2 Different series Graphics Cards in same computer issues

Ya Dad · Apr 7, 2015

- - Skip to the bottom to go straight to my questions- -

I have Windows 7, and I heard that with WDDM 1.1 it's possible to use 2 different graphics cards in the same computer. I tried it out and after a LOT of trial and error, I finally have it semi-working. My "AMD Radeon 5800 Series" is feeding to my LED via HDMI, and my "ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT" is using s-video out to an SD CRT. I'm a retro gamer, and playing emulators on an SD CRT is pretty awesome. Watching 4:3 shows and movies on it is pretty cool too, which is why I ordered this ancient graphics card lol.

I had to wipe my drivers completely clean in order to get this setup to work because I kept getting BSOD Atihdw76.sys errors. After using DriverSweeper in safe mode, I kept both cards physically installed in the PCI-e slots and rebooted. Windows automatically recognized and gave drivers to both of the graphics cards which resulted in a BSOD when it tried installing the HDMI audio driver for the 5800 series card (hence the Atihdw76 thing, i think it's a hdmi audio driver file). However, now everything is working fine.

My problem is that I am only using the drivers that Windows gave me to use. I didn't install any ATI drivers from the site or CCC, or Hydravision. I played Super Mario 64 HD on all high settings, and everything seemed to be working as it should. However, when playing a youtube video on 1080p, it's really choppy. Also, there's a black border going around my entire screen, so I would like to scale that as well. I know I can do this in CCC, but I'm scared to install it because last time I did, it completely messed everything up, and it would only recognize 1 graphics card at a time.

So my questions:

- How can I safely install Catalyst Control Center while keeping the functionality of both graphics cards?

- How do I fix the HD video choppy playback?

- Do I need Catalyst Control Center to scale my resolution to fit screen? And if I don't, how do I fit the resolution to scale screen?

pjgmaster · Apr 7, 2015

Ya Dad :

Catalyst is certainly a good start... However..
Older cards aren't very good at handling youtube 1080p (full screen especially)
Another contributing factor is that it is a hybrid crossfire and in some circumstances they don't perform well (some games are fine with it, other's are worse off) The biggest sign of a hybrid crossfire setup not working well with something is micro stuttering.

In some aspects you'll get both of them functioning together and others they will be worse off for it..

I wish I could be more helpful

But it's time to consider a new computer possibly...

Dragos Manea · Apr 7, 2015

pjgmaster :

Ya Dad :

Catalyst is certainly a good start... However..
Older cards aren't very good at handling youtube 1080p (full screen especially)
Another contributing factor is that it is a hybrid crossfire and in some circumstances they don't perform well (some games are fine with it, other's are worse off) The biggest sign of a hybrid crossfire setup not working well with something is micro stuttering.

In some aspects you'll get both of them functioning together and others they will be worse off for it..

I wish I could be more helpful

But it's time to consider a new computer possibly...

He didnt crossfire, he just installed 2 video cards with no bridge between them.

pjgmaster · Apr 7, 2015

Dragos Manea :

pjgmaster :

Ya Dad :

Catalyst is certainly a good start... However..
Older cards aren't very good at handling youtube 1080p (full screen especially)
Another contributing factor is that it is a hybrid crossfire and in some circumstances they don't perform well (some games are fine with it, other's are worse off) The biggest sign of a hybrid crossfire setup not working well with something is micro stuttering.

In some aspects you'll get both of them functioning together and others they will be worse off for it..

I wish I could be more helpful

But it's time to consider a new computer possibly...

He didnt crossfire, he just installed 2 video cards with no bridge between them.

Oooooh, well. Radeon cards, unlike Nvidia Cards, do not need a bridge.. Crossfire unlike SLI does not use one.. However, those two cards, may not be compatible and even if they are, they may not be good with one another :/

pjgmaster · Apr 7, 2015

Dragos Manea :

pjgmaster :

Ya Dad :

Catalyst is certainly a good start... However..
Older cards aren't very good at handling youtube 1080p (full screen especially)
Another contributing factor is that it is a hybrid crossfire and in some circumstances they don't perform well (some games are fine with it, other's are worse off) The biggest sign of a hybrid crossfire setup not working well with something is micro stuttering.

In some aspects you'll get both of them functioning together and others they will be worse off for it..

I wish I could be more helpful

But it's time to consider a new computer possibly...

He didnt crossfire, he just installed 2 video cards with no bridge between them.

