nvidia 680 and 3 monitors

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 1:10 pm

I'm using 2 monitors now and would like to upgrade to 3 eventually. I read that the new 680 card supports 3 (even 4 monitors I read). However, I cant see how (and none of the reviews that I saw mentioned this) it can use more than two monitors since it only has two connections. Does anyone know how this works? Is a splitter needed?
I'd prefer a one card solution.

Thanks!

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:32 pm

The 680 has four connections if I'm not mistaken. 2x DVI's 1xDisplay Port 1x HDMI. I believe it will be a similar connection setup as to how the ATi cards does it. I have a 5850 on 3 screens and I use the 2 DVI's and an active display port adapter on the display port the run the third screen.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:11 pm

Correct, the 680 comes with 2 DVI connections, 1 HDMI and 1 DisplayPort which lets it drive up to 4 displays at once.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:20 pm

OK, that makes sense. I saw the two DVI connections and thought there should be a 3rd and 4th.
However, wont that make the displays run differently, since there's only 2 digital ports? I'm not sure how that works.
I have two DVI ports in my 460, and am running 2 24" 1920x1200 displays....seems like it would be funky to only use one DVI and the other analog.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:22 pm

HDMI and DisplayPort are strictly digital (actually the DVI ports are the only ones that can drive an analog display).

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 4:46 pm

So in a 3 monitor setup, at least one monitor has to be analog...wont that make the screens mismatched?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:03 pm

All 4 ports can drive digital screens so there wouldn't be any mismatch. The HDMI port even uses the same signalling as DVI and can be used to drive a DVI monitor with a simple passive adapter.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:10 pm

HDMI and DVI use identical signals, you can find a cable that has a DVI port on one end and a HDMI port on the other.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:48 pm

for three monitors use DVI/DVI/Display port unless you are never going to use 3D (Multimonitor or as they call it nVidia Surround)

this way if you go full blown 3D you do not have to reconfigure

Fourth Port - HDMI is 2D Surround Only

You will need a Active DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter
not cheap passive - display port adapters (without usb power) - you have been warned!

I have been using ATI's "Eyefinity" for 2 years now!

reference

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:22 pm

Bubba,
So even if I only use 3 monitors (dont have room for a 4th), I'll need that adapter? (At $99, it's surprising that nvidia wouldnt mention that...especially wiht a $500 card that boasts 3 and 4 display ability)

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:34 pm

if you already have a Monitor with a Native Display-port, then you do not need it

Eventually all monitors will be Display-port

Don't forget to use 3 identical resolution monitors!

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:45 pm

I have two HP LA2405wg monitors
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-NA-_-NA
and I'll have to get a 3rd so that they all match.
The specs section says:
Connectivity
Input Video Compatibility: Analog RGB, Digital

Connectors: D-Sub, DVI-D, DisplayPort

So, I wont need the adapter, right?

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:48 pm

Correct - you have native DisplayPort Support!

Your Golden and good to go!

You just need a DisplayPort Male2Male locking-cable to connect the DisplayPort on the video card to the DisplayPort on the monitor

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:19 am

Outstanding!
Been waiting for awhile to do this....will just wait a bit longer to see how the 680s shape up (and to save some cash up for the purchase).
I'm still using my 3 year old i7 920 system...and it still seems to be holding strong.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:29 am

An i7 920 should have sufficient performance to keep going for another 3 years at least (assuming you have enough RAM anyway), so I wouldn't worry about that.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:30 am

well when It comes down to game configs, let me know

I have Two HD 5870 in my Machine with Eyefinity and 4 Monitors (last one is a L2105tm touch screen) always fun

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:21 am

Thanks for the input and help!

Does win7 handle 3 monitors in the same way that it handles 2 (or is more software needed)?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:45 am

Yup. 2, 3, 10, makes no difference, windows handles them all the same.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:12 pm

I'm getting close to ordering the new monitor and have a question (need to wait a couple of weeks for the 680):

I read a blurb (not official) that in a few months, the 4Gb version of the 680 is coming out. This seems it would be ideal for 3x Monitor solutions.

I was hoping that the 2gb version of the 680 would be sufficient. Has anyone heard what the 4gb card will cost?
I'm running 2 24" 1920x1200 monitors now with a 460 GTX. I can swing the 3rd monitor for sure, and can squeek into the $500 for the 2gb card.
So I guess the question is: is 2gb enough for 3 16:10 monitors? Or is 4gb necessary?

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:21 am

Well what I've read is that more memory is better for triple monitor gaming but this is only true in the sense of frame buffering I think, don't quote me on this but don't expect a significant performance increase the processing power is still the same.

