Surround Gaming Profile Question

Joined
Apr 23, 2005
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783
I have dual GTX 580s with three 24 inch HP ZR24w monitors. So far I like gaming on three monitors for most games. There are some games that don't play so well on three so I play them on one monitor, plus I prefer to do my desktop work using the three monitors in extended view not in surround view. Here is my issue the Nvidia control panel will not remember my settings. Every time I switch from "Span displays with surround" back to "Activate all displays", I have to fiddle with the location of the monitors. It is really annoying. Is there any way to fix this so that either the Nvidia control panel remembers my settings in some sort of profile, or is there a multi-monitor program that will help manage this issue for me. I spend about as much time working on the three displays as I do gaming so I constantly fighting this battle. Thank you for the help.
 
Also I forgot to add when I switch to "Activate all displays", it only activates two displays and they are in clone mode, not extend mode. I would like to automatically activate all displays in extend desktop mode.
 
That's the problem w/ NV Surround, constantly going back changing the profile for SLi and never really getting to enjoy the game. Sold off my 580s and got a MSI 6950 2 GB and now run Eyefinity which is so much more easier to setup and now actually enjoy playing games at high resolutions and widescreen.
 
Unfortunately Nvidia doesn't seem to have saved profiles. However, it's not like AMD's profiles worked properly for me so it doesn't really matter to me. Using displayports with my 5850 combined with Windows 7's stupid monitor auto-detection and desktop migrating "feature" drove me absolutely nuts. I for one am glad not to have to deal with AMD's drivers anymore, even if Nvidia doesn't pull off multi monitor off perfectly either.
 
i have both eyefinity and surround and i must say the ati does do a better job but the best thing is eyefinity has hydrogrid. nvidia doesnt do a bad job at the though.

other then not having hydrogrid like program nivida has done a good job with it.
 
Thank you for the replies. I was hoping that someone may have come across a program that would force the displays into the same configuration each time. This seems like a no brainer when writing the drivers for surround/eyefinity support.
 
You might be able to do it with scripting and Ultramon, but it's going to be clunky compared to ATi's profile system which has built-in support for quick switching between Extended Desktop and SLS (Eyefinity) modes.
 
Hey guys, sorry for the hi-jack thread.

was wondering if all games that work with eyeinity, will work with nvidia surround?
 
Hey guys, sorry for the hi-jack thread.

was wondering if all games that work with eyeinity, will work with nvidia surround?

Yes, it has nothing to do with AMD/Nvidia, its just the playable resolution. If it supports that resolution, you can play it on any of them.
 
Yes, it has nothing to do with AMD/Nvidia, its just the playable resolution. If it supports that resolution, you can play it on any of them.

For the most part, this is accurate...there is one slight catch, though.

Nvidia's solution requires SLI. There are a few games that do work fine triple-monitor (Eyefinity, TripleHead2Go) but don't work very will with SLI, making Nvidia Surround less than optimal for such titles.
 
For the most part, this is accurate...there is one slight catch, though.

Nvidia's solution requires SLI. There are a few games that do work fine triple-monitor (Eyefinity, TripleHead2Go) but don't work very will with SLI, making Nvidia Surround less than optimal for such titles.

Don't work very well how? The worst case scenario is that you'll have single GPU performance in a game that does not map to multi-GPU well. That shouldn't be any worse than an equivalent setup on AMD though, or even a single AMD gpu.

Are you talking about performance issues due to SLI? or other problems?
 
For the most part, this is accurate...there is one slight catch, though.

Nvidia's solution requires SLI. There are a few games that do work fine triple-monitor (Eyefinity, TripleHead2Go) but don't work very will with SLI, making Nvidia Surround less than optimal for such titles.

I dont know I have seen Borderlands crashing constant on Ati 5970 with CFX enabled, until we dissable CFX the game stop crashing. Dont even get me started when we tried to play in eyefinity.

After seeing all of this, I went with Nvidia.


