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Issues, Workarounds & Localization

 
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Multiple Video Cards, Monitors, & EVE Clients
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Callisto Helix
Adhocracy Incorporated
Adhocracy
#1 - 2011-12-22 03:41:19 UTC
I've been playing Eve for 4ish months now and altwhore that I am got myself 2 more accounts in pretty short order. While my system can run 3 instances of the client without any issues, I got a bit sick of all the alt tabbing. So last week I added a second monitor to my gaming rig, I can still run all 3 clients between both monitors with no issues, and loved it so much I've decided to add a third monitor to my collection. I run all of the clients in Fixed Window mode.

Before purchasing the third display I connected my TV that's normally hooked up to my Xbox via the HDMI port and was saddened to see that my 570 GTX will only output to a total of two monitors. As the most graphically intense thing that will likely be running on the secondary monitors is Eve at max settings (I do a lot of gaming that needs a lot more power than Eve does, but I don't believe that I'll be trying to do that on the secondary GPU), I bought myself a Radeon HD 6770 and hooked my second monitor up to it.

After adding the 6770 and connecting the second monitor to it, performance in Eve was significantly decreased, even when using just 2 clients, one on each monitor. Oddly enough, the frame rate on both monitors/clients are exactly the same, a change on one seems to translate instantly to the other. I can run multiple clients on the same monitor, or split between 2 monitors both plugged into the 570 (with the 6770 installed but not connected to a display) with massively better performance than I get with one client running on the 6770 and 1 or 2 running on the 570.

Thinking that this might be a driver issue, I yanked the 6770 and will be returning it. I then realized that I still have a GTS 250 lying around from a previous system and installed it into the computer. At first it seemed to be running just fine. I loaded up Eve onto my secondary monitor (connected to the GTS 250) and it ran great. Next I fired up another instance of the Eve client on my primary monitor (connected to the GTX 570) and suddenly performance tanked. I don't even have to login to the game. I used the framerate monitor (Ctrl + F) on both clients and watched as it went from 60 (I'm using V-Sync) with one client to 30 on both clients. If I fire up a third instance of the client on the 570 monitor all 3 drop to 20 fps. However, if I connect both monitors to the 570 with nothing connected to the 250, both clients run at 60fps, on the same monitor or split between them, it doesn't matter.

I've been googling this all day and cannot figure out what the problem is. I am at the point where I'm almost ready to just buy another GTS 570 and run two cards, but given what's happened I'm not sure if this will even work. If my GTS 250 can run the game at max settings with no issues, why is running additional instances of the client on a different GPU causing a uniform drop in performance?

Any thoughts or advice would greatly appreciated. I'm about to tear my hair out :(

My system specs:

Core i7-2600K @ 4.5Ghz
ASUS P8Z68-V pro
16GB Corsair DDR3-1600
GeForce 570 GTX 1280MB
256GB SSD
3x500GB HDD's in RAID5
24" Monitor @ 1920x1200
21.5" Monitor @ 1920x1080
Win7 Ultimate x64
Callisto Helix
Adhocracy Incorporated
Adhocracy
#2 - 2011-12-22 14:41:19 UTC
Anyone?
Sellendis
The Ares project
#3 - 2011-12-22 17:28:14 UTC
Same thing here, 2 monitors, frame rate drops to 30, on same monitor they both go at 60..go figure.
Callisto Helix
Adhocracy Incorporated
Adhocracy
#4 - 2011-12-22 18:08:35 UTC
Are you using 2 separate video cards as well? I only have the problem in that case. If both monitors are powered by the same card it works fine.
Sellendis
The Ares project
#5 - 2011-12-22 20:14:02 UTC
2x5770 and 30 fps on both clients, same thing with only 1 card and 2 monitors. New drivers, window / full / fixed win mode, clean windows instalation...always kills the FPS.
I blame Ati and CCP couse on every patch something works way worse than before.
KyDraco
Ky's Del
#6 - 2011-12-25 01:39:07 UTC
Just for fun..

I used to run 4 Eve clients on my computer with two monitors. No issues at all.

Now since this lastest "Patch", it starts off ok.. then after about 5 mins of play it maxes out my CPU and locks up the computer.

I can run two ok.. but once that 3rd or 4th come into play.. by by CPU

I was reading through the forums looking for any others having the issues and came across this posting. Better look into in to it otherwise you will be rather disappointed when you try to run multi clients.
barabaner
True Elks
#7 - 2012-01-06 00:32:06 UTC
To fix "30 fps" issue try set windows 7 theme to "Windows 7 basic".
0brym
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-01-06 08:59:31 UTC  |  Edited by: 0brym
That's only a temporary solution for Vista. I disabled Aero and the problem returned soon enough. I run 3 clients over 2 monitors on an HD6850. On 2 monitors, the lag sets in pretty quickly; within the hour. On one monitor, just over an hour. In both instances, dropping one client makes the others run fine again. Not fun at all.
Sellendis
The Ares project
#9 - 2012-01-08 12:38:19 UTC
barabaner wrote:
To fix "30 fps" issue try set windows 7 theme to "Windows 7 basic".


