Considering triple screen

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Fleskebacon, Jan 27, 2016.

  1. MAARTENSWESIM

    MAARTENSWESIM Member

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    It should do with just reseat of the GPU swapping the old thermal paste that surely has dried out and doesn't do it's job anymore.
     
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  2. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    I thought about that too.
    I installed the Accelero Extreme III coolers and I'm dreading having to take them apart and put them back together. :rolleyes: It was a pain - both video cards.
    But I have to do it.

    Thanks. Looks like I have some time, now that my new T300 is malfunctioning.
     
  3. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    More than 100c with these Accellero extreme? That is pretty hot... But those are easily dismountable and refreshing thermal paste should be more comfortable than mounting for the first time.
     
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  4. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    I just realized......:rolleyes: *slaps forehead* Wow - talk about having a "senior moment" o_O
    I was making an R3E video to compare 1920x1080 vs 5760x1080 field of vision for someone and it hit me.

    5760 x1080 resolution. 95-104C/ 30-60fps/ 100% load
    1920x1080 resolution. 75-80C/ 90-120fps/ 75% load.
    Current low load and idle temp 54C top card & 29C bottom card

    Both video cards touch. Removing the bottom card decreases top card temp by 15-20C.
    Custom medium graphics settings.

    ^^^ that's the reason why I didn't remove the gpus and re-paste.

    I'm so used to playing most of my games in 5760x1080 resolution. Recently, I thought, "why does R3E turn up graphics to HIGH when pressing AUTO graphics button?":confused: I was in 1920x1080 to record game play. :oops: And gpu was running much cooler.

    With the bottom gpu removed, I would be getting around 60-75C at 75% load for R3E at medium quality.
    Taking this information into consideration, I get normal temps in 1920x1080.....would you agree?

    Time to ditch Crossfire. Doesn't work with R3E anyway.
     
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  5. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    I agree. With that cooler your card should not get far above 80C under heavy load, I think. One card only, of course. So, your current temperatures are fine. Do you have a third PCIE slot to 'disconnect' the cards from each other? If there was more space between both cards, the top one would not get too much heat from the bottom one.
     
  6. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    I just did a test. Full High vs full Medium graphics at 1920x1080.
    Interestingly, max temp (with both cards installed) 80C at 97% load at both medium & high setting.
    The difference - 60fps max at high. 120fps max at medium. Video quality wasn't much different.
    So the temp will be lower with the 2nd card removed. I'm just going to remove the 2nd card. And keep it as a spare.
     
  7. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    What CPU are you running? I found out that even on high settings, where some gpu dependent effects like MSAA are used, the game still profits from a higher cpu clock. I like using MSAA on highest possible settings to reduce flickering and the motion blur of R3E is quite impressive. I usually don't like motion blur, but in R3E it is something special for me (raceroom raceway with chasing cam blurs really great). I have a gtx 970 and all maxed out (high + manually activating some more effects and MSAA) I could not get 60fps in all situations. I'm currently checking if the cpu overclock solves this (minor) problem. If you want to check your worst case performance, start a race with maximum cars in the middle of the pack.

    Maybe you can perform this benchmark, just to get to know how much gpu dependent R3E is.

    https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/how-to-improve-pc.4091/page-2
     
  8. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    First, let me thank you for your responses. Am running a single card now. Last night, 5760x1080 resolution, auto HIGH setting at around 45-60 fps.....about 87C-92C gpu temp.

    Race was Daytona Prototypes at Slovakia ring, 13th or 15th (random start position) in a pack of 24 cars. At the start of the race, in heavy traffic, yes there was some stutter....and apparently AI, can out brake, corner faster and then drive right through me turning into the corner (with all wheels ON THE GRASS o_O). So I had many restarts in heavy traffic.

    The 2nd graphics card will not fit in the bottom pcie slot because the gpu cooler interferes with the power supply.

    I'm using an i7 2700K at stock clock speed of 3.4ghz. 2GB gpus, 16GB Corsair Vengeance Ram and bios is set for 1600mhz (but gpuz shows 1333mhz).

