3 Monitors

[ERP]

I'm considering buying a 24 inch LCD monitor and keeping my existing two 19 inch LCD's.

That pretty nmuch means that I have to go to 2 video cards, If I get one of those SLI motherboards I assume I can put two cards in there that aren't SLI?

If the second video card has a significantly lower feature set than the first (I'd us it to drive the outside monitors for development, 2D only), if I were to run a game windowed on the 24 inch monitor windows would jst cope possibly with issues if I drag the image to one of the monitors with the lower feature set card?

 

[Rys]

Yeah, you can run different cards without SLI in the slots provided their drivers play nicely together. I used to run an NV + ATI board setup in an SLI mainboard for three heads not so long ago, for example, and always had to install drivers NV first then ATI.

As for dragging a window being rendered on one board to the other, I know NVIDIA has a specific 3D acceleration mode for that case, when using different 3D chips. It makes sure 3D apps never see any more features than the lowest common denominator, for making sure things Just Work(tm).

Otherwise you'll probably see performance take a nose dive as the image is still rendered on the main GPU and then blitted to an area in the other card's memory over the PCI Express bus. Depends where the render context was first created I guess, and the drivers used.

 

[AlexV]

Isn`t there some thing/box/whatever made by Matrox which enables this functionality without having to resort do a second vid card?

 

[ERP]

Isn`t there some thing/box/whatever made by Matrox which enables this functionality without having to resort do a second vid card?

Yes but it works by looking like a single large monitor, and since the vertical resolution of the 19's and the 24's is different, and because I want the 19's in portrait mode on either side of the 24 I'd have to run some of the monitors in none native resolutions.

 

[AlexV]

Okie, sorry for bringing it up without adequate research.

 

[db]

Yeah, you can run different cards without SLI in the slots provided their drivers play nicely together. I used to run an NV + ATI board setup in an SLI mainboard for three heads not so long ago, for example, and always had to install drivers NV first then ATI.

btw, in Vista with WDDM drivers only drivers from one manufacturer at a time are supported, so no mixing of manufacturers.

 

[Dooby]

I run a 20" TFT, a 22" CRT and a 24" TFT from a X1900XT and a X300SE in a NV SLI ASUS A*N mobo. Just plugged both cards in, connected monitors, booted, Windows spaz's for a second when it finds the second gfx card, reboot, all monitors work, organise at will. Much easier than I expected.

IIRC, the Matrox TripleheadGO can't handle above a 1280x1024 resolution, so it's usless for > 19" monitors.

 

[Blazkowicz]

the matrox thing is also limited to 60Hz so useless for CRT. It seems to be quite a niche item.

yes, triple monitor is super easy. I tried it in the past with three out of age CRTs, running on three cards : voodoo5 AGP, S3 virge DX PCI, and virge PCI, under windows 98. people expect big annoyances but it's real plug'n'play.
and, on that setup I had three hardware overlays . dooby, you have two?

 

[Dooby]

hardware overlays?

 

[Sobek]

Just wondering Dooby...that Dell CRT you have there is a 21" isn't it? The only 22" made by Dell has a substantially different fascia. Is yours the P1130 or P1230?

 

[Dooby]

Its a P1230, it does measure 22", but it does look like a P1130 now that I've googled.

I might replace the "smaller" monitors this month with a couple of 30" Dells. They are only special deal for "only" £1000 each until the end of Nov. They could be my xmas present to myself.

 

[Davros]

maybe a tripplehead2go would do you plus you only need 1 vid card
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/home.php

using 2 cards you wont be able to run a game and have it use the 3 monitors

 

[Dooby]

Forum Lesson 101 : Before posting, make sure you actually READ the thread you are posting into. NB: posts can seem especially foolish when you repeat something that has been discussed in a thread that is less than 10 posts long.

IIRC, the Matrox TripleheadGO can't handle above a 1280x1024 resolution, so it's usless for > 19" monitors.