Can X-Plane 11 support a wrap-around 3-monitor configuration, with each monitor driven by a separate GPU?

Question

I will build a new system for use with X-Plane 11 (among other apps) and wish to use three 2560 x 1440 monitors in a wrap-around configuration.  Per the XP 11 desktop manual section on "Driving Multiple Displays from One Computer," I intend to configure the monitors as separate displays in Windows 10 and use FOV offsets.  My threshold question is whether there is anything about XP 11 that would conflict with driving each monitor with a separate graphics card (not SLI)? My second question is which of the following configurations would provide better XP 11 frame rates? 

Specifically, I have two possible configurations which involve trade-offs between CPU single core clock speed and GPU processing power.

#1:  Core i7-7700k (4 cores/8 threads, 4.2 ghz base, 4.5 ghz turbo), Asus ROG Srix Z270E Gaming motherboard (only 2 GPU slots), Samsung 960 Pro M.2  operating sys drive, single Titan X Pascal GPU driving the three 1440 monitors.  (Note it is possible to drive the center display with one Titan X and the two side displays with a separate Titan X on this motherboard.)

#2:  Core i7-6850, (6 cores/12 threads, 3.2 ghz base, 3.8 ghz turbo), Asus X99 Deluxe II montherboard (3 GPU slots), Samsung 960 Pro M.2 oper sys drive, three GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs, each driving a separate 1440 monitor.

Thanks for any insights.

Answer 1

Using three GPUs to drive three monitors is certainly something you could try, but we don't officially support it. You may get performance roughly equal to 3x the perf of running a triple monitor setup on 1 GPU, or you may not see any difference versus using one GPU.

Comments

Thank you for the answer.  One critical followup question:  Can you confirm that if I use the single computer/multiple separate monitor configuration described in the XP 11 user manual with the 3 GPU/3 monitor configuration I described, XP 11 will output the signal for each of the left, center and right displays through their corresponding GPUs and not try to output the signal for all three views through the GPU driving the main monitor.  Since each monitor will be driven by a separate GPU, if the XP 11 software will only recognize the GPU driving the main display, then no signal will be sent to the other two displays.

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Unfortunately I cannot confirm what the behavior will be since we don't officially support the arrangement.

Since it would probably be pretty expensive to just experiment with this set up, you might check the X-Plane.org forums to see if anyone has tried it (they're unaffiliated with LR, but have a lot more users). Our developers have not and can't guarantee it.

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I did try a test however with a different scenario. This test was carried out on a Mac Pro running an 1080t1 FTW3 in an external GPU enclosure connected via Thunderbolt and 4K displays. Within X-Plane if setting to just use the display connected to the 1080ti and default monitor resolutions with the x737, frame rates are roughly 18 when in cockpit view and 30+ with forward outside view only. Now change to the built in GPU only, same settings, of course the frames rates drop substantially given the internal is an AMD with only 2GB of RAM. Not a wonderful experience however I flew like this for a good deal of time before upgrading to the 1080ti. Now turn on both of the 4k displays, one of the 1080ti and one off the AMD, performance drops to all hell. Frame rates drop to 1 which is not only not possibly for flight, you can't even adjust any settings to flip back the monitor settings it's that slow. That said if you were to even try two cards I wold expect they would need to be equal to each other at minimum and thats an expensive leap of faith to take given it's not supported and may not even work. Sadly I learned of this after I order my second 1080ti card to drive the second monitor. I've yet to unbox that one as now I may be looking at having to go back to running multiple X-Plane computers each with their own 1080ti or potentially building some high end Windows Gaming Rigs and potential (as much as I hate to do it) switching to P3D.