2 Graphic Cards But Not In Sli?

[vonduck 99]

Hi guys,

 

A question...

 

I am building a home cockpit and have started using the Jeheel software for the instruments on 2 monitors while the outside display is on 2 monitors linked as dual HDMI... (have 4 monitors - 2 x 27" linked as one using Zotac splitter and 2 x 18" running DVI all from same card)

 

Currently i have my 2 GTX670oc cards linked in SLI and am using the CFG tweak etc,,,, I do get graphic anomalies though which we understand is a trade off..

 

My question is this... can i disable SLI and plug the 2 monitors for the gauges into the lower graphic card and leave the other card to display the outside view? Would performance be better for the gauges?

 

Thought i would ask first rather than mess things up unnecessarily!

 

Cheers chaps

 

Doug

[AlphaInfinity 13]

Short answer yes functionally. Performance wise you will have to test. I was thinking about doing the same thing, but I ordered the Oculus Rift DK2, so all my hardware plans/changes are on hold until it arrives. 

[vonduck 99]

Thanks Scott,

 

Looks like i will have to give it a go to see

 

Will report back with my findings

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[janar737 0]

Hi Doug

 

Worked for me.

For more info on my setup see

http://home.wxs.nl/~jarkest/fsx/fsx.html

 

See you, Jan

[vonduck 99]

Jeepers! Thanks Jan, that was most informative!

 

For the actual setup, i assume you just plugged the additional monitors into the 2nd card and that was it? Anything to be wary of?

 

Did you notice a performance gain or things generally smoother?

 

Thanks Jan!

 

Doug

[janar737 0]

Hi Dough,

 

You are welcome.

You should be aware that you cannot use the vc on monitors connected to different graphical cards.

As shown in the pictures on my website, I use one graphical card for the (single/streched) outside view

and one to show the 2d panel.

Also your PC/processor should be powerful enough to produce all those pixels at an acceptable framerate

If I use the iFly 737NG with Austria pro + Innsbruck it goes down to 10-15 fps while on take-off.

 

See you, Jan

[Demious 23]

I can confirm it is indeed a 'see what your system does'-project. I recently build a new PC for my flightsim and because i'm running 2 monitors, one for VC with ouside view and one in my hardware panel with a main panel view, I thought to try to get the panel monitor run on the Geforce 460 from my old PC, to boost FPS. Two different cards, so non-SLI.

First, I could find plenty of forums posts telling me this is possible, but non that explained how to do it. So I had to go on my own instinct on how to do it and the principle works on my system, but it didnt give me any extra performance, though.

I talked to several computer experts to advise me on what I could try to get more performance out of my setup, but everything I tried came down to the same thing: it works, but it doesnt give me any extra performance.

 

I understand that there are people for whom it did have a positive effect, but also for whom it didnt do much. So give it a try and see if it will benefit you.