Nvidia Surround with RIFT - work in progress

Hi All,

My main system is running a Nvidia surround set up over two GPU's in SLI.

When I first got the rift a couple of days ago, I had to disconnect my other displays to get the rift working, but now I am a little more familiar I have managed to get quite a bit working with it.

If you want to keep your surround setup to work with, develop on or whatever you wish whilst using the rift on the same machine here is what I have found:

- If running 2x GPU, connect the first TWO displays to the primary card via DVI
- Connect your third surround display to the second card via the first DVI port
- Connect the RIFT via the HDMI on the first display card (the one with monitor 1 and 2 plugged into)
- Do not power up the rift yet, set up your usual surround display, bezel compensation / resolution so that all three screens are classed as panel 1
- Apply all changes and save the configuration

Assuming you have already installed the RIFT runtime / drivers then make sure the DK2 is set to 'Extended Desktop mode' do the following:

- Keep the Nvidia control panel open and Display resolution window (from right clicking the desktop and selecting screen resolution window)
- Power on the RIFT
- After a short time it should show the display, your setup should look similar to this:



- The RIFT should automatically be picked up as an accessory display
- Your resolution screen should pick up the RIFT also, you can now move the display to where you would like



If for any reason the RIFT is not showing active or is showing grey, it has not been picked up as an accessory display. Go to 'Configure SLI, Surround, PhysX' again in the Nvidia control panel and click on Configure. This should show set up surround and accessory displays. At this point do the usual, it will say on the RIFT that 'this display will not be used', this is normal, it just means that this display will not form part of the main display but will be an accessory. Set up surround as usual and you should see the RIFT display active as above.

At this point you should have a working primary surround display consisting of all of your desktop monitors, and one rift display marked as 2 which is classed as an accessory.

Now do the following:

- Download a desktop management tool (recommend ULTRAMON)
- Install and launch ULTRAMON
- Right click the shortcut on the quick-launch bar and chose 'Display Profiles > New Display Profile'
- At this point you may notice that the Rift display is showing smaller than it actually is, select 1080x1920 from the drop down, check the other settings match the Rift (75hz and it is enabled but NOT the primary)



- Click on next and name the profile, add a shortcut to the profile, set it as the default windows starting profile
- Go back to the windows display resolution screen and now set the rift as Primary (your surround setup will remain and toolbar should be visible)
- Again right click on ULTRAMON and add a new profile
- Correct the Rift resolution again but make sure that this time primary is ticked for the Rift
- Save the profile in the same manner as before
- Finally assign hotkeys for the two newly created profiles by clicking on 'Options' in ULTRAMON and they 'HotKeys'



You should now either be able to switch Rift to primary or secondary with a right click on the shortcut or by using your assigned hotkey. This means you will be able to use all three of your surround screens and the rift at the same time.

You can now enjoy surround and Rift goodness with surround still enabled:



Also as a desktop accessory with Surround display panel set to primary, I can highly recommend having 'Virtual Desktop' installed. Running it with the Rift as a secondary and accessory works perfectly, you have full use of a primary surround desktop and an epic accessory view of your own personal gargantuan screen on the Rift:



You can watch videos directly through it which is quite cool.

You do need to make sure a few options are selected in Virtual desktop to ensure the Rift runs at 75hz and is smooth though, by enabling full screen, it will simply full screen on the Rift and not affect your primary surround display, and use vsync to lock it to as close as possible to 75hz:



You will have to experiment between direct to rift or launch on rift as with any other setup, I had to do this with just one display connected anyway, even without surround on, but so far most titles seem to work just fine.

For vanguard and other demos / apps direct to rift seems to work well, and in some cases can work well even with the rift not set as primary (in the same way as if you were just using the rift and one other screen). But some apps insist on it being primary to utilise the GPU's and eliminate judder or other performance issues.

Minecraft as an example however will open in a window on the rift, but you will have the usual 'crazy eyes' time having to maximise the window on the rift. You can run this without it in primary but it does not utilise the GPUs and you will get very poor performance, so it is best to set the rift to primary and then maximise on the rifts screen.

For lost windows on the rift you can use the same window movement tricks such as ALT+SPACE+M then move it onto a visible screen.

If you want to launch a full screen application or game on surround while the rift is on it works fine, just make sure though that if you have Virtual desktop running that you disable it's full screen mode.


Problems so far

I've not worked out how to launch Alien Isolation yet with this setup, as although the Rift is set to primary it still tried to render on panel one - the surround screen, the result is a stretched crazy view on your surround screen and the desktop on the Rift.

If anyone has any suggestion on this let me know, I will be having a play around when I get more time.

**EDIT** Alien isolation will work, you need to use Bilago's great tool and launch the AI executable and set it to force RIFT Primary(Inverted), after setting your profile to Rift as primary display, with the usual fixes in the INI and disabling or pausing the OVR service as usual first.

This means even with Alien Isolation running your Surround display will be intact for when you exit the game :)







Cheers,



Steve