Has anyone tried the SLI Card route? Two cards linked will supply four monitors. I use three monitors for outside view (120 deg), and the fourth one for engines. A PCI Matrox card gives me PFD for both pilots using a video splitter. My frame rates in FS2004 are between 50 and 60 with all sliders full up and some add on's as well! A new motherboard was required as well as a massive power supply. I have two 1g ddr memory sticks and the two SLI graphics cards. My Processor is 3.5g.This lot set me back

Hi Tony,I like your idea. Using a single computer is so much easier than networking multiple computers. I am embarrassed to admit I am not familiar with SLI cards. I use an ATI 9000 series for two (outside view and instruments) and I know about the Nvidia GForce series. So far, the ATI card had done everything that I have asked.Thanks for the heads up.John

>Has anyone tried the SLI Card route? Two cards linked will>supply four monitors. I use three monitors for outside view>(120 deg), and the fourth one for engines. A PCI Matrox card>gives me PFD for both pilots using a video splitter. My frame>rates in FS2004 are between 50 and 60 with all sliders full up>and some add on's as well! A new motherboard was required as>well as a massive power supply. I have two 1g ddr memory>sticks and the two SLI graphics cards. My Processor is 3.5g.We have been thinking about an upgrade for our C172 sim, since the Athlon XP 2500+ and the Parhelia is starting to show its age, driving 3 screens.What models are your cards? What motherboard? CPU? If it works well, I'd be very happy to know the setup in more detail. Do you run FS in windowed mode (we do that for Parhelia now, since we get more FPS that way) - any other special things? So you have 3 outside views, is it 1 stretched view or 3 separate ones?//Tuomas

I am not too sure about this, but i didnt think you could in fact use 4 monitors in SLI mode?

AFAIK you only get more power on one monitor with SLI. I don't think you can span across 4 views like you can with 3 on matrox.RegardsSkotte

>AFAIK you only get more power on one monitor with SLI. I>don't think you can span across 4 views like you can with 3 on>matrox.That's what I am asking Tony about :)He seems to say he gets 3 monitors from this.//T

When you put them in SLI, the 2 cards will act as one.But if you leave out the SLI connector, and do not change your BIOS, but just plug in the 2nd card, you should have 4 screens.This is only theoretical, as I currently only had the money for an SLI-mobo, 3500+ CPU and some more of that nice stuff... Will buy a 2nd GPU in the next months

What EXACTLY is the "SLI Card Route"? Not sure what is meant by this approach. Is this a separate CARD, or a mobo configuration?

BLIMEY!! a real pilot on line!!Using the expression "SLI Route" is simply a way of encapsulating a whole load of words describing the use of SLI Graphics Cards. Fine details are computer engineer talk. Essentially, two SLI cards are used in tandem (so to speak) so as to produce the ability for them to display on four screens which make up between them, a single desktop area that can be used in the usual multi-monitor fashion. Outside views - or undocked gauges etc can be placed at will. Using three of these screens for the outside view, it is possible to use the fourth for undocked instruments - and installing an extra PCI card enables PFD to be displayed on both pilots screens (using a video splitter). Yet another PCI card can be used for other displays as required. I can assure you that an up-graded system of this sort can cope with as many cards as you can throw at it! giving you as many monitors as you wish - all on ONE computer, and WITHOUT loosing frame rates. Experiments so far have shown that rates of 55 remain constant with ALL sliders full and SEVEN monitors attached using two SLI cards plus one dual head card and a single head card installed.There is already a company using this sort of arrangement to teach trainee pilots (and charging a fine hourly rate to do so). My PC engineer found this chap on the net, which gave him the idea in the first place. Results are looking good - but experiments are on-going.I will post a full report as soon as the dust has settled!!TONY. (U.K.)

That's not the full idea behind SLI. The main purpose was for gamers to have a gpu twice as fast as a "normal" one.So when you connect 2 identical cards trough SLI and only connect one screen to one card, it gets the power from both cards!SLI is a nVidia-only technique and requires 2 identical cards. ATI is working on a similar system, called crossfire IIRC. Crossfire is able to connect 2 different cards, thus saving you some money.For either system, you need a special motherboard that supports the technique and has 2 PCIe slots

More in-depth, there are specific motherboards that are SLI compliant (as with ATI's Crossfire, the same will be true). Usually, the Mobo's use the fastest chips and internal workings as well as a host of other top-of-the-line features. The thing that separates an SLI Mobo from the standard PCI-Express 16x motherboards is the fact that they have 2 of these slots and a connector that fits on the SLI video cards that makes them operate as one. instead of 2 separate cards with dual 400mhz RAMDACs and 256MB of video memory, you now have 1 with 4 400mhz RAMDACs and 512MB video memory along with the bandwidth to carry all that information to the processor as fast as possible. This, along with high-end RAM (usually up to 4GB is supported in 4 different slots with PC4000 also being supported) and a fast processor (support just about any processor AMD past 2800+ and the Pentuims P4 and up).In theory, this is expanding the graphics pipelines tremendously, but if you don't have the processor to keep up or the RAM to hold the information in limbo while the processor crunches the numbers, this is all for naught.SLI is kindof the edge many gamers look for, but what most amateurs forget about is the FSB of the processor and speeds of the RAM. Obviously, the higher the numbers, the better, but the numbers that are compatable all come from the mobo. These new SLI systems seem to support a wide variety of stuff so your current parts may work in it (all except the AGP stuff) but you have to remember, that you'll need to upgrade usually to get the most out of this technology.Just my 2 cents.

