Thanks for the advice! Actually, I still have a Matrox Parhelia card around here somewhere, though I think its only 64mb. Would this work as the second card? The card I have now is 512mb but the video looks a little pixilated. It drives two large monitors and looks good on most stuff, but when I play back the Avid timeline, the video just doesn't look as smooth as I thought 512mb would supply. I am using a 32" Olevia HD TV as the second monitor; maybe this is why it looks crappy? Basically, I have a small Dell 15" flat panel as the left hand monitor where I put the bins and stuff, and the Olevia is the right hand monitor where I put the timeline, etc. I will probably go back to my two 19" Viewsonics as the edit monitors and use the Olevia as the client monitor. Any more advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

PARHELIA : Don't mix video card brands - it might work but then I figure you're asking for driver conflicts that you just don't need.  An NVIDIA 5200 PCI is somewhere about $70, so it's not a big expense.  Also, the older PARHELIA card should work fine, but at 64MB (I think they only made 128 and 256 but I could be wrong) it's not worth it I don't suppose.

MONITORS : Yeah, if I were making suggestions based on what you have and cheapest/easiest solution, I'd just go back to the Viewsonic monitors for your DESKTOP monitors and the OLEVIA as a CLIENT MONITOR and get a second PCI NVIDIA card.  I've never really seen an OLEVIA TV in action, but it sounds about right that it wouldn't reproduce your desktop perfectly.  Also, if you're using the AVID FSP instead of the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL option, you're basically asking the AVID to handle the output, which theoretically shoudl be fine, but in my experience seems to underperform simply having the card do it.

My setup is pretty much exactly that, two VIEWSONIC 19" (one in the primary video head of the primary video card and one in the primary head of the secondary card) and a SAMSUNG HDTV (in the secondary DVI output of my card...  my card being the 7950).  Works like a charm, except I will concede that  I need to manually  reset the aspect ratio of the TV when alternating between HD and SD.  Didn't used to have to with the old Quadro, but it's a very small price to pay for massively increased productivity.

You may have better luck with the OLEVIA if it's plugged into the primary video port of the card.  You don't mention if it is or not, but I'm guessing that since it's your 'right' monitor it may not be.  Could be nothing, could be something...

I'll try it, thanks very much!

MyGoodEye:

Yeah, if I were making suggestions based on what you have and cheapest/easiest solution, I'd just go back to the Viewsonic monitors for your DESKTOP monitors and the OLEVIA as a CLIENT MONITOR and get a second PCI NVIDIA card.

-snip-

My setup is pretty much exactly that, two VIEWSONIC 19" (one in the primary video head of the primary video card and one in the primary head of the secondary card) and a SAMSUNG HDTV (in the secondary DVI output of my card...  my card being the 7950).  Works like a charm, except I will concede that  I need to manually  reset the aspect ratio of the TV when alternating between HD and SD.  Didn't used to have to with the old Quadro, but it's a very small price to pay for massively increased productivity.

To clarify, does this mean that the original poster could use the GF 8800 for his main "desktop" monitor, and use a second, relatively cheap card for a second "Full Screen Playback" monitor (i.e. a "client" monitor)?  Most motherboards come with two PCE-E slots (for SLI setups), so it seems like this would be a very viable solution for people wanting the power of an 8800 card, without the expense of the higher end Quadros -- i.e. you just use one of the "economy" Geforce cards for the second monitor.  Is the solution really this simple?  I've read over your post, and it seems like this is what's being said, but given all the people saying that you "can't" use a GF 8800 and get full screen playback, I feel like I may be misunderstanding you here.

On this note, is using an 8800 as simple as just installing a second card for Full Screen Playback monitor?  Are there any "gotchas" to this -- i.e. is it simply a matter of installing each card's drivers separately, at which point both cards will works?  I've never used two separate graphics cards in the same system, so I'm not familiar with how this works.  When you bring up the display properties, what do you see -- how do you differentiate between the two cards?  How do you set the second card so that Avid will output FSP to this card -- is this done via the card's drivers, or via Avid, or both?  Does the extra card cause any drain on performance, or does certain software have "problems" with two cards being in the system at the same time?

