Can I run three monitors off of this?

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[mnewsham]

For Nvidia you need to use TWO GPU's for more then TWO monitors. With AMD you can have 3 monitors at once (IF one monitor uses DisplayPort) With AMD you COULD do eyefinity gaming but you don't have to. With Nvidia you would still need a second card for 3D surround.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[NoQuarter]

If I use one nvidia card for two displays and another card to drive one display, do I need to have two different drivers installed? Can you do that?

Also for the 5000/6000 series cards I hear you need some kind of active converter thing to use more than two monitors because you apparently have to use displayport. And all the monitors I have seen with display port are pretty expensive and I was just planning on getting three cheap brand monitors.

Using a 2nd card to drive the extra display requires you to have the other driver installed for it. You can do this under Windows XP and Windows 7 but not Windows Vista.

If you use an ATI card to run more than two monitors you do need to use DisplayPort or an active DisplayPort adapter. There are active single link DVI -> DP adapters for about $30 now so it's not terrible when the alternative is buying an extra (cheap) video card.

Also if you are building an AMD system you can use the onboard graphics to hook up the 3rd monitor because there is a bios option to keep onboard enabled even when a dedicated card is found. I don't believe Intel has such an option yet.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[SolMiester]

If I were you OP, Id get a low spec card to drive the outer monitors and a powerful card for your centre display. This way the the 2 outer displays can be used at the same time for other task while you are gaming..
Id be tempted to keep same manufacturers though, or it could get messy!

 

[NoQuarter]

Having two video card drivers won't cause any problems will it? I looked up the two nvidia cards I would use for my build and they apparently use the same driver (from what I can tell), would that work?

Shouldn't be an issue, but probably safer to pick 2 cards that use the same driver package such as any 2 nVidia cards. You can also use the 2nd nVidia card for PhysX as well as driving the extra monitor as a bonus.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[mnewsham]

8x speed is just fine, you wont fill up the bandwidth with pretty much any card, i would go with a GTX 560 or better for main display then a GTS 450 for the outer two.

 

[SolMiester]

If your building a new PC, then surely you would upgrade to W7 at same time?....personally I wouldnt get PCI card, I dont even think W7 has drivers for cards that old!
And if you are only getting the GTS 450, then it isnt going to saturate the PCIe 2.0 bus even at x8

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[mnewsham]

i would try to stay in the same series so if you get a low end 4xx series for the outer monitors get a higher end 4xx series for the center. same for 5xx series.

 

[aigomorla]

i would try to stay in the same series so if you get a low end 4xx series for the outer monitors get a higher end 4xx series for the center. same for 5xx series.

is configed like so:

and it works flawlessly. I have the 550ti mostly because i dont want to lose my sides in full screen.

So yes i also recomend u stay with nvidia if your first card is nvidia, and not cross platforms so its 1 driver install.


If your on a newer gen ATI card, then its moot on the second card unless u want to xfire.

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[mnewsham]

So If I use one card to drive my two side displays, I'll be able to click around on them and stuff without the center screen having to be windowed mode (while playing a game)?

If it is windowed and you ALT+TAB out of the window you can mouse over to the other screens (your game will still be running and will show up on the center monitor as long as you didnt open something on top of it)

AFAIK you cant keep a game full screened (no window) and use other monitors (besides for playback of video or a single web page IE: you cant click on those other screens without clicking out of the game unless using ALT+TAB while in windowed mode.)

 

[wahdangun]

if I was you, I will never consider that gts 450, especially you can get gtx 460 for cheap, or hd 6850.

 

[NoQuarter]

The motherboards I looked at have 2 pci-e 2.0 slots but it says it only runs two at 8x speed. Would it be better to get a regular PCI videocard and use that for that extra monitor so it doesn't mess up the speed of my main video card that I would be using to run games? Or would it not affect the speed at all. Also how would this work with direct x? The 450 GTS is direct x 11 (I think) while the 9400gs is DX 10. Would this mess up anything if I had direct x 11 installed on my system. Is it backwards compatible?

Sorry for all the questions, Im still on XP with Direct X 9 so Im way out of the loop when it comes to all the new stuff, and it doesn't help that Im a complete noob as well

Since you haven't bought the motherboard yet you should try to find one that runs the primary PCIe 2.0 slot at 16x if you can even if it's a 16x/4x. The secondary card won't need the bandwidth since it's only being used for desktop display. It's not a big deal if you can only find an 8x/8x though. There's like a 3% gaming performance hit dropping from 16x to 8x.

It also won't matter if you mix DX11 and DX10 cards, the game will be rendered on the primary GPU and only its capabilities will matter.


As for Alt-Tab, even though your side monitors will be running off the secondary card you will still need to run your games in Windowed Full Screen mode if you want to be able to switch focus from the game without hassle. A lot of games have that option though even if it's a command line or .ini option.

 

[Dark Shroud]

A Sapphire Flex card can run 3 monitors from a single card without the use of Displayport.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102906

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...E&PageSize=100

 

[aelmore1990]

closed

 

[Zargon]

yeah should be backwards compatible

 

[mnewsham]

The 5770 i had would get good FPS at 1920x1080 in most games (dragon age etc) But i think 5760x1080 would be a bit much for that kind of game, HL2 and such should be okay.

 

[SolMiester]

Trouble with using 1 card for 3 monitors is, if you only use the centre screen for games, the side 2 panel will just go black!

 

[mnewsham]

Trouble with using 1 card for 3 monitors is, if you only use the centre screen for games, the side 2 panel will just go black!

With my HD 5770 i used two monitors just fine for gaming

 

[SolMiester]

With my HD 5770 i used two monitors just fine for gaming

NIce...but thats not what i was talking about...

 

[mnewsham]

NIce...but thats not what i was talking about...

Why would it change by adding another monitor? My 2nd monitor didnt go black when gaming on the Main one.