Dual Video Cards: Definitive Answer is?

[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.

[zanthor]

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[daviddoran]

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.