Thanks for any feedback/clarification on this -- I'm very interested in reading about the details of this type of setup.

Larry

On the subject of using a second graphics card for Full Screen Playback client monitor (see post above), how powerful of a card would be necessary?  Do the more advanced features of the newer nvidia cards such as "Pure Video HD" have any bearing on this particular use of the card, or would pretty much any decent card (GF 6, 7, or 8 series) suffice?

Thanks again,

Larry

There have been issues reported here with the 8xxx series nVidia cards.  Apparently they don't support FSP.

NVIDIA 8800 : NO, NO and NO :  It has been my experience that you CANNOT use NVIDIA 8XXX at all with Avid Xpress.

To be clear:  At no point in this thread did I say an NVIDIA 8XXX (8800) card will work AT ALL.  Also, reading back through the thread, I expressly say that the 8XXX series is NOT an option for what I am talking about becuase the NVIDIA 8XXX series does NOT support FULL SCREEN PLAYBACK using the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL (long story, look me up in the forum and you'll see what I was up against for a few days).  So, I am not advocating the use of any 8XXX product with Avid.  (I'm not yelling, just don't want people to misunderstand ;) )

LARRY: "To clarify, does this mean that the original poster could use the GF 8800 for his main "desktop" monitor, and use a second, relatively cheap card for a second "Full Screen Playback" monitor (i.e. a "client" monitor)? "

NO:  The second, relatively cheap, NVIDIA card drives the SECONDARY DESKTOP monitor while the 7XXX card drives the PRIMARY DESKTOP and CLIENT MONITOR using the CLONE feature and the proper settings in NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL/MODIFY FULL SCREEN PLAYBACK.  In other words, tell the NCP to playback full screen on the CLIENT MONITOR.

YES: The OP can likely use a 7XXX card in the PCI-EXPRESS slot and a cheap-ass $70 NVIDIA 5200 in a PCI slot.  Or, I imagine, two 7XXXs with SLI would do nicely (but may or may not see a performance enhancement since Avid doesn't seem to require high quality video output on a second desktop monitor and I've not tried that so I can't say).  The second card need not be uber-powerful or even in the same series so long as it is an NVIDIA - although obviously, it should be equal or inferior to the primary card.

GOTCHAS? : It has been my experience that there are no "gotchas" so long as the cards are both NVIDIA and can both be driven by the NVIDIA driver so there is no need to install a second set of drivers for the second card.  Just install the primary card and driver first.  PLug the videoheads into their respective displays and the driver just seems to find all three (or four) monitors and they live happily ever after.  You'll see that differentiating between the two cards is as simple as a drop down menu.

You may need to fiddle with WINDOWS DISPLAY in that you'll likely need to "EXTEND MY WINDOWS DESKTOP TO THIS MONITOR" and possibly rearrange their 'order' but so long as the PRIMARY DESKTOP and the CLIENT MONITOR are CLONES of one another, you're good to go.

This bears mentioning actually:  The CLONE to the CLIENT MONITOR- assuming it's a 16x9 HD monitor - will not be in the same aspect ratio as the primary monitor - assuming that's a 4x3 computer monitor - so it may stretch or the lettering may appear 'interlaced' or whatever.  You have to remember that the desktop being displayed on the CLIENT MONITOR is really just a 'bonus' and if it looks great, then hooray.  My suggestion would be to set the DESKTOP MONITORS to their optimum setting and let the NCP handle the CLIENT MONITOR settings.  The video will look great and that's the point. 

You will need to set up the proper signal in the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL - depending on what you are using as a CLIENT MONITOR - but once that's done, it's done.  Depending on the aspect ratio you are working in, you may need to set the CLIENT MONITOR to 4x3 or 16x9, but again, that's what you'd have to do with a production monitor anyway.  I personally keep my client monitor off unless I'm working with video.

THE SET-UP:

PRIMARY GRAPHICS CARD controls DESKTOP ONE and CLONE to CLIENT MONITOR - unless you are using the RGB/S-VIDEO output in which case you control the output to the CLIENT MONITOR solely in NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL.

