NVIDIA or ATI in a multimonitor setup?

[gofrm76]

somewhere in the BMS-forum i read that NVIDIA-cards suffer from a much greater framerate-drop that ATI-cards when going into windowed mode, at least in FalconBMS. is this the fact in DCS too?

 

i am using NVIDIA for years now and i have no experience at all with ATI-cards.

i have two 460GTX in a SLI setup which perform quite well in a single-monitor, fullscreen configuration.

as soon as i go into windowed mode to output the mfds on an additional monitor my framerate drops almost by half.

 

i tried different configurations: windowed with SLI, without (one card for main-screen, other card for mfds), fullscreen with softTH.

it all results in a huge drop of fps as soon as i depart from default single-screen setup.

 

so, is this the same case with ATI-cards? or am i doing something else completely wrong?

 

i was thinking about buying a new 680GTX in the not so far future. after reading the post in the BMS-forum i am not so sure anymore if i should stick with NVIDIA.

 

regards

gofrm

Edited July 20, 2012 by gofrm76

[JG14_Smil]

Hello, I have limited experience with both cards.

 

I did notice that my 680s lost a few more FPS when switching to Windowed mode than I remembered with my 7970. It was not 50% though, maybe 10%. Only thing I saw that cut my FPS 50% was trying to run Helios/DCS without Aero desktop enabled. I jumped from 30 FPS to 60 FPS when I enabled Aero.

 

I lean towards liking my 7970 more than my 680 GTX's, but to know for sure I would have to try the 7970 in my new system.

Edited July 20, 2012 by JG14_Smil

[airdog]

This is a i7 2600k@4.0 ghz running a EVGA GTX 670 4GB video card. All the screens are running off this one card. The main screen is a Toshiba 47 inch 3d LED 120hz. There are 3 23 inch touch screens made by Asus. I am running Helios software that intergrates with DCS A10C for using all the switches and dials. I am exporting these gauges. MFD's, CDU, CMSC, CMSP, UHF Freq, Preset on the UHF Radio, UHF repeater, digital clock and the RWR. I get anywhere from 40 to 90 FPS and this is running the whole setup in windowed mode with a res of 4080x2160.

 

Edited July 20, 2012 by airdog

[BHawthorne]

No matter what you do, you take a hit with windowed mode. AMD is the clear winner purely by port flexibility if you're going multi-display. You'll find some people prefer driver stability and/or 3D Vision capability of NVIDIA in preference of port count though. With video cards, it really depends upon what you're trying to accomplish.

 

I'm a former EVGA forum moderator, but I play on both sides of the fence when it comes to video cards manufacturers.

Edited July 20, 2012 by BHawthorne

[JCook]

AirDog - Thanks for that demo of the EVGA GTX 670 4GB. I just ordered one with my new system and its good to see the multi-monitor capability. I've been wondering about that.

[gofrm76]

i don't need much ports. one additional port for mfd export would be enough. so i can go with any recent card. my only problem is the fps-drop when running windowed.

 

you guys talking about 6XX cards, mine are 4XX. is there a possibility that newer generation nvidia-cards handle this issue better that the older ones (besides being faster in general)?

[BHawthorne]

i don't need much ports. one additional port for mfd export would be enough. so i can go with any recent card. my only problem is the fps-drop when running windowed.

 

you guys talking about 6XX cards, mine are 4XX. is there a possibility that newer generation nvidia-cards handle this issue better that the older ones (besides being faster in general)?

 

They'll be faster in general but are tied to the same drivers -- so if your 4XX-series card has quirks your 6XX-series most likely will too. The 670 and 680 cards have a lot of capability for their size though.

[Slayer]

Nvidia 400 and 500 series has hardware limit of 3 screens of same make for surround(Using SLI) (1 giant virtual screen). 600 series adds capability for a 4th auxillary display doesnt have to be the same as the others but cannot be part of the surround. Another upside of the 600 series is that you don't have to use SLI to use 3 or 4 monitors.

 

This seems to even apply to USB screens. I haven't been able to get any USB screen to work with nvidia surround enabled using displaylink devices. I used to run 1 large screen with 2 7 inch USB screens as MFD's and that works ok. Mis in Nvidia surround and its crash city.

 

I have never been 100% sure if this is a true hardware limit or a driver imposed limit.

 

ATI has cards that can do 6 screens but worse drivers/stability(IMO) than Nvidia.

[P1KW]

Hey. Excuse my poor English, and poor video quality.

 

It is an ATI 6990 with 5 monitors in Eyefinity configuration. Is running in windowed mode, the current driver version has lost performance in crossfire mode and DCS. In other simulators are indifferent window or full screen.

 

 

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=78759

Greetings.

Edited July 31, 2012 by P1KW