Dual Video Cards: Definitive Answer is?

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11-16-2009, 05:44 PM
Mosg2

Dual Video Cards: Definitive Answer is?

I'm going to be ordering a new computer this week and I need a definitive answer regarding Windows 7, dual monitors, and dual video cards.

I've heard some people say that one card for each monitor while multi-boxing under Windows 7 is fine. Others say it hasn't changed at all and will kill your FPS.

Definitive answer?
11-16-2009, 05:45 PM
zanthor

I can tell you that without a doubt, an 8800gt and a 7600gt work fine together.
11-17-2009, 04:57 AM
mooglej

Quote:

Originally Posted by zanthor

I can tell you that without a doubt, an 8800gt and a 7600gt work fine together.

so I believe what he is asking is, can you have 1 wow client on say video card 1 and then 2-4 clients on the monitor powered by video card 2 without a performance hit on fps? I myself have wondered the same thing.
11-17-2009, 05:14 AM
daviddoran

My video card took a tump last night, so I'm curious about this. I am about to buy an ATI 4770 and an active displayport adapter, so i can power 3 screens from one card.
11-17-2009, 01:51 PM
aboron

I'm using my old 8800 GTX and my new GTX 280 in this PC right now.

With IS, I have set up a second WoW profile that homes the followers on the screen they will mostly be living and the FPS is higher than when it's just set up with a single WoW profile. However, if you use PiP and swap them off this screen and onto the main screen their FPS is lower compared to the single profile method - since now they are trying to render cross-cards to get into that spot.
11-17-2009, 02:25 PM
Drommon

Quote:

Originally Posted by aboron

I'm using my old 8800 GTX and my new GTX 280 in this PC right now.

With IS, I have set up a second WoW profile that homes the followers on the screen they will mostly be living and the FPS is higher than when it's just set up with a single WoW profile. However, if you use PiP and swap them off this screen and onto the main screen their FPS is lower compared to the single profile method - since now they are trying to render cross-cards to get into that spot.

^ what he said.

AFAIK you need InnerSpace to take advantage of 2 or more GPU cards with monitors attached to each of them. I have IS, 2 GPU cards and 2 monitors. I put the tank on one monitor and the four slaves on the other monitor. IS then has the slaves rendered on the second GPU.

There is a tool called GPUZ. This tool allows you to see the load of GPUs you have. Before IS I had one card doing all the work running at 66%. Now both cards run at 34%. The Tank is set in eyecandy mode ( meaning the highest settings possible), the slaves are all running minimum settings except for viewing distance which is set at maximum.

When I am in dalaran, thr tank gets 40 fps and th slaves get 20fps. Elsewhwere the tank gets 60 fps and the slaves get 30 fps ( i capped them 60/30).

I have 2 ATI 4850 cards. They are old I know, but they do more than I need.

Now when you PiP. all fps drops due to cross rendering. But I rarely PiP.

Drommon
11-17-2009, 08:28 PM
mooglej

So this functionality is solely found within IS? Could keyclone's maximizer also do this?
11-18-2009, 12:38 AM
Ualaa

You can run more then one monitor off of a single card.
And with multiple cards, you can physically plug a monitor into each.

SLI/Crossfire doesn't seem to do much for warcraft.
And without IS, I don't know of a way to force each instance of wow to not just use the first card.

But you can certainly plug them in however you want.
11-18-2009, 07:22 AM
QuantumX

I run a ATI5870 and 8800GTS in the same box, 3 monitors on the 5870 and 2 on the 8800 it works fine i can run main on full setting and other on lower setting i lock fps at 30 on main and 15 on others i could get more fps but you don't really need it in WoW.

I find the cards work well together, i'm using IS Boxer.

My system is i7 920 with 12gb Ram, and running wow on a intel SSD. I run 5 account at once each full screen on each of the 5 screens.
11-18-2009, 07:09 PM
Ualaa

Out of curiosity, what are the resolutions of your monitors?
11-20-2009, 05:33 AM
daviddoran

So, with ISBoxer, and windows 7, i should be able to use 2 video cards without my system lagging like crazy? I'm about to buy a new video card, im normally an nvidia fan, but the ATI Eyefinity appeals to me for a one monitor solution, but if I can just grab a GTX 275 or something, that would probably be better.
11-20-2009, 06:48 PM
zanthor

Quote:

Originally Posted by aboron

I'm using my old 8800 GTX and my new GTX 280 in this PC right now.

With IS, I have set up a second WoW profile that homes the followers on the screen they will mostly be living and the FPS is higher than when it's just set up with a single WoW profile. However, if you use PiP and swap them off this screen and onto the main screen their FPS is lower compared to the single profile method - since now they are trying to render cross-cards to get into that spot.

What OS are you running?

I say this because I run 5 copies of wow off a single IS profile and have zero framerate changes when I cross video cards. This was the case in Vista as long as I crossed HEADS of a single video card, but crossing p hysical cards caused huge performance hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daviddoran

So, with ISBoxer, and windows 7, i should be able to use 2 video cards without my system lagging like crazy? I'm about to buy a new video card, im normally an nvidia fan, but the ATI Eyefinity appeals to me for a one monitor solution, but if I can just grab a GTX 275 or something, that would probably be better.

ISBoxer isn't necessary for this with Windows 7 and NVidia cards. I don't know if this works for ATI cards because I haven't dropped money on an ATI card in 6 years.
11-20-2009, 06:53 PM
aboron

I'm running Windows 7 now, but when I set this up I was using Vista. I haven't really tried going back to just laying it out and letting it do it's own thing after I went to 7 - just figured what I had was good and redeployed it after the install.
11-22-2009, 01:57 PM
QuantumX

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuantumX

I run a ATI5870 and 8800GTS in the same box, 3 monitors on the 5870 and 2 on the 8800 it works fine i can run main on full setting and other on lower setting i lock fps at 30 on main and 15 on others i could get more fps but you don't really need it in WoW.

I find the cards work well together, i'm using IS Boxer.

My system is i7 920 with 12gb Ram, and running wow on a intel SSD. I run 5 account at once each full screen on each of the 5 screens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Out of curiosity, what are the resolutions of your monitors?

Main is 1600x1200 (23in Wide Screen)

rest = 3 @ 1280x0124 1 @ 1280x960 (These are the native resolutions of the mish mash of monitors i have)

Also i run windows 7 64bit, I get no lag at all from the slaves or the master... the main has most effects set to maximum, and the slaves are set to minimum except for viewing distance which is set to maximum. as said i lock the FPS, but i could let it go higher easily enough..

I run the latest ATI drivers from their site, while i use the windows drivers for the Nvidia 8800GTS card.
11-22-2009, 06:18 PM
daviddoran

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuantumX

Main is 1600x1200 (23in Wide Screen)

rest = 3 @ 1280x0124 1 @ 1280x960 (These are the native resolutions of the mish mash of monitors i have)

Also i run windows 7 64bit, I get no lag at all from the slaves or the master... the main has most effects set to maximum, and the slaves are set to minimum except for viewing distance which is set to maximum. as said i lock the FPS, but i could let it go higher easily enough..

I run the latest ATI drivers from their site, while i use the windows drivers for the Nvidia 8800GTS card.

So windows 7 gets around Vista's sillyness that didn't allow ATI and NVidia to play nice together?

I've been all nVidia for quite a while now, and havent really thought much about ATI, but their new eyefinity sounds awesome. I was going to get a 5870 but they are hard to find in stock anywhere.