When is a monitor not a load on GPU

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Just a general PC question really - I have a triple 32" setup but was wondering when a monitor no longer places any demand on the graphics card/CPU - is leaving the windows desktop enough? Turning the monitor off? Or does it have to be unplugged from the GPU?

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I don’t understand the question. The GPU will be processing whatever it’s processing regardless of what’s plugged into it I think.

:thinking: The output if you have more than one monitor may be different I suppose. In that case I suppose unplugged extra screens may reduce load but if you are only on desktop idling I doubt it’s really making a difference to actual “load”.

In the end I’m not qualified to answer this as I don’t even really understand lol

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Sorry it is a bit of an odd question :slightly_smiling_face:

When I run triple screens the FPS drops, as expected, at what stage do the extra screens make no difference to the GPU?

i.e. If i switch from running FS2020 in triple screen, to a game that has only one screen, lets say GTA5, is just not using the extra screens affecting the GPU at all or is it best to switch them off etc?

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Best I can come up with below :rofl:

Does Multi Monitor Affect Performance - Explained - SmartWindows.

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Thanks, quiet interesting reading the differences of opinions there, pity it’s so old as I think things have moved on massively since 2016 :grinning:

I guess if its only sending a static image like the desktop then not much hit on the GPU but I have no idea if turning the monitor off sends a signal to teh GPU to not bother rendering any output.

Interesting though

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Hi DaveJK9173,
w.r.t:
“wondering when a monitor no longer places any demand on the graphics card/CPU - is leaving the windows desktop enough? Turning the monitor off? Or does it have to be unplugged from the GPU?”

Easy enough to test.

  • Open up Task Manager & monitor your GPU in the performance tab.
  • Start MSFS & load a flight.
  • Switch to Task Manager if it is not already visible.
  • Turn off a monitor & see what happens.
  • Turn the monitor back on. If in full-screen mode, Alt-Enter to go to windowed mode & minimize MSFS. See what happens in TM.
  • Exit MSFS, turn off the PC, unplug one or two monitors from the GPU, restart the PC, Task Manager & MSFS & see what changes there are in TM.

In addition, if you wanted a more granular, detailed view of potential changes, you could run the same tests and use HWinfo64 to monitor & record a bunch of GPU-related statistics (Memory usage, GPU power, etc.) or use Windows Performance Monitor and add the GPU counters you are interested in to the monitor window.

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