Digital BW, The Print

Hope this problem is within the remit of this forum. Please point me 
elsewhere if not!
Just taken delivery of a new computer. I have opted for two graphics 
cards(256 Mb Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX) linked with SLI for hoped for 
improvement in handling large 16 bit files in Photoshop, along with 
the 2 Gig of RAM operating in Windows XP Home.
The problem I have discovered is that enabling the SLI facility 
disables the dual monitor display, leaving only the primary monitor 
showing anything on screen.I use the second monitor to view Photoshop 
tools and dialog boxes.Disabling SLI restores both monitors. I would 
like to have both if possible! Is there a workaround. Both monitors 
are plugged into one of the graphics cards.
Out of interest, I have timed applying radial blur to a 100 Mb colour 
file, and it takes about 34 secs with SLI both enabled and disabled.
If SLI is disabled, am I only working with one graphics card?
Many thanks
John Fontana

Not sure how it can help with 16 bit files - the path to your display is
still only 8 bit.  A better CPU and more memory yes - a better graphics
card, only at the margin.  (Google SLI and you'll see that it is that which
combines the two cards so I suspect that with it disabled you are only using
one card.)  At any rate I'm not sure this is a topic for here and you're
likely going to get better advice on a computing forum or from your
retailer.

> From: john794552 <jwillyfontana@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:17:38 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] Multiple monitor display and SLI on twin graphics cards
> 
> Hope this problem is within the remit of this forum. Please point me
> elsewhere if not!
> Just taken delivery of a new computer. I have opted for two graphics
> cards(256 Mb Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX) linked with SLI for hoped for
> improvement in handling large 16 bit files in Photoshop, along with
> the 2 Gig of RAM operating in Windows XP Home.
> The problem I have discovered is that enabling the SLI facility
> disables the dual monitor display, leaving only the primary monitor
> showing anything on screen.I use the second monitor to view Photoshop
> tools and dialog boxes.Disabling SLI restores both monitors. I would
> like to have both if possible! Is there a workaround. Both monitors
> are plugged into one of the graphics cards.
> Out of interest, I have timed applying radial blur to a 100 Mb colour
> file, and it takes about 34 secs with SLI both enabled and disabled.
> If SLI is disabled, am I only working with one graphics card?
> Many thanks
> John Fontana
> 
> 
>

I don't know about the dual monitor problem but a single Geforce 7800 
GTX should be more than adequate for running photoshop which is a 2D 
program. The bottle neck for the radial blur is CPU rather than graphics 
card. That is why you find no difference in speed whether SLI is enabled 
or not. The SLI set up is really only for speeding up intensive 3D 
graphics such as CAD & games.

Howard

john794552 wrote:

> Hope this problem is within the remit of this forum. Please point me 
> elsewhere if not!
> Just taken delivery of a new computer. I have opted for two graphics 
> cards(256 Mb Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX) linked with SLI for hoped for 
> improvement in handling large 16 bit files in Photoshop, along with 
> the 2 Gig of RAM operating in Windows XP Home.
> The problem I have discovered is that enabling the SLI facility 
> disables the dual monitor display, leaving only the primary monitor 
> showing anything on screen.I use the second monitor to view Photoshop 
> tools and dialog boxes.Disabling SLI restores both monitors. I would 
> like to have both if possible! Is there a workaround. Both monitors 
> are plugged into one of the graphics cards.
> Out of interest, I have timed applying radial blur to a 100 Mb colour 
> file, and it takes about 34 secs with SLI both enabled and disabled.
> If SLI is disabled, am I only working with one graphics card?
> Many thanks
> John Fontana
> 
>

John,

I don't think you can drive 2 monitors with SLI
enabled, as the function of SLI is to use the power of
2 video cards to process one video output.  SLI is
mainly intended for computer games (and mostly the
first person shooter ones) that have a large stream of
video data that has to be processed and displayed. 
Still images in image editing programs don't put that
much of a strain on the video card.  Hopefully, you
can turn SLI on and off in software and can just turn
it on when playing games.

Mike


--- john794552 <jwillyfontana@...> wrote:

> Hope this problem is within the remit of this forum.
> Please point me 
> elsewhere if not!
> Just taken delivery of a new computer. I have opted
> for two graphics 
> cards(256 Mb Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX) linked with
> SLI for hoped for 
> improvement in handling large 16 bit files in
> Photoshop, along with 
> the 2 Gig of RAM operating in Windows XP Home.
> The problem I have discovered is that enabling the
> SLI facility 
> disables the dual monitor display, leaving only the
> primary monitor 
> showing anything on screen.I use the second monitor
> to view Photoshop 
> tools and dialog boxes.Disabling SLI restores both
> monitors. I would 
> like to have both if possible! Is there a
> workaround. Both monitors 
> are plugged into one of the graphics cards.
> Out of interest, I have timed applying radial blur
> to a 100 Mb colour 
> file, and it takes about 34 secs with SLI both
> enabled and disabled.
> If SLI is disabled, am I only working with one
> graphics card?
> Many thanks
> John Fontana
> 
> 
> 
> 


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