How would I use a secondary video card as a video output?

[Leek Soup]

Soon I will be getting an old GT 630 to use as a secondary GPU (alongside my 2060 Super) purely for its VGA video output. Will I need to install any extra drivers? Any other things I need to be aware of? 

[AndreiArgeanu]

You will need to install a separate driver for the gt 630 unless the basic microsoft driver is good enough for you.

I've also seen this which might be worth noting that @Abomhas written under an older post. I'm not sure if it still applies but it's worth considering if you see that there is no load on the GT 630 when you display program on it.

 

 

Quote

 

Windows, specifically Windows applications generally do not care how many different GPUs you have. Say you have Monitor 2 with a 750 and Monitor 1 with a 1070. Chrome is going to push all GPU accelerated content to the primary display's GPU regardless of which monitor a window is on. What this means is your 750 is sitting there not being utilized. All the work is still going to your 1070.

 

Ok, so how do you get that 2nd GPU to actually do some work? Good question:

 

Make the monitor your 2nd GPU is plugged into your primary display in the Nvidia control panel. So with a 1070/750 combo, you want to set the monitor your 750 is plugged into as your primary. This will cause all GPU-accelerated programs, i.e. Chrome, Twitch, Batlenet, to use your 750. To get your games to utilize your 1070 just load it up, set it to Monitor 2 that your 1070 is plugged into and it'll drive off your 1070 while the remainder of your desktop programs will use your 750. Make sure to restart said game after you set it to the correct monitor. Works regardless of fullscreen, or windowed.

 

From my experience, you're looking at a 10-15 FPS improvement. You can confirm all this via Task Manager Performance and the NVCP GPU systray icon

 

 

[da na]

Not worth another GPU just to drive another monitor.

[Leek Soup]

31 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Not worth another GPU just to drive another monitor.

It was €4.50 on AliExpress. (I’m aware it could be a scam, but for €4.50 it’s worth a try)

[Leek Soup]

40 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

You will need to install a separate driver for the gt 630 unless the basic microsoft driver is good enough for you.

I've also seen this which might be worth noting that @Abomhas written under an older post. I'm not sure if it still applies but it's worth considering if you see that there is no load on the GT 630 when you display program on it.

 

 

Thanks for the reply!

[da na]

1 hour ago, Leek Soup said:

It was €4.50 on AliExpress. (I’m aware it could be a scam, but for €4.50 it’s worth a try)

It will probably slow down your performance... 

[Leek Soup]

17 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

It will probably slow down your performance... 

I was not aware of this? Why would it do this?

[da na]

22 minutes ago, Leek Soup said:

I was not aware of this? Why would it do this?

More GPU overhead. Your CPU'd have to do more work to keep up with more GPUs and the 3d acceleration will still only be provided by the first GPU, but it will take bandwidth from your primary GPU to send things to a second one and make your games run worse. 

[Leek Soup]

3 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

More GPU overhead. Your CPU'd have to do more work to keep up with more GPUs and the 3d acceleration will still only be provided by the first GPU, but it will take bandwidth from your primary GPU to send things to a second one and make your games run worse. 

Ok, thanks for letting me know.