Re: The poor mans sim pit
Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 7:51 pm
Extra monitors
. . . AGAIN
What seems like a long time ago, I bought an Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard. This board was capable of running two video cards tied together to act as a much more powerful card.
It, apparently, can also run two video cards as separate video cards.
AMD/Radeon calls the running of two cards as one, CrossFireX.
The NVIDIA version is called SLI - Scalable Link Interface.
For any of the MS flight simulators, it doesn't matter which one is faster. This would only be beneficial if you played highly demanding games.
There are people to whom it does matter. They can easily spend over $10,000 on a system just to have bragging rights.
Whatever floats your boat.
But the video card that I bought worked more than well enough for FSX, so I never bought a second card to use in CrossFireX.
BUT, I do have a slightly older Radeon HD card, so....
So today I stuck it into that vacant slot and became 30 years younger, ALMOST as handsome as I ever was, and much richer.
.
.
.
.
Sorry there, I nodded off.
The results, while not fantastic, were noticeable, and a little surprising.
First off, it worked. I had plugged the Desktop Aviator GPS directly into the old card, and it came alive.
Now, I have the ability to use six monitors directly. The two 9 inch USB monitors are still USB monitors. That's how they were built.
But even there, I noticed something VERY surprising.
Aside from the GPS that was plugged directly into the second video card, BOTH USB monitors are now being driven by the second card!
I could not have asked for more from that card.
The USB monitors are only used for flight instruments. Great speed isn't needed there. The same is true for the GPS screen.
That leaves the three primary monitors to the fastest video card, the HD 6850.
The end result is an extra 4 or 5 FPS in FSX, and an extra 5 to 6 FPS in Prepar3d V2!
While many have better cards, and systems than mine, this might be a good time to re-asses your system.
For me, I took a small amount of load off the primary video card, slightly sped up FSX/Prepar3d V2, AND gained room for more monitors
. . . AGAIN
What seems like a long time ago, I bought an Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard. This board was capable of running two video cards tied together to act as a much more powerful card.
It, apparently, can also run two video cards as separate video cards.
AMD/Radeon calls the running of two cards as one, CrossFireX.
The NVIDIA version is called SLI - Scalable Link Interface.
For any of the MS flight simulators, it doesn't matter which one is faster. This would only be beneficial if you played highly demanding games.
There are people to whom it does matter. They can easily spend over $10,000 on a system just to have bragging rights.
Whatever floats your boat.
But the video card that I bought worked more than well enough for FSX, so I never bought a second card to use in CrossFireX.
BUT, I do have a slightly older Radeon HD card, so....
So today I stuck it into that vacant slot and became 30 years younger, ALMOST as handsome as I ever was, and much richer.
.
.
.
.
Sorry there, I nodded off.
The results, while not fantastic, were noticeable, and a little surprising.
First off, it worked. I had plugged the Desktop Aviator GPS directly into the old card, and it came alive.
Now, I have the ability to use six monitors directly. The two 9 inch USB monitors are still USB monitors. That's how they were built.
But even there, I noticed something VERY surprising.
Aside from the GPS that was plugged directly into the second video card, BOTH USB monitors are now being driven by the second card!
I could not have asked for more from that card.
The USB monitors are only used for flight instruments. Great speed isn't needed there. The same is true for the GPS screen.
That leaves the three primary monitors to the fastest video card, the HD 6850.
The end result is an extra 4 or 5 FPS in FSX, and an extra 5 to 6 FPS in Prepar3d V2!
While many have better cards, and systems than mine, this might be a good time to re-asses your system.
For me, I took a small amount of load off the primary video card, slightly sped up FSX/Prepar3d V2, AND gained room for more monitors