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General Questions Using 2 Monitors, Plus Resolution Questions

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rpjkw11

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Location
Ormond By The Sea, Florida
I have a single 27" 1080p monitor and an Asus STRIX GTX980. The only "game" I play is Microsoft FS9 and, mostly, FSX. I know very little about monitors and resolution, etc. All I know is I own an Acer H276HLbmid 27" IPS display.

Query 1: Will my GTX 980 even handle two monitors? If so, is 1440p (I assume that would be 4K) out of the question?

Query 2: I remember running across a resolution of 12xx, but I'm not sure if there is such a critter or if it would be worth considering.

Query 3: Were I to decide to try two (or even one) monitors higher than 1080p, would I need to consider SLI? Would a 22"-24" size be better?

These are just general questions along the lines of improving my "flight sim experience". I bought the GTX 980 before I started letting my imagination get the best of me. My other GPU is and Aus GTX 780Ti Direct II CU and, as I understand it, will not pair with the GTX 980.

At this time, at least, this line of thought is nothing more than a learning/familiarization exercise. Thus, any thoughts/advice/"must do's" are greatly appreciated. One note, however: I have used nVidia for years because I've understood that nVidia worked best for Flight Sim instead of Radeon/AMD. Thus, I much prefer to stay with nVidia so as to the learning curve more shallow.

Thanks
 
I have a single 27" 1080p monitor and an Asus STRIX GTX980. The only "game" I play is Microsoft FS9 and, mostly, FSX. I know very little about monitors and resolution, etc. All I know is I own an Acer H276HLbmid 27" IPS display.

Query 1: Will my GTX 980 even handle two monitors? If so, is 1440p (I assume that would be 4K) out of the question?
Yes, the 980 supports up to four monitors.
1440p is not 4K.


Query 2: I remember running across a resolution of 12xx, but I'm not sure if there is such a critter or if it would be worth considering.
1920x1200? Not worth upgrading to it from 1080p. If you're going up in resolution go 1440p or 4K.

Query 3: Were I to decide to try two (or even one) monitors higher than 1080p, would I need to consider SLI? Would a 22"-24" size be better?
No need for SLI unless you're trying to game on 3x1440p. I run 3x1080p on my single 980 and it works perfectly.

These are just general questions along the lines of improving my "flight sim experience". I bought the GTX 980 before I started letting my imagination get the best of me. My other GPU is and Aus GTX 780Ti Direct II CU and, as I understand it, will not pair with the GTX 980.
You can only SLI a 980 with another 980.

At this time, at least, this line of thought is nothing more than a learning/familiarization exercise. Thus, any thoughts/advice/"must do's" are greatly appreciated. One note, however: I have used nVidia for years because I've understood that nVidia worked best for Flight Sim instead of Radeon/AMD. Thus, I much prefer to stay with nVidia so as to the learning curve more shallow.

Thanks

See answers in red :)
 
ATM nailed all of the main points.

A couple things to note: size of the monitor has 0 effect on the draw of the video card, you can have a 13'' 4k (3840x2160 resolution) make a video card struggle compared to a 32'' 1080p (1920x1080) screen. It's all about how many pixels it has to drive, not the size of said pixels.

The 980 will have no issues driving two screens at all, but you also won't want to game with just two screens, it is pretty much either 1 or 3 at this point. If you have two, then your center of vision will be the bezel between the two monitors.

I think a 2560x1440 display is the way to go at this point for a higher resolution screen, your 980 won't have any issues powering it, and you won't have to worry about scaling issues that sometimes exist with a 4k display (as you will likely need to turn up DPI %s to make text readable as it becomes quite small at the higher resolution)

Hope that helps
 
Also, if you want a larger field of view in games without going for triple monitors check out one of the new ultra wide 21:9 ratio monitors.
 
THANK YOU, Gentlemen!!!!!!

ATMINSIDE, that is exactly what I was wanting to know, especially the clarification between 1440 and 4K. I'd somehow blurred to two into one. The problem I've noticed with wide monitors, as far as flight sims are concerned, is the oval shape of cockpit gauges. After a few minutes I hardly notice, but in every aircraft I've ever flown, the gauges are round. My old, almost square 17" NEC spoiled me. I'm fairly sure there are "work arounds" that [mostly] eliminate the oval shape.

Janus67, thanks for the 2560x1440 suggestion. I, too, think that's the "sweet spot" for what I'm wanting. And you're correct about three displays being best and I'm happy that my 980 can handle those. I really wanted to avoid SLI to keep things fairly simple.

So now I'll started looking at displays, preferably 27" IPS units. I've read good things about Dell, Acer (which I own), and NEC. There are others, of course, so I have some homework to do. Sometimes shopping is more fun than buying.

Thanks again, guys. I really appreciate the help and advice.
 
After owning some of Dell's slim bezel monitors and using them in Surround I have a hard time recommending anything else. Definitely keep the U2715H on your list.
 
As an avid, FSX and Xplane user, I would suggest not going the SLI route as it decreases performance due to the increased overhead. The cpu dictates performance in these games.
 
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