So, Nehalem is OK?

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

The review below sort of says that we'll only be seeing the benifit of the i7 with high performance SLI or Crossfire graphics setups!

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/Feature/...rformance.aspx

Using single card graphics on overclocked systems you got comparable results with a QX9650 CPU. (It isn't an exaustive test)

Is there any reason to go SLI or Crossfire if your monitor can't display really high resolutions?

Playing IL2 1946, my 22" LCD at 1650 *1080 gives me about 61fps most of the time dropping down to about 22 in the Black Death track when one of the airfields gets attacked.

I supose its all depends how the applications are coded and optimised. I've been running dual core and multiprocessor pc's for a while and and I really can't think of many programs that have actually use the technology to it's full advantage. ( It's depressing having a dual processor rig and only play games that use one! )

I'm sort of hoping titles like Bob will show us what these puppies can really do! I've been waiting a while!

good input, man. I'm of the same opinion about Crossfire and SLi. Neither one scales well as a matter of leading edge technology. It's a matter of which individual game benefits from either technology so far as I can see. In IL2, I haven't seen anyone post that his/her two cards scale 100%, giving twice the fps of one card. I think many still find using two cards problematic. Then there's the promise of Hydra. I've read about Hydra allowing two or more GPUs to scale nearly perfectly. So far I'm of the opinion that Crossfire, and SLi are more hype and clever marketing rather than bleeding edge technology, at least for the sims I like. Both have been around for a while and still no 100% scaling from either, as far as I know. I may be way off base, but I think it's a shame how ATi and Nvidia tout these imperfect technologies; not to mention how the motherboard manufacturers jump on the money-sucking bandwagon as well. Sorry if I stepped on any toes.
I also agree with you about monitors and dual GPUs. Unless it's a humongous monitor like a 30 inch being played at 2560x and trying to get a game like Crysis to run smooth at that rez, I think a good single GPU with 1ghz of ram, like the GTX 280 is more than enough card for lesser monitors; certainly enough for a single 22 inch monitor anyway. Be mindful that not all 1ghz GPUs are created equal either. One day I'd like to get a nice speedy quad Penryn. Maybe the prices will continue to drop, or I can trade in blood? I'm thinking a single GPU on a P45 chipset, and a quad that I can easily overclock to, oh, 3.6ghz (on air cooling).
OK. I need to shut up now. Opinions expressed here are not my own as I am a mindless minion of the Evil Empire.
Flyby out

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by 99th_Flyby

good input, man. I'm of the same opinion about Crossfire and SLi. Neither one scales well as a matter of leading edge technology. It's a matter of which individual game benefits from either technology so far as I can see. In IL2, I haven't seen anyone post that his/her two cards scale 100%, giving twice the fps of one card. I think many still find using two cards problematic. Then there's the promise of Hydra. I've read about Hydra allowing two or more GPUs to scale nearly perfectly. So far I'm of the opinion that Crossfire, and SLi are more hype and clever marketing rather than bleeding edge technology, at least for the sims I like. Both have been around for a while and still no 100% scaling from either, as far as I know. I may be way off base, but I think it's a shame how ATi and Nvidia tout these imperfect technologies; not to mention how the motherboard manufacturers jump on the money-sucking bandwagon as well. Sorry if I stepped on any toes.
I also agree with you about monitors and dual GPUs. Unless it's a humongous monitor like a 30 inch being played at 2560x and trying to get a game like Crysis to run smooth at that rez, I think a good single GPU with 1ghz of ram, like the GTX 280 is more than enough card for lesser monitors; certainly enough for a single 22 inch monitor anyway. Be mindful that not all 1ghz GPUs are created equal either. One day I'd like to get a nice speedy quad Penryn. Maybe the prices will continue to drop, or I can trade in blood? I'm thinking a single GPU on a P45 chipset, and a quad that I can easily overclock to, oh, 3.6ghz (on air cooling).
OK. I need to shut up now. Opinions expressed here are not my own as I am a mindless minion of the Evil Empire.
Flyby out

A lot of the comments are pretty much spot on however having gone SLI I can assure you SLI does pay off even with these older Sims.

In short you guys are both right about the resolution scaling. Unless you're running 1600X and above I don't really see the point of going SLI or a super high end video card but here is the caveat.

When it comes to scaling we are somewhat misled by looking at the FPS numbers. Most guys like ATI and Nvidia want you to see the high numbers but that's only part of the whole CPU GPU equation. For most games it's not about the high number. It really comes down to the MINIMUM number of FPS you experience in a game. That's the real kicker isn't it. We could care less when things are running above 60fps but we all see it when it's less.

This is really driven out of all the systems and subsystems of a computer. Nothing new here.

SLI does scale quite nicely when you're dealing with games that are heavy on the GPU side. Which quite frankly is the majority of the games. Sims are typically CPU bound. But it would be interesting to see how well a sim would fly if it took advantage of the number crunching capabilities of a GPU.

Moving forward. I went from a single 8800GT to SLI running 1920X1200 and it literally doubled my performance. I could then turn on AA and AF and even take advantage of the higher terrain setting. I've turned off my other card to see what the difference was and the sim crawled.

