GPU company(s) GRR

[GoodBoy]

Ok. So lately in the [H] forums Nvidia has been getting called to the carpet for disabling running Physx on an nvidia GPU, when the main rendering card is non-nvidia (ATI).

Well, I've been having trouble getting 3 screens working on newer HP pcs' at work (dc5850, 6005) that have amd cpus, ati chipset + radeon graphics. The problem is that you can run dual displays fine using the built in video, but to go to triple displays (I have 40+ users in this configuration already) I have to use an ATI card for the third device... Putting an nvidia card in the x16 slot disables the onboard video, both ports, even tho in the bios, the x16 slot is configurable as x16, or x8 + Displayport. (The displayport can be used with existing monitors via a DVI adapter. All nvidia cards can run when the pcie slot is in x8 mode). I have one user who has had triple screens for years, using an nvidia dual head card + integrated intel graphics. Her pc died, and a new one ordered for her. Now theres no getting triple screens working unless we want to buy more ATI product. I have been re-using these low profile pci nvidia cards for years with no issues.

I had the purchasing dept. inquire to HP how to get this working. Here is their response: “If you want to use the built in graphics to supply two of the three heads, you are supposed to be able to do that, but you have to put in an ATI card for the third one... If you put in an NVIDIA card, the onboard graphics is disabled, and you use the NVIDIA card only.”

If you call HP's business support, you get someone in India who doesnt speak the best of english, and claims that only options they sell will work in the pci slot. I can't even get triple screens working reliably in XP, using a PCI based nvidia card for the third head. Never mind that I have been using nvidia dual head cards for YEARS in HP machines, running dual and triple screens. Of course those pc's had intel chipsets until the dc5750 and on.

Anyway, there is apparently enough *&#!@! to go around when it comes to these gpu companies.

/rant

 

[Dan_D]

Yeah it sucks but what can you do? Personally I'd never have spec'ed out machines with non-Intel chipsets and non-Intel CPUs in a business environment. (I've learned this lesson the hardway.)

 

[GoodBoy]

The company has cut spending wherever they can, so these $400 business pcs are all they approve for purchase (for the most part). But the older ones were celerons (same deal, the cheapies) and I can run dual and triple in those just fine.

 

[xxGriff]

ok, the sux is there.but i gotta ask...

the onboard is a PCIe?

are the MoBo's SLI? or even have 2 x16 PCIe slots?

what are you displaying on 3 monitors? text? windows? or are you rendering 3d on them? what is/are the combinations there of?

 

[lhwj]

If you're running Vista, it's not ATi's fault, because Vista doesn't support two different display drivers running simultaneously. You can do that in XP or 7, but just not in Vista. Those of you who are playing around with an nVidia card for Physx and ATi for rendering should know this.

Edit: Just saw you mentioned XP. Don't think this should be a problem because once I ran a monitor off an integrated Geforce 6100 and another off a Radeon x1300 in XP. Haven't tried three monitors though.

 

[GoodBoy]

ok, the sux is there.but i gotta ask...

the onboard is a PCIe?

are the MoBo's SLI? or even have 2 x16 PCIe slots?

what are you displaying on 3 monitors? text? windows? or are you rendering 3d on them? what is/are the combinations there of?

These are business PC's. The Onboard video is Radeon HD 3200 on one model, Radeon HD 4200 on the other. It's built into the chipset as far as I know.

The pc has 2 pcie x1 slots, 1 x16 slot. Its not sli, its ATI chipset.

Only an ATI card will work in the pcie slot without disabling the onboard video, even with Windows 7.