@B6: How far down the road is official SLI support?

[Blackdog_kt]

I never go for dual GPU setups and always prefer a single, beefier card.

Such setups do work in many games but they are often problematic to get right and by the time they are fixed, the cards might be obsolete.

Of course i don't mean high selling FPS titles or sims like DCS that also sell software to military clients (these companies can hire more people and get more work hours per month to fix the problems faster), but flight sims that are made by small teams of 20 people or so, like CoD and RoF.

RoF had troubles with SLI too for many months (maybe more than a year actually, just like CoD), i remember reading many requests and complaints about that too. There were also other issues as well, like "shimmering" ground textures at long range, improper use of multi-core CPUs (i think it was dual cores that crashed if the OS was win7 or vista), FM issues, CTDs, no FMB documentation, limited online playability and limited offline usability (there was no dynamic campaign and the flyables were fewer than what CoD has).

It all sounds very similar to the issues CoD has and it took about 18 months to really fix.

For me this means that given time and provided the teams stay in business, things do get fixed, and that's why i remain optimistic about CoD.
The main thing that kept me away from RoF was the micro-transaction model (i prefer to pay more and get complete expansions instead of buying planes separately) and the always online requirement, otherwise i might be flying it too.

However, to get back to the topic of SLI, since my preference is for this kind of games that are usually made by small teams, i know to expect a lengthy process of optimizations and fixes. So, i don't make upgrades that i can't be sure will be working and that's why i never use dual GPU setups.

If i was also playing a good deal of shooters or action games that are better funded and have lower graphic requirements in terms of view distance, map size, etc, then by all means i would think about SLI as well, but not when my primary focus is flight sims made by dedicated but small studios.

[von Pilsner]

Luthier said it was working a long time ago so I think that politely asking for SLI support is within reason.

If you think having a SLI setup is 'wrong' or 'bad' here is why I have an SLI system.

I purchased a SLI capable MB because I enjoy triple screen gaming. FLight sims and racing sims are very nice with super wide fov and trackIR. I am not rich so I build my system a piece at a time.

I don't want to keep using softth (as great as it is) because I want a hardware solution (nVidia 2D surround is what I'm shooting for [requires SLI] - just need 1 more monitor [or 3 new ones possibly ]). MatroxTH2GO had more limitations than just buying a 2nd card. As I understand it the super multimonitor nvidia cards are 2 GPUS in SLI mode on one card so I am not left with many options...

So there are valid reasons for SLI setups (even if you enjoy flight sims).

Cheers

[ATAG_Septic]

Hi all,

I'm using SLI with Cliffs currently (1.6 + hot-fix) and it seems with good effect. Both GPUs stay below 65c, and are used equally up to around 60%[this was incorrect, they go to 99%] . When I use one GPU it runs at 90-99% and much hotter.

Vram Memory usage is around 95% on both cards (they are on a 590). I get a few stutters but these are not from the alternate frame rendering, which appears fluid, this at very low level over London with everything on highest settings including SSAO and FXAA and all filtering off. The occasional stutter seems to occur to my unqualified eyes to be associated with loading a new map tile or object but not the SLI.

For me SLI works but might work better if we can get a proper profile.

Cheers Chaps.

Septic.

Nice setup there Von Pilsner, Congratulations! May I ask, do you need to connect and hide the X52 Joystick to enable the throttle to work? It seems I do.

[Stublerone]

I just say to everyone asking me: Warning! Shit idea with sli!!!Warning!!!

Just waste of time, resources, performance, money...even for triple monitoring.

As long as sli isn't working 100% which is technically not possible atm, better drive with a good single gpu. No advantage from memory, no advantage elsewhere!
Only for guys, who want to waste time in finding solutions to play instead of just playing. Please never upgrade your system with sli with the intention to safe money. It is simply a bad idea. The nerd guys with sli do not buy sli, because they need it. They just buy it to max out the limit to show others. It is their hobby to show balls in hardware. They will never buy older cards to upgrade system. So: As long as the general idea of sli will be done on other ways and with other intention(e.g. For using one gpu for one monitor seperately), it will never get satisfying. There are simply too much ideas and too much possibilities, which they would like to offer. That is, why it simply never reaches a single gpu like performance.

Just my opinion. If techniques do not change, it will not get satisfying. And you can theoretically do a quad sli with some 560's and CloD will not run much faster than before.

[Stublerone]

Just edit: Doesn't it sound strange, that your SLI is using 95% vram on both cards with 3gb each? You can simply see: With 2 lower cards with 1500 mb vram, you will be again bottlenecked, as u cannot use the other vram. Not very effective and that is, why sli isn't providing a way better performance on smaller sli rigs as desired.