SECONDARY GRAPHICS CARD controls DESKTOP TWO.

I have it set up so that the SOURCE/RECORD window and some bins are on the PRIMARY DESKTOP and the TIMELINE on the SECONDARY DESKTOP.  I tend to have timelines with 24 video tracks, so that works for me.  So long as the video is on the PRIMARY DESKTOP it will both work fine and play out to the CLIENT MONITOR.

With my system, which is so-so, I can get smooth full screen playback in high resolution of SD and mid-resolution HD.  I can add at least one color correct layer and still have it play without rendering.    Bear in mind that HD doesn't work so wonderfully using USB, so for now I stick with FIREWIRE and/or SCSI.  I like having external drives for each project...

DRAIN ON PERFORMANCE ?: I have seen no program have any trouble with the second graphics card and I've have dual monitors for over 10 years.  FYI, I've been a graphic designer longer than a video-guy and I personally think that programs like PHOTOSHOP are made for two monitors, with all their tools and the like.  I'm guessing you'll love it. Video will likely never play on your SECONDARY DESKTOP, but who cares?

DRAIN ON SYSTEM? : The second card may drain a small amount of power from the computer's powersupply, so be sure to have more than 300W or not be powering a ton of internal drives.  The 5200 does not require an internal dedicated power-cord, but I believe the 6XXX series does and I believe the 7XXX series needs a 400W minimum powersupply.

I have personal experience with the 5XXX, 6XXX and 7XXX series working fine and dandy in and out of Avid Xpress... I remember the glorious day when I saw Half-Life2 on my HDTV... lovely, lovely.

My current setup is a NVIDIA 7950 and a NVIDIA 5200.

Whew... long one.  Hope that answers your questions and I think you'll enjoy having the increased workspace... good luck.

MyGoodEye:

NVIDIA 8800 : NO, NO and NO :  It has been my experience that you CANNOT use NVIDIA 8XXX at all with Avid Xpress.

Thank you for the details, which I've read over with care.  I actually do understand what you're saying, but there are still a few points that I'm not seeing addressed here.  I don't think that my question above was entirely clear, so let me start over and focus on the critical aspects of this:

First, let's take the GeforceF 8 series card COMPLETEY out of the equation and just deal with cards that we KNOW can work.  These could be the cards you described -- a 7950 and a 5200 -- or better yet, TWO Quadros, which are specifically approved.  This way we can address the "concept" I'm asking about without getting into the specifics of the cards yet (we can do that later.)

What if Quadro A was used to drive a single monitor (or perhaps two "desktop" monitors in a span mode -- that's a followup question.)  Could Quadro B then be set up in such a way as to drive a Full Screen Monitor?  In other words, is there something about Avid where only a certain card in a two card system can drive the FSP client monitor?  The question is simply whether or not Avid cares which of the two cards drives the FSP client monitor.  So far, I don't see this particular idea being addressed, which is why it struck me that this "could" potentially offer a solution to David's (the original poster in this thread) question.

As I understand it, you are achieving FSP on the client by using clone mode on your 7950, then setting the "full screen video" option in the Nvidia Control Panel (NCP) to display full screen video on the "secondary" monitor on this card.  Is this correct?  If so, is there anything that would prevent you from moving the FSP duties to the 5200, and using the 7950 for the two desktops?  In other words, could you set the 5200 as a "single monitor," then go into the Nvidia Control Panel and set the "Full Screen Video" setting to send full screen video to the 5200 (which would be the only option for full screen video give that this card was set as a single monitor)?  This is the core of what I'm asking since it means that the "main" card would NOT have to be capable of FSP duties -- only the "second" card would have to have this capability.

I guess the question comes down to this:  Does Avid care which of two graphics cards in a system is set to display Full Screen Video?  If not, then why not drive both desktops with one card, and use the second card to do the full screen (FSP) duties?

