Nvidia, Sli & dual monitors?

RiptideRiptide Northern Canada New
edited February 2007 in Hardware
So I installed everything into the new case. But now I can't get the system to setup multiple monitors. I've tried pluging the 2nd monitor cable into each of the 3 remaining ports on the video cards. But it always does the same thing. The Nvidia software see's the 2nd monitor (it gives me it's name), and I could set that monitor to view Sli rendered graphics, and that works. But when I try to enable the 2nd monitor (Right Click / Properties / Settings). It let's me enable it, but when I hit apply it automatically disables it. This morning I've heard that you can't run multiple monitors and Sli, but I won't be able to test that until tonight. And thought that I could get some thoughts/feedback before that.

BFG 7900GTx2, A8N Sli Premium, XP Pro

Comments

  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2007
    SLI does not support Dual monitors... the 8800 series is suppose to support up to 4 monitors with a future patch.
  • RiptideRiptide Northern Canada New
    edited February 2007
    So I would have to disable Sli, & restart the system just to get multiple monitors!? And the same thing, when I want to enable Sli!? Grrr!

    How many games will actually take advantage of Sli? Here's a list of some of the ones I play which might do so:

    NFS Carbon
    BF 1942
    BF2
    NHL07
    Company of Hero's
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2007
    Riptide wrote: »
    So I would have to disable Sli, & restart the system just to get multiple monitors!? And the same thing, when I want to enable Sli!? Grrr!

    How many games will actually take advantage of Sli? Here's a list of some of the ones I play which might do so:

    NFS Carbon
    BF 1942
    BF2
    NHL07
    Company of Hero's


    Also most every new game on the market will now take advantage of SLI especially the ones listed above...

    But yes to enable SLI you will have to restart it... I was able for a short time to get dual monitors to work properly in SLI, but my fix only seemed to work with a certain driver from Nvidia and with a special dongel I was able to find.

    Since than I have just ran 1 of the best GPU's out there and kept my dual monitors and scrapped SLI, as dual monitors was more important to me :) with the 8800 series to add multi monitor support in mid 07’ I might jump back into the PC desktop market :)
  • RiptideRiptide Northern Canada New
    edited February 2007
    If Sli isn't enabled, is there any advantage to having dual video cards? Becuase I'm thinking that I'm going to miss the dual monitors much more than having slightly better graphics...

    Or should I just pawn these off (get $500-$600), and pick up one 8800 GTX?
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited February 2007
    Thats what I did... until I sold my rig. I just got one of the best cards on the market and kept my dual monitors.

    TBH if you're a graphics junky like I am and want the best performance for your buck, and you play games all the time and that extra boost is worth it, go for SLI. If you can live with a 8800GTX with all games on Ultra High settings "Still" at full res "Still" than a single card and dual monitors is the way to go.

    Now you ask whats the difference than? if I get top settings anyways with a top of the line GPU vs 2 semi good GPU's...

    Its only a handful of FPS nothing more TBH, most often you will never see the difference, only benchmark numbers will show you.
  • RiptideRiptide Northern Canada New
    edited February 2007
    I found out that I can enable & disable Sli without restarting windows from the Nvidia control panel. Meaning I'll be keeping my 7900's for a while now, and only enabling Sli when I'm gonna game. I'm sure it's gonna be a pain in the butt, but I'm having a hard time justifying spending another $650-$700 on a video card. Especially when I have 2 brand new cards that have no usage on them.
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