|
Suggestion for the 1C Devs
Although this has all the potential of grabbing attention and causing real action as a late night infomercial in a nursing home here goes..
FIX SLI! Dumbing down the graphics to increase performance has done nothing to help the experience of a lot of players with high-end equipment. Even more folks have multiple mid-range cards that would benefit greatly from functional SLI capability. IMHO the fact that this extremely graphics intensive application cannot use SLI or crossfire is its biggest fault now that CTD is fixed. Its like having a Corvette Z06 with P185 tires or a 3/4 lb burger on a saltine cracker. If this app had SLI the devs could turn back on "REAL" original textures and landscape environment that was last seen 2 patched ago. Our machines would be able to handle tree rendering out to as far as we could see. Micro stuttering would likely disappear. Then they could quit messing with the graphics engine and focus on the game play features. The graphics card industry will not be able to patch up this huge deficiency any time soon. I know this because my GTX 580 outperforms my 590 when NVidia lists the 590 as a 50% improvement. So, my question is, why is there no focus on fixing SLI? Is it just too hard? Does it require the enlistment of help form the card builders? |
Except that the vast majority don't play with SLI. Personally I think it's a waste and doesn't seem very cost effective to use SLI. Even if I'm wrong (and I contend I may be) and SLI is the bee's knees, how many are going to invest in SLI? We have continents of CoD players using Windows XP and DX9. Having the graphics engine working on SLI (because of sheer brute force) will do nothing for high - mid level systems. How will it help with the coding that's obviously a large issue?
Maybe I just don't see how functioning SLI would help benefit single card players. |
Why focus on something only a small minority actually has (SLI and Crossfire still aren't all that common since it's usually more hassle than it's worth plus that it can drive up the cost of a build rather hideously) when the majority of your customers has issues with running the game on a single-card setup?
Yes, indeed... |
Quote:
Anyway, it appears that brute force is just what it takes for this sim. If that weren't true my 590 would be killing my 580. |
Quote:
|
Sli is fixed, were just waiting for a driver release.
Well, that's what Luthier said about May last year. |
Quote:
there are still many people who suffer from them... |
Quote:
|
Hey, don't be stupid and buy SLI/Crossfire GPU combos. Every hardcore, I mean Hardcore game/sim only get worse with those. Those run of the mill sim look-a-likes doesn't count...
My golden rule is to buy always fastest single core GPU available and it works out of the box right away.... |
Quote:
I bought 2 x GTX570s in SLI mode. Worked out of the box right away.. On games that actually support SLI (skyrim for one) it's bloody great. |
Quote:
Go ahead any fly decisive aerial battles in English channel in year 1940 with Skyrim. :) I know most of the major titles in gaming support SLI/Crossfire but strangely several hardcore simulation games doesn't. I suppose it's because sims are quite niche market and the developer companies are very small or limited and they can't affort to program support those dual/trio GPU cards (or does not use ready made gaming enigne which could support out of the box). edit: Byt the way, I love Skyrim :) |
The OP dose have a point. I have a mid-range card with 1GB memory and at least wish I had got a 2GB version. The best option for me would be to buy a second matching card if only I could be sure that would work properly. Do I waste the first card and go for a better single GPU or do I risk wasting more, albeit a smaller amount of money on a SLI setup?
|
Just waste to use sli, sorry! It seems, that you are really thinking that sli will improve clod performance by far? I say: U only get a big performance increase with sli in clod, if you already have highend cards and start multiple display setups. A sli with mid range cards woulf only help under the circumstance, that your mid range card has 3 gb ram on every card. Otherwise, the tree rendering or other things wouldn't improve that much.
Be aware, that as soon as your card is running out of memory, clod will run insufficient. I do not know, why some users really think, that sli is good!?! The currently used technique is insufficient until they rethink this whole sli thing and give us a new sli. Simply dumb to talk about that technology in that state. Never think about sli as a cheap upgrade to get more power. It is just for a small part of the com, who spend a lot of money to max out to the highest possible. Skyrim is for sure a good game but not comparable. Skyrim for me is casual gaming and the engine is optimized to work for consoles as well. So the load , the memory usage has to be low. Ps3 nearly has no memory. So, all this games never reach the memory usage of a pc sim game. ->That is, why u can really increase performance in skyrim, but not in clod (only with the explained hardware, which is not mid-range in most cases). |
Quote:
|
Quote:
I'm not exactly sure why, but i think that if cards use split frame rendering they render half of each frame, but they need to store the entire frame in each card's memory. When they render alternate frames (eg, card 1 renders frame 250 and card 2 renders frame 251) the same holds, because each card has its RAM filled with an entire frame. You do have double the video RAM but you also use double, so there is no gain in available memory. |
x-fire sli
From experiance I got various results with different card combo`s single and X-Fire.
