[Solved] Skyrim on Three Monitors (Dual SLI)

I just finished my build last night and I just loaded Skyrim on to my PC and it won't play across my three monitors. Here is my setup:

i7 2600k (OC'd to 4.6)
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro mobo
Dual EVGA GTX 560ti 448 Classified with SLI connection (OC'd to 900)
16GB DDR3 1833

I just installed the nVidia drivers last night so they are up to date. I have the latest bios installed as well. I downloaded nVidia Inspector and Skyrim is listed in the profiles.

When I start the game, I click on the Options on the launcher screen and the the only options that are available are 16:9 format and 1920x1080 resolution. I tried editing the SkyrimPref.ini file to put in the resolution of 5760x1080 and it told me that my display did not suport that resolution.

Did I forget to do something to setup my SLI for the resolution?

Reply to clintster442

unfortunately you bought the wrong cards to use three monitors with. nvidia cards do not support 3 monitors.

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Reply to cbrunnem

Best answer

cbrunnem wrote :

unfortunately you bought the wrong cards to use three monitors with. nvidia cards do not support 3 monitors.

Well, the new Galaxy 570 is a single nvidia card that does support 3 monitors, but that is besides the point.

"With GeForce R180 drivers (or later), standard SLI configurations for 2-way, 3-Way, and quad SLI support a maximum of two monitors. Additional monitors (up to 6 monitors total enabled) may be enabled by using either a motherboard GPU and/or a PhysX capable graphics card (GeForce 8 series or higher with at least 256MB of memory) that does not have the same GPU as those that are SLI enabled. More information regarding multi-monitor in SLI can be found" taken from Nvidia's FAQ site.

Essentially your SLI when running IN SLI provides 2 video channels (2 monitors). If you were to run them independently OR run them in SLI and plug in a 3rd card of any semi-modern nvidia variety, you will have a total of 4 video channels which does allow you to operate in 3 monitor displays with Nvidia.

Don't feel too foolish, because neither the 6950 nor the 6970 could tri-monitor Skyrim on max settings and maintain 60 fps without running a 2nd card as well, simply to provide the juice necessary. The complications you're likely to encounter though are A. Is your mobo capable of mounting 3 cards, and B. is your power supply up to the task?

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Message edited by casualcolors on 02-09-2012 at 03:24:20 AM

cbrunnem wrote :

unfortunately you bought the wrong cards to use three monitors with. nvidia cards do not support 3 monitors.

Please do not post if you do not read my question or bother to research the topic. Nvidia Surrond has supported three monitor systems since the GTX 295 series.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vi [...] ology.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vi [...] ments.html

Message edited by clintster442 on 02-09-2012 at 04:19:40 PM

casualcolors wrote :

Well, the new Galaxy 570 is a single nvidia card that does support 3 monitors, but that is besides the point.

"With GeForce R180 drivers (or later), standard SLI configurations for 2-way, 3-Way, and quad SLI support a maximum of two monitors. Additional monitors (up to 6 monitors total enabled) may be enabled by using either a motherboard GPU and/or a PhysX capable graphics card (GeForce 8 series or higher with at least 256MB of memory) that does not have the same GPU as those that are SLI enabled. More information regarding multi-monitor in SLI can be found" taken from Nvidia's FAQ site.

Essentially your SLI when running IN SLI provides 2 video channels (2 monitors). If you were to run them independently OR run them in SLI and plug in a 3rd card of any semi-modern nvidia variety, you will have a total of 4 video channels which does allow you to operate in 3 monitor displays with Nvidia.

Don't feel too foolish, because neither the 6950 nor the 6970 could tri-monitor Skyrim on max settings and maintain 60 fps without running a 2nd card as well, simply to provide the juice necessary. The complications you're likely to encounter though are A. Is your mobo capable of mounting 3 cards, and B. is your power supply up to the task?

I'm confused... nVidia specifically says that three monitors are capable with my dual 560 ti (among many other cards as well) in 2-way SLI and specically even shows the way to connect the three monitors to the two cards on their site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vi [...] ments.html - Connections Tab

And my motherboard supports 2-way SLI and came with the SLI bridge for 2-way SLI.

That's for 3d bud

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to cbrunnem

cbrunnem wrote :

That's for 3d bud

Again, thanks for trying to help, but that is incorrect as well.

i think you can run 3 monitors. 2 from the card and the third connects to 1 of the 2 monitors... you then setup the desktop to 5/1 ratio using expand...
then load up the game and it may allow you to run off all 3 screens.
i did read sum1 that there was a fov mod needed to run skyrim on 3 screens but ive only ever seen it on ati cards... cas did get 1 thing rite in that there is no single gpu card available that will allow you to run skyrim max settings at a 5/1 ratio. you will need a card with at least 3 gigs of ram and the power of a gtx 6990 which although is classed as a single card is a multi gpu card... which suffers the same issues as any crossfire setup. ie microstutter.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/trip [...] deon-6990/ anyway look here...

by the looks of it you need a minimum of 2 cards for sli tri monitor setup... just plug em in and select the surround setup option in the nvidia panel... if its grayed out its unsupported by your cards.

Message edited by HEXiT on 02-09-2012 at 05:57:49 PM

@clintster442, assuming you have SLi enabled the problem is with Skyrim not your cards, ignore cbrunnem as he does not appear to know diddly squat about Nvidia cards.

Message quoted 1 times

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Reply to Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey wrote :

@clintster442, assuming you have SLi enabled the problem is with Skyrim not your cards, ignore cbrunnem as he does not appear to know diddly squat about Nvidia cards.