    My i5 2500k system, was overclocked to 4.5ghz and used the same HD6970 gpus. I do not remember having many issues with games back then - except for stuttering in BF3 (Eyefinity/Ultra graphics). Oh - and gpus running really hot with the reference coolers.

    If I remember correctly, a cpu uses 1 core until it needs additional power. Then the next core is utilized and so on...... I read a tech article (2012?) talking about the benefits of utilizing all cores at the same time. As the article explained, when the other cores are activated and "woke up", somehow this would cause stuttering in some games. It was so long ago, I don't remember all the details. My i5 cpu was configured so that all 4 cpu cores were "on" or active all the time and they shared the workload across all 4 cores equally.

    I don't recall having many stuttering issues in F1 2011, if at all. I just re-installed the same game recently. I was stunned at how frequently F1 2011 stutters now. I think I will revisit that with the i7 and try to spread the workload across all cores. I think games don't utilize hyperthreading though. Don't know if that's true anymore.

    I have the Noctura NH D14 cpu cooler for overclocking the i7. But frankly, I just don't feel like messing with it anymore. Especially since I saw posts regarding issues with R3E on some overclocked systems.

    I'll try the benchmark then activate all cores and try the benchmark again. It's a windows power setting where all cores are not allowed to "sleep".

    Cool tech stuff!:cool:
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2016
  9. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    For me, 87-92C seems to be a bit hot, but no real problem. I expected lower tempretures as the card reaches similar results using the stock cooler. The arctic accellero should do it better. Maybe it helps to reapply the thermal paste to get lower temperatures.

    I have a 2600k and it benefits from overclocking, at least at high settings. I get a bit more frames here and there and until now my drops under 60fps are gone. And, of course, R3E uses HT cores, because neither windows nor any game knows which cores are physical and which are not. But I don't know how many threads R3E can use and on my i7 disabling HT made just a very small difference when using 4 physical cores.

    The thing with how cpu cores are handled can differ from what you mentioned. On my system the cores are all in use and the load is balanced across all of them most of the time and I have never expierenced any stutter from anything like 'core wakeup' or else.

    Your stuttering... what is it like? Small freezes for a second and then go on? Or more like framedrops? The first one usually is releated to any kind of memory problems and the GTX 580 only has 1,5GB video ram, so maybe this can be the cause. System memory and CPU won't be the proble as my system ist almost identical to yours in that point, without stuttering.
     
  10. MAARTENSWESIM

    MAARTENSWESIM Member

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    Heat is a GPU-performancekiller for sure. My 980TI is generating a lot of heat. When i ran it completely stock it hit 84 degrees at the most. I have overclocked it a little bit since then and everybody knows that overclocking results in even more heat/GPU-throttling.
    Then i found a video on Youtube where a guy showed how to get the temperaturs down by altering the curve of when and how much the fan is going to cool down the GPU and memory. By using MSI afterburner and make the curve more straight upward i maintain a steady 71 degrees when GPU is at 99% load.
    At 71 degrees the GPU doesn't throttle and i get about 10 fps more now then if i were going to let it climb to 84 degrees.

    I hear the fan spin up as soon as there are more GPU-heavy rendering at the screens and it spins down just as fast when going to menus etc. The fan-noise doesn't bother me at all because i usually don't hear it when racing anyway :)
     
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  11. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    Oh... Of course... I forgot the fan curve stuff because of my windforce cooler's performance. At stock I don't hit 60C under load in R3E. I don't know exactly, but the 580 does not have the boost feature and should not throttle. The newer Geforce normally use their base clock if temperatures are above a certain limit, so throttling and performance loss depends on the turbo clock and on the cooler. Even with a stock cooler the base clock will be reached, but boost is useless in this case.
     
  12. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    I agree, it's 18C/64F in my house. And the gpu is running at 80C at full load, with the Accelero cooler and Corsair 600T side panel off. In summer, it's going to overheat. I'll swap cards and re-apply the thermal paste.

    Changing the power plan for the cpu, didn't really gain much at all - like you said.

