Dual graphics cards

[Amasov]

What are the benefits of having dual graphics cards?

Is there much of a difference?

 

[Rii]

There's certainly a difference, but it's generally not a good idea unless you're otherwise running a cutting edge system. There are no games out there - with the possible exception of Crysis back in 2007 - which are built to require two of the latest cards in order to run at high settings.

In addition to 'why bother?', there are additional concerns re: stability - you'll occasionally find games that don't play nice with it, and others that require manual fiddling - and more significantly power consumption (you may have to buy a new PSU) and thermal management. And if you're doing it right, it tends to be farking expensive. Some folks try and go for dual midrange cards, but they'd almost universally be better off with a single high-end card.

SLI is a hobbyist toy; it's not something most games need concern themselves with.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

As Rii said, there is really no benefit as far as gaming goes. And since the vast majority of games work best in fullscreen mode, you can't move over to the other screen to chat or something while playing a game.

Dual screens work well if one of the screens is devoted to a passive task. Say you've got a movie playing on one screen, and a browser on the other. Stuff like that.

Or, if you're a programmer, it helps to have your development environment on one screen and a debugging process on the other (terminal, command-line, etc.)

 

[Lindley]

It will become increasingly useful as more games leverage GPUs for physics in addition to graphics.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

That is a good point I had forgotten about.

 

[John Clark]

It will become increasingly useful as more games leverage GPUs for physics in addition to graphics.

I've seen that mentioned a few places. Some people have mentioned doing that on other forums.

For myself, I haven't had dual cards in years, but then it was because my primary card didn't run certain games in direct3d as opposed to glide (if I remember correctly). I had the old glide cards so decided to stick those in and it worked quite well at the time

 

[Lindley]

Also, while traditional GPU programming requires operating in a context bound to a specific GPU, with the advent of technologies like OpenCL, that may be changing---spreading a compute load across multiple cards is becoming easier.

 

[Amasov]

Forgive my initially short post.

Anyway, basically a new MMO is coming out that I want to play - Final Fantasy XIV. Despite anyone's feelings on it, it's a game that I am dying to play and want to push it to the best that it can be played at. I'm in the process of building a brand new PC - a gaming rig, of course. I was looking to put in dual cards and install liquid cooling as well as a cutting-edge processor, but purchasing the extra card is just making me wonder if it's worth the expense right now.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7St4WQclk[/yt]

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think for gaming you would probably get a better experience with a single large screen rather than a few smaller ones.

Gaming on a big HD screen is awesome!

 

[Yoda]

I think for gaming you would probably get a better experience with a single large screen rather than a few smaller ones.

Gaming on a big HD screen is awesome!

I game on 3x24"(1920x1200). Battlefield Bad Company 2 looks phenomenal, and it's very immersing. Sims like Flight Sim X, or a racing sim like Dirt 2 are also ridculous triple wide.

Not a cheap setup though, and honestly I could use a little more power than dual overlclocked gtx 460s provide. I much prefer the games that support the surround resolutions as opposed to stuff like SC2 or MW2 that is basically limited to one screen.

From a cost benefit perspective maybe it's not the best plan, but since I already have the three monitors or productivity purposes.. why not go for it? Also, it is a bit of a hassle changing driver modes depending on what you're doing.

For a shooter like CoD4 or BFBC2 which supports it there is a bit of a competitive advantage when you see an enemy in your peripheral vision while you perhaps are just outside the limits of his paltry single screen. I don't know how much of that translates to an MMO. But one thing is for sure, it'll look cool as fuck.

 

[Rii]

For a shooter like CoD4 or BFBC2 which supports it there is a bit of a competitive advantage when you see an enemy in your peripheral vision while you perhaps are just outside the limits of his paltry single screen.

And that's why it shouldn't be supported in multiplayer.

 

[Yoda]

For a shooter like CoD4 or BFBC2 which supports it there is a bit of a competitive advantage when you see an enemy in your peripheral vision while you perhaps are just outside the limits of his paltry single screen.

And that's why it shouldn't be supported in multiplayer.

Right, my field of view should be limited MW2 style because people don't want to buy the hardware

That's the same stupid thinking that caused it to take like 3 years before Battlefield 2 finally supported widescreen resolutions. Why not just lock the game to a single common denominator resolution? In MW2, the guy with the 2560x1600 monitor gets his advantage over my 1920x1200 setup even though I could be doing 5760x1200 if I wasn't locked out from doing it by VAC. In Starcraft 2, people with a 16:9 screen get a wider field of view than 16:10, why the hell are they given the advantage over me when I have the extra screen real estate?

It's a PC, we shouldn't accept console style limitations. People have mice that are tons better than my $10 oem logitech, but I don't bitch about it, though I did order a new 4000 DPI mouse, hopefully it's good. I still have a disadvantage with my crappy decade old speakers, and routinely am hunted by people with high quality headsets and 5.1 surround setups that let them accurately position me with sound. Why is surround sound ok but not surround vision?

It's always sad to see people cheer for technology being held back.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Wait, is this about SLI or multi-monitor setups? IIRC you can get dual monitors set up on a single card if it's supported. I remember ATI being particularly pro-active about offering two out ports per video card, so you could buy one of those, and put a single card in as the 3rd monitor card. As far as SLI is concerned, it's biggest benefit at the moment is if you like to game at resolutions above 1600X1200. Below that you're not getting a decent enough boost in framerate to justify the cost of adding another card. Even when optimal the increase actually isn't that much.

I actually bought a tri-sli motherboard thinking I'd just add in more cards once they got decently cheap. Two years later and I'm in a situation where buying a modern card will give me much better bang for the buck that buying another old one to pair up for SLI. For one thing, the price of my video card has never dropped below $100. Even used they seem to command somewhere in the $120 range. I could get a much better modern card for like 180. That would end up being only 30% higher in price while offering maybe a 75% increase in performance and features.