is this possible?

[Multibocks]

I've never tried two cards that weren't connect (ie SLI) and was wondering if you have two different monitors for one computer would it work to have each card dedicated to one monitor? To be honest I'm not sure its totally necessary. I have one 580 and two 24" monitors. Now I box, so one monitor will have main screen with for slave on other.

The only other thing that I do is SWTOR and honestly the 580 is fine for that. Do I hours my questions are:

A. Will it work?
B. Its there much to gain our am I wasting money?

[Khatovar]

I use 1 card per monitor. Card1/monitor1 is dedicated to my master, Card2/monitor2 is for my slaves, browser and chat.

I couldn't speak to gain. My husband bought me 2 cards so I could run SLI for games I don't multibox.

However, I have noticed a few things. I can't run both master and slaves in DX11 for WoW. Trying to put the slaves into DX11 keeps sticking my slaves in 800*600 and running it from the primary card/screen. And because it's trying to run on the wrong card, when my screens get bumped over to the proper screen, I see a huge performance hit.

But it works just dandy with the master in DX11 and slaves on DX9 or everyone on DX9.

[Multibocks]

Good to know! I guess I will just see what performance is like for the next few Weeks before trying another card.

[MiRai]

Ran this test back in August for splitting the load:

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=341846&postcount=48

Like Khat said... I couldn't assign different monitors per game windows through WoW's settings using DX11 w/o the game
flipping out... it only worked in DX9 which seemed like a waste unless you were running a massive amount of characters. I
never got around to trying to force it through InnerSpace's configuration using DX11, though. As for SW:TOR, while in theory
it should work through InnerSpace's configuration (if there isn't an in-game option) I really have no idea how it will perform.

[dancook]

On one pc, I'm running a GTX 480 (main) and an ATI 4870 HD Radeon card (slaves). I did it to lighten the load on the GTX480 which runs hot.

Occasionally I get a blank screen occur across all the windows.. I run them all in dx9 too - I wonder whether it's worth trying on just the GTX480 again.

[Multibocks]

Ran this test back in August for splitting the load:

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=341846&postcount=48

Like Khat said... I couldn't assign different monitors per game windows through WoW's settings using DX11 w/o the game
flipping out... it only worked in DX9 which seemed like a waste unless you were running a massive amount of characters. I
never got around to trying to force it through InnerSpace's configuration using DX11, though. As for SW:TOR, while in theory
it should work through InnerSpace's configuration (if there isn't an in-game option) I really have no idea how it will perform.


Ok sounds not worth it if you can't use dx11.

[Sajuuk]

Ran this test back in August for splitting the load:

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=341846&postcount=48

Like Khat said... I couldn't assign different monitors per game windows through WoW's settings using DX11 w/o the game
flipping out... it only worked in DX9 which seemed like a waste unless you were running a massive amount of characters. I
never got around to trying to force it through InnerSpace's configuration using DX11, though. As for SW:TOR, while in theory
it should work through InnerSpace's configuration (if there isn't an in-game option) I really have no idea how it will perform.

Squeee, tests!

On one pc, I'm running a GTX 480 (main) and an ATI 4870 HD Radeon card (slaves). I did it to lighten the load on the GTX480 which runs hot.

Occasionally I get a blank screen occur across all the windows.. I run them all in dx9 too - I wonder whether it's worth trying on just the GTX480 again.
The 480 series of GPUs ran/runs hot anyways, so...meh?


Ok sounds not worth it if you can't use dx11.

It hasn't been tested with dx11 (Due to issues in testing). And who's to say it's not worth it? If you get a performance boost, it's worth it, smoother gameplay with the same framerates is worth it.

on a side note. I'm coming back guys. New build will be complete within a week or so.

And guess what.

RAMDISKS vs SSD. Fight!

Squee.

[Cyrberus]

I have a Gtx480 and Gtx260. Both with their own screen. And all instances in directx11. Been doing this for a year already and dont remember having any problems with swapping or resolutions of slaves.

[MiRai]

I have a Gtx480 and Gtx260. Both with their own screen. And all instances in directx11. Been doing this for a year already and dont remember having any problems with swapping or resolutions of slaves.

You're leaving out quite a bit of details about your set up. Are you using Inner Space with config.wtf virtualization? Are the
correct monitors set within World of Warcraft's game options to each game instance or through Inner Space's game
configuration? Are you using cross-monitor swapping?

