High performance dual monitors?

John Doe · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 31

I've heard that higher end cards perform better at higher
resolutions. Does that mean a higher end card would shine in dual
monitor applications like Flight Simulator 2004 when the total
number of pixels is about double?

Anybody know the specific attributes that are good for dual monitor
performance?
.... pixel pipelines
.... core clock and memory clock speed
.... memory interface
.... memory size
All of the above equally?

Thank you.

Archived from group: alt>comp>periphs>videocards>nvidia

deimos · Joined: 22 Aug 2007 Posts: 410

John Doe wrote:
> I've heard that higher end cards perform better at higher
> resolutions. Does that mean a higher end card would shine in dual
> monitor applications like Flight Simulator 2004 when the total
> number of pixels is about double?
>
> Anybody know the specific attributes that are good for dual monitor
> performance?
> ... pixel pipelines
> ... core clock and memory clock speed
> ... memory interface
> ... memory size
> All of the above equally?
>
> Thank you.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Most of the reviews I've read concern gaming at high resolutions above
1600x1200 with many features on; whether it's playable at that setting
or not; whether you can use antialiasing comfortably or not. For GF6
and below series cards, you were essentially limited by framebuffer
size, memory bandwidth, and certain essential optimizations being
ineffective over 1600x1200 (z-compression I think).

I would suppose a GF7 that is specifically optimized for up to 2048x1536
and has much greater bandwidth would do better with dual monitors.
Going from 1600x1200 to 1920x1440 or 2048x1536 (or higher) doesn't
double the raw texel amount though, there were just certain
architectural limitations of older cards that created diminishing
returns after a certain resolution. Raw fillrate would be the most
important factor and that's a function of clock speed, memory, and
multitexture abilities (or texture units).

Honestly, I think you might almost be better off with two 6800GT's in
SLI than a single 7800 for dual monitors. Effectively you might have
the same framerate or greater with two monitors as you would with one
7800 being split.