Nvidia GT280

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

The new top graphic card of Nvidia is the GTX280. I can say it is the best card ever up to now. Even if the driver I have is the first one and so future optimization and performance improvements will come, allready now Il2 runs flawlessly and with stellar performance.

I had the 8800 Ultra before (an excellent card) but this card beats it hands down. I tried the 8800GX2 but that one was a desillusion. It was an SLI card and with IL2 it was not up to the task. Shadows were blinking, reflections on water were blinking, and there was strong stuttering when flying over and near the ground. That card did boast 1GB video memory but it was a cheat. In reality each processor had 500MB that is less then my 8800 Ultra with 768MB.

The GTX280 is mono GPU with 1BG fast DDR3 video memory.

My Nvidia settings are:

Screen 1900X1200
Anisotropy forced to 8X
Antialiasing forced to 8X
Transparency Antialiasing -On and set as Multisampling
Image in Quality mode
Vsync is set to ON
Triple buffering is set to ON

The IL2 settings are

All to the max and in perfect mode (Open GL)
Landgeom=3
Effects=2
TypeClouds=1
Water=3
Forest=3
3dgunners=1

The hardware is

Mainboard: Asus Rampage Intel X48 chipset. FSB set at 1600MHZ
Processor: Intel Extreme Quadcore QX9770 at 3.2 GHZ with FSB at 1600MHZ
Memory: 4GB of DDR2 Patriot 9600 running at 1200 MHZ
Display: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24"
Power Supply: Thermaltake 1200Watt
Graphic Card: Asus GeForce GTX280
Hard Disks: 2X 150GB Raptors at 10'000 rpm and 1X 500MB at 7200rpm


The Black Death test track runs mostly between 50 and 60 fps with all the settings above.
Due to Vsync it is limited to 60 but I prefer the triple buffering with Vsync set to on. The image flow is much smoother and without glitches.

So even if a little expensive the best card for IL2.

Gold

[flyingbullseye]

Congrats on the new card, good to hear it runs this sim smooth as new hardware are sometimes not compatible with previous gen games. I've been thinking about this lately concering BoBSOW and hardware. Kind of wondering what others may think.

With the decent increase in performance in the CPU and GPU's that have come out in at least the last year let alone when the sim was supposed to be released I'm thinking that we will probably be able to play BOBSOW on higher settings than people think. Of course this could be thrown out the window if Oleg screws up the optimization but I'm not betting on that.

[Novotny]

Can I just clarify: are you saying that by running practically the toppermost uber-system available in mid-2008, that the gtx280 is the card to have when running something from 2001?

Frankly, I'd be very surprised if your average il2 player could tell the difference if you plonked any 8 series or above into that rig instead.

Running an 8400 c2d at 3.8 here - with an 8800GT - and i can report ridiculously great performance too. My card's 100 squid.

Interestingly, most analysts report Nvidia as losing the performance lead over the next few weeks with the release of the new ATI cards. (Note: have nvidia card, last one was ati, not a fanboi). Check Anandtech etc

This will make NO DIFFERENCE to il2 players, as any card from the last two years can frankly eat our lovely old game.

Should be worth watching for BOB though.

Frankly, I'll always go with best bangs for bucks nevermind who makes the super-fastest card/cpu/wooly jumper. If money is no object, then reviews/thinking are not needed. Just always buy the most expensive stuff. Sorted. Remember to post everywhere about it.

In sum total: mate, not surprised it runs so well. Personally, can settle, for spending half as much for 90% of your performance and what still looks perfect to me, a ridiculously picky person when it comes to gfx.

[Feuerfalke]

Couldn't agree more, Novotny! :cool:

Besides, what brandnew-generation-graphics-card that doesn't deserve the label

"I can say it is the best card ever up to now."

? ;)

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

Ok Novotny, you made a point but only partly.

First as I am let's say a passionate about computer graphics and flight simulation I buy all the top cards when they come out since more then 15 years. I build from scratch my computers. I had probably all of them from Matrox, 3DFX in SLI mode, ATI, Nvidia etc.
I must say that I do not buy ATI cards any more as I had too much problems with the drivers. I settled down now with Nvidia (where I had also problems but much less, and generally solved by the next driver release, the overall personal conclusion being in favor of Nvidia) so I will not debate performance between ATI and Nvidia.
The only satisfactory SLI solution that worked flawlessly with a real (nearly doubling which is excellent) of performance at that time was the 3DFX SLI for which I have still much respect. I think that Nvidia did an excellent strategical move when they bought this company and its know-how. The other Nvidia SLI double, triple our quadruple that came up up to and included the integrated 8800GX2 are if not a failure not justified as per cost/performance driver issues and the little real increase in performance at least for the use I have. It could be that the ATI crossfire solution worked better but I did not test it so I will not comment it and anyway I stay with single board solutions.