And this is VERY often the case in games, that it do not take advantage of the vram. Normally the guys do not see it, as current games are not using a lot mor than 1 GB vram. But this is waste ...

[ATAG_Septic]

Originally Posted by Stublerone

Just edit: Doesn't it sound strange, that your SLI is using 95% vram on both cards with 3gb each? You can simply see: With 2 lower cards with 1500 mb vram, you will be again bottlenecked, as u cannot use the other vram. Not very effective and that is, why sli isn't providing a way better performance on smaller sli rigs as desired.

And this is VERY often the case in games, that it do not take advantage of the vram. Normally the guys do not see it, as current games are not using a lot mor than 1 GB vram. But this is waste ...

I try not too risk a disagreement on the 1c forums but; The memory is not wasted if both GPUs are using it. Half of it would be wasted if you are not using SLI (and have two GPUs) as each GPU only accesses its own Vram.

I do of course know this to be true because I read it on the internet

Cheers,

Septic.

[Stublerone]

What i wanted to say: Smaller cards are sufficiently using their vram.

A correction from my side concerning this: As cards are getting larger vram, multi gpu can be used without any limits, because every card has enough. Smaller cards in current sli state are less efficient, because they get bottlenecks and up to now and with current techniques, it will not change very soon.

That is why I always suggest not to upgrade with sli. Perhaps this changes, but i bet, that it will take several more years to take it into consideration without these doubts. I was not referring to your system, because you have too much reserves. U just can see, that it is not efficiently scaled and this is often the case.

Concerning sorround: New nvidias also have them ready for surround gaming, but sorry: I am also an nvidia guy normally, but when you talk about sorround gaming, eyefinity is the betterbsolution and ati cards are performing way better in high resolutions by nature. So, we have to wait for the real kepler to evaluate their behaviour.

Up to now, the 680 dies against 7970 in high res or better say ultra hgj res with triple monitor setup.

[von Pilsner]

Originally Posted by Stublerone

I just say to everyone asking me: Warning! Shit idea with sli!!!Warning!!!

Just waste of time, resources, performance, money...even for triple monitoring.

As long as sli isn't working 100% which is technically not possible atm, better drive with a good single gpu. No advantage from memory, no advantage elsewhere!
Only for guys, who want to waste time in finding solutions to play instead of just playing. Please never upgrade your system with sli with the intention to safe money. It is simply a bad idea. The nerd guys with sli do not buy sli, because they need it. They just buy it to max out the limit to show others. It is their hobby to show balls in hardware. They will never buy older cards to upgrade system. So: As long as the general idea of sli will be done on other ways and with other intention(e.g. For using one gpu for one monitor seperately), it will never get satisfying. There are simply too much ideas and too much possibilities, which they would like to offer. That is, why it simply never reaches a single gpu like performance.

Just my opinion. If techniques do not change, it will not get satisfying. And you can theoretically do a quad sli with some 560's and CloD will not run much faster than before.

OK, so how do I get nVidia surround without a SLI config?

[BigC208]

Originally Posted by von Pilsner

OK, so how do I get nVidia surround without a SLI config?

GTX680 to the rescue! Bought one a month ago. Turned my three landscape oriented 1680x1050 monitors around so now they're portrait. Hooked em all up to the gtx680 and voila! When I ran a single monitor (1600x1200, 22 inch crt)I had the the graphics set to the highest setting and consistently ran between 65 and 85fps. Now with Nvidia surround at 3352x1680 (custom bezzel correction resolution) I'm getting around 45-55 fps. The GTX680 also fixes the lack of good AA. FXAA looks very good and does not give a performance penalty.

[von Pilsner]

Originally Posted by BigC208

GTX680 to the rescue! Bought one a month ago. Turned my three landscape oriented 1680x1050 monitors around so now they're portrait. Hooked em all up to the gtx680 and voila! When I ran a single monitor (1600x1200, 22 inch crt)I had the the graphics set to the highest setting and consistently ran between 65 and 85fps. Now with Nvidia surround at 3352x1680 (custom bezzel correction resolution) I'm getting around 45-55 fps. The GTX680 also fixes the lack of good AA. FXAA looks very good and does not give a performance penalty.

Very nice setup! I am still using SoftTH at the moment for mine (cause my middle monitor is wrong native resolution) but I hope to get a new monitor next month (so I can properly enable nVidia surround). I noticed that when I check SLI support in Rise of FLight I get a fps boost even though I am not 'technically' in an SLI config at the moment so multi GPU support is working well for me in most games.

From: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...Force_GTX_690/
The GTX 690 has two GK104 Kepler GPUs arranged in an internal SLI configuration.

Thanks, but again that is using SLI technology... (although it is doing it on the card itself) I don't have any problems with my setup I was just responding to someones assertion that I can have nVidia triple head without SLI....