NVIDIA 3D VISION SURROUND Experience @ [H]

duhokay said:
Seems like no one is having issues but myself (assume I am missing something obvious). I cannot get any game to run, everything locks up immediately after loading. I have installed and reinstalled with driver sweeper including a fresh OS install, tried many different resolutions, switched around dvi connections, still no luck, 2d desktop in surround is just fine.

I have been running this setup for a while now in SLI, a 5870, and a 5970. Any ideas?

2 gtx 480's
P6T7-ws i7 920
PCP&C 860
3x30" 3007wfp's
Click to expand...

One thing that I have noted, if you have your games cranked up you may think its locking up but things are just slow. I've had two wait two or three minutes for a lot of games that had high settings enabled to load and then until I turned down the settings did things become responsive. What games have you tried?
 
Last edited:
No problems with SLI, so I don't believe it is a power issue, as for load times, a few games have gone into game and immediately locked up, others have stopped during load, I will try to give it a while longer.

iracing, bfbc2, lfd2, codmw2...basic stuff...
 
Overclocking seems to make a big difference. When I switch my profiles from stock to 800/1950, my frame rates go up 15% to 20% instantly, and the minimums increase by at least 25%, based on BC2 and Serious Sam HD at 4xAA. Another reason I'm glad I went with water cooling.
 
Another happy customer here. Installed the drivers last night and was up and running in triple portrait mode in 2 mn. I thought the monitor config was even more straight forward than eyefinity. Also my screen doesn't flicker like they did with my 5870s when OC'd.

Tried Risen, Oblivion, and Metro 2033... all work great at 3600x1920. Performance is excellent in those games at highest settings except had to back down to "high" settings in metro -- hopefully the extra 480 I have coming will help that :)

I did notice my cards get hotter than ever when in game (67C on water). Idle is normal at 43c.
 
Is there any way to control the..."fisheye-ness" of the "fisheye" effect? I know I'm supposed to stare at the center monitor and all, but some games have too much of a fisheye effect on the side monitors. On Bad Company 2, I reduced the v FOV to 40 so that my main monitor's FOV wouldn't be so out of whack with the sides, though that only works in multiplayer. HL2, however, doesn't even let me go below 70 FOV.

Wings of Prey looked absolutely stunning and I think it was because there was basically no fisheye effect at all - it was almost just a photographic panorama, so I want to try doing some games 'flat' without any fisheye. That would also make RTS actually usable on three monitors. Is this possible or is there something in the drivers that always makes things...fishy?
 
Nice. Now my SLI GTX285s machine can now join my 5870E6 machine. Just need to get even more monitors.
 
Crazy, I have never really had driver issues with any of my cards and wondered what everyone's problem was. Now I know what it feels like, still after many tries I cannot get a single game to play without freezing.
 
I think I might go green again... seems like this is more polished in a multi-gpu env than ATi's offering..

edit: and no need for a DP adapter.. thank GOODNESS for that....
 
Last edited:
duhokay said:
Crazy, I have never really had driver issues with any of my cards and wondered what everyone's problem was. Now I know what it feels like, still after many tries I cannot get a single game to play without freezing.
Click to expand...

Last ditch effort - switch the cards themselves?

Or if you can install Win 7 32-bit on a different partition, try the older betas (DX9 games only) and see if that works at all.
 
Matrices said:
Is there any way to control the..."fisheye-ness" of the "fisheye" effect?
Click to expand...

it depends on the game. source based games usually lock FOV for multiplayer i believe, i forgot what the command was to change it.

The other thing to make sure of is that your two side monitors aren't too angled in towards you. The rendering engine is assuming a flat screen.
 
Matrices said:
PCPer.com has added GTX 470 results today:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=947

The conclusion seems clear: Fermi is simply a better solution than Cypress for triple monitor gaming. Oh, the irony.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see if Kyle reports the same. If that is accurate than what it looks like is ATI is a win for three monitor gaming with a single card (less heat, less power, less cost, etc, etc) on a smaller budget...and nVidia could be a win for gaming with multiple cards (with corresponding increases in heat, power, and cost).
 
Pretty much hits the nail on the head. Even though GTX 470 is apparently faster and cheaper than ATI 5870, that has to be balanced with noise concerns. I honestly don't give a shit about a few dollars' worth of power; the real problem is that it correlates with the noise, which for some people will simply not be acceptable on air.
 
night_2004 said:
It will be interesting to see if Kyle reports the same.
Click to expand...