Point in fact is I'm still running a 5850 1gb on triple monitors, now given the native res of my screens are 1680x1050 which helps as my overall res is only 5292x1050 and I can run for example Dirt 3 on high settings getting 50fps and even Crysis 2 on extreme settings was playable for me (just tested the game so far haven't played past the first mission so not sure how it will rate further down) but yea I guess it will be down to pricing. 2gb Will most likely get the job done but having that extra bit of memory can help I guess unless it is outrageously priced.

PS my 5850 is o/c'ed to 900/1100 for point of reference

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:27 am

By the time you run into the memory limits of the 2 GB card, you would probably be looking at buying a card from a whole new generation anyway so I'd stick to the 2 GB cards for now.

There is no need for 4 GB to maintain a larger frame buffer: the actual resolution of a triple 1920x1200 monitor setup would be 5760x1200, or 6,912,000 pixels. Multiply that by 32 bits per pixel (for standard 32 bit color) and you get 221,184,000 bits, divide by 8 to get 27,648,000 bytes, or 26.3 megabytes which is how large a individual frame would be in the frame buffer, 2 GB is plenty even in situations where you are using double or triple buffering for vsync (which would use a total of 52 or 79 MB for the frame buffers respectively). So basically the frame buffer is a drop in the bucket, the vast majority of the remaining 1970+ MB of memory is typically used for caching textures.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:09 pm

I have been flying flight sims lately, which are very demanding, especially on AA settings.
Would the extra 2gb card be necessary because of this? Seems from what I'm reading that more than 2gb is overkill. I have 1gb on my 460 now and it runs well, but I do find that quite a few sim pilots swear by 1.5gb to 3gb.

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:21 pm

BTW doesn't Nvidia have some new AA tech on these generation of cards that is better then the current AA at half the performance loss as well. So I think it is doubtful that there would be an advantage with 4gb over 2gb. I think it is like Krom said 2gb should suffice.

Basically what I take from this is:

4 & 3 gb = marketing hype = less $$ in your wallet

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:38 pm

Standard MSAA modes are demanding on memory bandwidth (how fast you can write to / read from memory), not how much memory there is.

Worst case scenario since 4 GB requires larger chips which likely have higher defect rate, using them could cause nvidia to reduce the clock speeds or implement more error correction to get better yields and that would reduce performance rather than improve it. Best case scenario the performance would be identical when the game is not limited by the available texture memory.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:49 am

i just got a Nvidia eVGA 570HD 2.5 GB Card and its beautiful

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 1:47 pm

It seems then, if I'm reading Krom's posts correctly, that 2GB is the most needed for video memory, at least for the 680.
Why have more memory if it's going to actually slow the card down? Is it just another option to get people to pay more?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:41 pm

Perhaps a few years down the line games will want to cache more than 2 GB of textures in the video cards memory, so by then having more memory will help. But the vast majority of games today fit just fine in only 1 GB of memory, so 2 is plenty and 4 is useless expensive overkill.

The only current exception would probably be id software's "Rage" game where the main gimmick is automatically scaling the texture detail up to absurd levels depending on the total available texture memory.

Something that could come in handy though; check out GPU-Z ( http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ ), its sensors tab is a decent hardware monitor for video cards and shows/graphs how much memory your video card is using.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 3:26 pm

terrific tool Krom!

I tested my flight sim out and with my 460GTX 1gb video card, I'm running about 75% GPU load, and 1016mb of 1024mb video memory used.
I'm not running at full settings as I hope to do with the 680.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 8:21 pm

Unless your planning to run gpu virtualization on nvidia 680 backend while playing your sims, it might be a bit of overkill, but hey it would be smooth as butter!

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 12:32 am

Well, I'm definitely interested in smooth!

But I wont be running anything else except Track IR and perhaps Fraps while flying.
I'm in a holding pattern as newegg and amazon are sold out of the 680s right now

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:33 am

I was following a thread about triple screen flight simming, when one pilot made this statement:

...with my triple screen resolution, my Precision X tells me I have 2200+MB being used at times. More when taking a screenshot during flight.

He's running 2 580GTX 3072mb cards in SLI with 1 30" monitor and 2 20" monitors (for a resolution of 5388x1600), on a i7 980@ 3.8Ghz

He goes on to say that 3GB or more VRam is a necessity.

Is he right? Do you think the 2GB 680 would run into this same memory usage, or would the extra processing power of the 680 compensate?

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 12:45 am

if and only if you go full retard and crank everything to maximum.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:43 am

The solution would be to turn just the texture detail level down one notch from maximum (which is probably just turning texture compression back on to save space).