To the OP, this is what I do

For games that I dont want to play in full surround portrait, I do the following;

In the game choose to play in window MODE at the resolution you want. Also in window mode, SLI scaling works in surround mode window mode.

Thats my sugestions, now I play in surround portrait, only 3 games I play in window mode, Darkstar One, Painkiller and angry birds. The first 2 games would crash because 3240x1920 was to large for a resolution to play.

Hope that can help you in a way.
 
Don't work very well how? The worst case scenario is that you'll have single GPU performance in a game that does not map to multi-GPU well. That shouldn't be any worse than an equivalent setup on AMD though, or even a single AMD gpu.
I'm talking about games that either become unstable with SLI / CFX enabled, or experience worse than single-GPU performance.

On AMD's side, you can disable CFX and still have triple-monitor spanning.
On Nvidia's side, if you disable SLI, but then you lose triple-monitor spanning.

The only way around this for Nvidia cards it to use a TripleHead2Go (or similar device), which will allow a single Nvidia card to drive three monitors even when SLI is disabled.

I dont know I have seen Borderlands crashing constant on Ati 5970 with CFX enabled, until we dissable CFX the game stop crashing. Dont even get me started when we tried to play in eyefinity.

After seeing all of this, I went with Nvidia.
You aren't making a whole lot of sense... After experiencing issues with multi-GPU, you decided to go with a triple-monitor solution that absolutely REQUIRES multi-GPU to work?

I'm not following the logic (or lack thereof) :confused:
 
I'm talking about games that either become unstable with SLI / CFX enabled, or experience worse than single-GPU performance.
What I am saying from first hand experience, CFX brought lots more headache then an SLI build. I am saying once your added eyefinity resolution with CFX things get worse. I have yet to see WORSE experience in a game with SLI enabled, BUT I have seen a worse experience with CFX enabled.


You aren't making a whole lot of sense... After experiencing issues with multi-GPU, you decided to go with a triple-monitor solution that absolutely REQUIRES multi-GPU to work?

I'm not following the logic (or lack thereof) :confused:

Let me put it this way, once you play on 3 23inch ips monitors on portrait mode, I could never go back to a standard 27 inch monitor. I want to play my games in surround portrait mode and Nvidia /SLI providede the BEST experience.

Even to this day with THIS generation of 6900's people have issues playing in portrait with CFX dealing with the display ports/dvi ports and screen tearing.

Ill stick with my SLI setup to CFX any day of the week.

Like I have said I have only come accross 2 games that I could not run in my setup, solution play in window mode.

Hopefully I have explain things better and you can follow my logic now.
 
I dont know I have seen Borderlands crashing constant on Ati 5970 with CFX enabled, until we dissable CFX the game stop crashing. Dont even get me started when we tried to play in eyefinity.

After seeing all of this, I went with Nvidia.


To the OP, this is what I do

For games that I dont want to play in full surround portrait, I do the following;

In the game choose to play in window MODE at the resolution you want. Also in window mode, SLI scaling works in surround mode window mode.

Thats my sugestions, now I play in surround portrait, only 3 games I play in window mode, Darkstar One, Painkiller and angry birds. The first 2 games would crash because 3240x1920 was to large for a resolution to play.

Hope that can help you in a way.

Thanks for the input. I thought about doing this as well but the only problem is it does not solve my desktop productivity problem. When I open up windows, they span all three monitors and I have to resize. I love the win 7 feature of just tapping the windows key and side arrows to resize the window. In surround mode that makes them span a monitor and a half.
 
Thanks for the input. I thought about doing this as well but the only problem is it does not solve my desktop productivity problem. When I open up windows, they span all three monitors and I have to resize. I love the win 7 feature of just tapping the windows key and side arrows to resize the window. In surround mode that makes them span a monitor and a half.

AHH for that, I just open the prgram you want adjusted to the resolution you want and move it to the spot you want. Then go to file / close. Next time you re-open it should be at the same position it was before you closed it. I keep my IE9, steam, word, setup that way and works great.
 
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