I got a GTX 970 - Need upgrade advice

[Artorius]

hmm? I only game on 1 monitor. I just hate constantly alt+tabbing when I want to look something up mid-game, ifi get an email form work, changing music etc. Eventually I will get a 3rd one.

The strange part is the 144hz part. Not that you want 2 monitors.

[Lathais]

hmm? I only game on 1 monitor. I just hate constantly alt+tabbing when I want to look something up mid-game, ifi get an email form work, changing music etc. Eventually I will get a 3rd one.

Then just get any old monitor. A 1080p 60hz with a high refresh rate is fine for not-gaming. For a really long time I had an old 19" 1440x900 monitor as my second monitor. Worked great for what I needed it for, which is exactly what you describe. My main monitor is a 23.6" 1080p though.

[Master Guns]

hmm? I only game on 1 monitor. I just hate constantly alt+tabbing when I want to look something up mid-game, ifi get an email form work, changing music etc. Eventually I will get a 3rd one.

From my understanding, you can't "alt tab" out of a game without it shutting the game down to desktop. Alt tabbing will do just that. Alt tab you, meaning the game isn't on the screen. The only way to accomplish what you're talking about is having two computers. Having two screens won't help, bc alt tabbing brings you to desktop on the monitor you're gaming on.

[Kagthul]

From my understanding, you can't "alt tab" out of a game without it shutting the game down to desktop. Alt tabbing will do just that. Alt tab you, meaning the game isn't on the screen. The only way to accomplish what you're talking about is having two computers. Having two screens won't help, bc alt tabbing brings you to desktop on the monitor you're gaming on.

And yet plenty of people use two monitors, gaming on one and running browsers/twitch chat and sreaming software on the other.

[Master Guns]

Please explain how it's possible to interact with a browser on a 2nd screen without alt tabbing your game to desktop. Because I've tried it with a 2 monitor setup and as soon as you try to interact with your 2nd screen your game on your first screen alt tabs to desktop.

I'm not saying you can't get Netflix up and running on your 2nd screen, but interacting with it or alt tabbing it brings your main screen to desktop every time.

[Lathais]

Please explain how it's possible to interact with a browser on a 2nd screen without alt tabbing your game to desktop. Because I've tried it with a 2 monitor setup and as soon as you try to interact with your 2nd screen your game on your first screen alt tabs to desktop.

I'm not saying you can't get Netflix up and running on your 2nd screen, but interacting with it or alt tabbing it brings your main screen to desktop every time.

Depends on the game. The game must have Borderless Window option for it to work. I do it all the time though. Some games even allow the mouse to move over without alt tabbing. Some require a setting to change this.

[Master Guns]

Lol. Okay? So you admit it's not possible for all games. Yet you act like I'm a fucking retard for saying what I said. You guys are so fucking ridiculous it's laughable.

[Artorius]

Lol. Okay? So you admit it's not possible for all games. Yet you act like I'm a fucking retard for saying what I said. You guys are so fucking ridiculous it's laughable.

No, you just don't know what you're talking about.

If the game is in full priority mode "full-screen", windows isn't rendering the desktop at the same time. Then you have this little delay in order to alt tab since it's going to put things back at the GPU and reload your desktop. You can't use a secondary monitor for other things this way.

If you put it a windowed full-screen at one monitor you have it running just fine at this monitor and can do whatever the hell you want at another one, since the desktop stays behind it fully functional.

[Artorius]

Borderless Windowed mode is a very common feature. Even if a game doesn't offer it people sometimes just mod it so that it will work. Works wonders for multitasking even if you're only using 1 monitor.

Yes, I play everything using it because it makes alt tabbing literally instantaneous. And I'm only using one monitor.

[Master Guns]

Oh. You mean that feature that reduces FPS by 10-15 depending on the game? (Personal observations) No thanks.

[Artorius]

Oh. You mean that feature that reduces FPS by 10-15 depending on the game? (Personal observations) No thanks.

It doesn't.