Oooooh, well. Radeon cards, unlike Nvidia Cards, do not need a bridge.. Crossfire unlike SLI does not use one.. However, those two cards, may not be compatible and even if they are, they may not be good with one another :/

Ya Dad · Apr 7, 2015

pjgmaster :

I'm watching YT vids on my LED which is plugged into my HD 5830. It never had problems before I installed the HD 2600 graphics card. I think the problem is that I'm using the 2600 drivers for both cards. WDDS 1.1 supports using separate drivers for each card, right? How do I go about doing this?

pjgmaster :

How can you even suggest that when all you know about my computer is what graphics cards I am using??

Ya Dad · Apr 7, 2015

pjgmaster :

I am not trying to crossfire them. I simply added the Radeon 2600 for it's s-video out.

pjgmaster · Apr 7, 2015

Ya Dad :

Because if that is what you are choosing to use for your system. It's a safe assumption the rest of the system can't be too good either.

So S video out? To the best of my knowledge you cannot use two graphics cards in such a way.. I could be mistaken, but to from what I know, two graphics cards cannot be used in the same system completely separate from each other in terms of what they are being used for.

Mousemonkey · Apr 7, 2015

Crossfire up to the 2xx series does use a bridge actually.

Dragos Manea · Apr 7, 2015

Well in display adaptors under windows device manager they are indenntified correctly?

Dragos Manea · Apr 7, 2015

pjgmaster :

Ya Dad :

Because if that is what you are choosing to use for your system. It's a safe assumption the rest of the system can't be too good either.

So S video out? To the best of my knowledge you cannot use two graphics cards in such a way.. I could be mistaken, but to from what I know, two graphics cards cannot be used in the same system completely separate from each other in terms of what they are being used for.

Wrong, i use an nvidia and an amd in the same time, my current amd doesnt have XP drivers and i have some old legacy nice titles which i love to play (sw kotor and sw kotor 2), for that i use my gtx 560 which has xp drivers.

Ya Dad · Apr 7, 2015

pjgmaster :

P7H55/USB3 mobo
Intel core i7 875k 2.93 OC'd to 3.78ghz
12 gigs DDR3 RAM

Nearly 4-year-old comp. Not top of the line, but far from needing to upgrade to a completely new computer altogether.

Dragos Manea :

Identified as AMD Radeon HD 5800 Series and ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Ya Dad · Apr 8, 2015

Well, idk how, but watching 1080p on YouTube works great now. No more choppiness! I didn't do anything to fix it, so whatever I'm just glad it's not broken anymore.

So this ultimately narrows my questions down to 1.

How do I fix the black border that goes all the way around my screen, so that all of my monitor real estate is being used??

Keep in mind I do not have CCC so I can't use that to scale the resolution.

Ya Dad · Apr 8, 2015

Ugh, new problem I discovered. System black screens after going to sleep or hibernating. Probably a graphics driver issue...but see, the problem is that since I'm using 2 different series graphics cards, I don't know how to go about installing drivers from the ATI website. Right now I'm just using the drivers Windows installed for me.

Dragos Manea · Apr 8, 2015

Well use the driver which is compatible with both, start with the older card and see latest driver for it and see in technical description if supports the newest one too.

Ya Dad · Apr 8, 2015

Dragos Manea :

The newest driver for the HD 2xxx series supports graphics cards up to HD 4xxx. My other graphics card is a 5830...

EDIT: Went ahead and installed the latest drivers for my 5830 including CCC. I can now scale the screen, but now my 2600 isn't working. Gonna boot into safe mode, uninstall drivers via Device Manager, uninstall AMD Catalyst Install Manager, then use DriverSweeper to take care of the rest.

EDIT2: WELP...Now Windows doesn't recognize my 2600 properly. Under Device Manager it's Generic VGA Controller or something like that. My 2600 won't output to my SD CRT now. My 5830 IS recognize properly, though.

Dragos Manea · Apr 9, 2015

Ya Dad :

U cannot keep both of this card into your pc, they are not compatible, to use both u must have a common driver.

U can try to force install an older driver for you old card ( by clicking on device manager and update driver then select manually the driver and installing).

Ya Dad · Apr 9, 2015

Yeah, before I even read your reply I ended up just taking out the 5830 altogether and replacing it with another 2600 XT that I have. So now I am running dual 2600s'. I'm gonna order a bridge from Amazon and just crossfire them. It won't be as good as a 5830, but I don't do a lot of high-end gaming anyway so for now, it's good enough.

By the way, the reason I am downgrading to a 2600 is because of it's s-video out. I love watching shows and movies in 4:3 on my SD CRT, and retro-gaming on them with emulators is awesome. HDMI to S-video converter boxes are garbage; too much input lag and they give this terrible ghosting/scaling effect idk it's hard to describe, but it's trash, trust me. So I'll stick with my 2600 XT cards.

Dragos Manea · Apr 9, 2015

Well goodluck

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2 Different series Graphics Cards in same computer issues

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