Swapping game clients between monitors that aren't driven by the same video card is going to give worse framerates
than if they were using their native monitor/gpu and I'm almost positive that this is a limitation of Microsoft Windows. For
example, you've got GameWindow01 powered by GPU01 on Monitor01 and GameWindow02 powered by GPU02 on
Monitor02. Now, if GameWindow02 swaps over to Monitor01 it's no longer being rendered by GPU02 because GPU02 can't
do anything to Monitor01 since it's not hooked up to it; therefore, GameWindow02 is now being rendered by software
instead of hardware which doesn't give the same framerates.

Also, the GTX 260 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html) doesn't technically support DX11, it just emulates it.

[jstanthr]

I have a Gtx480 and Gtx260. Both with their own screen. And all instances in directx11. Been doing this for a year already and dont remember having any problems with swapping or resolutions of slaves.


i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if all your clients are in dx11, then they are ALL running on the 480 and being crossed over to the 260 because no matter what drivers your running the 260 will never support anything above dx9

[jstanthr]

You're leaving out quite a bit of details about your set up. Are you using Inner Space with config.wtf virtualization? Are the
correct monitors set within World of Warcraft's game options to each game instance or through Inner Space's game
configuration? Are you using cross-monitor swapping?

Swapping game clients between monitors that aren't driven by the same video card is going to give worse framerates
than if they were using their native monitor/gpu and I'm almost positive that this is a limitation of Microsoft Windows. For
example, you've got GameWindow01 powered by GPU01 on Monitor01 and GameWindow02 powered by GPU02 on
Monitor02. Now, if GameWindow02 swaps over to Monitor01 it's no longer being rendered by GPU02 because GPU02 can't
do anything to Monitor01 since it's not hooked up to it; therefore, GameWindow02 is now being rendered by software
instead of hardware which doesn't give the same framerates.

Also, the GTX 260 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html) doesn't technically support DX11, it just emulates it.


i have 2 cards, non sli, mon1 to main and mon2/card2 to slaves. in wow i have the primary display on slaves set to mon2. i do cross monitor switching and there is sometimes a bit of delay but for the most part no perf dercrease or fps loss other than that initial second. its important though that you have your clients set to the right default monitor. it kinda looks weird when you launch and the slave clients start on 2nd display, bounce to main, resize to their home on 2nd. but that gave me the biggest boost in performance was making the clients set to the right monitor.

[jstanthr]

sorry for the post spam, but i think the reason i don't get a perf hit on cross monitor switching is due to my cpu/ etc. with more cores and faster clock rates, the occasional software rendering becomes trivial, mostly i guess to the fact that wow is more cpu intensive than gpu anyway. you can max all clients out and most of the time never hit 100% on your gpu unless there are like 200+ units to render

[MiRai]

i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if all your clients are in dx11, then they are ALL running on the 480 and being crossed over to the 260 because no matter what drivers your running the 260 will never support anything above dx9DX11 is a viable option in the drop-down menu of WoW's Graphics Options while running a GTX 260. I only know this
because I have 2 sitting in my closet. If a card doesn't support DX11 at all (even through emulation) then that drop-
down menu will be completely darkened out (unavailable).


sorry for the post spam, but i think the reason i don't get a perf hit on cross monitor switching is due to my cpu/ etc. with more cores and faster clock rates, the occasional software rendering becomes trivial, mostly i guess to the fact that wow is more cpu intensive than gpu anyway. you can max all clients out and most of the time never hit 100% on your gpu unless there are like 200+ units to renderYou could be right about faster CPUs being able to handle software rendering better because I haven't tried it since I
upgraded to this 2600. With this recent discussion I'm tempted to do more testing to see what I can come up with.

[jstanthr]

[QUOTE=MiRai;350642]DX11 is a viable option in the drop-down menu of WoW's Graphics Options while running a GTX 260. I only know this
because I have 2 sitting in my closet. If a card doesn't support DX11 at all (even through emulation) then that drop-
down menu will be completely darkened out (unavailable).

This must have been a recent change. I positively remember looking at that option when i was running 2 pc's and the slave pc having gtx280's in sli, the option was greyed out. i jst turned that box on and now its viable. i apologize for the mis-information