1x AMD Saphire Toxic 5870 Oc, poor frame rates and micro studders,had to use medium settings . 2x AMD Saphire Toxic 5870 Oc,best ever performance when the early patch release enabled X-Fire,Max settings, good high frame rates and only the microstudders low.Ruined when a small patch was bought out within hours because of graphics anomolys with Nvidia systems. 1xXFX HD 7970 Black Edition,Improvement on single 5870, but running at Very High in game settings made little difference ,frame rates improved slightly. 2xXFX HD 7970 Black Edition,with both last Alpa and Beta patches more or less the same as a single XFX HD 7970 Black Edition performance slightly improved at highest settings. I tested the same cards and setups on the rig in my sig and did compare performance with RoF and iL2 1946 ,the latter of which does not have X-Fire support. In Rise of Flight as I Improved my Gpu hardware I was able to increases my quality settings with also an increase in FPS .The 2x AMD Saphire Toxic 5870 Oc performance was slghtly slower than a single XFX HD 7970 Black Edition. 2xXFX HD 7970 Black Edition runs fluidly with all settings at max with the exception of AntAliasing which Inever run above 2x as it murders the fps in ROF. iL2 1946 ran maxed out on all combinations ,seamlessly on 2xXFX HD 7970 Black Edition, with the Average FPS limited to 60mhz(my native screen res),but max frames are almost always over 1000fps. The Clod dev team hit the sweet spot once for me on X-fire but have never unfortunately got close since. In Cliffs of Dover`s present state apart from increasing in game video quality settings performance wise X-Fire is not functioning in anyway near to the Early X-Fire patch release which on my system was awesome compared to any patches before or after,the textures looked much better then too if a little bit too bright. |
Quote:
Two 1Gb cards in SLI would still only give you 1Gb to work with and SLI inherently has small stutters |
Quote:
All demanding games like ArmA, ArmA2, RoF had/have issues with SLI/xfire. It works in one patch and then does not work in next one. IIRC Jason wrote they could hardly get needed docs from NV but none from ATI. NV/ATI managers do not talk to such small companies as sim developers. Any patch or driver update can cause stutters. Especially when many single GPU users have stutters (due to big textures on higher settings usually or use of vsync, antivirus, etc.). |
Quote:
But this would not explain the problems we face at CloD as the engine is brand-new and up to date..... |
Quote:
|
Quote:
EVGA forums, scroll down to 9th reply by user HeavyHemi: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1421266&mpage=1 Also note that the prevailing advice in that thread if you want to really crank up the resolution while also keeping the detail settings high, is to get a single card with the highest amount of RAM you can afford. So it's not only modern flight sims that work this way (RoF also had a lot of problems with SLI early on, but i can't comment on its current state because i don't have it on my PC), it seems to be a more widespread trend in other games too. Tom's Hardware SLI and Crossfire FAQs: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...crossfire-faqs Incidentally, in the above link you can also find this little gem: Quote:
Both of them are made by companies that could throw tons of cash on the issue. FSX is getting old and microsoft is more concerned with selling DLCs for its new MS Flight, but this wasn't always the case. Yet, they didn't fix it. Also, SC2 is at its peak and its only part one of a trilogy, with a highly competitive multiplayer scene (think professional gamers who get paid like footbal players to take part in tournaments, etc) and the company behind it (Blizzard) has the enormous world of warcraft MMO cash-cow at its disposal and raving mad fans who buy everything they release (eg, the recent Diablo III). If these guys can't do it or won't spend the time and money to, then the only reason i can think of is that SLI/Xfire setups are a bit too particular in terms of how you code your game in order to work correctly. It seems like the game has to be written around it and since it's a somewhat rigid and not so evolving technology (the cards evolve, but the technologies that pair them not so much), maybe it's not worth the compromises in other parts of the engine? I'm just thinking out loud here, but the whole thing seems to completely debunk the entire "two cards = double the performance" logic. I've been ordering my PC components separately since forever and the only people i routinely see going for SLI setups are those that primarily focus on action/shooter games (simpler engines, small maps, elementary game mechanics, so all the PC has to do really is to run good graphics at a high frame rate). The bottom line is, just because we might have some extra money to burn on a PC build doesn't mean we should go for the most expensive options. They might be kind of specialised in what they work well with. |
