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Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 12:20am
by Edward Yee
My impending desktop (Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H, uses the AMD 780G chipset) has an onboard ATI Radeon 3200 (not sure how much video memory), but I've installed an nVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT card (EVGA's 512-P3-N954-TR with 512MB). Since I'm going to be starting from scratch with this desktop, is there any way to set things up so that I can just download the most recent drivers for both and then remove the older versions from my computer? I do have a BIOS option to choose which of the two to use when powering up.
Also, does anyone know if either of the 'joining' things, i.e. CrossfireX or SLI, would be compatible, i.e. partnering the onboard ATI with the nVIDIA?
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 12:51am
by atg
Edward Yee wrote:Also, does anyone know if either of the 'joining' things, i.e. CrossfireX or SLI, would be compatible, i.e. partnering the onboard ATI with the nVIDIA?
IIRC there is some third-party software that can link a ATi card with an nVidia one, but I dont know how well it works. Other than that chips from either brand cannot be used together in a crossfire/SLI setup.
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 02:14am
by starslayer
Crossfire and SLI both require identical video cards. The only real method I know of for combining ATI and Nvidia cards is using the NVidia card as a dedicated PhysX processor, using the method of
this post over at HardOCP; the ATI card remains the dedicated GPU. As for the drivers, all you'll need to do is periodically check ATI and NVidia's sites for driver updates. Uninstall the old ones, then install the new packages you download.
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 05:01am
by weemadando
I thought that Crossfire could use two different cards.
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 06:21am
by adam_grif
weemadando wrote:I thought that Crossfire could use two different cards.
It can.
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 09:59am
by phongn
weemadando wrote:I thought that Crossfire could use two different cards.
But only if the manufacturers are the same.
atg wrote:IIRC there is some third-party software that can link a ATi card with an nVidia one, but I dont know how well it works.
There's a company working on it but nothing release.
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 11:04am
by Edward Yee
D'oh! The intent was for ArmA 2/high-end games to run off of the nVIDIA card, everything else can use the ATI in the motherboard (I'm told a no-no for ArmA 2).
Re: Doing a neat two-graphics-adapter install
Posted: 2010-01-11 11:31am
by Edward Yee
Ghetto edit: I'd also like to uninstall the Windows-default version of the nVIDIA driver and
maybe the default ATI driver, but now the installer for the nVIDIA driver beta (195.81, the WHQL version was 195.62) isn't detecting the nVIDIA card.
