[Troubleshooting] New Build 980 Ti/GT 610 FPS drop when using second monitor.

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PrometheuSBoxeR

Limp Gawd
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Sep 21, 2005
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I've recently built a new rig, and I'm having severe FPS drops on my main monitor while I pull up anything on a browser on my second monitor.

Both of my monitors are DVI only (overclockable version with single input) Both are running at 96hz via dual link DVI. The MSI 980 Ti only has one, so I specifically bought a second video card just for my second monitor. Main monitor into the 980 Ti, my second into the GT 610.

I've wiped the drivers clean, reinstalled everything clean in safe mode, disabled Aero, enabled multi GPU/maximum performance settings in control panel etc. Still having an issue.

Right before the 980 Ti, I had a 970 with 2 Dual Link DVI ports, and obviously didn't have any issues. I thought I'd be able to run two different video cards without an issue, but I think that's the culprit and don't know what to do.

Specs:
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3KJQsY
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3KJQsY/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($318.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($27.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($146.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($127.21 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($161.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($161.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($70.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card ($679.95 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($118.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($177.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.89 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 OEM (64-bit)
Monitor: QNIX QX2710 Matte 60Hz 27.0" Monitor
Monitor: QNIX QX2710 Matte 60Hz 27.0" Monitor

I wanted to avoid having to use one of those expensive active DP to DVI adapters, and I didn't want to use the Gigabyte G1 980 Ti because the so called coil whine would drive me nuts.

Thoughts?
 
You have the Dual link in the monitor to the 980ti?

Most likely yes, but my main questions is why use a second video card to power a second monitor when your 980ti is far capable of doing so?

I would just remove the 610 all together. Use it for an HTPC :D
 
I would just get an adapter. Buy it from somewhere with a good return policy - as some of the adapters are crappy or don't work. Maybe a local store like a Microcenter if you have one nearby - or a Best Buy-type place. You may pay more but you'll know that it solves your issue and it won't be a hassle if it doesn't.
 
They are not, I have tried everything without any luck.

I think I'm going to just replace one of the monitors with one of the new 1440p 144hz IPS soon anyway.

Edit: New discovery.

Using a single monitor connected to the 980 Ti. If I have a browser up, twitch/youtube up and running, and tab over to my game. Still have a FPS throttling. The second I change to another tab in my browser, or minimize it. The throttle goes away.
 
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Okay now I'd be curious to know if it's just that one game, or if it's all games you play when youtube / twitch is up. Beyond that, youtube (used to use?) flash, and twitch did at one point too. They might be using HTML5, I haven't kept up with developments.

I do know with my titan x's, I will suffer a slight fps drop when on monitor #4 I have youtube going and when I have a game up on my other 3 in surround (not to the same degree you do though). I had massive issues when the refresh rate of two of my monitors was different and g-sync was trying to deal with it (but since all 4 of my monitors are exactly the same now, no problem!) --- The only thing I can think off the top of my head is your 610 and 980ti aren't playing super nice with eachother (and if they were in SLI, I'd easily be able to tell you why).

Have you tried running this past an NVidia rep?

Edit: I just re-read the above post. You say when you have only a single monitor plugged exclusively into the 980ti, you still get throttling with youtube in the background? That shouldn't happen. The only things that could cause something like that is a resolution change between desktop to in game, g-sync enabled in game but not on the desktop (or vice versa), or possibly your game still thinks it's in the background while youtube is playing. I know in World of Warcraft, there's a setting to limit FPS while WoW is in the background. I've never had a background / current window problem with it, but could there be a setting in your game that throttles FPS while the game is considered to be in the background? If so, are you able to set it higher / turn it off?

Also, try removing the 610 from the system entirely and plug the one monitor into the 980ti to see if you can replicate the problem. If not, the issue lies with the 980 and 610 not playing nice with eachother. If you are able to replicate it, see the last step below...

Failing the above, run this by the NVidia rep in the link above.
 
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Good suggestions crimson, I've raised a ticket with the nVidia rep. They couldn't figure it out either so they had it escalated.