DRAT! you mean I bought an extra GTX 5980 for nothing!? :(
But wait, I'm future proof when game developers advance and develop for 2+ Gpus .. but WAIT! Hopefully Rome2 will take advantage of multiple cores and GPUs? . |
Quote:
Never mind... my friend Google found this Gem. "Originally Posted by CousinVin I think i understand that putting two 3gb cards still only limits you to 3gb of usable vram.. right? If that is wrong please correct me. You are correct. Quote: Now my confusion comes in with the GTX 590. It is labeled as a 3gb card, but from the assumption above, and considering that it is 1.5gb per core, is it really only 1.5 gb usable vram? It's marketing. Joe Average can't tell the difference between total memory and dedicated memory." So anyone looking at the 690 beware. |
Its amazing that a feature that almost any current game has and a feature that was promised to be introduced/fixed more than a year ago is still not present in a sim that has so many problems performance wise and Im amazed that some guys here seem to encourage the devs to forget about a feature that could be really helpful if implemented correctly.When I bought my second video card it made a world of difference, specially on ROF, other more common titles were running a lot better to say the least.I never experienced micro stuttering or any problem related to the use of crossfire.Gpu's prices go down really quick so buying a second card to make a crossfire/sli setup is a lot cheaper than buying a single monster card.People of this community need to see things from a wider angle, having this feature could only make positive changes but on the other hand not having it as you can see is a negative thing in my opinion. By the way Im only running one card now so dont assume that I wrote this just because I had a dual gpu setup.I would be happy if multi gpu support got improved even if I cant benefit from it right now.
|
Quote:
So, when you see a single card with a dual GPU specifying 3GB of RAM on the box, what it means is 3GB divided equally among the two GPUs and mirrored for each frame -> 1.5Gb of effectively usable video RAM. If your preferred games are heavy on textures and have long viewing distances (more textures need to be loaded per frame) it's better to go for a single 3GB card or two separate cards with 3GB each. View distance is probably the main reason that players of action and shooter games get great performance with SLI. Their view distance is nothing compared to a flight sim so this RAM issue is not so perceptible. In the above 3GB example, to load the textures that the single card or the two-card SLI setup can, an single-card SLI setup like the 690 would have to have a total of 6GB of RAM (3 for each card). I hope i didn't make any typos to make this confusing (it's a bit late at the moment and i'm sleepy) and that it sufficiently explains the limitations of the architecture in terms of RAM usage. Cheers ;) |
I understand people with SLI/crossfire want their setups to be utilized fully.
But from the devs standpoint I'd say it still makes more sense to focus on general performance. The graphics engine is obviously not 100% optimized yet and investing time in making SLI/crossfire work is likely better spent on finding performance that benefits both single card users and multi card ones. First of all the percentage of multi card users is small, that's a fact. And secondly they could spend X weeks making both SLI and crossfire work, only to have it broken again in one of the monthly driverupdates. So as a small team it makes more sense to focus on general optimization and performance, which benefits everyone, than spend hours working on something which only a small percentage of users will benefit from and which might be broken the moment you get it ready for release. Nvm break it yourself when you push through the general optimizations that are being worked on, forcing you to start over on SLI/xfire once again. |
One word with GPU manufacturers and SLI & X-Fire.
Marketing |
When I got my gtx 590 there was no 3gb gtx580 and the 590 had a solid advantage over ALL other cards in a lot of games. While it only uses 1.5gb of video ram, it still runs a lot faster than a single card, in games that make sli work.
I still think they would be better off working on multi GPU support than spend months on the bloody dx9. But that's just me. Anyway, recently I tried the sli profile I found in one of the technical threds and the performance boost I got was impressive. There are still some bad slow downs around the clouds, but everything else went from 15-20fps to 57-60 fps. I think they would please more people fixing multi gpu support than fixing the bloody dx9, that's used by people that most likely don't have a powerful enough system for this game anyway. |
They have to fix dx9. It is not, what they really want but they have to run conform on package specs.
