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 ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=RGalleryImageWrapper&itemID=8&type=page') 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!! lolI 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 :)


-FrappI 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 :)

[Frappuccino]

I'm set up with FTL - so swapping in a PVP situation isn't an issue, I just need to move my mouse to what ever windows I want to change to. The 'extra work' is just when starting the sessions up, it's fine when they're going.

@ Rob - no unfortunately I can't use PiP as Keyclone thinks they're all running on the the same monitor. Any change in my roundrobin/do not pass set up means I need to restart all sessions. Not rly important but you may be able to get away without restarting the sessions if you change the primary monitor > unmaximise > remaximise, hence you aren't 'crossing the beams' but 'teleporting' the session (not that it really changes much:P)

I'll post some pics when i get home from work.

[Frappuccino]

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


Re the setting something to primary monitor. here's my understanding of it: The video card that is running the 'primary monitor' as set in windows, can render properly. Secondary cards cannot. If you change the primary monitor to a monitor on a 2nd (or 3rd..) card, the ability to render goes with it. Once you move the primary monitor setting back to how you originally had it, the 2nd card doesn't loose the ability to render the sessions that are running, it just keeps chugging away.

[zanthor]

You can use InnerSpace to launch wow on a specific video card - this would allow you to build 2 WoW profiles and launch them with a single click instead of a bunch of monitor voodoo!

[Frappuccino]

PIX

And those are vitamins and amino acids btw, not crazy pills !!


http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/146/img0338l.jpg

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2127/5wows.jpg

[mikekim]

here's the thread on my 2 pc 3 screen setup Link to original thread ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=9270') i initially tried to run all three screens off one machine with a 8800 Ulyra XT and GTX 260 but the FPS was really poor on the second card, so I bought a second machine.

I'm still getting 50-60 FPS through Northrend and no problems with swapping lead character, as each instance of wow is large enough to be useful. (1050x840 on the slaves)

[Pwnzor]

OMG! 16/9 Screenz, KILL THEM! :thumbsup:
gimmi ur pillz

[zanthor]

PIX

And those are vitamins and amino acids btw, not crazy pills !!


http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/146/img0338l.jpg

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2127/5wows.jpgOnce my 7900gt gets back from warranty repair (3rd times the charm?) I'm going to have to give this a shot, see if I can't get my two 22's running on either side of my 28" lcd...

[zanthor]

Once my 7900gt gets back from warranty repair
Is it a BFG card? Thier GT series are notorious for dying in my experience.. (3 cards myself I think). Warranty is always good though, so I can't complain too much.It's an MSI, each time they've developed artifacts after about 18 months... I think they don't cool their ram sufficiently.

[MiRai]

Once my 7900gt gets back from warranty repair (3rd times the charm?) I'm going to have to give this a shot, see if I can't get my two 22's running on either side of my 28" lcd... I would've thought that it would've been cheaper for MSi to just give you a new card by now. ?(

PIX

And those are vitamins and amino acids btw, not crazy pills !!


http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/146/img0338l.jpg

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2127/5wows.jpgWell when the time comes this could help me on my secondary computer having multiple video cards to help me see 10 accounts better :)

[zanthor]

I would've thought that it would've been cheaper for MSi to just give you a new card by now. ?( This card started it's life as a 7800gtx, first rma they gave me a 7900gt back, after that another new or refurbed 7900gt... so we'll see what I get THIS time.

[Frappuccino]

You can use InnerSpace to launch wow on a specific video card - this would allow you to build 2 WoW profiles and launch them with a single click instead of a bunch of monitor voodoo!

Does this really work? Launching a WoW session to a certain monitor is all fine and dandy but if windows won't render in OpenGL or what ever with the card which that monitor is connected to, then it won't really help. Innerspace would need to effectively tell windows for a very small amount of time that THIS is the primary monitor, allowing rendering on the 2nd GPU for the amount of time needed for wow to open up and jump to its designated area - or so I would think.

If it's just opening windows to certain areas, Keyclone does that fine, but it's not enough in this case.

Still i'm interested - if u can post pics/vid/more explanation or something that'd be cool :D

[zanthor]

You can use InnerSpace to launch wow on a specific video card - this would allow you to build 2 WoW profiles and launch them with a single click instead of a bunch of monitor voodoo!Does this really work? Launching a WoW session to a certain monitor is all fine and dandy but if windows won't render in OpenGL or what ever with the card which that monitor is connected to, then it won't really help. Innerspace would need to effectively tell windows for a very small amount of time that THIS is the primary monitor, allowing rendering on the 2nd GPU for the amount of time needed for wow to open up and jump to its designated area - or so I would think.

If it's just opening windows to certain areas, Keyclone does that fine, but it's not enough in this case.

Still i'm interested - if u can post pics/vid/more explanation or something that'd be cool :DI don't have two video cards in a single system at this time to test with, but unless I'm horribly mistaken:

http://dkpfiles.com/botbh/pics/tf2L13wquN5tjZZeK.jpg

I did verify there's a tieriary and 4th setting as well.

What this does is launch the game telling DirectX that THATS the hardware to use - same thing you do by telling windows use this hardware, launch wow, switch back. If I'm wrong I'm sure Lax will correct me :).

[MiRai]

I don't have two video cards in a single system at this time to test with, but unless I'm horribly mistaken:

I did verify there's a tieriary and 4th setting as well.

What this does is launch the game telling DirectX that THATS the hardware to use - same thing you do by telling windows use this hardware, launch wow, switch back. If I'm wrong I'm sure Lax will correct me :). I wish I had a third monitor at the moment to try this out and break up my 5 WoW instances into an H formation. I may very well have to go get one tomorrow. :) This whole time InnerSpace was the answer to our dual video card setup [w/o doing it manually]? I did see those settings back when disabled my console key [because accidentally hitting '~' can be quite annoying in game] but thought nothing of it.

EDIT:

Blah my secondary PCI-Express slot is x8 so I doubt I'll be able to do much. Got all excited and ahead of myself :)

[Frappuccino]

OMG! 16/9 Screenz, KILL THEM! :thumbsup:
gimmi ur pillz

It's funny I'm actualyl thinking of replacing them with 24" WUVGA ones lol.. 16:9 is kinda thin..
But I want PVA monitors instead of TN ones.. though I need to find some good ones that aren't overpriced. Anyone know a decent model?