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  • #1

    Dual head performance impact

    Hi there,

    I was wondering how big the performance impact is when using the dual head function of the g400. I have a celeron 300a@450, 128MB RAM, MX300 soundcard and when I try to play Unreal Tournament in 800x600x32bit it gets REALLY choppy. Especially when using 3d sound hardware, but I have that turned off now and it's still choppy. Anyone wanna share some info on that?

    Greets,
    Jorg


    ------------------
    ______________________
    I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
    © StarTrek: First Contact
    _ _ ______________ _ _
    I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
    © StarTrek: First Contact
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Hi Jorg, it's not clear from your post, where you using dual head? If so what where you running in the other monitor at the same time you where trying to play UT? If you disabled the dual head feature then there should be no performance impact. With it running you could expect anywhere from a 15% to 50% hit, depending on what you are trying to do on the other monitor.

    ------------------
    Asus P3B-F1, PIII 600B, 128Mb PC133 RAM, 18.2 KA drive, HP CDRW & Travan drive, SB64PCI, Intel EPro+ PnP NIC, G400.


    [This message has been edited by Unam (edited 08 December 1999).]
    Nothing sadder than seeing a beautiful theory getting slammed by an ugly fact!

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    • #3
      I use dual head as multi monitor. My second monitor just shows the windows98(se) desktop while I play a game on the other one.

      Greets,
      Jorg


      ------------------
      ______________________
      I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
      © StarTrek: First Contact
      _ _ ______________ _ _
      I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
      © StarTrek: First Contact

      Comment

      • #4
        Have, you tried it without Dualhead whats it like, if you've 'only' got a 16Mb G400 it may be a memory limitation (try reducing texture quality, turn off detail textures etc).

        Chris

        Comment

        • #5
          I have a 32 MB G400. And reducing detail settings in Unreal is going to give me a whole lot less enjoyable gaming experience than using 16-bit color instead of 32 bit. I haven't tried it with dual head turned off, but I do know that the unreal tournament website says, that 32-bit is a LOT slower than 16 bit mode. I've also noticed that other games (dethkarz) run just fine in high resolutions@32bit so I guess this problem is unreal-specific...
          So how big a performance hit can I expect when using the dual head function as described in my other posts?

          Greets,
          Jorg


          ------------------
          ______________________
          I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
          © StarTrek: First Contact
          _ _ ______________ _ _
          I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
          © StarTrek: First Contact

          Comment

          • #6
            I have been running in Dual Head at all times, and in UT 1024 32bit color and textures i was getting about 35 fps. With dual head disabled i get about 45 fps. hmmm i think ill play with it off now....


            ------------------
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            G400 MAX : )
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            <a href="http://www.tweak3d.net">www.tweak3d.net</a>

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            • #7
              Nice! ;-)
              Now if only I didn't have to reboot every time i change the dual head settings....
              I heard windows2000 doesn't have to reboot when changing those settings. That would be sweet
              Now I'm gonna free up the PCI slots next to my G400, slap a fan on that baby and overclock it to the MAX! ;-)
              And how does one check the framerate in UT?

              Greets,
              Jorg


              ------------------
              ______________________
              I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
              © StarTrek: First Contact
              _ _ ______________ _ _
              I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
              © StarTrek: First Contact

              Comment

              • #8
                Toss in a relatively cheap Millennium II or Millennium to drive the second head.

                I finally got fed up with the slowness under UT, and gave the MAX all 32MB of RAM. MUCH better. I can live without video on the second head. I wasn't going to live with low UT performance.

                Oh, and if you're in 32bit mode under UT, set the filtering to bilinear, rather than trilinear. Looks almost as good as trilinear (to my eye), and gives you a 5 to 10 FPS performance boost.

                Just my $0.02



                ------------------
                Primary System: Athlon 550, MSI 6167 mb w/BIOS 1.3, 3x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, G400 MAX (no multi), Millennium II PCI, Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster Live!, DeskTop Theater DTT2500 DIGITAL Speaker System (Sweeeeeet!), WDC WD20 5AA 20GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Gravis Xterminator gamepad (no DX7 drivers yet), Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM, 10/100 5-port Linksys Ethernet switch, Epson 1200u scanner, Epson Stylus Pro printer, Logitech QuickCam Pro with the little stand and the lense kit (cool).