Now regarding your comment there have been evolutions on IL2 in 7 years. The IL2 of today is not exactly the same as the stock IL2 from 2001. There has been improvements in the graphical quality of the images (reflections, perfect mode, water quality, shaders) and over time the screen resolutions have become larger and larger. Take a graphic board of 2001 and try to play the Il2 1946 in 1900X1200 with all the the max, perfect mode, water at 3 or 4, landegeom at 3 and effects at 2, anisotropy at 8 and antialiasing at 8 with a cluttered environment, many airplanes dogfighting with land and water and many smoke and explosions, ships firing, and you will perfectly see my point. The board of 2001 will make a slide show and very probably will not be able to handle some of the mentioned parameters. The boards at that time simply did not have enough memory to handle large resolutions with high anistropy and antialiasing factors.

You have to be careful though. The most powerful board is nothing if you do not match it with an adequate processor AND enough fast memory as well as as fast as possible links between these objects.

So the way I play scenarios or campaigns that I have built are not the same from the beginning. By the way I have all the IL2 versions start from the very first shturmovik. I have easily between 6'000 and 10'000 (yes Ten Thousand) objects in my missions with many many fighters bombers, vehicles, ships etc. etc.

So your comment is correct if you keep yourself to simple missions and moderate settings. Then you will not see much performance difference in terms of smoothness between a top board of today and and average one. And even if instead of 50 FPS you get 100 it brings nothing. Generally over 30 you are fine. I then would agree with your comment for an average player.

But the positive thing with top boards and CPU's is that you can have have more and more the capability to simulate realistic events. A typical example, take the attack of a major us fleet in the pacific (all graphical and game settings as abovementioned) with 3 to 4 aircraft carriers (launching their fighter squadrons), cruisers, battleships, destroyers. This fleet is attacked by tens of japanese fighters, kamikaze attacks, torpedo bombers, and all this cross firing like hell (firing rate for all ships at 1.0), then you will start to feel that the most powerful board and CPU is never enough for IL2. Just see films taken during the pacific war were the sky around the carriers and ships was just filled with explosions and tracing bullets, real iron walls were the japanese airplanes just disintegrated and exploded before reaching the ships and falling to the see. With Il2 you can be at the pilot seat or anywere else and feel the heat.

Now you can understand why when a more powerful CPU and a new graphic board will be available I will simply buy it as it will allow me to add more objects and actions.

Il2 is an absolute success simply because it allows you to go very far in terms of simulation and gives you a lot of freedom (unfortunately the FMB is primitive and to build such scenarios it takes a hell of time) like probably no other game did at least to my knowledge, and through patches and new releases was continuously improved over time.
If only Oleg had agreed to improve the sounds of Il2 through a patch......

I can only pray that Oleg will not screw up BoB SoW or whatever name it will have because to do better then Il2 is the challenge and the mark is set very high.

Gold

[Thunderbolt56]

I don't want to rain on your parade and I too am in a similar situation. I build a new, cutting-edge pc every 18 months or so and am on my 6th pc since starting that. I've been tempted to go ahead and grab the X48 + GTX280 but have a really hard time justifying it to myself.

My current pc isn't as strong as the one you've described in your first post, but I run IL2 at higher settings than you've listed and get close to the same performance figures. Some of my system specs are moderate by today's standards, but still scream through most anything I've thrown at it:

E6700 @ 3.2
2GB corsair pc6400 @ stock
8800GTS 512
Raptor 74gb (boot sector(
WD 300GB 7200 16mb cache (data)
X-Fi Platinum

I run usually at 1680x1050 with 8xAA, 16XAF as my global setting and have occassionally bumped it up to 1920X1200 on my 27" Dell, but I like the performance/IQ median of the slightly lower resolution setting. With Vsync on, I run UT3 and COD4 pegged at 60fps under almost all circumstances.

Unless you absolutely HAVE to have 50+ frames in Crysis (I don't even have Crysis), I just don't see the benefit to building again anytime soon. Personally, I'll wait until the fall for all the hardware refreshes and the actual release of some pending titles.

But I am happy for you. That's a nice rig.

[Tree_UK]

Thanks for posting that info Golden Eagle, its good to know that the GTX280 can handle this sim well. I have 2 X 8800GTX cards in SLI and although i have an average score of 57FPS on the Black Death Track with everything ramped up at 1920X1200 i still get a big drop in FPS when things get busy. Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves. I build custom gaming rigs for a living i build at least 2 PC's a week on average and i always advise my customers to opt for Nvidia cards not because they are necessarily better but because the drivers are more inclined to work well with many more games than ATI have been known to.

