i5 2500k with GTX 570 - Lucid Virtu / dual display question
#1
Hi all.

I've been using XBMC for a little while now, on my old pc, loving it so far)

I've ordered parts to build a new setup, that is going to double up as a gaming PC (as its been about 8yrs since I've been into PC gaming)

My main specs are

Antec 1200 case
i5 2500k (OEM
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Corsair Vengeance Ram
Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 motherboard
750W OCZ ZS 750w psu
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5
MSI 1280MB MSI GTX 570
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO

At first, I thought nothing of it, and was going to output all through the GTX570 card, as knew nothing about how the onboard card is excellent low power for video, and nothing about Lucid Virtu, but been reading a bit about it, and now wondering about how to best set it up.

My first question about Lucid Virtu.

1) The articles I've read about Virtu, said that you currently need to have the video cable plugged into the onboard hdmi port (giving a slight delay on gaming as it has to redirect it through that). However it said that they are working on next getting it so you can use the discrete card as the default output. The article was about 7+ months old. Do you know if they managed this? Is it not recommended to connect the cable to the discrete graphics cards?

Next question, is kind of independant to whether lucid is used or not, regarding card output.

2) I was originally (again only thinking of the discrete card), going to have the video outputs on the GTX 570, hdmi to the AVR/TV for the XBMC side, and seperate DVI/HDMI to the monitor (or 55" TV for occasional 3d gaming). So with this new information i have that the onboard card is more optimal for htpc use.....is it possible to have the HDMI output coming from the onboard hdmi port to the TV just for XBMC use (presumablly as a secondary display), and use the GTX 570 card connected to the other output (TV/Monitor)? Or does the config not allow this? That should give me the best of both worlds I think?
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#2
anyone?

ok I've discovered now that nowadays you can indeed use the discrete card as the default (selecting i-mode or whatever in the bios)

But, regardless of Virtu....

is it possible to have the onboard HDMI port to output movies for XBMC (with audio bitstreaming), whilst using the nvidia card for all other purposes (gaming etc)
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#3
Star 
I doubt it... you set the default graphics in the bios, unless you have magic software like Lucid Virtu and the reviews have been less than stellar. In the case of two gfx cards... you bridge them and only use the gpu of the second (no mem) without the bridge cross bridge software.. addressing each card on it's own would need some sort of special blitter chip and software written to address this.

Mind you... it would be nice.
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#4
ohwell - was worth a try

parts just delivered today to get it all built - will have a play and see what happens, but as you say, not likely Smile
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#5
Some time has now passed since the beginning of this thread, so I wanted to ask what are your experiences with this virtu thingy?

I'm asking because I also have this similar setup with i5-2500k processor and nvidia graphics card (some msi twin freezer if I recall right). I am using mostly my pc for xbmc but also for random gaming (hense the graphics card). Now when I am watching some movies with xbmc, I can hear that noise from graphics card's fans is getting higher the longer I use xbmc. My processor fan is very silent, so I know this noise is coming from the graphics card which is not-so-silent one.

I tried to include xbmc to Virtu's control panel and enable/disable it, but I don't find any difference. Always the noise is building up. Do you have any clue if I should even be able to find any help from Virtu for this problem so that it would use processor's inbuilt graphics adapter for the xbmc use?
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