First glance at 3870X2 Crossfire X results.

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: nRollo
Somebody seems to have some misinformation going on, that much is sure.

You would certainly know all about that.

I just turned on FRAPs, fired up six games, and vsynch worked in every one. I had DX9, DX10, and one OpenGL in the mix.

Go figure.

Name these games. It did work on many (but not all) of the blockbuster titles I tried, but if I went to something a bit older or tried a game that wasn't so popular, it almost never worked.

To be honest though, I doubt you would notice even if it wasn't working.

It is of course possible that they fixed something in the last few months, but there were occasional complaints about it here as late as September or October last year. I haven't seen anything about it in their driver release notes. At any rate, the comment on that SLIZone page was nonsense, and I would not have bought my cards when I did if I had the correct information on that issue.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: CP5670

Originally posted by: nRollo
Somebody seems to have some misinformation going on, that much is sure.

You would certainly know all about that.

I just turned on FRAPs, fired up six games, and vsynch worked in every one. I had DX9, DX10, and one OpenGL in the mix.

Go figure.

Name these games. It did work on many (but not all) of the blockbuster titles I tried, but if I went to something a bit older or tried a game that wasn't so popular, it almost never worked.

To be honest though, I doubt you would notice even if it wasn't working.

The games I played were Lost Planet, Crysis (at 10X7 medium), Jericho, Enemy Territory Quake Wars, UT3, and FEAR. It's all I have on my system, but I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing. (although Quake Wars was locked on 30fps)

OTOH- you've gone from saying it "didn't work on 80% of games" to "it doesn't work on not popular games". Pretty big difference there.

What titles specifically? Any shooters? If I have them, I'll load'em up and test them. If I don't, I'll buy them or ask NVIDIA's SLi staff direct.

I don't think the "issue" with SLi and vsynch is anywhere near what you're trying to make it out to be, and I think the readers of this board deserve accurate information.

Do you?

 

[apoppin]

You only have 6 games installed?
:Q


really?

Each one a poster child for twtimtbp program




Which one is your favorite?

For great running DX10 with all the 'effects', i'd recommend Hg:L ... it would FLY on your system ... the Witcher is just a good RPG with good DX9

I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing.

Why no AA?

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: nRollo
The games I played were Lost Planet, Crysis (at 10X7 medium), Jericho, Enemy Territory Quake Wars, UT3, and FEAR. It's all I have on my system, but I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing. (although Quake Wars was locked on 30fps)

Those are all among commonly benchmarked games, but I'll admit that FEAR was one of the games where it was broken for me.

OTOH- you've gone from saying it "didn't work on 80% of games" to "it doesn't work on popular games". Pretty big difference there.

Not in my case. Roughly 80% of my games are ones that are not commonly benchmarked on sites, either because they are older or are simply not well known.

What titles specifically? Any shooters? If I have them, I'll load'em up and test them. If I don't, I'll buy them or ask NVIDIA's SLi staff direct.

I play the SCP version of Freespace 2 fairly often, which was probably where it annoyed me the most. Some others I can think of where it was particularly noticeable are the first three Splinter Cell games and NFS: Most Wanted.

I don't thing the "issue" with SLi and vsynch is anywhere near what you're trying to make it our to be, and I think the readers of this board deserve accurate information.

Do you?

Indeed. Perhaps you should leave the board in that case, as you said you would?

However, I will retract my statements on that issue if one of the other posters here (someone not on Nvidia's payroll) can confirm that it's fixed. That would indicate that something has changed with this during the last six months or so, which would be very good to see.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: apoppin
You only have 6 games installed?
:Q


really?

Each one a poster child for twtimtbp program




Which one is your favorite?

I formatted and installed Vista 64 when I built this box at the end of December. How many games should I have installed in the last 6 weeks? Between being a Dad, my real career, posting/moderating, other hobbies, caring for properties, I game maybe half an hour to an hour a day. Two is a long session for me. Those are most of my newest games, finished Bioshock and don't like WIC and Supreme Commander. I'll install others when I get bored with these.

Originally posted by: apoppin

For great running DX10 with all the 'effects', i'd recommend Hg:L ... it would FLY on your system ... the Witcher is just a good RPG with good DX9

I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing.

Why no AA?

[/quote]

I only play shooters really, not an RPG kind of guy. I played without AA to be sure my framerate should be well above 60fps and that vsynch was capping it.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: apoppin
You only have 6 games installed?
:Q


really?

Each one a poster child for twtimtbp program




Which one is your favorite?

