Graphics Cards

[Toughlove Sabra]

I am sure this issue has been kicked around a few 100 times and sorry if it is a repost, doing late night computer shopping...

Simply my question is this.For SL ..(1)Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti or DUAL AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB Xfire ...both systems have 16gb memeory and intel i7 processors ..

[Paul Hexem]

Generally, nVidia seems to get along better with SL, so if I had to choose between the two, that's what I'd pick.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Are you asking which is has more power?  If that's the case that's hard to say definitely since the two manufacturers don't provide some specs on the all the features and capabilities.  Both nVidia and AMD are going to highlight their cards best numbers in a way that makes their respective cards look the best.  About the only "significant" spec difference I could see was that the nVidia has a slightly higher processor clock speed.  Otherwise the card are pretty much indentical in performance.  Both are suited for high demanding games.  Both have a gig of DDR5 video memory.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000/hd-6850/pages/amd-radeon-hd-6850-overview.aspx#2

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-560ti/specifications

Personally I'd go with the nVidia card.  Not that it's so much more powerful but because I've been using nVidia cards for several years and I trust the chipset manutacturer.  I've also had ATI (which is now AMD) cards and really didn't have any problems with them except that, at the time, ATI's drivers were a real pain to update with the catylist drivers.  Both cards will run SL very well.

 

 

[Lana Dasmijn]

I'm just about ready to click the check out button on my new computer...but now I'm worried the GTX 680 won't run SL based on some of the things I've read in the forums.  Does anyone have any news on that or has anyone use a 680 with SL? 

[Toughlove Sabra]

Awws, thanks gadget, that's what I have heard too, by the way a friend of mine says I need to chat you about making some things in SL

[Toughlove Sabra]

Thanks Peggy

   It's not so much the power, a few years ago I bought a laptop that had a AMD  card and when I logged into SL it just did awful, since then I have chatted others and they have said it was better/fixed...My question, two cards better than one, and the xfire configuration ...I am more a nVdia myself also, though I have one now that is being wonky

[VRprofessor]

"...My question, two cards better than one, "

Hooray, I don't need to hijack the thread.  

I have a dual monitor system with a single GTX 550 card.  I've been told that adding a second 550 card (one per monitor) would be better than purchasing a single 560 card to run both monitors--moving the current 550 card to a different computer.

Anyone know anything about this?

[Nyll Bergbahn]

---

VRprofessor wrote:

"...My question, two cards better than one, "

Hooray, I don't need to hijack the thread.  

I have a dual monitor system with a single GTX 550 card.  I've been told that adding a second 550 card (one per monitor) would be better than purchasing a single 560 card to run both monitors--moving the current 550 card to a different computer.

Anyone know anything about this?

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Check out http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Technical/Can-I-use-multiple-monitors-with-Second-Life/qaq-p/696380

[Paul Hexem]

Well, you can send me a message anytime. Always interested in building new things.

[VRprofessor]

Thanks for the link Nyll, but that's not quite what I am looking for.

What I am trying to work out is whether purchasing two GTX 550 GPUs (one per monitor) or one GTX 560 GPU makes a difference. 

The number of "core processors" would be identical in either case (for higher end 560 cards).  It is just that in one case the same processors would be shared by two displays while in the other each display would have dedicated processors. 

The argument that I have heard, and I am wondering if it is valid, is that when you have two displays driven by a single card, there is substaintial memory swapping going on as the card switches from rendering one display to the other.  With two cards each display has a dedicated set of processors that render the displays in parallel. 

The claim that in this case two cards are better than one makes sense to me....but that doesn't mean it is right. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I misunderstood your question too. 

From what I've read and understood about single cards for two monitors vs two cards, one for each monitor is pretty much as your understanding appears to be.  The two card setup will have more graphics performance for each, individual monitor.  But that setup requires additional hardware features that are easily (and often) overlooked.  The motherboard has to have 2 PCIe x 16 slots for both cards to perform equally and most motherboards have 1 x16 slot and 1 x 1 slot (gaming MB's have multiple x 16 slots but they are sustainially more expensive).  Then there's the fact that an nVidia GTX 550 Ti card is physically twice as wide as lower end cards and the card will cover the slot directly below it on the motherboard which, of course makes that slot unavailable for use.  The motherboard design has to be such that you can use 2 PCIe x16 slots.  You need to make sure the slot layout for the PCIe x 16 slot will allow the installation of both cards.  That often requires that the MB has 3, not just 2, x 16 slots (I've seen MB slots positioned so that the 2 x 16 slots are not directly above or below each other but I've also seen them positioned directly above and below each.....which, in my mind makes the effective 2 x 16 slot spec sort of misleading.

If you can afford the addition expense and the graphics performance is that important to you for both monitors then the dual card is the way to go.  But, just a note.  I've heard the SL doesn't play very well with SL under the dual monitor setup (I've never attempted it myself so that may be hearsay).

[VRprofessor]

Sorry about poorly wording my question.

Thanks for the info.  I'd like to take credit for forethought but the simple truth is that I was advised by a PC gamer when I built my current desktop.  I have the slots that I need for dual cards and I have a big power supply.  No problem there.

