Can I install 2 different video cards on same rig?

[Vito]

I have an EVGA 9800 GX2 that use with my 30" Dell LCD.
using it in multi GPU mode.

I also have an EVGA 7900 GTO and was wondering if I can put this in the other PCI slot and use it for my spare 22" LCD as a 2nd monitor.

Is this possible?
Any major conflicts?

[doublejack]

You can do this. I also believe you can run two monitors from your 9800GX2. There was a limitation in the driver before that if you were in SLI mode it wouldn't work, but I believe that has been resolved.

[ViperJohn]

I have an EVGA 9800 GX2 that use with my 30" Dell LCD.
using it in multi GPU mode.

I also have an EVGA 7900 GTO and was wondering if I can put this in the other PCI slot and use it for my spare 22" LCD as a 2nd monitor.

Is this possible?
Any major conflicts?

Yes. You can even run an ATI card in one slot and an nVidia card in the another. Windows enumerates the devices by the slot they are installed in and installs the drivers for the device in that specific slot.

What you have to watch for though is how the MB's PCI/PCIes slot (typically allpies to PCI slots) hardware IRQ's are assigned. PCI slots often have to share a hardware IRQ (sometimes with a PCIe slot). GFX and sound cards require their own hardware IRQ to function properly. If you install the two devices into slots that share a hardware IRQ you will have problems up the ying/yang.

If you are talking PCIe devices you should not have any issues

Viper

[Old Thrashbarg]

You can even run an ATI card in one slot and an nVidia card in the another.

If you're lucky enough to get them to work right, great, but in my experience, ATi and Nvidia drivers don't like to play well together. The hardware itself should be able to coexist just fine, but I think some of the higher-level stuff in the drivers can conflict. And that's just in XP, I don't think you can get the two brands to coexist at all under Vista.

But as far as two Nvidia cards in one system, yeah, no problem.

[AngryArtichoke]

I've had issues putting a 7XXX series card in with the later Nvidia cards. I'll be interested to see if you succeed.

[ViperJohn]

If you're lucky enough to get them to work right, great, but in my experience, ATi and Nvidia drivers don't like to play well together. The hardware itself should be able to coexist just fine, but I think some of the higher-level stuff in the drivers can conflict. And that's just in XP, I don't think you can get the two brands to coexist at all under Vista.

But as far as two Nvidia cards in one system, yeah, no problem.

As long as the two PCI/PCIe slots are not sharing a hardware IRQ you will have no problems mixing ATI and NV at the same time. The drivers for them are specific to the device in the slot with "X" IRQ and can co-exist peacefully as they do not, in fact can not, interact any more than a sound card in one slot and a GFX card in the other.

If the slots are sharing an hardware interrupt then you will have all kinds of nightmares. This includes plugging in two devices, say a GFX card and a sound card, that require their own (unshared) interrupts, into two slots that share an IRQ.

It comes down to knowing your motherboard as in Read the Manual for it!!!

Viper

[Neuromancer]

If you're lucky enough to get them to work right, great, but in my experience, ATi and Nvidia drivers don't like to play well together. The hardware itself should be able to coexist just fine, but I think some of the higher-level stuff in the drivers can conflict. And that's just in XP, I don't think you can get the two brands to coexist at all under Vista.

But as far as two Nvidia cards in one system, yeah, no problem.

Had no problems running a 7900 and a x1300 in an old rig of mine.


As for dual differnet cards in one rig

Yes in XP

No in Vista (uses homozygous driver model and as such you need to use the same driver for all video cards).

There maybe a work around to it, but I have not heard of it.

[ViperJohn]

Had no problems running a 7900 and a x1300 in an old rig of mine.


As for dual differnet cards in one rig

Yes in XP

No in Vista (uses homozygous driver model and as such you need to use the same driver for all video cards).

There maybe a work around to it, but I have not heard of it.

Doing it now in both XP and Vista (NV (GTX 260) and ATI (POS 4870) lol.

In both XP and Vista GFX cards of the same make must run the same drivers no matter what slot the cards are installed in. This is because the newer driver files would overwrite the older driver files (or vice-versa) of the same name since the are stored on disk in the same directory.

Viper

[Neuromancer]

Doing it now in both XP and Vista (NV (GTX 260) and ATI (POS 4870) lol.