I formatted and installed Vista 64 when I built this box at the end of December. How many games should I have installed in the last 6 weeks? Between being a Dad, my real career, posting/moderating, other hobbies, caring for properties, I game maybe half an hour to an hour a day. Two is a long session for me. Those are most of my newest games, finished Bioshock and don't like WIC and Supreme Commander. I'll install others when I get bored with these.

Originally posted by: apoppin

For great running DX10 with all the 'effects', i'd recommend Hg:L ... it would FLY on your system ... the Witcher is just a good RPG with good DX9

I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing.

Why no AA?

I only play shooters really, not an RPG kind of guy. I played without AA to be sure my framerate should be well above 60fps and that vsynch was capping it.

[/quote]

i see, i thought your rig could also manage AA in most of those games - except Crysis. My Error.

i have about 20 games installed - of course, i installed Vista way after you did
---and all i seem to be doing in my spare time is benchmarking
-tonight i will game ... my CrossFire is set up and working fine ... best of all my headache has lessened [since Monday]

. . . and my games have PILED up ... i just got Jade Empire and Dungeon Siege II/Xpack this week [for $29 shipped] ... a literal pile of games to play.


H:gL is a shooter ... not a RPG ... i think you'd like it till you get bored with it ... i spent many many hours with it ... finally playing thru the 2nd time on Nightmare and having finished it several times.
-it is has DX10 visuals much nicer then LP imo - i can run it fully maxed at 16x10 and even add some AA/16xAF [!!!]

You never did mention your favorite recent game ... i didn't care very much for BioShock ... Stalker was my GotY for '07 [S.I. got my X-pack vote]

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: apoppin
You only have 6 games installed?
:Q


really?

Each one a poster child for twtimtbp program




Which one is your favorite?

I formatted and installed Vista 64 when I built this box at the end of December. How many games should I have installed in the last 6 weeks? Between being a Dad, my real career, posting/moderating, other hobbies, caring for properties, I game maybe half an hour to an hour a day. Two is a long session for me. Those are most of my newest games, finished Bioshock and don't like WIC and Supreme Commander. I'll install others when I get bored with these.

Originally posted by: apoppin

For great running DX10 with all the 'effects', i'd recommend Hg:L ... it would FLY on your system ... the Witcher is just a good RPG with good DX9

I played without AA and pretty much stayed at 60fps and noticed no tearing.

Why no AA?

I only play shooters really, not an RPG kind of guy. I played without AA to be sure my framerate should be well above 60fps and that vsynch was capping it.

i see, i thought your rig could also manage AA in most of those games - except Crysis

about 20 games installed ... like me
-of course, i installed Vista way after you did
---and all i seem to be doing in my spare time is benchmarking
-tonight i will game ... my CrossFire is set up and working fine ... best of all my headache has lessened [since Monday]

. . . and my games have PILED up ... i just got Jade Empire and Dungeon Siege II/Xpack this week [for $29 shipped] ... a literal pile of games to play.


H:gL is a shooter ... not a RPG ... i think you'd like it till you get bored with it ... i spent many many hours with it ... finally playing thru the 2nd time on Nightmare and having finished it several times.
-it is has DX10 visuals much nicer then LP imo - i can run it fully maxed at 16x10 and even add some AA/16xAF [!!!][/quote]

Ya, I can handle the AA. My thought was "I'll play these games at settings that would be most likely to cause tearing and sky high framerates for this experiment".

 

[apoppin]

OK ... so what was your favorite recent game?

i didn't care very much for BioShock ... Stalker was my GotY for '07 and S.I. got my X-pack vote

 

[BFG10K]

OTOH- you've gone from saying it "didn't work on 80% of games" to "it doesn't work on not popular games". Pretty big difference there.

Popular games (i.e. benchmarked) are a minority within commercially available titles. If anything he's being generous with 80% as it's more like 95% or even 99%.

For every benchmarked game there are probably 99 other commercial titles that aren't benchmarked.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

OTOH- you've gone from saying it "didn't work on 80% of games" to "it doesn't work on not popular games". Pretty big difference there.

Popular games (i.e. benchmarked) are a minority within commercially available titles. If anything he's being generous with 80% as it's more like 95% or even 99%.

For every benchmarked game there are probably 99 other commercial titles that aren't benchmarked.

It's pretty easy to make such allegations, I haven't seen any links to credible sources though.

So what I have to go on right now:
1. Every game I tried, vsynch worked.
2. It says on the NVIDIA website it works for every game.
3. Some guys in a forum saying it doesn't work most of the time.

