Dual video card questions

Environment:
- ISBoxer 39 (although my current profile was created many releases back)
- Win7 Ultimate 64
- Aero disabled
- 2 x GTX 570 cards
- Not using SLI with ISBOXER, but I do with other games, so the cards have the SLI bridge installed
- 5 WoW accounts with DX11 enabled on each
- GPU1 drives my Primary monitor, and a small side monitor that I use for playing movies while I play WoW
- GPU2 drives my third monitor, which is exactly the same as my Primary

I'll post my config when I get home in case it's needed.

I've been reading various existing threads and guides on the ISBOXER site about dual cards, and here's what I understand about the use of dual cards:

• Using SLI results in lower performance than running the 2 cards separately
• GPUs are tied to monitors (displays in ISBOXER terms), and windows are tied to displays
• If a program is associated with a particular display, if you move that window onto another display powered by another GPU then performance takes a major hit
• The new ISBOXER Window Layout wizard will designate a GPU/Display for each window, and offers options for cross display swapping or swapping within displays

Question 1 - Is any of the above incorrect?

Question 2 - Assuming the above is mostly correct, when I make a new layout, enable cross display swapping, put 1 full size window on the primary, and 4 small size windows on the third monitor connected to GPU2 and then boot it up, GPU2 just idles. I do see the 4 slaves being formed on the Primary, and then moved to the third monitor at the smaller size. Is this because each client has the display set to be the primary? If this is the issue, is the answer to set my main character to Primary, and the rest to the third monitor?

Question 3 - When I run the window layout wizard again and make a new layout that had per monitor switching, and load it up, GPU2 still just idles. Would the WoW monitor settings cause this as well?

Question 4 - Since the profile I am using is fairly old (about 2 years), would it be better to just make a new profile and start from scratch, including window layouts?

[lax]

Question 1 - Is any of the above incorrect?

Sounds right to me

Question 2 - Assuming the above is mostly correct, when I make a new layout, enable cross display swapping, put 1 full size window on the primary, and 4 small size windows on the third monitor connected to GPU2 and then boot it up, GPU2 just idles. I do see the 4 slaves being formed on the Primary, and then moved to the third monitor at the smaller size. Is this because each client has the display set to be the primary? If this is the issue, is the answer to set my main character to Primary, and the rest to the third monitor?

The game window being created on the primary is natural behavior of the game and I think seeing that when it starts is normal.

The GPU selected for DirectX is defined by the Active Region for your Swap Group, if it has one. So in this scenario, the Active Region is on the primary monitor.

Question 3 - When I run the window layout wizard again and make a new layout that had per monitor switching, and load it up, GPU2 still just idles. Would the WoW monitor settings cause this as well?

WoW's setting should be overridden by ISBoxer. (As in it shouldn't matter what you set it to)

You can certainly try it, but if it works it's probably a bug.

Are you *sure* it's not in SLI mode?

Question 4 - Since the profile I am using is fairly old (about 2 years), would it be better to just make a new profile and start from scratch, including window layouts?

Eh, it's only related to your Window Layout.

Thanks for the quick response.

Config is up at http://privatepaste.com/dee1d08a66

If anyone has any ideas what I am doing wrong I'd appreciate your time and input.

I forgot to add that I confirmed I'm not in SLI mode. I have some screenshots showing the config and the GPU clocks but I haven't found a place to put them yet and they are bigger than I want to put up here.

So I decided to experiment and I actually got both cards to take a load.

My normal setup is:
Left monitor - GPU2, not primary
MIddle monitor - GPU1, primary
Right monitor - GPU1, not primary

Changed it to:
Left monitor - GPU2, primary
Middle monitor - GPU1, not primary
RIght Monitor - GPU1, not primary

I'm not sure why this made a difference, I'll have to parse through the new config file and look for differences. Could be a windows issue as well I suppose.

New config: http://privatepaste.com/3413fe1f97