Hi If I take 2x8800gt put them in my motherboard (but not run it in sli) and then connect 3 displays all (1920x1080) using dvi , could I have a desktop across all 3 screens? and more importantly play pc games across all 3 screens . I know the frame rate would be terrible but would games like Bad company work? Thought I would ask before I start borrowing monitors.
Should be able to --as long as you tick the box "extend my desktop to this monitor" for each one in Display Properties. With two 8800gt's framerate should not be too bad either.
thread on overclock about that recently.. http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/716173-using-two-gtx-video-cards-three.html has some links in there you might want to look at
I honestly can't see the point of having 2 cards and not going SLI. I can see your reason, just don't understand it...lol
you cant just extend desktop and increase the resolution it wont work for games they will simply fill 1 screen i.e. 1920x1080. you can have your desktop on all 3 screens though. i built a PC with 3 GPUS the other week for 6 displays that was fun. you would need eyefinity, matrox triplehead2go digital or that software that replicates what the matrox thing does i forget its name in order to game across multiple screens
You can using extended monitor/desktop mode. Essentially you have 3 independent screens, so if you maximize an application on a monitor, it will max out on that monitor not all 3. You essentially have a display that is for example... |1920x1080| |1920x1080| |1920x1080|. You have a couple of options... 1) Purchase a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go and run the cards in SLI. 2) "SoftTH" is a software that you install into each games folder with a number of settings, to force a game to span across multiple monitors. This is done by rendering the entire surface of all monitors on one 1 gfx card, then splitting the signal 3 or more ways to be sent over the pci-e bus. If you have a 3rd pci-e slot, you could install a 3rd very low spec gfx card and run the 8800's in SLI, so that you have 2 monitors connected to card 1 and the 3rd monitor connected to the low powered card. You may also find WSGF of use for some game fixes to improve on such things as field of view and huds when using 3 screens.