Did that at start, didnt help. I have tried almost everything, even clean windows installs and different drivers. Gave up on trying to fix it for now :(
Skyla Kavatina
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2012-01-08 21:04:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Skyla Kavatina
I'm using 3 x HD3870's connected to 3 monitors. If you set 2 clients to 'interval immediate' and the 3rd to 'interval default', it locks all three to the frame rate of the client running with 'interval default'.

I've not tried it with only two graphics cards and 3 clients but I don't see why it shouldn't work.
nardaq
Orion Expeditions
#11 - 2012-01-09 23:18:17 UTC  |  Edited by: nardaq
welcome to ATI Big smile

Using a single GPU it all fine, but to get proper fps on the
other screen connected to the second card u need to set the client to
GPU card #2 (or what ever it is, I've forgot) @ graphics settings......every time......Shocked
islador
Antigen.
#12 - 2012-01-10 18:09:26 UTC
nardaq wrote:
welcome to ATI Big smile

Using a single GPU it all fine, but to get proper fps on the
other screen connected to the second card u need to set the client to
GPU card #2 (or what ever it is, I've forgot) @ graphics settings......every time......Shocked


That is only the case if you're running multiple instances of the same client. I triple box out of two GPUs, a 5770 and a 4850. Because the 4850 is running two to three clients and the 5770 just runs my main, I wanted different graphics settings to keep the frame rates nice and high. So I installed a second EVE client on a separate hard disk. This allowed me to have different settings, and not have to reset things every time I boot my client. It also improved load times :)
eFFektzG
Nonconsensual PvP
#13 - 2012-02-25 08:06:30 UTC
Skyla Kavatina wrote:
I'm using 3 x HD3870's connected to 3 monitors. If you set 2 clients to 'interval immediate' and the 3rd to 'interval default', it locks all three to the frame rate of the client running with 'interval default'.

I've not tried it with only two graphics cards and 3 clients but I don't see why it shouldn't work.



THIS WORKED!

I'm running 3 monitors on 2 8800GTS and had the same problems, everything was fine until I added the second card. With changing the settings as stated above there is no fps issues at all now! Thanks for the info!
Nadine Le'Slut
The-Four-HorseMen
#14 - 2012-02-25 12:59:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Nadine Le'Slut
eFFektzG wrote:

THIS WORKED!!


Well not for me, but i am running two different instances on a 27inch and a 19inch LCD from a single GTX560Ti.
The dips into 45/30fps became more and more frequent the longer i played.

Setting "immediate" to one client and "default" to the other strangely forced 60fps on the "default" one and 100fps on the "immediate" one <- when it was not focused. focusing the "immediate" one brought it up to 280fps again.

what worked was setting both to "default", i somehow now have steady 60fps on both instances.
i could swear i've tried that one week before and it didnt work *shrugs*

nv 295.73 with default settings in control panel.

new edit: 30fps is back after 3 hours. this sucks so much.
Katiya Khadiija
The Juice Factory
#15 - 2012-02-26 18:07:18 UTC
Very interesting. This reply isn't so much as a solution suggestion as a description of how my current setup works.

I would never let an ATI play with an nVidia card on the same machine; I have a hard time believing the drivers would play nice with each other.

I have a single 6850HD running with 2x22" @ 1680x1050 flanking a 26" 1920x1080 HDTV. I regularly dual box, in fact I am right now at a relatively stable 60fps on each client, depending on environments of course. I have run three clients in the past, one on each monitor, without any major issues.
Lexi Acro
Acro Industries
#16 - 2012-02-27 06:11:14 UTC
I've never really had any really bad issues with running 4 clients, get a little bit of lag but nothing thats unbearable but I do heavy mining operations, so not really sure if thats a comparison to anything here or not...
Keenky
Royal Amarr Expeditions
#17 - 2012-02-27 15:08:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Keenky
I hope i can help a bit.

There are mulitple solutions and problems:

1.) Config: 1 Graphics Card, 2 Monitors, 1 Client installed

Start EVE as Administrator, have Eve Client installed only ONCE and start Client 2 times in windowed mode.
No Graphics Lag, annoying though, u have to set the clients to the right size each time u start if using 2 screens with different sizes and eve only remembers the setting of the client u have closed last.

2.) Config: 1 Graphics Card, 2 Monitors. 2 Clients installed

Start EVE NOT as Administrator. Once both Clients started, change to task manager and set their task priority to HIGH and switch virtualization off.

3.) Config: 2 Graphics Cards, 2 Monitors. 2 clients installed.

Important: Vista has lots of problems especially with the new Nvidia drivers. Dont ask me why, but Nvidia Control Panel and System Control Panel have different understandings of multiscreen systems. Once those are adapted it is important that you have installed the EVE client 2 times in different paths. Once those are started in administrative mode, i recommend to set the task priority to high (in the task manager) and ALLOW VIRTUALIZATION.

I am running the 1.) config, i dont have any problems. Which does not necessarily mean, that i am the only one right or so. I only had huge troubles when i used config 2. The lag issues i had then were caused by EVE client pumping data into pagefile.sys.

I am using now a GTX580 NVidia (MSI) and a 4GB RAM on 2.4 Ghz, Res client 1: 1920x1080, Res client 2:1440x900. on 2 screens, System is Vista Premium (not on latest patch status, approx 4 month behind).