    I have a 2GB HD6970.
    At 1920x1080, Medium and High setting. I had no stuttering at all tonight.
    At 5760x1080, Medium setting. I noticed stuttering everywhere at Slovakia Ring. I'm thinking it's just frame drops/low fps.

    For Triple screen players, let this be a lesson. Recording video is a hassle when you switch between resolutions and AMD Eyefinity/ nvidia Surround. I made a video, but I screwed it up. Played in 5760x1080, but recorded in 1920x1080. It ends up looking like this.... The video looks good. This screenshot looks horrible.
    [​IMG]

    @MAARTENSWESIM
    I use MSI Afterburner also. My fan profile is such that my fans are at 100% at 60C. Trying to stay ahead of the heat :p

    You guys have newer graphics cards. Mine are old. I'm probably better off just buying a newer card.
     
  13. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    A newer card would help a lot, yes. I suggest you buy a single powerful one instead of less powerful two of them. But, as there are new cards both from NVidia and AMD coming up in a few months, which probably bring some new features and a smaller structure size with them, I would rather reapply the paste, lower some settings ingame and wait for their releases later this year.
     
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  14. Fanapryde

    Fanapryde Well-Known Member

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    Nvidia GTX 980 TI with triple BenQ 27" 144 Hz.
    Works flawless, even with PCars.
    When I needed an extra soundcard in my PC, I was forced to use PS4 again (on one screen obiously) and I couldn't stand that for more than 15'. Disconnected the console and just waited for my PC.
    Once you get the triple experience, there is no going back I'm afraid.
    I wish both sims would have proper triple screen support though...
     
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  15. MAARTENSWESIM

    MAARTENSWESIM Member

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    Been there Done that :) had to play Pcars on the PS4 when my motherboard died on the PC, it was horrible with a single screen.
     
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  16. Paradox Agi

    Paradox Agi Active Member

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    Better I never buy this stuff... :)
     
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  17. Azfalt Raser

    Azfalt Raser Well-Known Member

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    I was revisiting the triple screen issue again. I'm using the big screen for sporting events this time of year.

    I NOW FULLY UNDERSTAND what the issue is, that people were having with triple screen "support" in sims.
    Not Crossfire or SLI support - which is a different issue.

    Those of us who have our monitors at a slight angle, CANNOT SEE the "support" issue (like my setup).
    Those of us who have our monitors at a 60* angle are the ones experiencing issues. For even more immersion, the 60 degree monitor angles gives you a 180 degree wrap around view. This is more realistic because you turn your head to look out of the side windows. I was thinking of trying this 180* wrap around view. You probably wouldn't want to try this view for general purpose triple monitor setups though. Only dedicated sim/gaming rigs.

    Unfortunately, this video I found on youtube helped me understand the difference between the two triple screen setups. And why, until R3E compensated for the screen angle, this wrap around view would not look correct.

     
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  18. Fanapryde

    Fanapryde Well-Known Member

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    ^^ @Azfalt Raser
    Having mine at a 45-50° angle also shows the flaws in RaceRoom and Project Cars. Asseto Corsa has this right, but that is not reason enough for me to keep driving in AC. It does show how much better the view is, unless - like you say - you have the monitors at a slight angle (which is not really the best way for driving in a sim imo).
    You get used to the wrong, stretched view on the side monitors in time, but it could be much better...
    Hopefully the devs will keep this in mind when changing things in the future.
    It seems to be in the planning for PCars2 also.
     
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  19. Ernie

    Ernie Well-Known Member

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    Maybe a solution for all games/sims with no proper triple screen support is in sight. At least for Nvidia fans.



    Actually i don't know, if this multi-projection feature will only work with Nvidia's upcoming Pascal generation (GTX1070/1080 cards) or if this will be also a driver feature for (older) geforce graphics cards (e.g. the GTX9xx series).
     
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  20. MAARTENSWESIM

    MAARTENSWESIM Member

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    He said that it will be available in GTX1070/1080 with pascal for free so i assume this will only work on the new cards.