I say "Show us some proof".

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: apoppin
OK ... so what was your favorite recent game?

i didn't care very much for BioShock ... Stalker was my GotY for '07 and S.I. got my X-pack vote

Bioshock was my favorite game last year. Stalker is OK, too much an RPG for me.

 

[taltamir]

what does GOTY mean? anyways stalker sucked.

there is a very simple solution to this argument. Name specific instances. if nRollo names some games where it works for him, and appopin names games where it doesn't work. We could get a clear picture of the situation. rather then "80%/90%/99% doesn't/does work" statements being flung about.

 

[BFG10K]

It's pretty easy to make such allegations, I haven't seen any links to credible sources though.

:roll:

Seriously, in your mind how many PC games do you think there are out there?

I say "Show us some proof".

I never made any claims about vsync, only to point out that benchmarked games are a fractional minority to those that aren?t.

1. Every game I tried, vsynch worked.

I would assume you also checked proper SLI scaling was working (in particular AFR) and the driver was not falling back to SFR or single card mode?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: taltamir
what does GOTY mean? anyways stalker sucked.

there is a very simple solution to this argument. Name specific instances. if nRollo names some games where it works for him, and appopin names games where it doesn't work. We could get a clear picture of the situation. rather then "80%/90%/99% doesn't/does work" statements being flung about.

Game of the Year

STALKER was almost pure RPG disguised as a FPS ... i could sense those 10-sided dice clicking in the background. BioShock was too shallow for me - it was OK - but it was not the "Spiritual Sucessor" to SS2.

... and leave me OUT of this ... i have a AMD GPU
... um .. two GPUs ... i can't verify as i never use vsynch anyway ... almost never.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

It's pretty easy to make such allegations, I haven't seen any links to credible sources though.

:roll:

Seriously, in your mind how many PC games do you think there are out there?

100s, but that doesn't have anything to do with this discussion.

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I say "Show us some proof".

I never made any claims about vsync, only to point out that benchmarked games are a fractional minority to those that aren?t.

Again, that doesn't have anything to do with this discussion, as I never claimed benchmarked games are a majority of games, and never would.

Originally posted by: BFG10K

1. Every game I tried, vsynch worked.

I would assume you also checked proper SLI scaling was working (in particular AFR) and the driver was not falling back to SFR or single card mode?

Why would I do that? Do you have a link to some credible source that says SLi achieves vsynch by not using AFR? If you give me one, I'll check it out. Otherwise I don't see any reason to bother.

I knew this rang a bell with me- there was a big debate about it on the video forums at nZone wherein some were saying it wasn't "compatible":

http://forums.nvidia.com/index...show=&st=&#entry116525

Vsync is compatible with AFR. But the problem is the way Vsync works. Since you are limiting frames. AFR cannot make the maximum amount of swaps. Add into the fact that with Vsync enabled. Any time you drop below your monitors refresh your framerates will be cut in half.

Unfortunately your going to find that vsync is going to cause some issues which prevent optimal performance when using a multi GPU system.

Which makes sense.

 

[qbfx]

As an NVIDIA Focus Group member, nRollo is given free graphics cards and motherboards by NVIDIA Corp. nm

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: qbfx
As an NVIDIA Focus Group member, nRollo is given free graphics cards and motherboards by NVIDIA Corp. nm

My association with NVIDIA means I hav e access to more information than anyone else* here qbfx, not less.

Do you have a link to a credible source that disproves anything I've said?




*except AT staff, of course


In any case, this is the 3870X2 thread, not the SLI vsynch thread. If anyone has a link to evidence vsynch isn't what I've said it is, I'd be happy to discuss this in another thread

 

[taltamir]

while his association with nvidia might cause him to be biased to display them in a positive manner, all he has done so far is ask people to provide a link to a credible source to back up their claim... and countered claims like "all the games I tested didn't work" with
well all the game I tested worked". that's not closing your eyes in the face of facts, thats merely ASKING for facts. for all we know both statements could be correct if both people only tested a few games who happened to work/not work.

Such a personal attack would only be justified had he been given links to credible sources that contradict him and pretended that they didn't exist. (and even though it would be justified, it would still be improper).

 

[BFG10K]

Why would I do that? Do you have a link to some credible source that says SLi achieves vsynch by not using AFR? If you give me one, I'll check it out. Otherwise I don't see any reason to bother.

