igpu and dgpu at the same time?

[tobben]

hello folks, was wondering if any of you pretty people could help me out with a small issue im having.

 

a certain someone told me i should be able to run 1 monitor on my dgpu and 1 off of my igpu, being able to have use 2 monitors but playing games and whatnot on 1 monitor and having no impact on the performance. As the igpu and dgpu would work independent of eachother to power 1 monitor each, i have also seen this being mentioned in various other places.

 

so far i have only been able to run 1 monitor at a time, by going into the bios mobo settings - advanced - integrated graphics configuration, enabling virtu technology and activating either igpu or dgpu, but i want them both running at the same time so that hasn't got me very far.

 

Do any of you have any idea of what i should do? is it really possible in the first place? i have searched around and found some info on this topic, but i have never seen anyone actually saying how to do it.

 

am i just an utter failure of a noob and have misunderstood everything?

 

 

my motherboard is Z77A-GD55

CPU intel 3770k

GPU sapphire 7950

 

 

 

"added info"

atleast, if you can't run them seperately it should somehow be possible  to run the second monitor through the motherboard vga/dvi port? if so how?

[Glenwing]

Even if you run 2 monitors on your dedicated GPU, a second monitor has zero impact on performance anyway while you are gaming, if there is just desktop or skype or something like that on the second monitor.  If you are trying to drive graphically intense applications like games across multiple monitors then that can impact performance a lot, but if the game is only on one monitor and the second monitor is not doing anything intensive performance shouldn't be impacted at all.

 

Having your GPU and iGPU work together can be done using Lucidlogix Virtu MVP but it's not the easiest thing to set up, and I'm not sure whether that would enable your motherboard's graphics outputs since I've never tried it before.

[tobben]

Even if you run 2 monitors on your dedicated GPU, a second monitor has zero impact on performance anyway while you are gaming, if there is just desktop or skype or something like that on the second monitor.  If you are trying to drive graphically intense applications like games across multiple monitors then that can impact performance a lot, but if the game is only on one monitor and the second monitor is not doing anything intensive performance shouldn't be impacted at all.

 

Having your GPU and iGPU work together can be done using Lucidlogix Virtu MVP but it's not the easiest thing to set up, and I'm not sure whether that would enable your motherboard's graphics outputs since I've never tried it before.

well i figured it would have little impact unless i was running the game across several screens, but some people claimed otherwise and i guess they convinced me. So thanks, then again .. i have still only been able to enable 1 monitor at a time, i don't really have the option of plugging both monitors into my dedicated gpu atm.

[Glenwing]

well i figured it would have little impact unless i was running the game across several screens, but some people claimed otherwise and i guess they convinced me. So thanks, then again .. i have still only been able to enable 1 monitor at a time, i don't really have the option of plugging both monitors into my dedicated gpu atm.

 

That's the first thing I tested when I got a second monitor... Don't worry, it doesn't have any impact, on either performance or VRAM usage ;)

[tobben]

That's the first thing I tested when I got a second monitor... Don't worry, it doesn't have any impact, on either performance or VRAM usage ;)

well i guess im going to have to buy a vga to hdmi adapter or something along those lines and just hook it up to the graphics card instead, as i can't really can't find enough information about what i initially inteded. Not much of a choice as my other 2 ish year old monitor only has vga input :P

 

most of them seem fairly expensive which makes me abit sad :/

[Glenwing]

xD well you will have to have an analog output of some kind, either DVI-I or VGA, since HDMI won't support VGA without an expensive adapter box.

[tobben]

xD well you will have to have an analog output of some kind, either DVI-I or VGA, since HDMI won't support VGA without an expensive adapter box.

1x dvi 1x hdmi 2x  mini display ports 

already using the dvi one so im kinda screwed there :p

[Glenwing]

1x dvi 1x hdmi 2x  mini display ports 

already using the dvi one so im kinda screwed there :P

 

Well, the DVI probably has analog output capability as well (4 extra pinouts around the long horizontal pin, you can check for them on the port).  You can use that with a $5 VGA adapter and a VGA cable for that monitor, and you can use another $5 adapter for HDMI to DVI or DisplayPort to DVI, since those can adapt to DVI natively with no expensive converter boxes.

[tobben]

Well, the DVI probably has analog output capability as well (4 extra pinouts around the long horizontal pin, you can check for them on the port).  You can use that with a $5 VGA adapter and a VGA cable for that monitor, and you can use another $5 adapter for HDMI to DVI or DisplayPort to DVI, since those can adapt to DVI natively with no expensive converter boxes.

right, i see your logic that might just be the solution without having to spend two fortunes and a half on a signal converter, thanks.

 

besides i have a silly ammount of cables and adapters lying around, i can probably figure this out without having to buy anyhing at all.

 

would have prefered to try and use the vga port from the motherboard but .. i guess that comes with it's own issues so better off just avoiding it alltogether

[shouldervalley]

YES, doing it as we speak