Nvidia GT280

[Codex]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by Codex

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

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.