Concerning sli: sure the optimized profiles show, that this helps improving the sli matter, bit again: the technique is old and normally (to fully make their initial intention of sli work) the whole components have to be harmonizes up to high standard. The communication between the pc components have to get high end bus systems in every case. This harmonized complete pc will reach market as soon as the manufacturers of every part work closely together ->perhaps this will never happen! Other possibilty: A manufacturer built his own solution all-in-one. First steps can be seen in the implemented gpu in intel cpus. In current technical configuration, sli is for high end benchmark community or simply for those to burn money to heat up the room or to use more electricity for nothing. :) Just my point of view. |
Good news for everyone but Warhound and Stublerone...
Quote:
|
Hopefully it helps you a lot. Those with older sli setups will nevertheless suffer of their low vram. Wush you good lucj! ;)
|
Quote:
I have many games in my library that absolutely work very well with SLI. Scaling for a lot of them is 60-80% (sometimes 100%) for the 2nd card and 50% or better for every additional card after. I have done testing with many games from single to 2way, 3way and 4way SLI and I have to say its not just about benchmarking. There is a real tangible difference. Sure its debatable whether there's any benefit than more than 120FPS but a lot of games are very graphically demanding these days with all feature turned on. There are several very demanding games out there that can fully utilise all 4 of my cards at 99% and give me 100FPS or so when many others without this SLI struggle to get 30FPS. COD currently does scale in SLI when at higher resolutions too. When I run it at 6048x1080 in surround with the 3 monitors it pushes all 4 cards properly to 99% and runs really smooth, although at a much lower frame rate of 25>40FPS compared to 40>80FPS at 1920x1080 with a single card. I expect I will achieve 200FPS plus when the SLI profile is matched to the current game code. I was already achieving that a year ago when the game 1st came out with my old 4way 5870 crossfire setup. The only thing that created an issue for me back then was the limited Vram which is why I upgraded to 3GB video cards. And at 6048x1080 the game uses 2.5-2.8GB vram compared to 1.6-1.9GB vram at 1920x1080 with max settings. This is why many people experience stuttering and slowdowns because they just dont understand how much textures for the massive maps and large amount of objects that need to load. The development team appear to have been tweaking the textures and the texture engine for this very reason to make sure textures can fit in midrange hardware and are only loaded when needed and stream in and out of memory more smoothly. Its a big challenge for such big high detailed maps and detailed models with lots of objects. In any case I am very excited about Luthiers news on trying to get the next official patch (or possibly next beta?) with an Nvidia SLI profile! Couple videos... COD in ultra-widescreen and the beast. ;) IL2 COD 6030x1080 Nvidia 2D Surround - Hurri's vs BF110's 4way SLI GPUs all maxed at 99% avg 30FPS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbJfvrd553U The beast that powers IL2 COD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHCNW1lkk4 A year ago on my old 4way 5870 setup. 200FPS+ http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=23604 http://w7sn5a.blu.livefilestore.com/...adeonpro-4.jpg |
You got it right, phat. I just wanted to warn everybody to hear on unexperienced sli fanboy friends, who never got to know about sli and say, that bf3 is the best graphics and most demanding game. If someone give advice to update a gtx 285 with an additional one, I have to say, that such a guy is not the right one to talk to.
First, get a single card, which run everything sufficiently and then start building your sli maschine. There is no doubt about some more performance, bit the load of your cards do not tell you 1:1 the performance increase. For 3 monitors you need for sure more graphics power, but first of all more vram. What I want to say: built up an sli with 2 x 580s with 1.5 gb each and max out to multi monitors, you will see the limitations in vram. You can add 2 more cards and will never solve the initial problem of vram texture loading. 2 x 680 in triple monitor resolution will not run as smooth as 2 ati hd7970. They simply do not have enough vram to handle all the load, which is instantly needed from the game. Every load from normal ram through the bus is too slow and you get stutters or whatever. For cod, even in normal 1080p resolution, a 1,5 gb card will cause some stutters. I maxed out everthing in this resolution and also have 2.5gb load, but my card can manage it. Nevertheless, sli is helpful for multi monitors, but the efficiency of that technology is forcing me to say: It is damn expensive and the tech needs rework. The data buses for every component should be as fast as the bus between gpu and its vram. Efficiency of this can only increase, if this happens. |
| All times are GMT. The time now is 05:16 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2007 Fulqrum Publishing. All rights reserved.