Will separate video cards improve dual-monitor viewing?

[Blue_Max]

[Running a 4670k and GeForce GTX 660]

I often have a movie playing on the 1080P HDMI TV and something else going on my 1080P monitor, often Facebook with a game.

I've noticed that in this multi-monitor setup, I get some tearing/stuttering/jitters or whatever you might call it. It's less than 100% smooth like it is when only running one at a time. CPU usage is still good n' low so that's not the problem.


I have a variety of video cards just lying around doing nothing so I could throw one of those in my second PCIe16 slot just for movies on the big screen, leaving the GTX660 for gaming/desktop.

You guys think it'll remove the whole issue?

If yes, would you recommend sticking with nVidia (old 8500 GT card) or ATI/AMD 4350? I imagine sticking with a single brand might be better on driver conflict than using the newer AMD card, eh?


Thanks!

 

[Rakehellion]

If you have extra cards lying around, then it couldn't hurt to try.

 

[Blue_Max]

Any other opinions/experience?

 

[Lonyo]

Sometimes video players seem to mess up gaming.
Assuming you have an Intel CPU, you can just try using the IGP for your second monitor to avoid having to add an extra card.
It also has the benefit of the fact there's no risk of your GPU clocking up for any reason as some do with multiple monitors, saving power.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have performance problems with a second monitor plugged into my 680s. Basically what happens is the more applications I put onto the second monitor, or make it display a video and the performance on the performance on both screens degrades. Windows don't draw at refresh rate any more as they are dragged around, mouse highlighting of text is noticably laggy etc etc.

I raised a bug about 10 months ago with Nvidia, have found quite a few other people with the issue and have raised it with all the big website. Not got any closer to understanding the cause or the fix.

I don't know if using two different cards would fix it and if you find that is does please send me a PM letting me know (just incase I miss the follow up post).

In theory at least AMD/Nvidia mixed would have a much better chance of success, but there is also a chance this is a problems with Windows as well, there have been a lot of reports since the Windows 7 days of these sorts of problem with multiple monitors. If you do decide to try this let me know how it turns out.

 

[SolMiester]

I have 3 monitors hooked up at work with a lowly 630, one driven via the iGPU, but dont have any issues.
The source of the video is on a separate drive though....

 

[jolancer]

I don't know the answer to your question. my assumption would be that it would help if each monitor was using a seperate card, but i have no experience with it. however i do know in the past it was always a terrible idea to mix nvidia and ati drivers, has that changed?

[EDIT

I have 3 monitors hooked up at work with a lowly 630, one driven via the iGPU, but dont have any issues.
The source of the video is on a separate drive though....

are you using two different graphic applications between monitors though?]

which brings up another question for the OP... what happens when you play two video's that are not flash split betwen monitors? or your original 1080p video, and a non-flash game on your second monitor apposed to the facebook game?

 

[2is]

Why would you even get another video card? You have a very decent IGP in that processor, might as well make use of that for your 2nd monitor. That's what I've been doing since I had my 3770k.

As far as the issue you're seeing, it's likely because the video card is clocked down in 2d mode then when you do something that requires more power, it takes a split second to clock up. You could get rid of this by keeping the video card at it's 3d clocks at all times if it bothers you enough, it will come at the cost of more heat and power consumption during idle and low load states.

At any rate, I'd first try the IGP before anything else. You already have it, it's free and it won't use up another PCI Express slot needlessly.

 

[Blue_Max]

I don't know why I forgot all about the tasty HD4600 IGP! My thought was maybe nVidia would prefer to share its drivers with a lowly 8500GT, but Intel and nVidia are bedfellows... this should work well.

As soon as I have time, I'll try it... (lots of distractions right now.)

 

[2is]

It'll work fine paired either with AMD or NVidia. I have it enabled on my 3770k and driving my second monitor on a system with SLI 680's. I also have it enabled on a 2600k driving a 2nd monitor, that box has a 7970. Good luck

 

[Blue_Max]

UPDATE!

No, using the HD4600 didn't help noticeably. Something about being in multi-monitor just results in that tiny lag on certain things. I'll just go back to the single card and get back my system memory stolen from IGP.

Then again, just for laughs - I'll try out my spare 8500GT lying around... who knows?

 

[2is]

UPDATE!

No, using the HD4600 didn't help noticeably. Something about being in multi-monitor just results in that tiny lag on certain things. I'll just go back to the single card and get back my system memory stolen from IGP.

Then again, just for laughs - I'll try out my spare 8500GT lying around... who knows?

If you didn't notice any negatives when using the IGP compared to having both monitors on the same dedicated GPU, you might want to reconsider for these reasons...

What is more valuable, system ram or VRAM? Enabling dual monitors on a single GPU still uses more memory, difference is it's using a little more VRAM vs a little more system ram.

Power consumption is also higher when dual monitors are hooked up to a dedicated GPU since they idle at slightly higher clocks vs when they're driving a single display.

 

[cytg111]

I have performance problems with a second monitor plugged into my 680s. Basically what happens is the more applications I put onto the second monitor, or make it display a video and the performance on the performance on both screens degrades. Windows don't draw at refresh rate any more as they are dragged around, mouse highlighting of text is noticably laggy etc etc..