This of course brings us to the idea of using a GF 8 as a "desktop" card, and an "approved" card (or at least one that "works" for this) as the one driving the Full Screen Playback.  The problem has never been that the Geforce 8 series doesn't work "at all" with Avid -- the problem has always been that it won't let you use Full Screen Playback, which makes sense given that the 8 series specifically does not have the hardware requirements to do this.  This is NOT in contention here, and in fact, the original poster's question was simply about getting FSP to work on his GF 8 -- there was no indication that he had any other problems using this card with Avid. 

Thanks for the discussion here.  Regardless of the outcome, it's quite interesting, and it still could potentially reveal some some really helpful information to people that have been asking questions along these lines for a while now.

Larry

Lenny:

For clarity, I'm going to call it NVIDIA FULL SCREEN when discussing the option/config I am currently using and AVID FULL SCREEN when discussing the built-in Avid Full Screen Toolset (which I don't use)...

What if Quadro A was used to drive a single monitor (or perhaps two "desktop" monitors in a span mode -- that's a followup question.)  Could Quadro B then be set up in such a way as to drive a Full Screen Monitor?

First, I have no experience with what exactly would happen with two of the same card, be it Quadros or 7XXX since my motherboards have never supported that type of configuration, so these are assumptions based mostly on my experience with NVIDIA drivers, please treat them as such (meaning, go ahead and give it a try if you're inclined).

The configuration I describe seems to require that the PRIMARY DESKTOP and the CLIENT MONITOR be on the same card.  Whether that's Card A or Card B, I assume it would be fine so long as you were displaying the AVID Video Overlay (source/record or whatever) using the card that was also driving the CLIENT display. 

Right now, I am looking at the NCP (NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL) and it does NOT recognize the secondary desktop card for NVIDIA FULL SCREEN playback.  It is possible that it would if I connected the CLIENT MONITOR to it, but since my CARD B is nowhere near as potent as CARD A, I've never had occasion/inclination to try.

Also, it is possible, if you span all three monitors that AVID'S FULL SCREEN would be able to display full screen on any of the monitors, but I believe you'd need to extend the desktop to the client monitor and that could cause some issue... also I do find that the AVID FULL SCREEN somehow yields poor results in comparison to letting the video card do the work.

  In other words, is there something about Avid where only a certain card in a two card system can drive the FSP client monitor?  The question is simply whether or not Avid cares which of the two cards drives the FSP client monitor.  So far, I don't see this particular idea being addressed, which is why it struck me that this "could" potentially offer a solution to David's (the original poster in this thread) question.

The 'limitation' of having to have the same card drive the video overlay and the NVIDIA full screen playback to client monitor does seem to be more of a video card thing than something specific to Avid.

To assign personalities to these things, I don't think Avid even 'knows' that it is being done per se, so therefore I don't think Avid 'cares'.  The video card is just kind of recreating the video it knows is playing nearly regardless of the application playing it, so the card is duplicating the video without the knowledge of the Avid - hence, the video overlay and the client monitor being on the same card.

As I understand it, you are achieving FSP on the client by using clone mode on your 7950, then setting the "full screen video" option in the Nvidia Control Panel (NCP) to display full screen video on the "secondary" monitor on this card.  Is this correct?

Yes.  That is correct.

 If so, is there anything that would prevent you from moving the FSP duties to the 5200, and using the 7950 for the two desktops?

Yes.  What would prevent that is what I've outlined above.  That the AVID Video Overlay and the NVIDIA FULL SCREEN need be on the same card.  As a point of interest, they need not be cloned, but then I find that windows open oddly becuase they think the client monitor is a third desktop.

 In other words, could you set the 5200 as a "single monitor," then go into the Nvidia Control Panel and set the "Full Screen Video" setting to send full screen video to the 5200 (which would be the only option for full screen video give that this card was set as a single monitor)?  This is the core of what I'm asking since it means that the "main" card would NOT have to be capable of FSP duties -- only the "second" card would have to have this capability.

No, I do not believe that this would work and with my setup I cannot get the 5200 to be an option for full screen output when the 7950 is driving the video overlay.