In both XP and Vista GFX cards of the same make must run the same drivers no matter what slot the cards are installed in. This is because the newer driver files would overwrite the older driver files (or vice-versa of the same name since the are stored on disk in the same directory.

Viper

Sweet, I heard wrong then :)

[ViperJohn]

Sweet, I heard wrong then :)

I am using ME-II 32 bit. It may be different in 64 bit but I doubt I seriously doubt it. As long as the cards have there required IRQ's isolated from one another at the hardware level there is no reason why they will not play nice together.

ATI's CCC is still a complete POS no matter what though lol.

Viper

[Old Thrashbarg]

As long as the two PCI/PCIe slots are not sharing a hardware IRQ you will have no problems mixing ATI and NV at the same time. The drivers for them are specific to the device in the slot with "X" INQ and can co-exist peacefully as they do not, in fact can not, interact any more than a sound card in one slot and a GFX card in the other.

I'm aware of all that, and I know how it should behave. Just that, IME, it doesn't always act predictably for whatever reason. If I had to guess, I'd say it's not the low-level drivers themselves causing the troubles, but either they or more likely the control software on top of them affecting global settings somewhere. I know that when I last tried such a configuration, I gave up, removed the ATi card and put an old Matrox card in the same slot, and suddenly everything worked fine. *shrug* Dunno why it worked, but I can't argue with results.

Also, reading the motherboard manual doesn't help so much anymore. A lot of manuals leave out the IRQ sharing information nowadays, so it often comes down to trial and error with different slots until something works.

[ViperJohn]

I'm aware of all that, and I know how it should behave. Just that, IME, it doesn't always act predictably for whatever reason. If I had to guess, I'd say it's not the low-level drivers themselves causing the troubles, but either they or more likely the control software on top of them affecting global settings somewhere. I know that when I last tried such a configuration, I gave up, removed the ATi card and put an old Matrox card in the same slot, and suddenly everything worked fine. *shrug* Dunno why it worked, but I can't argue with results.

Also, reading the motherboard manual doesn't help so much anymore. A lot of manuals leave out the IRQ sharing information nowadays, so it often comes down to trial and error with different slots until something works.

Some old Matrox cards did not require their own HW IRQ's. You are going back a long ways their lol.

If your manual doesn't spell out the HW IRQ's shares (and they are getting very bad at doing so!) you can often tell (or at least get a clue) in MB bios setup for the PCI slot assignments (can be worded many different ways in the bios setup screens).

Viper

[Archer0915]

Doing it now in both XP and Vista (NV (GTX 260) and ATI (POS 4870) lol.

In both XP and Vista GFX cards of the same make must run the same drivers no matter what slot the cards are installed in. This is because the newer driver files would overwrite the older driver files (or vice-versa) of the same name since the are stored on disk in the same directory.

Viper

Maybe you can answer me this can you run PhysX/CUDA on the nVidia and and use ATI for your GFX engine?? I cant get a clear answer from any where.

[ViperJohn]

Maybe you can answer me this can you run PhysX/CUDA on the nVidia and and use ATI for your GFX engine?? I cant get a clear answer from any where.

That will not work to the best of my knowledge. It takes both an NV card and the Physx drivers to get the acceleration plus support in the GFX card drivers (which NV drivers of course have) to use the acceleration.

NV offered ATI the use PhysX on their cards but they declined preferring to glue their lips to Intels butt and stay with Havok...at least for now.

Read around though. Seem to me there were some people that got it to work with older hacked ATI drivers.

Viper

[Douken]

John, you should edit your 1st post, you spelled INQ instead of IRQ all of the times; that might confuse people.

[ViperJohn]

John, you should edit your 1st post, you spelled INQ instead of IRQ all of the times; that might confuse people.

Got em thanks. That is what I get for doing these posts about interrupts (IRQ's) while writing something else dealing with inquiries INQ's) lol.

Viper

[Archer0915]

That will not work to the best of my knowledge. It takes both an NV card and the Physx drivers to get the acceleration plus support in the GFX card drivers (which NV drivers of course have) to use the acceleration.

NV offered ATI the use PhysX on their cards but they declined preferring to glue their lips to Intels butt and stay with Havok...at least for now.

Read around though. Seem to me there were some people that got it to work with older hacked ATI drivers.

Viper

Yeah I read that I guess it is time to email nVidia and lay it all out and see what they say.