Hello again!I now have installed the following -Abit AV8 3rd Eye Motherboard.AMD 3500 64bit Processor.Kingston 1024 mb PC3200 Ram (2 1g sticks)Enermax 600 watt PSU power supply.Extra case fans.I had SLI cards installed and FS2004 was running at 50 FPS plus but I have no idea how to provide an outside view over three of the monitors (SLI's are configured to provide four monitor outputs). Matrox Parhelia was able to do this automatically when hardware in 2004 was set accordingly. I guess not being able to configure a three monitor outside view with graphics cards other than Parhelia, is the main problem here?Even my local PC engineer is stumped on this one - so I thought I would challenge the REAL experts (flight simmers). Can anybody please tell me the best way to configure NON Parhelia graphics cards to perform in such a way as to provide a 3 screen outside view similar (or better) to the way Parhelia does? If neccessary, I will come away from the SLI idea providing I can keep the frame rates at a reasonable level.Having up-graded the PC, I hope I am not stuck with Parhelia (as good as it has been).Here's hoping someone can advise.TONY. (U.K.)

Hi Tony,Here's the lowdown (and some remarks on the some other issues):1. ATI's crossfire technology allows two different cards but they still must be ATI. You cannot mix any other cards.. sorry.2. Matrox "three-view" cards (triple head) support FS in spanned view- effectively spreading the front view over three screens (increasing teh horizontal resolution ot, say 1024 x3) and increasing the field of view accordingly.3. This cannot be achieved on dual SLI cards. The only way you can have a three-view is to actually create three 3D views and the undock them and drag them on the relevant monitor (save the situation to keep them in place). The caveat here is that each 3D card has only two heads so in this setup, one of the card will work twice as hard (for two 3D images) bringing the whole system down to a lower (roughly half) the FPS. The best setup you can have with a dual SLI is to drag one 3D view to each card (two forward or 30 deg) 3D views, and the remaining two you should assign to the 2D cockpit gauges. The 2D view will not reduce the FPS. So you will have two cards, each one supporting a3D (outside) view and a 2D (gauges) view. Thus you keep the FPS up and still have "some" multiple monitors display... No 3 monitors forward view yet - sorry.4. You may try to spread the whole desktop (nView option), undock one front 3D view and resize it so that it overs three monitors, but still, even in this case one of the cards will work twice as hard since it will have to display 3D information... Again, no peformance advantage here.I hope I made sense ;-)Have fun,Al

Hi guys,Two months ago I was able to do some tests with SLI cards.A P3.2 icw 6800 GT cards supllied 4 views.Other lan pc's used Magenta.I always test with Schiphol from Lago as it is a very demanding scenery.My sliders where all one setting from the right.AI traffic at 40% and clouds set to 2 thick cumulus layers. These where my conclusions then : 1 monitor 36 fps2 monitors 21 fps3 monitors 13 fps4 monitors 8 fpsImo 4 views is far too demanding for even the fastest pc now available.Even 3 only run good enough if you make the scenery less detailed.A tower view of 3 monitors is very good possible .A German flightsimmer with the fastest Pentium ( april 2005 )overclocked icw water cooling and the fastest graphics cards had about the same findings.The graphics cards can handle everything very easily but the processor is not capable of calculating detailed scenery over more than 2 monitors and give you a also good framerate.Happy flying,

>The graphics cards can handle everything very easily but the>processor is not capable of calculating detailed scenery over>more than 2 monitors and give you a also good framerate.That's why I am interested in the possibility for a stretched single view accross three screens. If that mode is possible, it'd be basically what the Parhelia does, but with newer cards , thus faster and looking better.I know that one cpu cannot "create the world" three times , since it needs 3 perspective calculations etc, that usually is the job of the CPU itself.So, if it is possible to have a stretched view like the Parhelia, that'd be interesting to know. I know it flattens the perspective a bit, so it is not absolutely perfect, but all this is a compromise anyway, trying to achieve a balance between budget, maintainability and the need for a personal nuclear reactor for electricity :)The parhelia that we currently have, looks pretty fine accross 3 screens and the sense of motion and movement far outweighs the slightly flattened perspective on the sides..//Tuomas