You were the one that made the claim vsync is working. That claim needs more than just checking the framerate counter and/or tearing as confirmation. If the cards are operating in single card mode to get vsync that isn't really SLI + vsync working.

That and vsync is generally useless without triple buffering and trying to use that could be sketchy at best, especially with AFR, if it even works at all.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Why would I do that? Do you have a link to some credible source that says SLi achieves vsynch by not using AFR? If you give me one, I'll check it out. Otherwise I don't see any reason to bother.

You were the one that made the claim vsync is working. That claim needs more than just checking the framerate counter and/or tearing as confirmation. If the cards are operating in single card mode to get vsync that isn't really SLI + vsync working.

That and vsync is generally useless without triple buffering and trying to use that could be sketchy at best, especially with AFR, if it even works at all.

BFG- this is Off Topic for this thread? As a potential Moderator, you need to be able to distinguish when threads are being de-railed, and you're the one doing the de-railing here.

Like I said, I'll discuss SLi and vsynch with you in another thread if you can provide credible links to back you speculation.

I only want to discuss the 3870X2 here.

In the spirit of "on topic":

vsync is generally useless without triple buffering

For the 3870X2 that may not be an option:
http://www.gamecritics.com/tri...g-performance-for-free

There is one minor downside: Triple buffering cannot be used with SLI or Crossfire (dual card) systems. This is because triple buffering doesn't work with the type of rendering used in those setups. Some people have gotten it to work in SLI, however, by forcing "split frame rendering" in the nVidia control panel under "3D settings".

There's no forcing split frame rendering with ATi drivers to date.

 

[Blacklash]

Last I heard ATi use supertiling and one manner of AFR, where nVidia may use 2 different types of AFR and split frame rendering. The user may assign this with nVidia cards. If ATi no longer uses supertiling someone correct me.

As far as Rollo goes, most of us already know he occasionally gets free gear from nVidia. It's in his sig That doesn't automatically invalidate everything he says IMO.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Last I heard ATi use supertiling and one manner of AFR, where nVidia may use 2 different types of AFR and split frame rendering. The user may assign this with nVidia cards. If ATi no longer uses supertiling someone correct me.

As far as Rollo goes, most of us already know he occasionally gets free gear from nVidia. It's in his sig That doesn't automatically invalidate everything he says IMO.

Here;s *why* some of us are suspicious [because of the past and now]:

Originally posted by: nRollo

I only want to discuss the 3870X2 here.

In the spirit of "on topic":

vsync is generally useless without triple buffering

For the 3870X2 that may not be an option:
http://www.gamecritics.com/tri...g-performance-for-free

There is one minor downside: Triple buffering cannot be used with SLI or Crossfire (dual card) systems. This is because triple buffering doesn't work with the type of rendering used in those setups. Some people have gotten it to work in SLI, however, by forcing "split frame rendering" in the nVidia control panel under "3D settings".

There's no forcing split frame rendering with ATi drivers to date.

notice his quote and his comment do not agree. The quote:
Triple buffering cannot be used with SLI or Crossfire (dual card) systems.

his comment:

For the 3870X2 that may not be an option:


and

There's no forcing split frame rendering with ATi drivers to date.

note how "lopsided" - only one side is presented

here's what he conveniently left out:

there is no Vsych/triple buffering with nvidia SLI/multi GPU solutions EITHER

 

[nRollo]

I specifically said I don't want to de-rail the post by talking about NVIDIA products further Apoppin', that is why I only referenced the 3870X2- it the topic of this thread.

If you have some information about the 3870X2 that is in contradiction to what I posted, I'll discuss it here.

I'll only discuss NVIDIA products in another thread, so as not to de-rail this one.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nRollo
I specifically said I don't want to de-rail the post by talking about NVIDIA products further Apoppin', that is why I only referenced the 3870X2- it the topic of this thread.

If you have some information about the 3870X2 that is in contradiction to what I posted, I'll discuss it here.

I'll only discuss NVIDIA products in another thread, so as not to de-rail this one.

i am not sure you get what i mean or are deliberately obfuscating what i am saying as before ... so i will try once more:

you said

For the 3870X2 that may not be an option:

and

There's no forcing split frame rendering with ATi drivers to date.

a truly fair and balanced poster would not imply by omission that nvidia's mulit-GPUs can use this option and AMD's cannot
-it was actually mentioned in your quote yet you omitted it

 

[nRollo]

There's no omission- my quote says it, I wouldn't have posted it if I was trying to hide anything.

Just posting about the topic card, happy to discuss SLi in another thread.