Triple Monitor Setup with 2 Nvidia Cards SLI or not ?

raymondkerr · Post by **raymondkerr** » 19 Apr 2009, 14:57

I have 3 19inch Hanns-G Monitors and 1x 8800GS 384MB and 1x 7600GS 256MB cards.

If I was to upgrade to a new Asus P5N-E SLI board with 2 PCIe slots, can I run 3 monitors from two cards ? i.e 2 monitors from the 8800 and 1 monitor (3rd) from the 7600GS card.

I want to run driving Sims, like rFactor, GTR etc in triple format.

I understand that I can't run in SLI, but will the P5N board allow me to run 3 monitors from 2 different video cards in the one system ?

Thanks
Raymond

PS: I'm a correct in saying that only the primary centre monitor needs to be 3D accelerated ?

Cynagen · Post by **Cynagen** » 19 Apr 2009, 15:01

I have 3 19inch Hanns-G Monitors and 1x 8800GS 384MB and 1x 7600GS 256MB cards.

If I was to upgrade to a new Asus P5N-E SLI board with 2 PCIe slots, can I run 3 monitors from two cards ? i.e 2 monitors from the 8800 and 1 monitor (3rd) from the 7600GS card.

I want to run driving Sims, like rFactor, GTR etc in triple format.

I understand that I can't run in SLI, but will the P5N board allow me to run 3 monitors from 2 different video cards in the one system ?

Thanks
Raymond

PS: I'm a correct in saying that only the primary centre monitor needs to be 3D accelerated ?

What you're looking for is SoftTH, a software (driver) implementation of the triplehead system. And you are semi-correct, all 3 monitors will be 3D accelerated, but only by the primary monitor's card. So you want to set up the 8800 as the primary card and the 7600 as the secondary. SoftTH (from my understanding) has the 8800 take the entire video processing load, and the 7600 is just drawing as it's getting sent data across the PCI Express bus.

raymondkerr · Post by **raymondkerr** » 19 Apr 2009, 15:16

thanks for the advice, I'll check out the SoftTH program drivers. I assume that all SLI motherboards will also allow you to run 2 video cards of different types in NON SLI mode ?

Raymond

Dem Pyros · Post by **Dem Pyros** » 19 Apr 2009, 18:11

thanks for the advice, I'll check out the SoftTH program drivers. I assume that all SLI motherboards will also allow you to run 2 video cards of different types in NON SLI mode ?

Raymond

Yes, the SLI chipset simply enables you to use cards in SLI as well.

Good luck!

Yui · Post by **Yui** » 19 Apr 2009, 19:37

Yes you can connect a max of 4 displays for both GPU if not in connected in SLI.

raymondkerr · Post by **raymondkerr** » 19 Apr 2009, 21:57

cool, thanks guys for the advice, I'll hopefully have it setup soon, as I am building my race sim cockpit at the moment. I am wondering if I could maybe use my 24" Samsung as the primary centre monitor and two of the hanns-G 19" models maybe in vertical position at either side of the samsung, if not then I'll just stick to 3 of the hanns-G 19" screens.

Raymond

MaxDarklighter · Post by **MaxDarklighter** » 23 Apr 2009, 13:28

If using SoftTH software second card is needed just as input for 3-rd monitor. So I can buy the cheapest card in the market or is there some limitations?

Dem Pyros · Post by **Dem Pyros** » 24 Apr 2009, 00:51

If using SoftTH software second card is needed just as input for 3-rd monitor. So I can buy the cheapest card in the market or is there some limitations?

The cheapest card is fine, but you should make sure that it is PCI-E, as SofTH is capped by bandwidth going to the second card. When I had a PCI card (with a PCI-E card doing the rendering) all games were capped at 20fps, because that's the throughput the PCI bus had.

Post by **scavvenjahh** » 24 Apr 2009, 09:28

I didn't know that :shock: Clearly a fact to bear in mind.

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 25 Apr 2009, 19:06

If it hasn't been said before, mind which brand as well, there have been reports of not being able to combine offerings from both teams to do this.

Dem Pyros · Post by **Dem Pyros** » 25 Apr 2009, 22:15

If it hasn't been said before, mind which brand as well, there have been reports of not being able to combine offerings from both teams to do this.

Mixed cards will work, it's the drivers that screw the setup over.

As long as the drivers play (reasonably) well together you won't have an issue, but look up whether or not someone used the mixed setup before with success.

Nice observation Mesh, I can't believe I overlooked that...

mixfloors · Post by **mixfloors** » 02 Jun 2009, 02:52

cool, thanks guys for the advice, I'll hopefully have it setup soon, as I am building my race sim cockpit at the moment. I am wondering if I could maybe use my 24" Samsung as the primary centre monitor and two of the hanns-G 19" models maybe in vertical position at either side of the samsung, if not then I'll just stick to 3 of the hanns-G 19" screens.

Raymond

Dont know how far you are into the build at this point, or if you have visited this site for cockpits built for sim racing, but here is a guy that uses smaller screens vertically for his racing cockpit

http://www.thewayiplay.com/mainforum

page 8 shows pic of the set up.

Hope it helps
Mike

Widescreen Gaming Forum