The state of multi-monitor gaming

evilspoons

Senior member
Oct 17, 2005
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Hi everyone. I have a PC with 3 screens, 24" 1920x1200 60hz IPS panels hooked to two GTX 680s in SLI.

Let me start with this: when it works, it is WONDERFUL. I played Bioshock: Infinite on it and it was BEAUTIFUL.

But.

I have found NVIDIA Surround to be a GIANT PAIN IN THE ARSE over the time I've tried to use it. When in 2D mode (Windows desktop), window management sucks. Windows sees the desktop as one screen and then the NVIDIA drivers step in and try to lock windows to each real monitor, but they don't really work right. You get artifacts like weird borders around Chrome windows and the Start menu on Windows 10 doesn't look right and blah blah.

I can turn SLI off and get all three screens working "natively" in 2D, but then the monitor order changes and I have to rearrange the screens manually so my cursor travels properly between the displays.

Then I get to a game where I don't have enough GPU power to drive 5760x1200 pixels, or the game just plain ol' doesn't understand 48:10 aspect ratio (Skyrim), and I want to run in regular SLI (one monitor, 1920x1200). I only get TWO monitors in 2D! One display has to go dead. ARGH!

Has anything improved in the latest generation of video cards, AMD or NVIDIA?

I want to play my 3x 1920x1200 setup with one video card for last-gen games (Dishonored is what I'm working through right now) without breaking the bank. Is this possible?

Would adding a second card later for more "jam" (Crossfire/SLI) screw everything up again with the inconvenience factor?

Does this work AT ALL if I had an unlimited budget? I'm probably going to toss the 3-monitor setup for a single ultrawide 34" 21:9 display when I can afford it, but that's down the road a long ways. SLI 980 Tis or Crossfire Fury Xs and the 34-incher would set me back like $3000 Canadian. :(
 

thesmokingman

Platinum Member
May 6, 2010
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Hmm, things work pretty well on AMD. I've been using eyefinity in win7/8/10 and they've all worked generally the same. Program windows remember where I lasted opened them with the rare exception. There are programs btw to control window snapping/positions but I never bothered because eyefinity manages it well enough. AMD also has hydragrid if you want to get medieval on window placement.

Btw, I don't recall ever having issues playing Skyrim at 5760 except for the gui, which is a game coding issue and not because of triple panels itself. A lot og games were never coded for a central gui, not many ever thought that far. This is where apps like widescreen fixer and flawless widescreen come in handy. They can work wonders for many titles, fixing gui issues or adding fov control, etc.

Personally I'm using triple 290x lightnings and three benq 1080 144hz panels. I love it obviously. I've gotten so used to the stupid wide aspect ratio which is handy not only in fps games but obviously its superb for racing sims. I don't think I could swap to a single large panel, but an ultra wide panel is intriguing, the best of both single and wide.

I can check dishonored. I have it in my steam library but haven't played it, yet lol. Yea I have a large unplayed library.
 

evilspoons

Senior member
Oct 17, 2005
321
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76
To be clear, Dishonored works fine in triple monitor mode except my frame rate sucked, that's why I had to drop down to one-screen SLI... which is where my other monitor ended up turning off thanks to the stupidity of the SLI modes.

I'm a stickler for v-sync and having 60 Hz panels makes it tough sometimes. 30 fps is crappy, 15 is unacceptable. If I had a 144 Hz monitor set I'd probably be able to get by at 48 fps. Better yet, I'd have something like freesync/g-sync, making it less relevant, but yet again, more money!
 
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thesmokingman

Platinum Member
May 6, 2010
2,302
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I'm not sure what your question was? There were a lot of questions splintering off...

Performance wise, two 680s will be a compromise at 6mp loads and higher. Adding another card won't do much for it because one sli scaling is poor and two, the memory size and its bandwidth are not well suited to large resolutions.

What do you want? High fps with high resolution loads? That would require at least two 290x or 980s for ex. at a 6mp load. If you went to 4k you'd want 980tis or Furys, etc.

If going single panel say that ultrawide, a single 980ti or Fury X will be able to play at high to ultra in most games.

Personally I never play with vsync. I've got 144hz panels and ample power to match so vsync is never in my vocabulary. *Well that's not true. I do employ a fps cap to keep my cards from working too hard in easier to run games, which I'll employ AB's fps cap.
 
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