Widescreen Gaming Forum

I am considering purchasing the GTX295 to drive three monitors using surround. Don't need 3d.

Anybody out there having sucess with this setup?

Thanks,

I sold my GTX295 before NVIDIA announced their 3DVS support. I did test my i7-920 rig with a GTX295 using a Matrox TripleHead2Go. Only numbers that I know about.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28Core_i7_920_and_GTX_295%29

Unless you get really lucky and find one of the rare GTX295s that can actually drive three screens at once... you won't get Surround working with a single GTX295.

I'm using 2x 295s and the drivers currently don't "officially" support it in the current drivers. However, one of my 295s is the kind that can drive 3 monitors on it's own, so I gave Nvidia surround with only one 295 a try - It works just fine, and the setup is officially supported according to the requirements page. (http://www.nvidia.com/object/3dv-system-requirements-surround-technology.html) I saw similar frame rates (a bit lower, due to my weaker CPU/RAM) as the review Ibrin posted. Just make sure you purchase the dual PCB first generation GTX 295, that has an HDMI port. The single PCB /co-op edition card which lacks that HDMI port will not work with surround on it's own, you'd need a 2nd 295. Getting surround setup with the single 295 was a snap, no issues at all.

This is an example of one of the cards that CAN power 3 monitors on it's own: http://www.evga.com/articles/00446/

This is an example of one of the cards that CANNOT power 3 monitors on it's own: http://www.evga.com/articles/00478/

Be careful when browsing ebay or any site for these cards, I saw people frequently pulling images off places like Newegg and Tigerdirect, depicting a dual PCB 295, when they we're actually selling a single PCB 295.

As far as success goes, yeah, the setup works, but it gets choked up on VRAM in various games, especially Crysis. You should check out Paradigm Shifter's review on his 460s to see exactly how far VRAM goes in the surround world. The 295 only actually has 896MB of VRAM that it can use, before it starts offloading to system RAM.

I'm typing this on a gtx295h2oc powering 3 screens.

After dicking around with 2x gtx295s all weekend trying to get quad SLi to work correctly, we decided to try just my (1) H2OC card and use a DVI to HDMI cable in the third output and it runs everything faster than 2 of them.

I guess the support for Quad SLi is just not there so they don't mess with it much. Probably not many people that buy 4 gfx cards.

So yes, my Gigabyte GTX295H2OC (watercooled + 100mhz factory overclocked) card runs 3x 1920x1200 monitors without any issue at all.

Modern Warfare 2 - everything maxed, with NO Anti-Aliasing - 5903x1200 resolution, pushes 55-60 fps on most maps, some are 45-55fps. I was quite surprised.

Turn 2x AA and it runs 40-50fps on most maps. 4x AA starts to get in to the 20-30s on some maps and isn't playable.

Its for sale... make me an offer. I'm going to get 2x 570s to replace it.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bbopptech/Triple#5549259689942485170

Interesting results.. I haven't done extensive testing with just one 295, just out of lack of time, pretty much. What games did you test?

I'm going to do some further testing and start prodding Nvidia, they really need to get their drivers together. I figure they may not be working on the quad SLI drivers too much based on the assumption that no one is using them..

With quad I tested MW2, Bioshock, CS:Source, and Eve Online. Game play in all but Eve was stuttery, choppy, and rubberbandy like the cards were out of sync. Eve ran fine until I saw about 50 ships at once which caused it to hard lock my computer and I had to restart.

After switching to a single gtx295, all games run smoothly and the stuttery sync issues are gone. Besides MW2 that I mentioned earlier, CS:Source runs at ~120fps solid (not that its difficult to run) and the other games run fine and are playable.

I can get some detailed fps numbers when I get home from work this evening if you'd like. I can even install Crysis (1or2), Fall Out 3, Far Cry 2, or anything else you'd like numbers in if I have the game.

Forgot to mention, this is running on:

Gigabyte EP45-UD3P v1.6 FE bios (which has been pulled for some reason)
this is a crossfire board but I'm running the SLi fix for Windows 7 x64 boot.
4 GB ram @1.8Ghz
q6600 G0 stepping @3.6Ghz h2o
Antec 1000 true power quattro
Gigabyte GTX295H2OC @stock oc

We know the SLi fix works on this board because I had my brothers 2x 470s in the board this past weekend with an SLi bridge and they were flawless. The quad SLi setup with the 2x gtx295s was also run with the SLi bridge.

Yes, that was my assumption as well. The majority are probably not even buying 2 video cards, let alone 4 so I can't see why they'd put many resources behind it.

It does however suck for those that did drop the coin on a quad setup only to find issues like this. Pretty bad on Nvidia's part but I'm sure their hands are tied in some way or another. The dollar dictates.

And oops, sorry...

this.
"my Gigabyte GTX295H2OC (w"

Its not Gigabyte, its BFG. Not sure what I was thinking.

If you truly have the time to do it, I would appreciate it, but you don't have to. I plan to do some of my own tests as well. I am curious as to what driver version you are running, though.

