Basic question about multiple monitors

[jmachin]

I can understand that playing a game across 3 monitors will require much more oomph than playing it on one monitor, but what I don't understand is how having one or two monitors displaying static images (pdf files, an internet browser e.t.c.) affects performance, and which resources they would use up?

Say I wanted to have a (reasonably demanding) game on the central monitor, a video on a monitor to the left and some forums open on the right, would a GPU such as a GTX 670 be able to cope with that? And if so, would it be sacrificing much quality to do so?

I'm trying to gauge how much VRAM I'll need on my GPU when I build a PC in about 3 weeks time, and I'm starting to wonder if 2GB will be enough, considering that I'll be open to spending ~£1000 on the build overall.

 

[TheStu]

If you have no intention in using all 3 monitors at once for gaming, then you should be able to use a second GPU to drive the other 2 monitors.

What I am not sure about (though I suppose I could test it this evening), is if you can still fullscreen the middle one.

Then there's the mouse issue...

 

[jmachin]

If you have no intention in using all 3 monitors at once for gaming, then you should be able to use a second GPU to drive the other 2 monitors.

What I am not sure about (though I suppose I could test it this evening), is if you can still fullscreen the middle one.

Then there's the mouse issue...

So I wouldn't be able to do it all with 1 GPU? At the moment I have a laptop with an monitor attached so I have a game on the monitor in full screen windowed mode and an internet browser on the laptop screen. The mouse stays within the monitor that the game is on unless I tab out.

 

[mfenn]

I can understand that playing a game across 3 monitors will require much more oomph than playing it on one monitor, but what I don't understand is how having one or two monitors displaying static images (pdf files, an internet browser e.t.c.) affects performance, and which resources they would use up?

Say I wanted to have a (reasonably demanding) game on the central monitor, a video on a monitor to the left and some forums open on the right, would a GPU such as a GTX 670 be able to cope with that? And if so, would it be sacrificing much quality to do so?

I'm trying to gauge how much VRAM I'll need on my GPU when I build a PC in about 3 weeks time, and I'm starting to wonder if 2GB will be enough, considering that I'll be open to spending ~£1000 on the build overall.

Non-3D tasks on secondary monitors have next to no impact on gaming performance. You could probably measure the difference if you really tried, but I would be surprised if it were more than 1 FPS.

 

[TheStu]

So I wouldn't be able to do it all with 1 GPU? At the moment I have a laptop with an monitor attached so I have a game on the monitor in full screen windowed mode and an internet browser on the laptop screen. The mouse stays within the monitor that the game is on unless I tab out.

I was just talking about the performance aspect. Last time I had multiple monitors available to me, multi-monitor gaming was... not really done. I was offering a solution to a non-problem it seems.

Nice that the mouse stays captured by the display.

 

[utahraptor]

Web browsing or watching videos on the second monitor maybe take at best 5% of the video card when gaming. The important thing to do is keep your game in full screen windowed mode if you can. This allows seamless mouse movement to the second monitor if desired usually although league of legends makes me alt tab.

 

[Lavans]

I've been gaming on triple monitors for over 3 years now, both in surround as well as having the game running off the center monitor with the two sides doing basic tasks. As long as you don't have anything with hardware acceleration going on other than the game, then you have nothing to worry about.

 

[jmachin]

Ah great that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for the replies!