I've ran GPU-Z and logged some information to see what happens when I'm gaming with a video, and gaming without.

Essentially three things changed, when I turned the video on.
Memory controller load % went from ~24 to ~5
Bus interface load % went from ~13 to ~6
Power Consumption [% TDP] went from ~60 to ~37

Clock, memory, temperature, and GPU load remained relatively constant.
 
Going from both to only a game up, those numbers don't look too farfetched save for possibly the power. 60 down to 37 for a simple youtube video of difference strikes me as odd with a 980Ti (but then again I've never paid direct attention to my power consumption as I've got a 1500 watt power supply running on a 20 amp circuit).

Let me know what happens when you pull the 610 right out of there and test again. If you're still getting throttling, I'd suggest the game is having issues with being int he foreground vs background for whatever reason (as odd as that sounds).
 
I took the 610 out, and only using the 980 Ti with 1 monitor.

My FPS in game are still dropping like 40-50 FPS with a video running in the background. That's not working as intended is it?
 
PrometheuSBoxeR said:
I took the 610 out, and only using the 980 Ti with 1 monitor.

My FPS in game are still dropping like 40-50 FPS with a video running in the background. That's not working as intended is it?
Click to expand...

Oooh, heck no. Did you do another removal and install of the drivers? I know its repetitive, but on a side note...still running like that is no good. :eek:
 
Clean wiped drivers, reinstalled.

I'm getting ~175 FPS in WoW standing still looking at a wall without a video up.
I turn the video on, tab back into the game without minimizing/closing video, my FPS drops to ~145.

Normal? I don't understand a video cards logic. Should a video card only be doing work on whats most front facing to the monitor? What about things in background? If I run the video, but open a blank tab. It's a non issue.
 
Now this gets more into where I was going. A drop from 175 to 145 is ... somewhat normal? I say that with a bit of hesitation and quite possibly not the right wording. At any rate, even when an application is in the background (especially a video), your graphics card isn't being called on to render the image to the monitor, but it's still being called on to generate a buffer (continuously) for said video. That way when you alt tab back to youtube (for example), it still knows where it is in the video and doesn't take a few additional seconds to render the image to the screen. Your screen while alt tabbing of course does flicker or go black for a few seconds prior to popping youtube back up, and that's the call to the card to say "hey the active window is changing, access memory over here and get it on the screen asap." So instead of going <change active Window> and then <figure out where we are in the video, and then start rendering> it keeps doing the second part all the time in the background (just at a reduced usage rate).

Now as for the 'bit of hesitation' part, with WoW, when you have your game in fullscreen mode (NOT windowed mode), you shouldn't experience a 30 fps drop from one youtube video. 5-10 I can understand. But just for comparison on my 3+1 setup. When I have WoW running on the 3, and the +1 has youtube, my FPS does drop by about 5-10 on average (depends what I'm doing in WoW at the time). When I have electric sheep up on monitor #4, that drops my fps by a good 30. Granted monitor #4 is an active window for me and not background, but even if I keep youtube going behind monitor #1, 2 or 3 there's not much deviation from the same 5-10 fps drop.

If WoW is running in windowed mode, then it's trying to synchronize its refresh rate to every other application you have running.

Regardless, you proved the 610 isn't the problem, and I'd definitely go update NVidia reps with this info. If they haven't passed this along already, install the latest hotfix driver, as I've been toying around with those and they do seem to help from their current 'stable' version.

Edit: I don't know if this is actually still a thing or not, but in youtube when a video is running, right click on it (right click the flash player - provided youtube is still using flash) and disable hardware acceleration. That used to help years back anyways. If youtube doesn't have the option, then if you're using IE 11 go here.

Edit #2: I did some digging and it looks like a couple of people have said if a youtube video in the background is not manually set to be the same resolution as your monitor, that could cause problems (auto is no good either). ie. if your desktop resolution is 1920x1080, but youtube is not able to broadcast the video to match that resolution, you might get a problem. Edit #1 seems to be more likely though.
 
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