Anyway thanks for the info mate and enjoy your new rig!

[Feuerfalke]

Thanks for posting that info Golden Eagle, its good to know that the GTX280 can handle this sim well. I have 2 X 8800GTX cards in SLI and although i have an average score of 57FPS on the Black Death Track with everything ramped up at 1920X1200 i still get a big drop in FPS when things get busy. Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves. I build custom gaming rigs for a living i build at least 2 PC's a week on average and i always advise my customers to opt for Nvidia cards not because they are necessarily better but because the drivers are more inclined to work well with many more games than ATI have been known to.

Anyway thanks for the info mate and enjoy your new rig!

Actually Golden_Eagle_FM posted that it is not the SLI that makes this sim run fast :)

I couldn't put it any better than he did. It's not the Twin 8800GTX that makes your rig fast (or not), but the combination of the parts in your PC. As it was stated in the recent weeks a lot of times, Crysis runs on a 600$ PC with perfect settings. I just depends on what you spend your money and that you configure your PC right.

So "Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves." is as wrong as wrong can be, especially for this sim. If I run IL2 with my C2D 6600 & 2400 and at 3600MHz, it's a difference of about 5-9 AVG FPS gain in BlackDeath.

@ Eagle:
Do you play LockOn? I'd really like to know what FPS you get, when setting clipping-distances to max. 8-)

[Tree_UK]

You missed my point entirely, i was saying that i do get a big drop in fps when it gets busy with my cards in SLI. I have already posted before that the best upgrade for this game would be a better CPU, that is a given. However, if you are trying to tell me that if we had identical rigs other than your 6600 against my 8800GTX's in SLI that our FPS would be the same or similar then you are very much mistaken.

[Feuerfalke]

A C2D 6600 is a processor ;)

Anyway, with my single 8800GTS I get 53FPS AVG in TBD-track, when overclocked, about 46 when running with 2.4GHz, all maxed out 16x/16x @ 1600x1200.

So, I'm not saying that your whole point in this thread is wrong, but as I posted before, "Anyone who claims they dont get a big drop in FPS with lesser cards at high settings and at high res are just kidding themselves." is.

Infact when I ran the game with my old trusty 9800pro while I had to send my old nVidia back, there was barely any drop in FPS at all, because I was playing with 32-35 FPS all the time and my CPU only awoke, when cruising over a city. ;)

[Thunderbolt56]

FPS fluctuates all the time depending on number of objects, number of players, overall activity etc,. Things absolutely slow down when dropping down onto Berlin with 15 flak batteries spread out on 5 towers and a handful of aerial adversaries chasing each others' butt.

The statement is that, for me, it's still playable and smooth with frames over 30 even under historically stressfull conditions. Maximum frames are irrelevent IMO. Minimum and average frames are the only things that really matter and when my average frames, at my settings, stay in the high ~70's without vsync and at ~58 with vsync getting new hardware to get an extra 10 frames in a group of games that already looks stunning is a waste. I don't do it for a living, but I allot funds monthly because fiddling with pc's IS a hobby of mine that is important, but I don't "play" 3DMark.

When there are a couple games that will benefit from the new hardware, I'll be cruising through newegg on the double first in line to grab it...and the price will be lower. ;)

[Feuerfalke]

I couldn't agree more, Thunder and it's the exact approach I have.

Even the average FPS is hoax, when using the ingame measurement. In my first run, before that last post, I had an average FPS of 238, because I ran the game without vertical synch. IMHO it's just a digital version of a ruler, if you know what I mean. ;)

If my games run with 30-35 FPS I'm even more happy than with FPS reaching from 200 to 25.

Synthetic benchmarks don't show anything anyway. ATI and nVidia have years of experience to optimize their drivers for these tests, without really having any positive effect on games.

[Zoom2136]

LOL killer card indeed but iL2 is CPU limited... hell my 7900GTX OC is enough... had 2 of them in SLI but deaseable one for the SLI prob that all know about...

So a fast CPU... mine a E6600 OC to 3.4 is way more important than the latest and greatest GPU. Hell my FPS rarelly drop under 60 (low over large cities) with everything maxed out and EFFECT=2... I also run VSYNC so I'm limited to 60 FPS...

Hope you play other games...

As far as bang for $$$ goes ATI are king right know but I guess you new that ;o)

[~BeoWolf~]

The future may not be as bright as we would hope if you're an Intel/nvidia fan. Seems like they are having an intense love hate relationship at the moment. If you have dreams of running the new Nahalem CPU and nvidia SLI, it may be a pipe dream if you get a mother board using Intel chipsets. They will not support SLI. nvidia at the moment does not have a working chipset that will support Nahalem and SLI either. So if you were planning on buying all this when available, you may have to wait awhile longer or opt for the the single GPU nvidia has now. Only time will tell.