[Master Guns]

Yeah, it actually does. I have personally tested 4 games (Skyrim, Far Cry 3, WoW, and Arkham Knight) with borderless windowed mode, and according to my FPS counter, each game is at least 10 FPS lower in borderless windowed mode.

[Bigvizz]

Yeah, it actually does. I have personally tested 4 games (Skyrim, Far Cry 3, WoW, and Arkham Knight) with borderless windowed mode, and according to my FPS counter, each game is at least 10 FPS lower in borderless windowed mode.

I've played Dragon Age Inquisition in Fullscreen Window and Fullscreen. Never had a problem with lower fps in fullscreen window. Also played WoW for the longest time in fullscreen window never noticed a significant drop in fps. Maybe the gods don't like you?

[Kauko]

Throwing money through the window... this comp is more than enough for anything. You wont get so much more fps in games like gta and gw2, to be worth the money.

[Morssoe]

Problem is the memory in gpus, if you play ultra gta with 1080p it takes too much memory and makes fps drop.

I'm not sure if they support the technology yet, but in theory with dx12 you can just add your upgrade card and sli them to sum memory of both cards. so if 970 has like 4gigs and 980 ti has 6gigs, you would have total 10 gigs. Search google for these things, and you will find an answer.

[Bigvizz]

Problem is the memory in gpus, if you play ultra gta with 1080p it takes too much memory and makes fps drop.

I'm not sure if they support the technology yet, but in theory with dx12 you can just add your upgrade card and sli them to sum memory of both cards. so if 970 has like 4gigs and 980 ti has 6gigs, you would have total 10 gigs. Search google for these things, and you will find an answer.

Huh? soo many things wrong with your statement. I'm just going to let someone else deal with it.

[Morssoe]

Huh? soo many things wrong with your statement. I'm just going to let someone else deal with it.

That just sucks, don't bait.

[Lathais]

Problem is the memory in gpus, if you play ultra gta with 1080p it takes too much memory and makes fps drop.

I'm not sure if they support the technology yet, but in theory with dx12 you can just add your upgrade card and sli them to sum memory of both cards. so if 970 has like 4gigs and 980 ti has 6gigs, you would have total 10 gigs. Search google for these things, and you will find an answer.

You can not SLI an nVidia card with an AMD card. SLI is for nVidia only, Crossfire is for Radeon. In theory, DX12 will be able to use multiple GPUs, but not in SLI. It may be able to use different cards for different things though. Even if they were running in SLI, the RAM is not additive. In SLI/Crossfire, you use 2 identical cards and the RAM is mirrored on them so bat GPUs have access to the same assets.

[Evildeffy]

You can not SLI an nVidia card with an AMD card. SLI is for nVidia only, Crossfire is for Radeon. In theory, DX12 will be able to use multiple GPUs, but not in SLI. It may be able to use different cards for different things though. Even if they were running in SLI, the RAM is not additive. In SLI/Crossfire, you use 2 identical cards and the RAM is mirrored on them so bat GPUs have access to the same assets.

Whilst you are technically correct about SLI being nVidia only the poster you quoted simply referred to the fact that with DX12 you can use Multi-GPU of any brand to co-operate with each other (for now, waiting for nVidia to lock this down in their drivers).

Also with DX12's technology it should also be possible to add up the memory with each other since it'll be handled as 1 big GPU.

This technology is still in it's infancy and being developed so don't expect it to work flawlessly yet.

And if you decide to combo nVidia and AMD, make sure the AMD card is the main card as otherwise you will have performance loss.
nVidia has some weird issues with this so far.

[Artorius]

In fact SLI/CFX treat the cards as if they were only one card with 2 GPUs. It makes one card render even frames and the other render odd frames. It's a total hack since the direct X API doesn't support it natively, it's totally driver dependant and a gimmick.

With dx12 I think developers can actually choose what each GPU does and there's that balanced rendering thing that let's the cards render a percentage of each frame, balanced around their performance from each other.