Did people read Kyle's review yesterday? He ALREADY did:

This is expensive technology to put into your home. That may or may not hold value for you, but make no mistake about it...NV Surround gaming with GTX 480 SLI will give you the best gaming experience you have ever had.
Click to expand...

He just said that 480 SLI Surround gaming is the best at a price.
 
Matrices said:
PCPer.com has added GTX 470 results today:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=947

The conclusion seems clear: Fermi is simply a better solution than Cypress for triple monitor gaming. Oh, the irony.
Click to expand...

I'm not seeing the irony. Crossfire has always been slower than SLI. I fully expected 470sli/480sli to be faster than 5870 crossfire with 3 monitors. Surround will end up being a better solution once all the bugs are ironed out, I feel.

A plus for AMD is that owners of their cards have been able to use this for quite a long time now. The other plus is that only 1 card is needed, so people with less $ can still enjoy it, obviously at lower framerates.
 
It is one thing to "expect", it is another thing to have evidence.

We knew that SLI scaling is better than CF, but that is not by a large margin. We didn't know whether that advantage would be maintained or increased in multi-monitor gaming, until now. Actually I would like to know whether the pronounced difference in performance is due to superior SLI scaling in multi-monitor mode or simply inferior CF scaling in multi-monitor mode.
 
Matrices said:
Actually I would like to know whether the pronounced difference in performance is due to superior SLI scaling in multi-monitor mode or simply inferior CF scaling in multi-monitor mode.
Click to expand...

I'm willing to bet it is a bit of both.
 
All this discussion does is make me want a new batch of video cards to release NOW.

1) Some new hardware from ATI with more power for tripple head to compete with....

2) Something from Nvidia that doesn't run hotter than the sun....

And both companies need better drivers. ATI's drivers are fine for single cards. But CF scaling sucks. And, I'd expect nvidia to get their shit polished up before ATI.
 
Matrices said:
Yeah, but when you're in SLI mode with two cards, you still don't have a card set aside for Physx, but your frames don't dip into garbage territory, right? I can run in SLI mode at 19x12 (which by definition means neither card is Physx dedicated) and my performance is fine with Physx set to max.

So this problem is something Surround-specific. My frame rate is literally 2-3 FPS with Physx+Surround using 2 GPUs, and that just doesn't make sense unless there is specifically an issue with Physx and multiple monitors.
Click to expand...

Well in addition to the 480 SLI, I just acquired a GTX 260. Tell me, can you use the 480 SLI in NV surround and utilize the GTX 260 for dedicated physx? thanks. that was the main reason I bought it.
 
vjcsmoke said:
Well in addition to the 480 SLI, I just acquired a GTX 260. Tell me, can you use the 480 SLI in NV surround and utilize the GTX 260 for dedicated physx? thanks. that was the main reason I bought it.
Click to expand...

Albeit it's an over kill. But YES you can certainly use it for physX.
 
pedsaktix said:
Albeit it's an over kill. But YES you can certainly use it for physX.
Click to expand...

This isn't overkill at all, in fact if I had another slot for it I'd pick one up as the main issue I'm seeing from Surround is that it doesn't seem possible to dedicate one of the GPUs for PhysX in a 3x SLI setup, not sure if it could be done in a 4x SLI rig but I wouldn't probably go with a 4x SLI 480 because of the power cost.
 
Think he meant GTX260 for physx is overkill, you can get cheap 9800GT or something to dedicate to physx.
 
I just tried the JC2 demo on my setup, using the 360 controller for added hilarity. Man, this thing is ridiculously fun in Surround. I dropped my AA from 16CSAA to 4MSAA, shadows to medium, and object detail from very high to high. My framerate hovered around 35 to 40, dipping to 30 during huge explosions but more often going up to 45. Completely playable.

I honestly have no idea how anyone could run this game in Eyefinity with just one card without severely toning down the graphics. This game is so pretty that I'd probably just rather run it on a single monitor if I had only a single card to drive it.
 
My issue was with the monitor arrangement in the configuration, anytime I messed with it during the configuration process despite changing wires and cards prior, it made everything crash. After leaving it and rearranging the cables after the fact has been flawless. Really so happy to finally be enjoying this.
 