- Yea I get that too on the second monitor, running vanilla 780.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Any other opinions/experience?

Yes.

I used to run 3 monitors on my 5850 and then a 720p projector on a 7600gt card.

I could game no problem with my 5850 and people could watch movies on the projector (also had two sound cards)

Only get some flickering when I'd shift from desktop mode to 3d, some flickering would occur, but building medieval 2 empire while watching whatever with my bros? Awesome. Man I miss that setup.

 

[Bateluer]

I have two 27in 1440p panels connected to: Radeon 6950, Radeno 7950B, and a Radeon R9 290X during the time I've owned the panels. Each of these cards was able to drive both panels in Windows without lag or stuttering on either regardless of what applications were open and running. The 6950 suffered in gaming performance, but that was it.

 

[lifeblood]

I have a HD7850 connected to a 1080P monitor, and a GT 610 connected to a 1440x900 display without issue. I do not currently play any intensive games beyond Metro 2033, so your mileage may vary. Metro required a NV card to run which is why I have mixed cards in my system.

 

[Deders]

You might want to experiment with the multi display acceleration in the Nvidia control panel.

 

[BrightCandle]

You might want to experiment with the multi display acceleration in the Nvidia control panel.

If you read the little description it tells you its only for openGL. It has absolutely no impact on the performance in Windows whatsoever.

I have often wondered if the SLI/Surround/PhysX has something to do with it. That diagram shows me that the second monitor is getting no acceleration and I wonder if that means none or just not SLI. If it isn't getting SLI accelerated then how does Windows get its DX calls for the interface accelerated and at the same time I can see both cards working on the interface.

I am in contact with Nvidia on the problem but we aren't getting anywhere and haven't been for 9 months.

 

[Deders]

If you read the little description it tells you its only for openGL. It has absolutely no impact on the performance in Windows whatsoever.

I have often wondered if the SLI/Surround/PhysX has something to do with it. That diagram shows me that the second monitor is getting no acceleration and I wonder if that means none or just not SLI. If it isn't getting SLI accelerated then how does Windows get its DX calls for the interface accelerated and at the same time I can see both cards working on the interface.

I beg to differ, I saw a massive improvement in frames per second when playing World in Conflict (DX10) in a dual monitor setup when I set it to single display performance mode.

My explanation for this is that obviously the map on the 2nd monitor didn't need anywhere near as much grunt to render as the main screen did so allotting half the GPU to that monitor would be pointless.

It might be worth making sure it is in multiple display acceleration mode.

It can't hurt to try, I'd also consider enabling Vsync to eliminate tearing, even on the desktop/browsers.

 

[KompuKare]

@BrightCandle

Did you try changing the 2D clocks? Either the core, the memory or both. Nvidia keeps the same clocks for single monitor and multi-monitor for Kepler. Looking at a recent TPU reviews (GTX770 but the 680 should be the similar). Core/memory clocks are:
Single-monitor 135/162
Multi-Monitor 135/162

While AMD raises the clocks quite a bit for GCN (this was from a 280X but other Tahitis should be similar):
Single-monitor 300/150
Multi-Monitor 500/1500

Point being, that users have reported problems with both vendors approaches. Guess the problems aren't universal but still common enough. The Nvidia solution uses the same power for single and multi monitor, while the AMD use about 35W more multi-monitor. Neither is an ideal solution especially since for non-gaming uses, the competition are highly efficient IGPs. (My Google-skill totally failed me as I was not able to find a review of Haswell IGP consumption when driving multiple monitors. But since according to the AT Haswell HTPC article when running FurMark Haswell's power consumption only goes up 12W, the multi-monitor draw should be less than that.)

 

[BrightCandle]

I actually don't see much downclocking at all. My GPUs seem to run at 800-1000Mhz and full memory speed all the time. I used to see down to about 300Mhz but I haven't seen that for a while.

 

[KompuKare]

I actually don't see much downclocking at all. My GPUs seem to run at 800-1000Mhz and full memory speed all the time. I used to see down to about 300Mhz but I haven't seen that for a while.

Ok. Strange, wonder if it's some Afterburner etc. profile you have, or something that happens with SLI. I mean Aero is hardly 3D intensive so it doesn't make sense to have the GPU at full speed all the time. Winter atm, so the main con is the noise but as your watercooled that shouldn't matter to you.

My monitor has two inputs and I have the DVI powered by the onboard HD4000 which *should* mean the 7950 gets to idle down but unfortunately GCN's ZeroPower doesn't kick in While I don't mind VGA for gaming, the main reason is that I can do some mining at high intensities while still getting a good response from the HD4000.

 

[2is]

Running dual monitors on a single card will increase the idle clock speeds

 

[Tmf]

I like to watch youtube/twtich on my second monitor when I play WoW and I've noticed the stutter/lag/whatever for over a year now. IGPU doesn't help and it's present on both Nvidia and AMD from what I've seen. Tried all sorts of different things with no luck. It use to bug the crap out of me but I've learned to deal with it.

 

[BrightCandle]

My 680's are not overclocked via MSI afterburner or otherwise. There is no overclocked profile. This is just stock cards with Nvidia's latest beta drivers. I know there is something wrong in Windows, and I can't work out what it is myself and Nvidia is about as helpful as a wet fish in the bed.