[Thunderbolt56]

I've used sli twice. Once with dual 6800GT's and again using a 7950GX2. Performance with both systems was great...for their time. The reality, though, is that there are single slot solutions that are truly badass cards that are already putting the bottleneck back onto the current crop of CPU's.

I'm using an 8800GTS 512 right now and I love it. If I were building new, I'd get a GTX280 period, but wouldn't be at all unhappy with a 4870 or maybe even a 9800GX2.

[Feuerfalke]

I use a 8800GTS 640MB ATM, but I am switching in the next weeks.

Performance is not an issue, but various hardware- and driver-problems are and after years of that with nVidia, I'll give ATI another chance.

I'm not a fanboy of any hardware or anything at all. I chose my options from what suits me most. Right now, I have massive problems with BF2 (88xx's hexagonal black-holes), LockOn (shining beaches, no active shadows) and World in Conflict (Texture flickering and massive drawing errors after the first map). This is basically 75% of the games I play.

This is my 2nd 8800GTS, before I had 3 different 7800GT until I finally got one that worked.

Not representative for sure, not typical for nVidia or something else, but annoying nevertheless and considering the bang for the money, my conclusion for the moment is pretty clear.

Before jump forward with advices: I got 2 120mm fans cooling my 8800GTS, so it never comes close to 70°C and I got a very good 750W PSU.

On the funny side, I also got an nVidia-mainboard. Top of the notch, when it was new, especially for overclocking and it works great - until people found out, that any PS/2-keyboard will constantly crash when overclocking with this chipset....

[Novotny]

With respect to OP: fine response sir! I had you down for a braggart, but I agree with your points. Pleasse forgive my admittedly aggressive response - I was in bad form. Good to see good debate.

[JG27CaptStubing]

Looks like I will be getting rid of my 8800GTs as well. The SLI Stutter is a problem and though the new DLLs make it slightly nicer it's not worth running.

I will be looking at the new ATIs once they hit the streets. I don't think I want to pay 400Plus for a card right now when my 2 cards for half the cost perform faster.

IL2 is the only game I have problems with SLI. Such a shame because its the game I play most.

[Flyby]

It's been very hard for me to get a handle on this issue of one gpu or dual cards. On the one hand, a single powerful gpu seems to be the most elegant solution (for gaming), but the "latest and greatest" gpus cost a million dollars. To offset this one can buy two lesser gpus and run them together either in SLI or Crossfire mode. Of the latter option it appears to be frought with scaling issues. I've read here and at other sim forums that getting dual cards to operate properly in our favorite genre is often a chore. My understanding is it's a matter of proper drivers from the card manufacturer. Based on that, one might very well opt for a single card.
Hopefully when SoW_Bob comes out there will be an adequate driver suite to run dual cards in that sim. Two 4870 in Crossfire would be very nice, and less expensive than the 4870X2 (but is that X2 at 2ghz of ramped gddr5 memory worth the cost, and willit show up as one card?). Does that, and the huge price drops put the GTX 280 in play? What to do?

[Zoom2136]

Like some of you I will be shortly changing my aging 2x 7900GTX OC for a new ATI 4870. I don't plan waiting for the 4870X2 as this is as you know a 2gpu card and could have the same prob that SLI have with iL2.

I think that $299 is a good price for a high end card. NVIDIA are just screwing their custumers... And it shows... as soon as the 48xx series from ATI hit the street the prices of the 2xx series from NVIDIA came down. Hell analyst predict that NVIDIA was not selling more then 3000 cards per month (280s) in the entire US. LOL Talk about a good business move... NVIDIA is now banking on the 8800GT to get them true this slump... its their only card that shows any kind of sale volume since the 48xx series from ATI became available...

As for reliability all my previous ATI card perform flawlessly till I got tired of them and just trew them away due to old age. Hell my X850XT ran highly overclocked (with catalyst) for over to years without a problem. Ran hotter then hell but still add no problem. Both my BFG 7900GTX OC had to be RMA within the first six months because the cards just died on me. Also setting up is a pain... having to install new drivers... test... rollback drivers... test... rollback somemore... test... udgrade drivers... etc.. its a pain...