I guess the question comes down to this:  Does Avid care which of two graphics cards in a system is set to display Full Screen Video?  If not, then why not drive both desktops with one card, and use the second card to do the full screen (FSP) duties?

Like I said, I don't think AVID even "knows" it's happening and so far as I can tell, the drivers (and possibly the hardware) that drives my particular configuration will not allow for any video overlay being displayed on the client monitor that is not coming from the same card.  This may work if both cards are SLI, in which case the driver may see it as a 'unified' card as opposed to two cards, but I don't know for sure.  Past that, I'm not sure what benefit/advantage that would yield - that isn't to say there might not be a benefit, just that I don't know what it might be...

This of course brings us to the idea of using a GF 8 as a "desktop" card, and an "approved" card (or at least one that "works" for this) as the one driving the Full Screen Playback.  The problem has never been that the Geforce 8 series doesn't work "at all" with Avid -- the problem has always been that it won't let you use Full Screen Playback, which makes sense given that the 8 series specifically does not have the hardware requirements to do this.  This is NOT in contention here, and in fact, the original poster's question was simply about getting FSP to work on his GF 8 -- there was no indication that he had any other problems using this card with Avid.

You are correct in that the statement "does not work at all" is an overstatement.  I found no viable full screen capabilities seem to exist and my personal experience is that the playback was awful. 

If ultimately, what you are trying to do would be to continue using the 8XXX series - as opposed to scrapping it altogether there may be a way to deal with it which may or may not be a bit of a workaround.

I cannot speak on SLI, but I assume that if one 8XXX doesn't do FSP, then a second one won't either and to my knowledge, you cannot SLI cards that aren't identical.

So, depending on the motherboard, it may be possible to get a second videocard (hopefully PCI-Express, but more likely PCI) and have it do the "video driving" for the Avid.

In other words, put a 6XXX or 7XXX series card as the secondary card and connect the SECONDARY DESKTOP and CLIENT MONITOR to this card. 

Place the AVID video overlay on the SECONDARY MONITOR (in my case, it'd be the right monitor although you can swap these things with the NVIDIA driver) and with the proper settings, it should duplicate to the client monitor with no troubles. 

The downside would be that you'd be underutilizing your 8XXX card (unless you did things like play high-end games or other graphics apps that utilize OpenGL) because the two cards do not work in tandem like SLI - they are "aware" of each other but they do not "play-off" of each other (if that makes sense). 

If your client monitor was an HDTV, for instance, you could easily connect it to both video cards on different inputs.  Use one input for when you're in Avid and one input when you want to play Bioshock full screen, kinda thing ('cause that 8XXX card was awesome with Bioshock).

In this config, I wouldn't necessarily go for the cheapest of cards because the Avid will require it's "abilities" for certain things, like OpenGL playback and some third-party plug-ins (Magic Bullet for instance) which can tap the GPU to make renders much, much faster.  PCI is also just going to be slower than AGP or PCI-EXPRESS.  Whether you'll notice a performance hit or not I just don't know.

In summation, I believe it might be beneficial to people who have 8XXX cards (and who are not inclined for whatever reason to swap them) to get, at a minimum, an additional 6XXX card simply to drive the AVID and video output. 

Doing a quick search, I found a 6200A on TIGER DIRECT for about $60... which should be more than adequate for the purposes we describe, but won't work wonders with GPU intensive tasks...  For my purposes, I will get better results using the 7950 than the 6200 as the primary video card, so I'm going to stay where I'm at...

Much depends on the config of the system, but you do bring up a good point that I hadn't considered.

Yeah, it is interesting - I admit, I've been digging around inside computers for a very long time - and without your questioning I wouldn't have thought about this second solution. 

I got 'here' because I spent three days trying to deal with graphics cards and their various foibles in order to get better performance in 3D (since I was animating quite a bit).  Once I figured it all out, I realized that I could have saved the better part of three days if someone had just written this up - so I guess I became that guy in order to prevent other folks from pulling their hair out. 

I know these cards aren't "supported" and I know it's impossible for Avid to test every possible piece of hardware - nor do I expect them to - but the "consumer" NVIDIA cards are more affordable and easier to come by than Quadros and therefore, at a minimum, I think someone ought discuss their pluses and minuses...

