Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello dear multi-monitor experts ,

Here's the thing: nvidia's control panel doesn't provide an easy way to switch between standart desktops and surround mode. Windows does (win + P). But switching through win + P means I have to settle with two desktops and one dark screen (reason below). Switching between Surround and "Activate all displays" mode means crash (not exactly, but I'm stuck with a single screen, no desktop icons and context menu, only taskbar... so it is unusably bugged) on my PC. This fracks up the whole purpose for me as three monitors is very useful for work for me as well (one browser, one IDE, one database tool or documentation or some other text, whatever).

I have a 2-way SLI setup and as per nvidia's guidelines, two of my displays are connected to the topmost card with a third on the bottom card (all through DVI). From what I've read, it seems that 670 and 680 are now able to run three displays on a single card. So if I had connected three displays to a single card, win + P switch would let me use all three screens as well.

SO. If I somehow (apparently there are many ways) connected the third screen to the first card as well, would I still be able to use surround mode with SLI enabled? Also, seeing as surround isn't properly supported in every game (actually so few games do it properly, it's a huge shame! FSX is so amazing with surround...), when I switch to standart desktop mode (non-surround) and game on the center screen, would SLI be utilized?

I'm pretty sure many people have been annoyed by this limitation. Is there an orthodox way to do this properly? My (quite extensive) research has failed, but maybe - I hope - I've missed something...

Thanks a lot!

Yes (at least if we ignore SLI issues by, for example, removing the second card). I do this with a 680.

At Nvidia > geforce-gtx-670 > features there is a section called "NVIDIA Surround with Up To Four Monitors", the same section listed for the 680. So this should also work for a 670.

On further details about win + P switching see my recent post Windows 8 and NVIDIA Surround2D - Working V Gaming Modes, the section under "Switching between working (independent/non surround) and gaming (span/surround) modes".

Someone else will have to help you with the SLI issues as I've never attempted it.

Edit: How long are the cables from your graphics cards to your monitors? Too long a cable provided problems for me.

Edit: Yeah FSX is amazing in surround. Be sure and check out Problem With TripleHead2Go and FSX 2D View if you want to make your 2D panels resize properly. WSGF user DB93 (aka George) came up with a breakthrough solution to this problem. Read my post(s) there for details. Although the problem is listed for TripleHead2Go it is (I assume) going to exist for Nvidia Surround as well.

Thanks for the reply!

Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that this isn't doable with SLI. Oh well. Guess I'll learn to be happy with two screens while working.

Unless...

If there is no misunderstanding between us, you are (and therefore I should be) able to switch between 3-monitor surround and proper 3-desktops mode. Now, what if I connected one of the monitors to both cards, through DVI (the SLI one) and through DP (the one with the other two on it, so the primary card) at the same time? I guess SLI still wouldn't be enabled in single screen gaming with three desktops, but it's not a big deal. It's a lot less hassle to unplug a DP connector when I can't do without SLI on a single screen as opposed to moving a DVI connector between two cards all the time. I just hope Windows won't detect them as four monitors

Now, if Nvidia dudes did their jobs right, I wouldn't ever have to deal with such stuff... But wishful thinking I guess, seeing as we are the tiny minority we are.

The cables are the ones that came with the monitors, something like 150cm I think. They shouldn't be problematic.

Thanks a ton for the advice on FSX too, I found it very annoying to have a GPS that spanned 1.5 monitors

Yes, that's right.


Largely because I don't have an SLI setup myself I'm not quite following what you are trying to do here. I would have thought you just use the SLI bridge internally and connect three of the monitors in some way that Nvidia would specify on their website. But I speak from a place of pure ignorance.

However, if you find that you need, as some kind of workaround, having to move a DVI connector between cards, then you should consider a cheap hardware DVI switchbox. I have one (actually two) of these: http://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/2-p ... h-box.html that worked quite well for my TH2G setup.

AFAIK

there's no painless way to switch from single monitor view, to Surround View and back

so every time i get the darn Surround View working properly, i play to our maker for it not to lose the settings

as it does every time we upgrade to a new version of the driver

sometimes it gets so bad, i'm forced to do a cold reboot to get all 3 display working again.

never had this much trouble with ATI/AMD Eyefinity setups of any size or layout

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