I am concerned that SL might not play nice with dual monitors.  I'll dig around and see if I can learn anymore.

Because I alread have a 550 card installed purchasing a second one is the cheaper option. 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

---

VRprofessor wrote:

Sorry about poorly wording my question.

Thanks for the info.  I'd like to take credit for forethought but the simple truth is that I was advised by a PC gamer when I built my current desktop.  I have the slots that I need for dual cards and I have a big power supply.  No problem there.

I am concerned that SL might not play nice with dual monitors.  I'll dig around and see if I can learn anymore.

Because I alread have a 550 card installed purchasing a second one is the cheaper option. 

---

Yes, I did misunderstand.

You haven't said what slots you do have on your motherboard and things can get a bit confusing when multiple graphics cards are used. Far as I understand, if your motherboard has two PCI Express 3.0/2.0 x 16 slots, either of the x16 slots will work at x16 if one card is used but when two cards are installed, the slots automatically switch to x8. If you have a third slot, it will operate at x4. So I think you will get worse performance in Second Life with what you propose as basically you will be going from one 550 at x16 to one at x8 as Second Life will pretty much ignore the second card.

I'm sure Peggy can throw more light on this.

[Nalates Urriah]

There are people in SL using two video cards via nVidia's SLI. One of them has told me they had to go into the nVidia control panel and create a special setup for SL to have it use both cards. Even then, the second card was only lightly used. They thought the second card was only helping decompress textures.

If what they were telling me is accurate, the second card would be doing almost nothing for FPS. The textures would appear on things much faster and the time from a fuzzy image to completely sharp render would be less.

Look up the specs on your motherboard. You can use CPU-Z to get the model numbers and BIOS versions. When you look up the board look for whether it is SLI ready.

My understanding is the render pipeline for SL is a single thread. Support threads, like image decompress, are being put into their own process threads as the viewer is upgraded. This makes it difficult to get better FPS rates by adding hardware.

[VRprofessor]

As I read the answers I think I am still not being clear.

I currently have two monitors (23" @ 1920 x 1080 resolution.  This is a recent upgrade from two lower resolution monitors representing an increase of ~62% in the number of pixels being displayed.)

Both monitors are currently being driven by a single graphics card. 

Monitor 1 is SL; Monitor 2 is everything else that I am doing.

I am hoping that with two cards Card 1 would drive Monitor 1 (and SL) and that Card 2 would drive Monitor 2 (everything else).  If that doesn't work I will need a better card.

As I look at some information about my motherboard it appears that I can set some programs to use onboard graphics, reducing the load on my video card.  I'll fiddle with that a bit and see if it helps.  

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

---

VRprofessor wrote:

As I read the answers I think I am still not being clear.

I currently have two monitors (23" @ 1920 x 1080 resolution.  This is a recent upgrade from two lower resolution monitors representing an increase of ~62% in the number of pixels being displayed.)

Both monitors are currently being driven by a single graphics card. 

Monitor 1 is SL; Monitor 2 is everything else that I am doing.

I am hoping that with two cards Card 1 would drive Monitor 1 (and SL) and that Card 2 would drive Monitor 2 (everything else).  If that doesn't work I will need a better card.

As I look at some information about

my motherboard

 it appears that I can set some programs to use onboard graphics, reducing the load on my video card.  I'll fiddle with that a bit and see if it helps.  

 

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Would be a good idea for you to join the Official Gigabyte Forum and ask questions there on what you're trying to do with your Gigabyte motherboard and two graphics cards.

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/

[Kisha Pawpad]

Exactly.

 

This is bothering me aswell.

I am using two GTX 680 cards in SLI and my slave card isn't being used at all. Not even in full screen mode.

This is very confusing to me.

But i guess it has something to do with how SL was coded?

[Ormand Lionheart]

From your posting I assume you have one GTX 680 working for SL? How has the performance compared to what you previously had?

 

I have tried SLI with GTX 480's with no success. SLI works however the fps plummet HUGELY. I used a utility program that confirmed each video card was splitting the workload however I would drop from 100-200+fps down to 30 fps range. I tried every method out there. Your best best is to use your second video card to handle AA using the Nvidia Control Panel. being a new card the 680 may not even be recognized. Have to checked with GPU-Z to see what the workload is for the second card?

[Flea Yatsenko]

Crossfire and SLI have to be full screen to work. LL removed fullscreen from viewer 2. I sold my 4870 crossfire setup and got a single card, it was well worth it.

At one time I forced crossfire through a third party program, but SL would just crash. SLI and crossfire aren't meant for windowed applications.

For Second Life, you want the single fastest video card you can get.

[Ormand Lionheart]

SLI does work in fullscreen however...IT SUCKS....and GPU-Z did show each card sharing 50% of the load however fps....sucked. So yes the best single card you can get the better and you will be very happy. Saves you money and heat in the case plus you get excellent performance with the higher end cards. Haven't heard if a GTX 680 works in SL yet.

[Kathmandu Gilman]

I agree, SL in SLI doesn't work well at all. Also, there wouldn't be much of an advantage to using two video cards for two monitors. Modern cards in the middle range and above have more than enough horsepower to run multiple monitors with ease.