GeForce 295 GTX issue

[Slava]

Greetings everyone. I am confused about my GeForce 295 GTX and nVidia Control Panel.

It is a brand new Alienware Area 51-X58 Wartime Edition PC
Vista Ultimate 64-bit
nVidia driver v. 182.15
Core i7 920
12 GB of RAM
Two DELL 2408WFP digital monitors connected to the system with the Primary display on the left. The primary display is selected as "Multi GPU focus display"

Problem 1: It seems that my system, OS and applications only see/use 1 GPU and only half of the graphics memory available on the card.

Device manager reports two Display Adapters, which is fine because GF 295 GTX has 2 GPUs with 896 MB of video memory per GPU, however in display properties => Advanced => Adapter the amount of dedicated video memory is listed as 896 MB instead of the total of 1792 available on the card.

Additionally, when I play Grand Theft Auto IV and go into Graphics configuration the game does not allow me to select maximum visual settings (such as view distance) and says that I only have 896 MB of graphics memory and that selecting higher settings would compromise game performance. I now suspect that other applications/games (such as Fallout 3) use only 1 GPU and only half the memory.

Is there a way to make sure that both GPUs and all the memory are used and is there a way to verify it?

Problem 2: Horizontal Spanning should be available for dual monitors, but it is not listed in the Control Panel.

A few weeks ago I updated the original nVidia drivers that came with the system to version 182.15. However, I cannot set Horizontal or Vertical Span in the nVidia Control Panel. I read the Release Notes/Help for this driver on "Setup Multiple Displays" topic. According to the info there, Display Spanning and Cloning should be available, but these options are not listed.

I downloaded the latest driver 190.62 but have not installed it yet because according to its release notes there were no relevant changes to "Setup Multiple Displays" in nView.

Any ideas/advice are highly appreciated.

 

[Slava]

Okay.. I have solved one of the problems. After much searching the somewhat unintuitive nVIDIA Knowledge Base I found this statement:

"There are some Windows XP features that will no longer be available on Windows
Vista due to changes in the core operating system. These features are:

- Horizontal and Vertical desktop span multi-monitor modes
- NVKeystone display correction
- Full screen video mirror
- Video zoom

But I still cannot figure out why some software, including Advanced Display Properties seems to think that there is only 1 GPU and only 896 MB of video memory.

Thanks for your help, guys.

 

[Guest]

With Windows Vista x64, I am having the exact same problem with certain parts of the OS only reading 896MB of video memory. In fact under "System Information" it shows only half the memory. Also when I run video games it, such as GTA 4 it only shows half.

Name NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_05EB&SUBSYS_12963842&REV_A1\6&24E7C4D5&0&00100018
Adapter Type GeForce GTX 295, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
Adapter RAM 896.00 MB (939,524,096 bytes)
Installed Drivers nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver Version 8.16.11.9062

I think I am going to get a hold of NVIDIA and see if they can give an explaination for this happening. I hope there is a fix or I am returning this card, it's a shame though, it rocks!!!

If you find out anymore on your end please update thread. Thanks...

 

[Guest]

Just called EVGA and they told me this is only a viewing issue, it's definately using the full 1792MB of RAM. He does believe in the case of GTA 4 only, it might only be utilizing 1 of the GPU's, but this would be considered a software coding issue. Do a little research on GTA 4 forums and you might find a dual GPU core fix.

EVGA promised that the OS and most applications/games utiliizes the full memory. Just look at the GTX 295 as 2 SLI GTX 260 cards. If you had 2 card which only had 896MB of RAM SLI'd together GTA 4 would only report half.

This card just has 2 GPU's internally SLI'd together.

 

[pauldh]

The GTX 295 only has 896MB available per GPU, just like the GTX 260 and GTX 275. Similar to the HD 4870x2 2GB, which is 1GB per GPU. If you were to SLI two GTX 275's, you'd still just have 896MB for each GPU. SLI a pair of GTX 295's, you still have just 896MB per GPU.

There is no issue. GTA IV limits the settings to the available mem (per GPU) and a GTX 295 will have the same limitation as the GTX 275. Cards with 1GB (per GPU) will be able to run slightly higher settings / resolution (at such settings).

Look at this HD 5870 review. Note the GTX 295 is often unable to run the highest resolution with fsaa, because of this memory limitation.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422-13.html

 

[Slava]

Thank you, pauldh It is good to see you are still around after all this time.

 

[pauldh]

No problem; good to see you again too Slava. Unfortunately I haven't been able to stay too active in the forums since I began writing for Tom's last year. I miss the graphics section, but just lack the time to hang out there. Always nice to see familiar faces though. Congrats.... Enjoy that new gaming beast!