With ATI... install the latest Catalyst..... and follow Coesties setup guide ;o)

Well just my 2c

[Flyby]

Hey Zoomie,
I think a lot of people share your view on the 4870. It's a highly competent card at a good value/price position; better in that sense than Nvidia's latest offerings. Super-powerful cards like the GTX280 and the 4870X2 seem like overkill in some ways. Their true benefit seems to come in running max settings at very high resolutions, as on 30-inch monitors. I'm not sure many simmers here run on 30-inch monitors. Like those super gpus, 30-inch monitors are very expensive. It's hard to see spending so much money for the most powerful graphics cards only to run them on the (average) 22 monitor.

I guess that's where I'm at. I want to build a new system one day, and I want a video card that will perform very well in new combat flight sims, on the monitor I select (22-24 inch). Oddly it seems that newer cards like the 4870 have shifted the "bottleneck" back to the cpu. In that sense too the ultra powerful, very expensive GPUs seem like overkill. You can't get max performance out of them unless you spend the $$ to run them at their most taxing settings, again on huge monitors. at very high resolutions. I think if I match a video card's best performance to the average monitor resolution (on an lcd its 16x or 19x, generally speaking) I'll be fine. I doubt that SoW_BoB will tax a modern gpu like the 4870 as much as it will a modern cpu like the e8500 or a quad 9300.
Buy hey, that's just my opinion. :D I'm sure I've overlooked a lot of considerations.
Flyby out.

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

As usual nothing is black and white.

My rig is a little of an overkill regarding the CPU for what Il2 is concerned. As I mentioned before I have a QX9770 which at the moment is the fastest you can buy at an uneconomical price for sure. Stock you get 4 cores running at 3.2 MHZ with huge cache memory and FSB at 1600 which is also the max you can get. Some overclocking is easily done without special cooling and you can run at 3.4 even 3.6 MHZ. I use a Zalman CNPS9700LED cooler which is excellent.

Unfortunately IL2 runs on one core only. So if IL2 was multithreaded and I hope SOW-BOB will be so then I would get the full use out of the investment.

I also suppose that IL2 even if improved since the beginning, does not use best the available power of the GTX280 with DirectX10. The last DLL with graphic improvements are now nearly a year old if I am not wrong.

A less expensive double core at similar frequencies should have similar results with the same graphic board.

Someone in this thread mentioned that he hoped I did not use this rig only for IL2. He is right I also played COD4 and some more graphically advanced games. I did play a little Lock On and I can tell that the FPS all to the max (3D shadows, exhaust heat, max quality of water etc.) are stellar and fluidity is perfect but I love propellers and close air combat.

Shooting down airplanes over the visual horizon with missiles is not my style and when you go at those jet speeds everything is simply too fast to have the time to feel the heat. I strongly appreciate the power with Adobe Photoshop CS2 which uses all cores and 3DMax which also make good use of all this power.

But it is a hobby activity and not professional which makes it all the more agreable.

My next dream would be three 30" screens to cover central and lateral views (not the way it is done in IL2 which is unrealistic) with the same performance I have today. It is doable with three GTX280 each one driving a full 30" screen. You would not need SLI. Only the game should be programmed such as to produce the data to feed three synchronized image channels. The four CPU cores would then be perfectly used.

Oleg if you read me do not forget this function in BoB-SoW!!!.

I do not know which motherboard would allow this but god it would be heaven.

Gold

[Test-4-Echo]

I just picked up a BFG GTX 280 OC for $375 from CompUSA (424 shipped-30 rebate-20 paypal) and sold off my 4850's in Crossfire.

Verdict: I like the GTX 280 much better. Much easier to setup and smooth as silk. The ATI cards in single or dual configuration has always given me jerkiness in 1946. Rolling the airplane always resulted in a slight pause, drove me nuts. This is with both a 3870 and 4850's. I've given it a shot twice with ATI but simply found nVidia to be better, both with an 8800 GTS G92 and now the GTX 280. Currently using beta drivers 177.79.

I didn't buy the GTX 280 just for 1946, it really shines in new games such as UT3 which is outstanding.

All in all both ATI and nVidia are good performers, I just like OpenGL performance of nVidia in 1946 better. :cool:

[Flyby]

that's a great price! I'm now up in the air. GTX280 or ATi 4870. I guess the 280 will have the power reserve, but my head hurts again! :D
Flyby out

[Deovis]

From the very begining of Openglide, end of 90s, up to now(opengl 3.0) i always choose an Nvidia processor graphic card...and i must say that it never let me on the spot!
Personally i dont consider Ati cards...because i know, deep in my mind, that i'm an Nvidia Fundamentalist.:cool:
If you want to play a game or any graph program using OpenGL (i do recommand it!)Nvidia cards are the best.;)

An OpenGL Fan!!!:rolleyes:

[WTE_Galway]

Well if you want to get really stupid do what these guys did ...


http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-sli-triple-review-test/


and SLI three of the 280 cards.

