Dual Video Cards in Vista?

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H-street

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 25, 2005
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Does anyone know how to get 2 video cards to work in Vista?

i have Vista Home Premium 32 with an ATI 4850, for some reasons or another i need to add a 2nd video card..

either a 2nd PCI-E card (my 8800GT) or even a PCI card (I have a few that i can add)..

everything i try always comes up with the 2nd video card being disabled with an error Code 43..


i've been really enjoying vista up to this point and i really hope i am just missing something as far as getting these to work..
 
Both cards need to use the same drivers...

You cant run seperate video drivers side by side anymore like you used to be able to do in previous versions.

For the most part this just means two of the same family card. i believe the drivers for ATI's HD4870 family will work with as low as a Radeon 9500 but don't hold me to this.

But to make it short and sweet, they need to use the same drivers for the to both function
 
ok i think I found a nugget that will get close to working.. I really just have no idea how to force it..
I found this on My Nero

MyNero said:
...

Notice that XPDM drivers still support heterogeneous multi-adapter as they did in Windows XP. A user who has such a configuration working fine in Windows XP will encounter a problem when upgrading to Windows Vista. An external monitor connected to one of the graphics adapters will have no video signal, because it is disabled. An error message will appear on system boot, as described later in this article.

The solution for this problem could be as follows:

• A user could force the installation of a XPDM driver for each of these devices, and therefore get heterogeneous multi-adapter multi-monitor to work as in Windows XP.

....
Click to expand...

Ok now the question i have is, how do i install the XPDM drivers for the 4850 and the 8800GT? is this is as simple as running the XP Driver installers for the 4850/8800 or do i have to manually select and install the drivers?

if i lose some Vista functionality like HDCP or Aero would be fine because what i would gain would far outweight hte loss..
 
You may NOT run 2 videocards if they do not use the same driver.

It is a <sarcasm>beautiful</sarcasm> design choice. (DRM?)
 
H-street said:
ok i think I found a nugget that will get close to working.. I really just have no idea how to force it..
I found this on My Nero

Ok now the question i have is, how do i install the XPDM drivers for the 4850 and the 8800GT? is this is as simple as running the XP Driver installers for the 4850/8800 or do i have to manually select and install the drivers?

if i lose some Vista functionality like HDCP or Aero would be fine because what i would gain would far outweight hte loss..
Click to expand...

I think you risk more than basic functionality by doing this, system stability may be more like it, but that's just my opinion.

syntx said:
You may NOT run 2 videocards if they do not use the same driver.

It is a <sarcasm>beautiful</sarcasm> design choice. (DRM?)
Click to expand...

What does DRM have to do with this? Honestly? From my understanding, a lot of issues found in while analyzing Windows Error Reporting logs stemmed from the mixing of video drivers. I myself have experienced a lot of issues while running XP doing the same. ATI and nVidia just don't play nice together
 
DRM

yes DRM

it has to do with DRM

Because they want to prevent using video devices from capturing/displaying streams without proper supervision. It has NOTHING to do with stability.
 
As long as the two cards use the same driver model (as in they're both ATI or both NVIDIA) and are relatively recent cards, they should work. You may have to modify INF files to get the installer working (I had to do that so that my 7900GTX would run alongside my 9800GX2) but it will work with full 3D capabilities...somewhat.

I say somewhat because with the 7900GTX, video playback on the monitor attached to it is choppy and jerky if the video player (VLC) is in Direct3D/DirectX mode. Also, Rhinoceros 3D (admittedly a specialized application, but an interesting issue nonetheless) insists on using the first display adapter listed in the Device Manager. 7 comes before 9, so it loads on the primary display (driven by the 9800GX2) but uses the 7900GTX for actual 3D rendering, meaning it is dog slow. I have not found a solution yet for either of these problems, and am anxiously awaiting Big Bang II in the hopes that I can plug both my 22" screens into my 9800GX2 and call it a day.
 
I haven't had a problem with mine so far, SLI plus another GPU is even more fun to deal with! I have two 8800GTs in SLI and a 8400GS for my second monitor, if going this route, you have to essentially install all three and get the drivers installed for all, then I disabled my 8400GS and enabled SLI for my 8800GTs, once enabled I rebooted then enabled my 8400GS and after doing so, I had both my 24" monitors going.
A little FPS drop but still worth it, I can drag VLC, Media Player Classic etc between either screen while the video is running and not a pause in the video. Just have to make sure the driver covers both cards you want to install on.
 
This has to do with WDDM and is by design it is evil and there isn't a way around it currently. The only way for this to work is going to be through custom drivers that I don't think anyone has figured out yet.
 
i got so far as installing the xpdm drivers last night on my 4850 and they worked pretty good for gaming, there was some other things that didn't work so well (Media center kicked up a decoder error) and Aero was disabled..

installation was easy, download the Cat8.8 for vista, install.. then i did a manual drive update just pointint it to the XP driver inf in the ATI/Support/Cat8.8XP/Drivers/



tonight i am going to try and put in the 8800GT and see if the xpdm drivers will install.. the best part is i could use the 8800GT for a dedicated PPU if this works in Vista .. ofcourse the other option is to dual boot Xp but man i don't know if i can go back to XP after using vista for so long.


vista seemed just as stable (at least for what little i tried) with the xpdm drivers..
 
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