you don't 'cross the beams' so to speak and move the wow session from the monitor/vid card it was opened on to the other one, it'll stay at a normal, rendered fps.

I've got 3 monitors and 2x gtx 280's (H setup), my maximiser settings are set to open all 5 sessions on teh same monitor, but I need to change the primary monitor every time I open each wow session to their specific area. I have 2 on the left vertically stacked, monitor conencted to secondary vid card, 2 vertically stacked on the right monitor, connected to primary vid card, one in the centre, on the primary card too. As long as you change each monitor to the primary one in your display options you won't have a problem.

Edit - if my explanation about keyclone maximiser settings being set to the same window don't make sense I'll paste it from my config file when I get home. BTW someone should add this to the wiki probably, it caused me hell when I bought my system


-Frapp

I am just a little confused. That sounds like a lot of work if you're swapping characters around in say a PvP situation. I spoke to Elo about his setup and he said he did indeed run 2 video cards on 1 computer with his 'H' setup as well. He assured me that both of his PCI-Express slots were x16 and that was the way to go. Now I figured that was going to be the case and I knew when I bought this motherboard it wasn't made for SLi and so my secondary PCI-Express slot is x8. It's not really a big deal to me as I see myself 10 boxing in the future so I'll just be building a secondary quad core computer