[Codex]

Just bought the 4870X2, no problems here. ;)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/CodexAssassin/DSC00077.jpg

Now where did I put my flak helmet?

[Thunderbolt56]

Forget the pictures, I don't watch my pc's guts when I'm chopping air at 15,000ft. Give us some benchies!

This isn't exactly apples-vs-apples, but some of the rhetoric regarding the king-of-the-hill title are relevent in this link. http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=609

With today's crop of GPU's and the cache+clockspeed of the latest CPUs, just about ANY GPU will provide fantastic IQ and framerates with most eye-candy settings in the upper range.

Isn't that all that really matters?

[Flyby]

Just bought the 4870X2, no problems here. ;)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/CodexAssassin/DSC00077.jpg

Now where did I put my flak helmet?
you mean no microstutters as the two GPUs interface? I read that is still an issue with dual GPU systems whether on the same card, in Crossfire or SLi. SO, more info please.
thanks,
Flyby out

[Codex]

you mean no microstutters as the two GPUs interface? I read that is still an issue with dual GPU systems whether on the same card, in Crossfire or SLi. SO, more info please.
thanks,
Flyby out

Well this is my first dual GPU card so I don't know alot about the stuttering. I have only just reinstalled everything last night and have to admit I haven't flown in the pit yet. I've just ran "Blackdeath" a number of times trying out different settings. Couple of things come to mind about this:

- Not everything is ready driver wise for the 4870X2. You have to use CAT 8.8 beta at this stage as 8.7 won't recognise the card.

- If this an issue with both SLI and Crossfire setups then I would put that down to IL-2, not the cards. You have to remember SLI and Crossfire was only a wet dream when the Pacific Fighters engine came out.

- SoW will (I hope) be optimised to take advantage of Dual GPU/CPU set ups. Which is what I'm really aiming for.

Before IL-2 I've been testing the card on STALKER, Crysis, Jerico and ETQW and I have found no problems at all.

The only problem I've come accross is ARMA but thats because it doesn't like VISTA 64 with 4GBRam :evil:

My system (nothing overclocked):
E8400
4GB DDR3 Corsiar 1333
GA-X48T-DQ6
PowerColor 4870X2 2GB
150GB WD Raptor
XF-i

[Codex]

Forget the pictures, I don't watch my pc's guts when I'm chopping air at 15,000ft. Give us some benchies!

This isn't exactly apples-vs-apples, but some of the rhetoric regarding the king-of-the-hill title are relevent in this link. http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=609

With today's crop of GPU's and the cache+clockspeed of the latest CPUs, just about ANY GPU will provide fantastic IQ and framerates with most eye-candy settings in the upper range.

Isn't that all that really matters?

Will do, 12am here now, have to sleep 5am start. I'll get some done on Fri (AUS) time.

[Thunderbolt56]

I'd appreciate it codex. As far as SoW being "optimized" for dual GPU, I'd really doubt it. Dual GPU setups are within the reach of more people these days than ever before, but when you can simply install a single GTX260 or 280 and get better performance than 8800GT's in SLI, I see SLI/Crossfire as more of an enthusiast setup than mainstream. Add to that the potential quirks a dual-GPU rig may bring then it becomes more understandable why the dual-GPU segment is still less than 1%.

Dual GPU performance will always be directly dependent on manufacturer driver updates and not incorporating detailed support coding by game/sim developement teams.

[Flyby]

Well this is my first dual GPU card so I don't know alot about the stuttering. I have only just reinstalled everything last night and have to admit I haven't flown in the pit yet. I've just ran "Blackdeath" a number of times trying out different settings. Couple of things come to mind about this:

- Not everything is ready driver wise for the 4870X2. You have to use CAT 8.8 beta at this stage as 8.7 won't recognise the card.

- If this an issue with both SLI and Crossfire setups then I would put that down to IL-2, not the cards. You have to remember SLI and Crossfire was only a wet dream when the Pacific Fighters engine came out.

- SoW will (I hope) be optimised to take advantage of Dual GPU/CPU set ups. Which is what I'm really aiming for.

Before IL-2 I've been testing the card on STALKER, Crysis, Jerico and ETQW and I have found no problems at all.

