Dual LCD's and SLI

A

amking

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Jun 30, 2005
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Can someone explain to me how well SLI works with dual displays? Obviously one way to do it would be to have a single card for each display, but I'm more looking at it from a gaming perspective: I want all the power to go to one lcd while I shut the other one off (or it sits idle with aim/winamp/etc). For those that have tried plugging both monitors in one card (and having one primary/one secondary lcd), does it work well? Would a single monitor be better? I am partially asking because I am considering one 20WMGX2 or two 2007wfp's. (I am not the biggest fan of the "screen door" affect on the anti-glare matte screen's of the dell... but cant afford two nec's). Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated... I was planning on using ultramon if that makes a difference.
 
Amking,

As far as I am aware you cannot use dual displays with SLI. As soon as you enable SLI the second display is disabled. If anyone does know how to enable with SLI please let us know.

Cheers,

Lee.
 
so i wouldnt be able to have sli enabled all the time? doesnt enabling/disabling sli require restarts? :(

thats really lame :/ ...so all of you that are running sli/crossfire dont use dual monitors?
 
amking said:
so i wouldnt be able to have sli enabled all the time? doesnt enabling/disabling sli require restarts? :(

thats really lame :/ ...so all of you that are running sli/crossfire dont use dual monitors?
Click to expand...

they probably use a second card to drive the second monitor.
 
SLI and two monitors dosen't work.
You have to get a PCi card to run the second
 
WS6 said:
they probably use a second card to drive the second monitor.
Click to expand...

thats silly when you dont really need a bunch of power to drive the secondary display :(
 
amking said:
thats silly when you dont really need a bunch of power to drive the secondary display :(
Click to expand...

Let me rephrase that, they probably add a regular PCI card to drive the second monitor.
I mentioned second card in my post above in reference to the GX2 SLI style cards with 2 GPU's using one PCI slot.

So you would add a 3rd video card if you were running 2 cards in SLI.
 
WS6 said:
Let me rephrase that, they probably add a regular PCI card to drive the second monitor.
I mentioned second card in my post above in reference to the GX2 SLI style cards with 2 GPU's using one PCI slot.

So you would add a 3rd video card if you were running 2 cards in SLI.
Click to expand...

blah that sucks... ok thanks.
 
i run two lcds. the new drivers do not require restarts. enable sli when gaming, disable it when im done.
 
codegrinder said:
i run two lcds. the new drivers do not require restarts. enable sli when gaming, disable it when im done.
Click to expand...

orly?

edit: wait, so how do you have the lcd's plugged in to the cards then?
 
Yeah, disabling/enabling SLI doesn't requre a reboot. Only thing it might do is close certain applications using the display such as internet explorer.

You can plug in as many monitors as your cards can hold (4) when running SLI, it doesn't matter what ports you're using. When in SLI mode you can also select which monitor its supposed to use and switch between them.
 
Your options for gaming with 2 monitors at (1680x1050)x2 with SLI are :
1st .. The most simple and may even be cost effective.
You can use TH2Go to power 2 (1680x1050) monitors but you will be using/splitting one analog vga signal into two (or 3 if you want 1280x1024x3... 3.9MPixel res.). With good cables TH2Go does superior job... very little fuzzy or shadow.
With a 8800GTX/GTS, you may not even need a second card for SLI performance of the G7X generation cards and get to use 3 to 4 displays without disabling any when gaming.

2nd as stated before which may require one or all the following, new chipset 680i, new drivers, new cards (8800) you may be able to game with dual displays. It is more an issue of drivers as quadro cards are able to frame-lock, or Gen-lock since early this century/decade.
 
well all i am looking to do is have one primary monitor for browsing/gaming/movies/etc + a secondary display (same exact rez.. in fact prob same lcd) that handles aim/winamp/other windows. when i game i would want all the power to go to one display. as i mentioned above i'm looking @ either 1 20WMGX2 or 2 2007wfp's... although so far i'm not impressed with the dell :eek:
 
amking said:
well all i am looking to do is have one primary monitor for browsing/gaming/movies/etc + a secondary display (same exact rez.. in fact prob same lcd) that handles aim/winamp/other windows. when i game i would want all the power to go to one display. as i mentioned above i'm looking @ either 1 20WMGX2 or 2 2007wfp's... although so far i'm not impressed with the dell :eek:
Click to expand...
in that case a chepo pci-e x1 card or a pci card will do.. in addition to the 2 graphic card in sli ... unless new nvidia drivers change come with dual-display function.

p.s. gaming in ultra-ultra widescreen of 3840x1024 pixels is a sight to behold. minus the bezels
 
CrypticInsight said:
hmmm.....it looks as if it'll be easier with the new nvidia 680i chipset :cool:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2869&p=3
Click to expand...

"Possible" would be more accurate than "easy", but not feasible in some situations. For example, I'm using that third PCIe slot for a video editing card (the other single PCIe's are covered by the thick 8800GTX's, even though they aren't used - what a waste), so a third card for me so that I can run dual displays in SLI mode is out of the question.

I knew of this "issue" (or more accurately, intended feature) going into purchasing my new 680i-based system with two 8800GTX's, and I have to tell you despite this drawback these things smoke everything on maximum settings, even on my new BenQ FP241W 24" monitor (I'm surprised all the lights in my house don't dim when I'm playing CounterStrike Source). It's just plain sweet, and I'm still glad I did it.

But, the inability to use dual monitors while in SLI mode is quite annoying, primarilly for the reason that there will be future games designed to use dual monitors (e.g. Supreme Commander). Supreme Commander will no-doubtedly require heavy 3D artillery (pun intended), and being able to utilize SLI with dual displays would certainly be preferred. Although I have feeling a single 8800GTX will still handle even the likes of Surpreme Commander quite nicely, it ticks me off that a limitation like this exists as a part of its design, motivated by what is most likely a marketing ploy.
 
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