In earlier releases before the 260.xx drivers - quad SLI was completely unplayable (similar to the out of sync issue you described, constant stuttering), however with later drivers it is much better, though I still feel as if I'm not getting the performance I should. I am currently running the 265.90 drivers with an edited *.ini, but they are pretty much the same as the latest stable drivers.

Our testing last weekend was done with the latest WHQL 260.99

Make a list of games you'd like to see and what settings you want ran and I'll run it.

Just Cause 2 would be interesting... :)

I'd personally like to see:

Crysis - Very High No AA
I usually just run MSI Afterburner with logging and record a min/max framerate from the beginning of the game until you reach the cliff overlooking the cam with the jammer you need to destroy, I had problems getting the 3rd party benchmarks working properly. I'm curious Paradigm, what did you do for your Crysis benchmarks in the 460 1GB vs 2GB review? I didn't see it mentioned in the review, but I may have overlooked it..


Just Cause 2 - Maximum except shadows on medium, SSAO off, Vsync off, GPU water off, no AA
Would like to see concrete jungle and dark tower benchmarks.


I want to compare 2x 295s to 1x 295, but if two 295s is completely unplayable for you, I don't know really know if your results are going to be a big surprise. Either way, I'm curious to see how other 295s are stacking up to mine performance-wise anyway, since I'm stuck with these things for the time being.. :roll:

Unfortunately I don't own Just Cause.

I did some installing last night and I've got Mafia II, Stalker: Call of Pripyat, Crysis v1.21, BF: Bad Company 2, Amnesia, Bioshock, and CS: Source ready to play.

Afterburner eh? I have been using Fraps and its logging but I'll give Afterburner a try.

My brother still has his 295 so I could do further testing in all these mentioned titles using mine and his together (quad sli) and any drivers you'd like.

My 570s get here Friday though so that will suck :lol:

Let me know how to proceed.

In the mean time I'll run Crysis from start to the cliff side overlooking the radio array using AB to log.

EDIT:

Ok this morning I had some time so I fired up Crysis (single gtx295 w/H2OC clocks)

Native game support 5903x1200 bezel corrected
No AA, all settings on Very High -Abysmal performance... entire intro was like 2-3fps and the same once on the ground.
Saved on the beach. Changed settings to all High, loaded up the game on the beach, and if you stand still, 15-18fps, but moving around and looking, 2-5fps.

From here I changed Shaders to Medium and turned Motion Blur OFF (cause I hate motion blur anyway) and turning motion blur off changed the "Post Processing" setting to "Custom"

So all HIGH, Shaders Medium, Post Processing Custom, Motion Blur Off and the fps never dip below 28. Usually @32-34 fps. Still not what I'd call playable but I'm sure with some shadow tweaking or something else it would bring it up to 50-60.

Got to get to work!

Well, it's better than Crysis would do for me - if I turned on Very High at 6064x1200, it would load then lurch around terribly, then hard crash on the 1GB GTX460 cards. On the 2GB cards it wouldn't crash, but still lurched terribly. High was playable, though.

JC2 was a fiver yesterday on Steam - not sure if it is now or not. Regardless, if you've not got it, no worries. ;)

Yeah I could pick it up but it didn't look to terribly exciting as a game.. looked fairly linear.

In any case, I would think 2x gtx460s even in the 1GB variety would run it fine at least at similar image levels considering the 295 has less VRAM per GPU.... makes no sense. Then when you take in to account that a 460 gpu is probably 1.5x more powerful (or more) than a gtx285 or 275, whichever is on this card, it really doesn't add up.

Well... Just Cause 2 is many things, but linear is not one of them.. The story is awful (in my opinion) but the game play can provide many hours of entertainment, once you get past the first mission, it's completely open world. And it's a big world. Real big.. Very pretty game too.

I started up Crysis (Warhead) and set everything to "Enthusiast" at 6060x1080, with no AA, and I got a minimum of well, 0 FPS, and a maximum of 27 FPS and an average of 12 FPS, with fairly frequent hangs. Dropping shaders down to gamer and leaving everything else at Enthusiast brings it closer to the realm of playability and eliminates the hangs for the most part, giving me a max of 33 FPS and an average of 19 FPS.

However, Crysis at "Very High" with no AA resulted in a slideshow, it was more like seconds per frame, rather than frames per second... and it didn't stop being a slideshow until I dropped setting to a mix of medium/high.

Neither game has any Nvidia profiles set, both running the 32-bit executable, patched to the latest versions, running the 260.99 drivers currently.. Do you guys notice such differences in performance between the two games?

Yeah I could pick it up but it didn't look to terribly exciting as a game.. looked fairly linear.

Just Cause 2 is anything but linear - you can level many negatives at the game, but linearity isn't one of them! ;) In all honesty, it's one of the more enjoyable games I've played this year.

...

Fuzion - yeah, Warhead is a lot better optimised than the original Crysis. Warhead is more or less playable on 2GB 460s in Surround on Enthusiast (and pushes VRAM into the 1850-1900MB range) but Crysis hits 2040MB of VRAM and keeps wanting more - it's obvious in Surround that Crysis is just so VRAM hungry that even the 'over VRAM'd' cards don't really have enough.

Come on nVidia! Release 3GB GTX580s already!