That has become the new issue. SLI was disabled. When I attempted to enable it in nVidia Control Panel, my system crashes and deletes the drivers and cards from my system (cards no longer show up in Device Manager). I then have to reinstall my nVidia drivers and reboot and everything is working again but with SLI disabled. nVidia has been completely useless and has no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.

I did manage to get someone from ASUS on a chat and they suggested uninstalling the drivers, powering down the PC, removing one of the cards, rebooting the PC, reinstalling the driver, power down the PC, reinstall second card, rebooting PC and windows should automatically configure the second card since the driver from the first is already onboard. Then, I should be able to enable SLI successfully.

I am at work now so I can't try until I get home tonight. I will report back. Anyone else have this issue? The manual that came with my mobo specifically says to install the cards together but after reinstalling and rebooting my PC 17 times so far working on this issue, i'll try anything.

Thanks for the help.

Reply to clintster442

Have you trawled the forums for issues relating to those Z68 boards? I'm assuming this also happens if the cards and CPU are at default clocks? And do you have an SSD in that rig?

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Reply to Mousemonkey

could be the board doesnt like sli like (MM says) and will only do crossfire. although i thought intel chipsets were licensed for both... have you tried downgrading your drivers... a lot of people have been reporting instability since the bf3 driver updates... so trying a driver from b4 say october last year may solve the problem.

I've seen quite a few complaints about those Z68 boards which are supposed to be SLi capable, it seems they can suffer a variety of issues which seem to result in the second slot not playing nice with either Nvidia or AMD cards. It could also just be Skyrim which like BF3 has nothing but problems and updates since day one.

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Reply to Mousemonkey

casualcolors wrote :

Well, the new Galaxy 570 is a single nvidia card that does support 3 monitors, but that is besides the point.

"With GeForce R180 drivers (or later), standard SLI configurations for 2-way, 3-Way, and quad SLI support a maximum of two monitors. Additional monitors (up to 6 monitors total enabled) may be enabled by using either a motherboard GPU and/or a PhysX capable graphics card (GeForce 8 series or higher with at least 256MB of memory) that does not have the same GPU as those that are SLI enabled. More information regarding multi-monitor in SLI can be found" taken from Nvidia's FAQ site.

Essentially your SLI when running IN SLI provides 2 video channels (2 monitors). If you were to run them independently OR run them in SLI and plug in a 3rd card of any semi-modern nvidia variety, you will have a total of 4 video channels which does allow you to operate in 3 monitor displays with Nvidia.

Don't feel too foolish, because neither the 6950 nor the 6970 could tri-monitor Skyrim on max settings and maintain 60 fps without running a 2nd card as well, simply to provide the juice necessary. The complications you're likely to encounter though are A. Is your mobo capable of mounting 3 cards, and B. is your power supply up to the task?

lol dont feel too foolish the 6970 card run skyrim on ultra on 3 monitors, erm i think you will find that it cant and does average about 40 fps if i remember right and if you REALLY wanna get into it i have proof since i have had skyrim since the start with 1 card on 3 monitors running on ultra working totally fine no lag nothing and i have now got 3 cards and i get average FPS of 126.8 on a display res of 5760x1200 on ultra with the new mods and texture packs.

eyefinity needs 1 card to run it and nvidia surround needs 2 cards or a dual gpu card to run 3 monitors cos it sucks and its a waste of time and money and its over rated.

i posted pics on a previous post to prove my statement and also said benchmarks on forums dont mean jack as all pcs are different in some way shape or form, and proved on crossfire and on tri-crossfire that i could hit well over 100 fps on BF3 on ultra on 3 x 24" samsung syncmaster at the res above without issues and the cards are stock, and since the toms benchmarks said it couldnt be done, but hey what do i know i just have facts and figures and even video to prove it and with driver updates and bios mobo updates anything is possible

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------------------------------ Asus Rampage 4 Extreme, Intel 3930K 4.8Ghz, 32GB Gskill Ripjaw Z 2133Mhz, 2x OCZ Agility Vertex 3 240GB SSD in Raid O, 3 x Asus DC2 TOP 3 GB cards 1000/1400 in Crossfire X, 5 x Samsung Syncmaster 24" for Eyefinity with no Bezel's
Reply to Spoony

Spoony wrote :

lol dont feel too foolish the 6970 card run skyrim on ultra on 3 monitors, erm i think you will find that it cant and does average about 40 fps if i remember right and if you REALLY wanna get into it i have proof since i have had skyrim since the start with 1 card on 3 monitors running on ultra working totally fine no lag nothing and i have now got 3 cards and i get average FPS of 126.8 on a display res of 5760x1200 on ultra with the new mods and texture packs.

eyefinity needs 1 card to run it and nvidia surround needs 2 cards or a dual gpu card to run 3 monitors cos it sucks and its a waste of time and money and its over rated.

i posted pics on a previous post to prove my statement and also said benchmarks on forums dont mean jack as all pcs are different in some way shape or form, and proved on crossfire and on tri-crossfire that i could hit well over 100 fps on BF3 on ultra on 3 x 24" samsung syncmaster at the res above without issues and the cards are stock, and since the toms benchmarks said it couldnt be done, but hey what do i know i just have facts and figures and even video to prove it and with driver updates and bios mobo updates anything is possible

This would be a great post if I hadn't specified in my first post, things like "ultra settings" and "60 fps". Since you concede in your post that it ran on 1 6970 across 3 monitors at 40 fps, I presume the point of your post was to agree with me and pat me on the back for being an observant hardware poster?

womp womp.

Perhaps you just didn't understand my post since English clearly isn't your first language (at least I hope it isn't rofl).

Message edited by casualcolors on 02-11-2012 at 04:42:55 PM

Best answer selected by clintster442.

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