Dual monitors on secondary PhysX card

[AxelDominatoR]

Hello, Nexus!

 

I would like to build a multimonitor setup using Portrait - Landscape - Portrait with two 20" side monitors and a 30" central one, similar to this:

 

http://3dalchemist.com/images/lcds/lcds-PLP_productive-authoring.jpg

 

 

Given that:

- I will drive the central 30" screen using a powerful card or crossfire/sli

- I will play games on the central 30" monitor ONLY (no Eyefinity or Surround).

- I will have a separate NVidia card for PhysX acceleration and various other experiments with CUDA programming, etc.

- The 20" side monitors will only be used for displaying 2D data like source code, browser, etc.

 

I'm asking you:

It is possible to connect the two 20" side screens on, say, a GTX260 (or any other PhysX-capable card with double outputs) and use it to drive both monitors AND PhysX while playing in the central 30" screen?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

P.S.

Facts I already know:

- You can use PhysX with an ATI CrossfireX setup.

- You can output a *single* display from the PhysX card (in 2D mode, at least).

 

Anyone tried making something similar?

Thanks again!

[Paxan_1]

Hi Axel,

 

i cant really give you an answer but i know you can use 3 screens with a radeon card. It will use three screens for your daily windows stuff and you can play 3d games with only one. If you add an additional Nvidia card this one would provide you with the physx stuff. But mind, the Nvidia one shouldnt be the slowest one you can find, because the radeon has to wait for the physx calculations. For example, if you are using a hd 4870 you will need a 9800gt. There are some discussions around the internet how to have physx with amd based graphic cards.

 

Btw, for the amd radeon you have to set up the displays like: 2:1:2, i think this should work with eyefinity.

 

Hope this helps a little

 

Sarah

 

Edit:

Eyefinity would allow you to set up 6 display with one gpu.

[AxelDominatoR]

But mind, the Nvidia one shouldnt be the slowest one you can find, because the radeon has to wait for the physx calculations. For example, if you are using a hd 4870 you will need a 9800gt.

 

I plan on buying an used GTX 260 or similar. I found some cheap ones and it should be ok to experiment with. If it cannot be done I would not lose so much. The 260 has plenty of processing power for CUDA applications and PhysX and has two monitors out.

 

About the eyefinity, I don't want to do it: I want to buy a single 30" monitor. Eyefinity requires every display to have the exact same resolution as the others. You can't mix a single 2560x1600 with two 1600x1200. There is an hack that makes you use a sort of "fake fullscreen mode" and allows eyefinity on different screens, but comes with quite a bit of a performance drop and it doesn't work with everything (and causes problems with crossfire, too).

 

I fear that when the PhysX is turned on, one of the two side monitors will shut off because one of the two heads of the nvidia will be used for PhysX.