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Dual monitors on Radeon 9000 - 2D Bandwidth issues?

M

Modulus44

Junior Member
I'm currently running dual Samsung 900nf 19" CRTs on a Radeon 9000. I do a lot of Photoshop work so I need the highest resolution possible. Right now I'm running both monitors at 1800 x 1440 x 32bit x 70 Hz. The display quality is phenomenal, but the 2D performance is awful, with really laggy drawing and slow window opening/closing. The behaviour is similar to when your system is really low on RAM, but I have 1.5 GB so that's not the problem.

My question is: Is the crappy 2D performance caused by a lack of bandwidth in the 2D engine of the Radeon 9K or is this something that can be fixed with drivers? I figure I'm pulling 2 x 1800 x 1440 x 4 bytes/pixel x 70 Hz = about 1.38 GB/s out of the 2D core. Has someone experienced similar problems? How do high-end media designers run multi-monitor setups at high res with good 2D performance?

Thanks
 
Id suggest removing 1 monitor and seeing how just 1 monitor feels. I understand you need the 2 to do what you want but for testing purposes then to eliminate the Video card, removing 1 and checking how having the single monitor to work on.

My monitors suck and cant do more than 1024*768 at 85 hz so I havent had a chance to do what you are suggesting that could be happening to you.
 
Depending on what flavor of Radeon 9000 you have, with these high resolutions and color depths, the answer may very well be yes. There is a good chance you're running low on video memory bandwidth there.

Better solutions include using a graphics card with higher RAM bandwidth, or multiple graphics cards where each has its own dedicated RAM.
 
In light of Peter's comments, wouldnt overclocking the RAM increase bandwidth and possibly improve your situation?
 
No chance its the video memory, Older matrox cards with far less bandwidth and much slower memory handle dual monitors with ease. I'd say its probably the drivers. I've had poor 2D performance before with Radeon cards with certain drivers. Usually turning off some visual elements in XP (you don't say which OS) like menu/mouse pointer shadows made a huge difference in 2D performance.

You might want to upgrade your drivers, or turning off some visual elements may help.
 

Would it be possible of no enough video RAM ? because your resolution is so high.

What's your video RAM size, 64MB or 128MB.
 
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