I don’t know how this is supposed to work, but I got it functional on my computer, although probably not the way it’s designed to work from the factory. What I need to know is how it is designed to work.
This Acer All-In-One has a slot for a discrete graphics card. Looking at a video of someone disassembling one of these machines I see that there is nothing connected to either port (HDMI or DVI) on the video card in a system with a GPU (GT 520) from the factory. How it’s supposed to output video just being connected to the PCIe slot I do not understand. That’s what I need explained to me.
The slot is meant for a low-profile card, but for shits and grins I put in a full-height GT 730 4GB card (why does something so weak need that much memory?) Of course, the back isn’t on the machine - the card stands above the top of the computer, and I had to insulate a metal post so that it didn’t short out the card. I ran the output of the card to another monitor. The computer is configured to extend the display. I launched FSX, dragged it to the second monitor and it ran just fine, surprisingly getting over 60 FPS with moderate settings. I could drag secondary windows to the main display on the computer as well.
How is a discrete card supposed to help if there is nothing connected to the output of the card. Looking around I see plenty of drivers out there for all sorts of hardware, but only one item, for the IR remote, on Acer’s own site. What I’ve done to run FSX is a weird workaround that I’m sure the factory would never do.
I know that notebooks frequently have discrete graphics, so there must be something to make it work with the internal screen. Do any of you have any clue how this is done? Nvidia has something called ‘Optimus’ but that’s only for mobile chipsets, not the desktop cards that this machine uses. Any ideas?