...as well as informing folks that ATI cards just simply are too incompatible with Avid to be a decent alternative.

My system is working perfectly right now, so I'm not inclined to go digging around in it for the time being (hehehe)... but I'd definately be interested to hear if you (or anyone) comes up with alternate solutions and I think it is important to let the world-at-large know about it 'cause that "supported systems" list is awfully sparce  ;)

MyGoodEye:

...The drawing board should include at least, and in my opinion/experience:

An NVIDIA 7950 card in your primarly graphics slot (PCI-Express, I assume).

And a nice, cheap NVIDIA 5200 (or whatever) in your PCI slot.

Oh yeah, on a motherboard with an INTEL processor... I've had some AMD issues in the past that may or may not have been resolved in the more current version.

Then you drive a PRIMARY DESKTOP monitor and a FULL-TIME/FULL SCREEN CLIENT MONITOR with the 7950 and a SECONDARY DESKTOP monitor with the 5200.  Awesome. 

Put your SOURCE/RECORD on the PRIMARY MONITOR and the TIMELINE (and whatever else) on the SECONDARY and there you go... never a need to go into AVID'S FULL SCREEN MODE becuase you'll have 100% full screen playback at all times via the client monitor...

The combination of these two cards will cost you less than you can sell your 8800 for on ebay I imagine ;)...

Hey, sorry to revive such an old thread but you are tlaking about what I am dealing with right now... having one 8800 GTS 640MB and having just switched to AVID I now need to reconfigure my rig

I like the idea of running dual 24" Gateways (1920 x 1200) with one 7950 and using one for full screen and the other for everything else... or maybe toggle the FullScreenMode on and off and have a more confortable setup with a bigger timeline and such...

My question though is on regards to performance. I am completely new to AVID and I am not versed in the levels of performance to be expected from the particular cards. I am working with 1080p and 720p footage.

What playback can I expect in Full Screen? What about on the timeline, how would that work?

USlatin:

Hey, sorry to revive such an old thread but you are tlaking about what I am dealing with right now... having one 8800 GTS 640MB and having just switched to AVID I now need to reconfigure my rig

I like the idea of running dual 24" Gateways (1920 x 1200) with one 7950 and using one for full screen and the other for everything else... or maybe toggle the FullScreenMode on and off and have a more confortable setup with a bigger timeline and such...

My question though is on regards to performance. I am completely new to AVID and I am not versed in the levels of performance to be expected from the particular cards. I am working with 1080p and 720p footage.

What playback can I expect in Full Screen? What about on the timeline, how would that work?

Don't worry about "reviving" this topic -- I've been meaning to come back to this subject myself, and it's of interest to a lot of people.

To address your last question first, the performance you can "expect" will depend on the other system specs.  The faster the system, the more you can expect when it comes to playing higher res streams.  Avid is not all that demanding of much "power" from graphics cards by today's standards -- certainly not compared to modern games.  It's the specific feature set of graphics cards that effects Avid, the most important being the fact that 8800's do not support full screen output to a secondary monitor with Avid.  It appears that this was a decision made by Nvidia to force people to buy Quadros, but that's a topic for another thread.

As far as the specifics go for your actual setup options, there are others here who are much more well versed on this subject.

I'm currently still examining the possibility of getting dual graphics cards to work so that an 8800 can be used of the system (since this card is still WAY more powerful for certain mainstream 3D apps like games, while being VASTLY less expensive than Quadros.)  The one stumbling block at this point is the fact that the "primary" monitor -- the one with the main Avid desktop -- has to be the same card driving the full screen monitor.  This eliminates the possibility of using the 8800 as the primary card since it can't do this with Avid.

My newer theories involve getting a little clever with the way the monitors are connected to the cards -- i.e. using dual inputs the monitors to connect two cards to the same monitor.  This way, by toggling the inputs on each monitor, thereby toggling which card drives which monitor, it might be possible to quickly alter the connections, allowing you to use the 8800 on your "main" monitor for non-Avid use, but then switching to using the OTHER graphics card to drive your "main" monitor as well as the full screen monitor when you want to use Avid.  When combined with altering the nView settings, there may be a way of quickly switching the setup around depending on whether or not you want to use Avid.

