Choose Which GPU A Program Uses or How To Force A Program To Use The GPU I Want It To Use

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Immitem

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Hello there! Something went wrong and I did not see my forum thread so I am resubmitting it. Sorry if it creates a double post, thank you!

Recently I was in a pickle of deciding on whether or not to sell my Firepro card as my favourite texture painting program never developed support for it, leaving it a buggy mess. I was considering selling my Firepro to fund the purchase of another card so that I may have enough VRAM (12GB) so that I need not worry about constantly running out. As I found someone selling a Titan XM for well under a grand CAD I found myself not needing to sell my Firepro after all but I have run into something of another pickle.

Now, I will say off the bat that I have only a vague idea of what I am doing but I came to the conclusion that I could have an entirely separate monitor plugged into another graphics card and run it from there. The problem being that even though the monitor is plugged into a 1070 it still uses the w9100 to do all of its processing (watching GPU usage through MSI Afterburner). The only way to force the card to do the work is change the monitor plugged into the Nvidia GPU to the main one. This raises the issues of programs throwing themselves all over the place, never starting on the right monitor, opening windows on the monitors in random positions, and sometimes getting locked off screen so that not even CTRL-Arrow Keys can bring it back.

In summery, can I force a program on another monitor to use the GPU that monitor is plugged into without switching it to my main monitor which creates a hot mess of my desktop and other programs like Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush?

Thank you!
 
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The_Staplergun

The_Staplergun

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Jan 30, 2017
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When you place a program into any display, it will be rendered with the card it is connected to, as long as the entirety of the rendered area is inside that display. Fullscreen makes sure of that, or Windows smaller than the sides of the screen.

Also another note, "maximised" windows inside windows will also suffice, for programs that don't run Fullscreen.
 
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iamacow

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Feb 11, 2015
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The fact your have a Nvidia and AMD card running in the same box is a wonder in itself. I know in recent years its been easierwith a few driver hacks and tweaks, but still I just can't see a GTX 1070 and Firepro W9100 work together without some fuse. That is your problem. I bet its not even using the 1070 besides a pass-through. video output.

This is why Workstation and gaming computers are not the box. No play at work. Pick a card and stick with it. Since you use Maya, you will want the FirePro since it supports Maya Wireframe acceleration. I believe Zbrush is still strictly CPU, or it was still for 4R5. Photoshop won't matter either way unless you have a 10Bit (1billion color display). Geforce Cards do not support 10Bit mode outside of DirectX (aka any programs besides 3Ds Max and games).

Having a Nvidia Quadro and Gefore will not fix the problem either. Geforce cards do not run on Quadro drivers , but Geforce works with Quadro, which defeats the purpose of a Pro card as the drivers are the only major difference. I'm not sure about AMD Radeon cards.
 
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Immitem

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People keep saying this but I have never had trouble with it. After I reinstalled .Net Framework the other day, it does not even matter anymore which order I install them in! Maya runs fantastically with the w9100, almost twice as fast as the 1070 in the same scenes unaltered, and the two 1070s I have run the Redshift GPU renderer without a hitch. It would not even run at all if the two 1070's drivers were not installed, working, or up to snuff.

The problem is that Substance Painter 2 is the complete inversion. Running a fraction of the speed of the 1070 and crashing at the drop of at hat. I used to have a Titan Black that I could easily max out the 6 gigs of VRAM which is why I was interested in getting one of the Titan Xs but planned on selling the w9100 as I could not find any cheap enough until yesterday. I just need to figure out how to force SP2 to use the GPU I want it to as The_Staplergun's solution does not work unfortunately. But I will keep asking around as Google has failed me. I am only getting topics on forcing Windows to not use the built-in Intel chip; Ergh!

EDIT: The reason I brought up Zbrush, Photoshop, etc, was not because I was having any trouble with them due to the cards I was using but rather that the only solution I had was changing the monitor plugged into the Nvidia Card to the main monitor which would screw up the monitor placement of the programs whether or not they were open or closed at the time as well as the placement of popup windows within the program itself. The reason I went for the w9100 was because it was second hand and cheap and would allow me to preview GIGS of textures in Maya which I do on a regular basis. I was also banking on Allegorithmic adding Firepro support by now but they never pulled through and refuse to give an ETA to this day causing the problem in the first place.

P.S. "This is why Workstation and gaming computers are not the box. No play at work." The cards were originally headless, dedicated GPU rendering units. I do not and have never gamed on them even though I am still baffled by the adamancy of the work/play dichotomy. If you get everything done on time then what is the harm? If you cannot then it is a problem with one's ability to schedule and manage time.
 
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bystander

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There has never been an issue with having an AMD and Nvidia card in the same system, as long as it wasn't Vista, which only let you have 1 driver installed. You are thinking about Nvidia not allowing their cards to be used as dedicated PhysX cards with an AMD primary rendering card.

As far as I'm aware, there is no ideal solution to the OP. You can try plugging in 1 monitor to your Firepro, and the other to your gaming GPU, and switch which is the primary display. I'm not certain, but I believe this will work. Otherwise, you might have to switch BIOS settings to choose a primary card.
 
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Immitem

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Unfortunately this is what I have been doing so far. It plays havoc with program placement which is the reason I do not want to rely on it as it has a nasty habit of throwing programs around. In the end causing them to never start on the monitor I want them to.

I guess I will have to rely on it and find a way to deal with 7s inability to remember which monitor a program is supposed to work on.
 
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