The only problem I've come accross is ARMA but thats because it doesn't like VISTA 64 with 4GBRam :evil:

My system (nothing overclocked):
E8400
4GB DDR3 Corsiar 1333
GA-X48T-DQ6
PowerColor 4870X2 2GB
150GB WD Raptor
XF-i
OK. I see here that you didn't mention your monitor. I bet it's a whopping 30-inch Dell! As for SOW or any sim being configured for dual GPUs, I suppose it's possible. I know SOW will be able to make use of at leat dual core cpus. That's been stated in these forums already. Also, generally speaking, Crossfire or SLi implementation is not on the particular sim itself but rather on the particluar mode (SLI r Crossfire). At least that's how I understand it. The dual-gpu thing with microstutters seems not to be limited to one mode either. Maybe microstutters is not an issue if both gpus are on the same card? One other little tidbit here: Voodoo (remember those cards?) used to own the SLi tech before it was bought by Nvidia. It was called scan line interface then, but Nvidia calls it something else now. People ran dual Voodoo cards in a galaxy long ago and far, far away. ;)
Flyby

[Chivas]

LucidLogix is just introducing something called Hydra that may be better than SLI or Crossfire.

LucidLogix promises multi-GPU support for everyone


http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15347

[Flyby]

rgrt Chivas,
I recall now reading that article on the techreport. It seems hopeful. I hope some motherboard mfg tries it out. It might be better than strapping two cards together. I'd like to see a side-by-side-by-side comparison between Hydra, SLi and Crossfire test beds. Wouldn't it be great if the tests results showed a 100% increase in fps on old engines like IL2. That would be super scaling, imho. As it is now, one stands a chance of being disappointed at the scaling performance of a game using either Crossfire or SLi. How can one know before-hand?
Flyby out

[Codex]

Ok... some benchmarks, I recall valuable help I got from PF_Costie a while back, I hope I’ve done it right. Please correct me if there is anything wrong with my method.

I’ve geared this setup to let IL-2 push the card as much as possible so all eye candy is handled by IL-2. I’ve turned off or minimised eye candy enhancements like AA / AF in the drivers, however I have set Cat AI to advanced.

My system

Intel E8400 @ 3.0 GHz (333MHz x 6)
4GB Corsair CM3X2G1333C9DHX (7-7-7-20, 1T, 1.5V @ 533Mhz)
Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 rev 01 (BIOS F4)
150GB WD Raptor – OS + Apps + Games
X-Fi Fatality
OCZ 1010Watt – Got plenty of Juice ;)
Dell 21 Wide Screen 16:10 – 1680x1050x32 @ 60Hz DVI
VISTA Ultimate 64Bit – default background services

PowerColor 4870X2
GPU @ Stock Speed 750MHz
Memory @ Stock Speed 900MHz
2GB DDR5

IL-2 1946 – 4.08m – Stock DLLs
OpenGL - Perfect settings
Stencil Buffer = On
Texture Mipmap = Ansio
Texture Comp = None
Dither = On
Vertex = On
Poly Stipple = On
Multitexture = On
Combine = On
Secondary Color = On
Vertex Array = On
Clip Hint = Off
Use Palette = Off
Texture Anistrop = On
Texture Comp ARB = Off

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=3
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=2
Water=2
Effects=2
ForceShaders1x=0

Cat Driver 8.8beta
Overall Settings = Custom
AA = Use App Settings
AAA = Off (Adaptive Anti Aliasing)
AF = Use App Settings
Cat AI = Advanced
MipMap = Peformance
V-Sync = Off

Black Death – counting from 0:01sec to 2:34sec

Frames: 9818
Time(ms): 153071
Min: 18
Max: 146
Avg: 64.14

Frames: 9825
Time(ms): 152777
Min: 18
Max: 146
Avg: 64.309

Frames: 9745
Time(ms): 153007
Min: 18
Max: 144
Avg: 63.69

Two concerns I’ve noticed.
1. Artefacts at 1:40 (ish), they seem to stop after a few loops of the track.
2. There seems to be a bluish tinge reflected off textures whenever light is given off by explosions.

Overall interesting scores considering they’re from beta drivers. I’m sure there is more optimisation to be obtained as drivers mature.

[Flyby]

I hope better drivers are released or that you otherwise find cures for the minor corruptions you're getting, Codex. Nice system, and good results! :)
Flyby

[frenchfly]

Turn off vertex and vertex array to get rid of the blueish tinge problem.

[Thunderbolt56]

Nice system and decent numbers. I AM mildly concerned about those minimum frames though...18? That seems a bit low for such a stout system. My system is very close to yours (but my E6700 is OC'd to 3.2) and with my 8800GTS (G92) my minimums are about 10 frames higher.

Thanks for posting those benchmarks.

[dflc03]

Nice system and decent numbers. I AM mildly concerned about those minimum frames though...18? That seems a bit low for such a stout system. My system is very close to yours (but my E6700 is OC'd to 3.2) and with my 8800GTS (G92) my minimums are about 10 frames higher.

Thanks for posting those benchmarks.