I haven't tried it, so I'm not sure exactly how it would be configured, but it might be worth pursuing for people that want to run an 8800.  Note that with today's drivers, making changes like this can be a very quick process, so this probably sounds more complex than it would end up being in practice -- assuming, of course, that the theory would work in practice.  Until somebody tries it, it will continue to just be a theory.

Larry

Yes, truly don't worry about reviving this subject.  I wish I'd known about the possible options besides the "Avid Approved" products.  I don't expect Avid to be able to test every possible system config, but those Quadro cards are kind of expensive and, as mentioned above, the consumer/gaming NVIDIA cards are awesome... that being said:

PERFORMANCE

Here's what I've found regarding performance utilizing an NVIDIA 7950 driving both the PRIMARY MONITOR and a FULL SCREEN CLIENT monitor:

I am utilizing the MODIFY FULL SCREEN setting in the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL to enable nearly ANY video the computer can play to output FULL SCREEN to the CLIENT MONITOR.

I have no occassion to use the AVID FULL SCREEN MODE and I've found that it is actually "slower" and totally unnecessary.

In a SD timeline, you can expect HIGH RES (full green) to playback perfectly well with at least one color correct and possibly a "low-needs" effect.  Most transistions play fine as well.  Rendered material also plays at HIGH RES.

In a 720/1080 HD timeline, you can expect MID RES half green/half yellow) to play back perfectly at 60 FPS (and all others below) with at least one color correction layer.  I can work well enough with the mid-res for editing.  I'm not sure if it's a limit of the hardware, the computer or simply that I'd need an ADRENALINE, but I don't find it a problem.  Also, in COLOR CORRECT TOOLSET, it seems to display in FULL RES.

Near as I can tell, the only "resource intensive" thing the timeline needs is when it's drawing the audio waveform, so there's nothing to worry about regarding the timeline window.

This is what I've experienced from my "low-end" system (Intel Pentium D/2GB RAM/Firewire400 external drives) so it is fair to assume that you'll see increased results on better/faster systems - especially as concerns plugins.

ULSTIN'S MONITORS:

As I guess you "get" from me, I advocate using the CLIENT MONITOR only as a CLIENT MONITOR, however, with the 7950 you will be able to use AVID'S FSP on one monitor in order to have a multi-desktop workspace.  Me personally, I'd find that tiresome.

LALITTLE:

Proposes a decent idea in the alternate inputs for the monitors themselves.  The only drawback I see is that I'm not sure what your motherboard can handle, but I don't think there are any PCI 7950 cards available.  I did a quick glance at NEWEGG and I could be wrong.

Within the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL there is a way to set up profiles which I believe can turn "on and off" displays/cards.  It may be worth playing around with because the 7950 is excellent, but that 8800 you have will definately kick ass with games. 

Fortunately for me, I have a second gaming/movie machine that I don't use for work, so I won't be exploring this option either... although, I'd be interested to hear any results.

A FINAL THOUGHT:

Assuming that you could get a 7950 (or any 6XXX, 7XXX) series into your computer as a secondary video card, it may be as simple as moving the AVID VIDEO OVERLAY (your video playback window) into the SECONDARY DESKTOP MONITOR.

In other words:

Your 8800 drives your "LEFT" monitor and your 7950 drives your "RIGHT" monitor.  Cable it up in such a way that when you use AVID, you can have the 7950 to run in NVIDIA FULL SCREEN to the LEFT monitor and work the AVID desktop on the RIGHT monitor.

WHen doing everything else, go ahead and use the 8800. 

It's a little convoluted for sure, but as far as I can tell, the NVIDIA FULL SCREEN will simply play out whatever video is on ITS primary monitor... not necessarily the computer's primary monitor... so you'd only have to wire the 7950's second head to an alternate input on your LEFT monitor.

Did that make sense?

