Surround gaming without TH2G ?

Arotto · Post by **Arotto** » 15 Jun 2006, 19:44

I guess there are many users here with an SLI setup here, which should give you about 4 monitor outputs.

Can you use them all (or at least three of them) to give you a surround desktop ?

I know for a fact that it works with two (did that myself) , but playing Halflife 2 with double monitor edges in the middle sucks.

But what about 3 displays with SLI only ?

RUS007 · Post by **RUS007** » 15 Jun 2006, 19:49

First thing is as soon as SLI is enabled you can not use more then 2 outputs and thats only for the newer cards. Older cards support only 1 output in SLI mode.

Second thing each screen runs in its own resolution there for you cant span the game across all screens unless you can run the game in window mode.

RUS007 · Post by **RUS007** » 15 Jun 2006, 19:51

Actually aperently there is way to span 2 outputs using nvidia driver but it only works across one card so you cant span 3 as the 3rd one would be comming off a different card.

JKeefe · Post by **JKeefe** » 15 Jun 2006, 22:12

In another thread someone reported on the results of running a game in windowed mode and stretching it across three monitors, without a TripleHead2Go. The result was a drastically reduced framerate, with the assumed culprit being the processing overhead required to syncronize the frame buffers of multiple video cards.

skeeder · Post by **skeeder** » 15 Jun 2006, 23:09

Windows does not support this either. SLI 2 was suppose to support multiple monitors, but I guess 2 is better than 1.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 16 Jun 2006, 00:35

First thing is as soon as SLI is enabled you can not use more then 2 outputs and thats only for the newer cards. Older cards support only 1 output in SLI mode.

Second thing each screen runs in its own resolution there for you cant span the game across all screens unless you can run the game in window mode.

Do you have any specifics on this? I only have experience with 6800U in SLI, but my current gaming rig is a single 7800GTXKO. Everything I've experienced and heard points towards only 1 port out SLI. I delt with this issue first hand with my 6800U SLI.

RUS007 · Post by **RUS007** » 16 Jun 2006, 04:22

When 6800 SLI came out it was only built to work on one output while running SLI. 7800 GPU was also at first ment to support only 1 output and then VNIDIA later anounced that in the newer driver update they will add DualHead support for SLI. I'm using 7900s in SLI and i can use both outputs on primary card while running SLI mode.

Arotto · Post by **Arotto** » 16 Jun 2006, 12:46

well, nice to hear that the money for the th2g wasn't wasted. :)

Although it does seem a bit strange that you can have 4 display outputs with just one working ....

JKeefe · Post by **JKeefe** » 16 Jun 2006, 14:51

Although it does seem a bit strange that you can have 4 display outputs with just one working ....

Yes, it is strange, but true. The raw graphics horsepower of SLI is created at the expense of some other things, multiple monitors being one of them.

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