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:11 pm

Widescreen

My question would be, what are the resolutions for each monitor(to see how much rendering is going to dead space), is he using win 7 with aero (actually uses less resources in widescreen gaming)

5388 x 1600 seems odd to me so the monitors must be different resolutions and fit into that resolution scope and portions not rendered by physical monitors

My default triple

3840 x 1024 (3 x 1280)

Brezel comp = 4032 x 1024
(1280+96+1280+96+1280)

Most people have (and you will)
5760 x 1080 (3 x 1920)

Brezel comp = 5952 x 1080
(1920+96+1920+96+1920)

When I play dcs games and use my 4th monitor instead of logically stacking the monitors in the display config I arrange them horizontally ( to minimize the non rendered to physical media

5952 x 1080

Monitor # 1 - Triple on top 4032 x1024
(logically the left monitor to the game)

Monitor # 2 - Touchscreen on bottom 1920 x1080
(logically the right monitor to the game)

4032 x 56 section is not rendered

but compared to the lazy approach most take with mismatched monitors its better than having 2 sections of 1056 x 1080 not being physically rendered because I stacked the monitors vertically with 4032 x 2104 in the display.lua and wondering why frame rate sucks or memory usage is thru the roof (2,162,688 px not displayed vs 225,792 px. That's a huge difference on performance)

Bottom line, be weary of statements made by those with mismatched monitors who do not disclose what their cards are really rendering compared to their actual desktop real estate.... Ie use identical res monitors or suffer from not planning your loss out

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:36 pm

Wow that makes so much sense! I'm so glad I asked here first (and listened) when I made the jump from one monitor to two about 7 years ago...
The thought about texture detail is key as well.
Thanks for taking the time to post Bubba/Krom/Fliptw!

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu May 03, 2012 8:22 pm

So I'm planning on connecting 2 of my 3 LA2405wg monitors to the 680 (when it comes in stock) to the 2 DVI ports, and the last monitor from the monitor display port to the 680 display port (with Bubba's male to male display port cable from newegg).
That should get me running 3 screens for one big desktop (and good for multiple monitor gaming), right?

Is there any advantage of the display port over the DVI port?

If I was going to run a 4th monitor, how would I connect it? With an HDMI cable (hooked to the 680) and a dvi port adapter (to connect the other end of the HDMI cable to the monitor, which has no HDMI connection)?
My monitors have 3 connectors: DVI-D, VGA, DisplayPort
Here's an image:

Thanks!

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Thu May 03, 2012 8:34 pm

if you can use it, use it.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri May 04, 2012 10:07 am

DisplayPort has more bandwidth than DVI which means it can support higher refresh rates and resolutions, but that isn't really relevant with current monitors. However, Intel is thinking about more than doubling the pixel density of screens in the next few years (like the iPad 3 did), at which time DisplayPort will likely become important because DVI/HDMI don't have the bandwidth to handle that many pixels.

FireFox · Post by **FireFox** » Fri May 04, 2012 12:08 pm

ReadyMan wrote: If I was going to run a 4th monitor, how would I connect it? With an HDMI cable (hooked to the 680) and a dvi port adapter (to connect the other end of the HDMI cable to the monitor, which has no HDMI connection)?
My monitors have 3 connectors: DVI-D, VGA, DisplayPort

That would be my guess is to use a HDMI to DVI/Displayport adaptor. I run sort of a similar setup for my 3x1 eyefinity but it is just an active Displayport to VGA adapter for my third screen. Back in the days of the ATi 5850, thou it has a HDMI it is linked to one of the DVI's so you use either the DVI or the HDMI but not both at the same time. Nvidia states that they can run up to 4 screens of one card so I guess they don't have that limitation in their design. As to setup one thing I saw was how they promoted the setup is that the 4th screen is an extended desktop not one of the surround view. Whether it is able to be setup that way as a 4x1 I don't know and a little research should be in order. I personally can't see myself using a 4x1 or 2x2 setup as the bezels will be smack in the center of your view. 3x1+1 is the most practical I think should you be inclined to use all 4 but whether a game can utilize it like that I don't know. It was stated in their promos that you can run like other programs and stuff on there in conjunction to your game like chat apps and so forth so it might be worth it to look into it a bit more before hand.

Again I'm only talking from an ATi Eyefinity knowledge perspective but that is what my logic would dictate and what I would look into before investing in a 4th screen. Having the ability to use it doesn't mean you have to use it if you don't need it

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sat May 05, 2012 10:04 am

if you have the option to actually use 3 display ports that's your primary choice, then DVI/HDMI then analog

using a 4th monitor get a cheap second card, do not waste bandwidth on a 2d/desktop only display

FYI - DisplayPort will replace DVI/HDMI/Analog

that single DP1.2 on your card has the ability to support a single display 4096x2160/30bit (4K2K)or 4x1920 DP/hdmi monitors with streaming audio to each from a single port with a Multi-Stream Transport (MST) Hub....(you can thank AMD for this push) yeah choke on that...

why do you want to stay in the stone-age with DVI when your card has much more available