Let us know how it all turns out.

I'm just wondering if there has been any more expererience with this.  I have an 8800 which I don't want to give up.  I use it a lot in 3D animation and it's great.

I also need full screen playback on Avid.  Having an editor that can't play full screen video is absurd.  Sony's clip browser does, widows media player does, and a host of others.  I can't understand why Avid has such problems.

Anyway, is there ANY solution that has been tried?  I'm about to try some of the theories posted here.  I'm going to try adding a 7200 (which I have) in a second PCI-E slot and see if I can get that to work.

I think this topic will be of more interest as the 8 series has become quite popular.

PS Avid - please do something about your playback - it's ridiculous!

CreativeControl:

I'm just wondering if there has been any more expererience with this.  I have an 8800 which I don't want to give up.  I use it a lot in 3D animation and it's great.

I also need full screen playback on Avid.  Having an editor that can't play full screen video is absurd.  Sony's clip browser does, widows media player does, and a host of others.  I can't understand why Avid has such problems.

Anyway, is there ANY solution that has been tried?  I'm about to try some of the theories posted here.  I'm going to try adding a 7200 (which I have) in a second PCI-E slot and see if I can get that to work.

I think this topic will be of more interest as the 8 series has become quite popular.

PS Avid - please do something about your playback - it's ridiculous!

I'd be very interested in hearing your findings, so please keep us informed.

As I understand it, in Avid you can only get the full screen playback to work when the card driving the FSP monitor is the same card that is displaying the main desktop -- in other words, you'll never be able to use the 8800 for the MAIN desktop and have full screen playback.  I have never played with this, however, so I can't say if there is some tricky way around this.

I did, however, have a couple further thoughts about getting this to work (further details on what I believe I already said above.)  If you had two graphics cards in the system, ONE of which supported FSP in AVID, and had them both connected to the main monitor, you might be able to simply switch inputs on the monitor depending on which one you wanted to use.  For "normal" use, you'd switch to the 8800 input on the monitor, but for Avid, you'd switch to the other card's input, which would also be connected to your FSP monitor. 

You might even be able to get fancy with 3 monitor setups by using the dual outputs of the cards and dual inputs of the monitors such that by switching the inputs on BOTH monitors, you'd end up putting the 8800 on the secondary desktop monitor while having the other card drive the main desktop on the main monitor as well as the FSP monitor.

This works fine on paper, but I have no idea if it would work in practice.  If for some reason Avid didn't like this setup, the "last ditch effort" theory I had would be to once again use the 8800 along with the second card, and once again have them both connected to the main monitor via the secondary input, but to simply enable/disable the cards depending on whether you were using Avid.  For "normal" operation you would use the 8800, but for Avid you'd disable this card and enable the other one, which can be done via the Display properties panels or the Device Manager.

I honestly don't know if this would require a reboot, or what would happen if you accidentally disabled both cards at the same time, so I'd be careful when doing this, but in theory this should work because when you disable a card, everything should work as if that card is not even there.  By disabling the 8800 and enabling the other card, Avid should simply see the other card, and as long as this card supported FSP on a second monitor, it "should" work.  You'd simply not be using the 8800 while Avid was running.

Please let us know what you try, and what does or does not work.  The cost to performance ratio on the 8800 series is RIDCULOUSLY high compared to the Quadro series (it's not even close), so I agree that this it would be great to get Avid to work on a system with an 8800 in it, even if it meant disabling/enabling cards and switching monitor inputs in order to get it to work.  If this worked, you could even get a lower cost Quadro to go with the 8800, and you still have VASTLY more 3D power at a fraction of the cost you'd pay for a higher end Quadro that could compete with the 8800.

Thanks for keeping this alive,

Larry

Thank you very much for the tips and ideas Larry.  I won't have time to give it a shot until Friday or Monday but I'll let you know how it goes.

One problem is I'm not even sure if the 7200 actually works.  I tried a 7800 and it worked with 77.77 drivers but those drivers are very old and very full of bugs in opengl.  It did not work with newer drivers.  I'll see if the 7200 does.

Len