AMD, Tesla and video out
paul_ae567ab9
Posts: 231
Unusual situation.
About a year ago I build a new AMD system for my graphics and installed a Titan GPU with 12GB Ram. All was well...
Then all but one video output port ceased to send video. I have a dual monitor setup so basically reduced to single screen. 
I tried to remedy situation without resorting to seeking an expensive GPU replacement since the GPU renders fine despite the lack of video out to screen.
I bought a low end Radeon card with dual video out just to drive screens. I chose the Radeon because I was afraid of the Nvidia problem of DS only choosing to use the lowest ram of any pair of cards.
But though EverestHome and device manager see the AMD card and say it is "working properly" I get no video out.
Now this. I still have one port on the Nvidia card and one on AMD to the two monitors so wonder if I were to connect both monitors the the AMD card am I likely to get video then? I did not try that yet simply because how my equip is set up it is not that easy to get to the back of the PC's on the rack.
Aother options I have considered.
TESLA cards without any video ports are not that costly. What if I were to get a TESLA and use the AMD card for video then configure DS to use the TESLA for rendering?
Last option is to buy a new CPU that has onboard graphics.
Money IS an object as I don't have a lot to spare so seeking a working solution that leaves me with dual monitors and a reasonably fast Iray render engine.
Ideas welcome as long as they remain within the frame work of what I outlined above and what equipment I am working with.
Thank you !
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
The most convenient option would be to by an RTX 3060 12GB, that costs around 400USD/Eur
Older cards... You should check if they are still supported for Iray rendering, Maxwell generation is the next to be dropped.
I am pretty pissed about Nvidia dropping support for perfectly good often very expensive cards. If they choose not to support then they should Open Source them for a developer community to continue support. Why should anyone have to keep shelling out hundreds of dollars every time they want to gouge users for more money.
Put both monitors on the AMD card. If there's no video out to either monitor RMA it if it's still under warranty.
I used an old Nvidia 740 SC to drive a pair of 1920 X 1280 monitors (one vga, one hdmi - the vga is a shared monitor on a vga kvm switch) while rendring with a 980 TI and a 1080 TI. The 740 finally started failing - frequent resets - so I demoted the 980 TI to monitor duty and installed a 3060 when the prices came down.
If you're not using the system for gaming the video card can be pretty much anything that has the outputs you need.
While it's gotten significantly better over the years, mixing gpus doesn't always work.
This isn't just about amd and nvidia, but mixing generations, mixing pro and consumer, and other combinations.
It can be as simple as changing a bios setting, or as complex as moding a vbios.
The first suggestion, in this case, would be to test the radeon by itself.
If it doesn't output anything, then it's probably a bad card.
If it does, then things get complicated.
Check the bios and make sure that the primary video is set to the slot that the radeon will occupy, preferably the first x16 slot on the board, and not set to automatic.
Once that's set, then add the titan in and check if you lose video.
DO NOT CONNECT A VIDEO CABLE TO THE TITAN!
If you lose video, or the system doesn't boot, then you might need to adjust various video, and other, settings in the bios, such as "large bar", "MMIO", or settings related to memory addressing for add in cards.
You'll need to check the mobo/computer manufacturer's documentation, and possibly do some digging on forums to find the answer.
If it gets into windows, you're still not out of the woods.
Check that the driver, for both cards, has been installed and it's not using the generic windows driver.
You may have to install and uninstall multiple drivers for each card to get it to work properly.
Do not install anything other than the driver. Leave out the additional stuff amd or nvidia wants to install, it can create a lot of problems.
I'd also suggest installing each card individually, then testing with both installed, and start playing musical drivers to try to find which combination works.
Also, make sure auto-updates is off, otherwise you might get up and be right back at square one.
Also, also, you might want to use DDU(Display driver uninstaller) to make sure the remnants of the previous driver are completely gone, before you install the next one.
Even if the drivers get installed, you might still be only using one gpu, as the other is acting as a pass through.
Basically it's just giving more video ports but not doing anything on it's own.
I've only encountered this problem a few times, and the solutions were a bit nightmarish, so you'll need to check other forums for possible solutions to this one.
One side note about the nvidia driver website, don't trust the search.
I've got a folder full of drivers that the site said were correct, but won't install.
Check the ListDevices.txt file in the driver EXE for your specific GPU. The exe can be opened with 7zip, or other programs of it's type, to get to this file.
Might have to go into the beta and older drivers section to find something that works.
EDIT
Forgot to mention that GPU-z has a tendency to not report correct information when mixing gpus.
one of the pretty green trim cards... I think I have one that I had to grab quickly with the best info I could find
I will work with a quadro card.. it will not work with a "gaming" card because it uses the same driver as the work station cards
So I would check to see if the will both use the same driver. You can't have two drivers according to what nvidia told me.
Forget to cover the teslas.
Don't, unless you want to put your computer in the garage.
The cards not only don't have video ports, but they also lack any cooling, so you'll need to add fans to it.
As the cards require a great deal of air(minimum 12CFM ducted) to move across them, the fans required(generally server type) produce a very high noise level.
About a vaccuum cleaner loud, in some cases.
Since the cards also lack a fan header, you'll need a PWM controller, as most consumer mother boards are not going to have the necessary connectors, nor will they supply sufficient power.
As for performance, the tesla m40's i own benchmark around 1/4 the speed of a 3090, in iray. octane and other render engines are 1/5-1/6th the performance.