Also having gone SLI I've had Zero problems running some of the latest and greatest games with the exception of one game. Crysis was the only one that SLI didn't improve anything. Now that could be somewhat driver related but it really didn't do much.

Games like COD4 doubled in FPS so I think it's a matter of games that take advantage of SLI or CF.

My 2 Pennies

[Flyby]

good points, Cap'n. Some games do scale well with either SLI or Crossfire. But some don't, and that's my complaint about the multi-GPU technology. I concede the point that minimum fps is the more important issue. Combat flight sims, I also agree, are (now) mainly CPU-bound, what with complex AI, FM, etc. The performance pendulum seems to have swung away from modern GPUs. It would be great if some of the calculations could be handed off to the GPU, if that would make a difference in the performance of our beloved flight sims. Only F4 seems to be able to make use of multiple cores. Black Shark has been released in Russia, and the word seems to be that a fast CPU makes a lot of difference, and that's an old DX8-modified-to-DX9 graphics engine.

So I guess I come full circle in this discussion. I thus relent. Modern GPUs are not the issue for combat flight sims on the (22-inch) average monitor. It's the CPU, and the code being written, or not written by combat sims to take advantage of multiple core. Glad I still have F4! But I'm looking forward to SoW_BoB. Guess I'll have to contract out for a liquid nitrogen storage tank in the basement!
Flyby out

[ZaltysZ]

To utilize multiple CPUs, the task you are programming must meet requirements for parallelization. Each part of task must be independent from each other and each others results. It sounds simple, until you have to implement it in something like simulator, where most calculation must use not only each other results, but also must be completed in particular order. It is not the problem of laziness; it is problem of science.

P.S.: Falcon 4 uses multiple CPUs not for FM, but for dynamic campaign (units movement and etc.). While you are happily flying in your player bubble, all the AI controlled units outside it play without you alone. In other words, player and these units are independent, until they come into contact.

[BuRNeR]

i would prefer the next amd phenom 2 940 with 4x 3ghz.
this will be fast enough for all and i guess it will be much cheaper then the new intel system.
the new opterons 45nm (servercpu) are faster then the intel xenon with same clock in the newest benchmarks (vm mark eg)
i am sure that nobody needs more power. the phenom 2 will be out at january next year.

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by ZaltysZ

To utilize multiple CPUs, the task you are programming must meet requirements for parallelization. Each part of task must be independent from each other and each others results. It sounds simple, until you have to implement it in something like simulator, where most calculation must use not only each other results, but also must be completed in particular order. It is not the problem of laziness; it is problem of science.

P.S.: Falcon 4 uses multiple CPUs not for FM, but for dynamic campaign (units movement and etc.). While you are happily flying in your player bubble, all the AI controlled units outside it play without you alone. In other words, player and these units are independent, until they come into contact.

If what you say is true I guess I can feel pretty good about my interest in combat flight simulators what with their complexity and demanding requirements. On the other hand there is the relentless frustration of knowing there is someone like Oleg out there designing S**t that no one can ever hope to (afford to) totally max out. Life is unfair!
Flyby out

[WTE_Galway]

Flight Sim fans bitching about upcoming games requiring hardware they personally cannot afford is actually a bit odd.

It is a bit like a car enthusiast wanting to ban the next model of Ferrari and trying to force everyone to drive something similar to the second car they just bought on ebay out of some idea of "fairness".

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

Flight Sim fans bitching about upcoming games requiring hardware they personally cannot afford is actually a bit odd.

It is a bit like a car enthusiast wanting to ban the next model of Ferrari and trying to force everyone to drive something similar to the second car they just bought on ebay out of some idea of "fairness".

So who's bitching? And who implied in any way that "they personally" cannot afford such a system? It seems regardless of what one can or cannot afford will be a moot point when SoW comes out. There won't be system out that will be able to run it maxed out anyway, at least not right away. That was my main point. No one is trying to force anyone to do anything here. Do I really want to know where you got that? My idea of fairness is to ask that you read the whole thread, and maybe see that people are only talking opinions about, asking questions related to, and sharing knowledge of tech matters. You put too much into only a narrow perspective, imo. Besides, no car enthusiast (or flight sim fan) I ever met would think to ban progress let alone the next model of a Ferrari (or new pc technical stuff). So, well...please.

[alert]

Although Oleg said that SoW will utilize multicore CPU, it's not clear if he meant 2core or quad. It's verz hard to develop sim that will use quadcore at full power. I believe that E8400 will still be enough for very decent siming (+apropriate GF of course). 4x3Ghz CPU seems to me as overkill.

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by alert

Although Oleg said that SoW will utilize multicore CPU, it's not clear if he meant 2core or quad. It's verz hard to develop sim that will use quadcore at full power. I believe that E8400 will still be enough for very decent siming (+apropriate GF of course). 4x3Ghz CPU seems to me as overkill.

Man I'd really like for you to be right about an e8400 being enough for decent simming. Certainly it appears to overclock easily enough to somewhere near 3.6ghz. With all the complex modeling that seems to be going on in SoW_BoB, I speculate that more gigahertz is going to be a necessity. I'm hopeful Sow will be scalable for single core processors too. I saw somewhere that the minimum specs for the WW1 sim Rise of flight will be a dual core processor. That one may be a beast to run too.