One annoying thing is that Nvidia's UI for setting up monitors in regular, non-spanning mode still sucks ass. I've always used Windows to do it instead.

So every time I switch from Surround to regular 3-monitor desktop mode, my monitor arrangement is all messed up. It decides that my right monitor is really on my left, etc. The damn thing should just keep the same monitor configuration it recognizes in Surround, or at least remember the non-Surround settings it had prior. Instead, the monitor "IDs" change completely. It makes no sense.
 
I'd be interested to see how tri-sli 480s do with surround.

I have used 8800GTX SLI and 280 SLI with matrox, then went 5970 (which I sold as less than 60FPS gives a stuttery feeling in CF with EyeFinity) and now 5870. (30-40 FPS better than 50 with 5970).
 
mach1.9pants said:
I'd be interested to see how tri-sli 480s do with surround.

I have used 8800GTX SLI and 280 SLI with matrox, then went 5970 (which I sold as less than 60FPS gives a stuttery feeling in CF with EyeFinity) and now 5870. (30-40 FPS better than 50 with 5970).
Click to expand...

Interested in results with tri-sli 480s. Stalker: CoP and Metro 2033 really hitch up at 3600x1920 at high settings with two OC'ed 480s.

I thought triple Crossfire was still broke in Eyefinity...? I tried it back in March with 5970+5870 and results were awful.
 
One question..

Here I´m using a 260 exo SLI with the 2233RZ and T240M (the 2233RZ is the only one I use for gaming)... and a GT210 witth 2x LG 226WT...
I don´t wanna play um Surrond, only in 3D with de 2233rz.... can I take off the GT210 and plug the 4 monitors in the SLi with these new drivers or it´s not possible yet ?

Should be better plug the T240M in the GT210 and the 3 22" at the SLi and use they for Surround ?

Thanks.
 
Come on Nvidia, release the drivers for GeForce 200 series cards already! I have two GTX260's right here that I'd love to try it out on...

bexamous said:
Think he meant GTX260 for physx is overkill, you can get cheap 9800GT or something to dedicate to physx.
Click to expand...
A dedicated 9800GT as a PhysX card isn't enough for newer titles. The Scarcrow sections of Batman Arkham Asylum need at least a GTS250 to play smoothly with PhysX set to "High"

heatlesssun said:
Unknown-One said:
They do, actually. You've been able to use 3D glasses with Eyefinity from day-one.
Click to expand...
Not exactly the same thing as with shutter glasses.
Click to expand...

Uh, yes, exactly the same thing as with shutter glasses. If you're running ATi Eyefinity and happen to be using 120Hz monitors, all you have to do is install the IZ3D driver and you can use shutter glasses. A couple of other 3D modes (for specific monitors/glasses) are also supported by the IZ3D driver.

The IZ3D driver will work with Nvidia cards as well, but you'll probably only want to use it if you're doing some special type of 3D setup (other than anaglyph or shutter glasses).
 
Unknown-One said:
Come on Nvidia, release the drivers for GeForce 200 series cards already! I have two GTX260's right here that I'd love to try it out on...
Click to expand...

Don't the current drivers already work with all of those cards except the dual-GPU one? I'm sure I've seen at least one person talk about doing surround on two 275s in another thread.
 
In other news, I achieved the holy grail in gaming:

Yes, folks, Freespace 2 works in Surround. The HUD elements and some static background stuff is stretched out, but the ship models, laser fire, and everything else is completely normal. I did this by using the Freespace Open Source Code launcher through Open GL with a copy of the game itself purchased through GOG.com.
 
@ Kyle

You mentioned having issues getting Doom 3 to run at all on your test system. It takes a little bit of tweaking, but it will indeed run in surround:



The HUD stretches, and it involved a hex-edit (in order to get the FOV correct), but it does work. Thank the fine folks over at Widescreen Gaming Forum for figuring out how to do it.
 
yeah - I got doom3 working with eyefinity also.. had to DL some patched files from a thread on WSGF but it works very well as UnnownOne says above.
 
Matrices said:
Don't the current drivers already work with all of those cards except the dual-GPU one? I'm sure I've seen at least one person talk about doing surround on two 275s in another thread.
Click to expand...

Ya they do, which is why I don't understand why they wouldn't work with 260's.
 
I don't think he's even tried it; he just assumed that it wouldn't work. Put those 260s to use and report back on performance! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top