                Secondary System: PIII-450, Soyo 6BA+ IV, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium G200 AGP, V2 SLI rig, Intel Pro/100+ Management Adapter, SoundBlaster 32, WD AC41800 18GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

                Tertiary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 1x128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM CAS2, Millennium II, 3Com 3C905, 3Com 3C509, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, Seagate 1GB Hawk, Quantum DLT 4000 tape drive, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

                Quaternary System: Ocean Rhino 9 motherboard w/Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 4x64MB EDO Parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Haven't chosen an OS yet.

                And a JetDirect EX print server that bootp's its address from the Tertiary System.

                All specs subject to change.

                -The pessimist says: "The glass is half empty."
                The optimist says: "The glass is half full."
                The engineer says: "I put half of my water
                in a redundant glass."
                The pessimist says: "The glass is half empty."
                The optimist says: "The glass is half full."
                The engineer says: "I put half of my water in a redundant glass."

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                • #9
                  There is NO slowdown when you enable Dualhead!

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    I just disabled it and UT runs fine in 1024x768@32 bit now. Before it didn't. Conclusion: Dual head DOES impact performance!!
                    Probably due to memory being occupied with the second display.

                    Greets,
                    Jorg


                    ------------------
                    ______________________
                    I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
                    © StarTrek: First Contact
                    _ _ ______________ _ _
                    I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.
                    © StarTrek: First Contact

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      hm....
                      sorry...
                      there is a performance hit...

                      celeron 300A@504Mhz G400DH 32MB
                      1024x768x32
                      3D Mark 99

                      Dualhead disabled:
                      4035 points
                      Dualhesd enabled:
                      3601 points

                      but in openGL there is no performance hit! (ofcourse you have to disable the second monitor first before you play, but DH is still on)
                      all my Q2/Q3 benchmarks stay the same, if i use dualhed or not...
                      and because i mainly play Q3A and HalfLife/Counterstrike i did not recognise the D3D performance hit.....

                      Unreal Tournament:
                      800x600x32
                      Dualhead enabled = unplayable
                      Dualhead disabled = runs smooth as hell

                      i think it is because the G400 divides its 32MB into two 16MB parts...
                      At least 3D Mark says that i only got 16MB video memory when DH is enabled....

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        hm....
                        sorry...
                        there is a performance hit...

                        celeron 300A@504Mhz G400DH 32MB
                        1024x768x32
                        3D Mark 99

                        Dualhead disabled:
                        4035 points
                        Dualhesd enabled:
                        3601 points

                        but in openGL there is no performance hit! (ofcourse you have to disable the second monitor first before you play, but DH is still on)
                        all my Q2/Q3 benchmarks stay the same, if i use dualhed or not...
                        and because i mainly play Q3A and HalfLife/Counterstrike i did not recognise the D3D performance hit.....

                        Unreal Tournament:
                        800x600x32
                        Dualhead enabled = unplayable
                        Dualhead disabled = runs smooth as hell

                        i think it is because the G400 divides its 32MB into two 16MB parts...
                        At least 3D Mark says that i only got 16MB video memory when DH is enabled....

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          I thought it was strange when I had dual head activated. My 3dMark scores were the same either DH enabled or disabled, but even in a simple game like Freecell it was obvious that there was a difference. With DH disabled, I could not see the cards move to the top row when I won a game because they go so fast. With DH activated, I can practically count them as they move up.

                          So why the same 3dMark scores. i tried both 3dMark99Max and 3dMark2000. Any ideas?

                          RAB
                          AMD K6III-450; Epox EP-MVP3G5; G400DH32; Maxtor 10gig UDMA66; 128meg PC100; Aureal SQ2500 sound; PCI Modem Blaster; Linksys 10/100 NIC; Mag 800V 19"; AL ACS54 4 speaker sound; Logitech wireless mouse; Logitech Wingman Extreme (great for lefties)

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