Same here. I had a similar sistem and a 4850 with a minimum fps of 18 in BD, changed it fwith 8800gT and got 28 min fps. I was hoping to see improved fps performance in IL2 with top ATI cards, but it seems it is not the case yet.

[Flyby]

hey guys heard of Hydra? supposed to be the new shape of multi-GPU scaling. check these links out. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2328495,00.asp
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15367
things are looking up!
Flyby out

[MaD88]

(...)
With ATI... install the latest Catalyst..... and follow Coesties setup guide ;o)

Well just my 2c
Where can I find this guide? While waiting for BOB (I wanna upgrade my PC when BOB or BlackShark is finished), I switched to an ATI 3850 AGP so it would be nice to find some more hints for Grafix...

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

MaD88, Try this http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/coastie0/ATICP.html

This is coasties ati guide, to my knowledge the most up to date so far? (Jan 06) don't know a lot about ati cards as up till now I have been exclusively an Nvidia guy, but good luck and i hope it helps you out.

BTW First ever poster here! Hello to all and sundry, some very interesting and helpful stuff here, glad to be aboard! :)

[Chivas]

I've waffling about which card to buy but this link may have made up mind to either buy an ATI card now, or wait for the next generation Nvidia card, as the current Nvidia cards appear to be defective.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/28/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad

[MaD88]

MaD88, Try this http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/coastie0/ATICP.html

This is coasties ati guide, to my knowledge the most up to date so far? (Jan 06) don't know a lot about ati cards as up till now I have been exclusively an Nvidia guy, but good luck and i hope it helps you out.

BTW First ever poster here! Hello to all and sundry, some very interesting and helpful stuff here, glad to be aboard! :)

Thanx for the link! As I stuck to AGP till the next Simgeneration is out to the market I had to change to Ati for a last upgrade for my PC. Nvidia did no upgrade since my last Gainward 7800 GS+ :(
So this Aticard was the best what I could get for my AGP-Port.

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

Chivas there are many manufacturers of cards based on the Nvidia chips so there may be some products less reliable then others. What I can share is my personal experience.

Since many many years I have allways stuck with Asus mainboards with Intel chipset and CPU and Asus graphic cards with Nvidia chips and I never had a hardware problem. I did once experiment with Asus boards with ATI chip on one of my PC a few years ago and let them away for driver reasons that put me in trouble with some of the software I used but had no hardware problem either. I have five personal built pc's at any time in my home (for wife and kids) with the configuration as mentioned above so this make for a huge number of hours of operation over the years. I agree that all my components are top when I build the machine. Plenty of power supply, top fast memory and lots of it and top quality hard disks, and full towers with lots of space and excellent cooling. The machines are on the expensive side but I for sure had drivers or software problems more or less quick to solve, but the hardware itself has allways worked perfectly and been fully reliable. And these are machines running and I can tell you that the kids do put them through hard work.

So the Asus GTX280 I have since I bought is just running perfect and is put through lengthy periods of heavy load. I must admit the board runs hotter then I prefer but apart from that nothing to say.

For the record I own no stock neither from Asus nor Nvidia and this is not some form of advertising even if that may seem so, but I do recognize that they have with me a happy customer with their products.

Gold

[virre89]

Pretty Awesome setup you've mate :P,

But to be honest squeezing a new graphic card to reach higher in IL2 won't really help, it's as simple as that the game ain't optimized for new GPU's.

There are graphic issues and there are FPS issues, but it's the game to blame more or less and not the cards.

Btw i am thinking of trying the new 4870X2, should be the best card on the market right now, since ATI released it a couple of weeks ago.

[Zoom2136]

Ok... some benchmarks, I recall valuable help I got from PF_Costie a while back, I hope I’ve done it right. Please correct me if there is anything wrong with my method.

I’ve geared this setup to let IL-2 push the card as much as possible so all eye candy is handled by IL-2. I’ve turned off or minimised eye candy enhancements like AA / AF in the drivers, however I have set Cat AI to advanced.

My system

Intel E8400 @ 3.0 GHz (333MHz x 6)
4GB Corsair CM3X2G1333C9DHX (7-7-7-20, 1T, 1.5V @ 533Mhz)
Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 rev 01 (BIOS F4)
150GB WD Raptor – OS + Apps + Games
X-Fi Fatality
OCZ 1010Watt – Got plenty of Juice ;)
Dell 21 Wide Screen 16:10 – 1680x1050x32 @ 60Hz DVI
VISTA Ultimate 64Bit – default background services

PowerColor 4870X2
GPU @ Stock Speed 750MHz
Memory @ Stock Speed 900MHz
2GB DDR5

Overclock that puppy to 4.0 and see those score skyrocket... its the CPU clock that's holding your rig back...