M$ wont offer native hybrid crossfire or hybrid SLI support in Windows 7

faxon

Platinum Member
May 23, 2008
2,109
1
81
Text

im going to dinner now. will comment on it once i read the whole story when i get back. i skimmed it though, figured it was worth posting. also, what would this mean for the high end versions? does this mean they dont support crossfire or SLI period, or is this more of a low end issue?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,225
9,987
126
From the comments:
Fret not...
There's a guy on TechPowerUp forums who ran a 4870x2 with a 4850, topped off with a 8800 running as PhysX, all stable under Alpha Windows 7 (and not the most recent release either). Not to mention the fact that they all played well with each other, and churned out some insane synthetic bench scores!

So is it confirmed that Windows 7 no longer has the limitation of a single WDDM driver, so that one is able to mix and match both ATI and NV GPUs in the same system? That would be sweet. It would also open to door to Hydra, running on a sort of cross-vendor crossfire/SLI arrangement.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
That news item strikes me as odd. MS specifically added support for it in Vista SP1, it doesn't make much sense that they'd take it away a year later.
 

IlllI

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2002
4,927
10
81
doesnt seem like a big deal. i'd assume the hardware manufacturers would supply the drivers etc to implement this with their own cards
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
to the point where the software company has branded the technologies ?unstable? in its Windows 7 documentation.
Well...
MS name is being dragged through the mud every time there is system instability, the truth of it is, the latest itiration of windows are even most stable then many open source OSes and definitely more stable then apple... but they have to deal with terrible drivers and badly written software that causes damage despite microsofts excellent stability. Don't get me wrong, MS was terrible in that regard in the past... but we are talking win95 and 98 here... by XP MS had the most stable OS on the market.

multi GPU technologies are crap, they are terribly designed and executed, and MS should not just sit down and take flac for manufacturers trying to sell multiple units to the same customer.
 

Majic 7

Senior member
Mar 27, 2008
668
0
0
This is about adding a lowend card to an IGP system and crossfiring or SLIing the two, not crossfire or SLI. This has no effect on the standard stuff.
 

shangshang

Senior member
May 17, 2008
830
0
0
Originally posted by: taltamir
to the point where the software company has branded the technologies ?unstable? in its Windows 7 documentation.
Well...
MS name is being dragged through the mud every time there is system instability, the truth of it is, the latest itiration of windows are even most stable then many open source OSes and definitely more stable then apple... but they have to deal with terrible drivers and badly written software that causes damage despite microsofts excellent stability. Don't get me wrong, MS was terrible in that regard in the past... but we are talking win95 and 98 here... by XP MS had the most stable OS on the market.

multi GPU technologies are crap, they are terribly designed and executed, and MS should not just sit down and take flac for manufacturers trying to sell multiple units to the same customer.

I agree with your MS assessment. A lot of people, from the linux amatueur to the Apple boy and their grannies, are unfairly giving MS a bad rep. Linux and Mac have their niches and within their niches, Windows can't touch them. But for the majority of PC users, aka your internet browers, word processors, and gamers, you should thank MS for giving you Windows. I would like to see you PC "power users" and gamers work on a Mac, and let's see how long your enthusiasm will last there. And on linux, after 10 years of evolution, the linux kernel is still rock stable as before, but most guys are still trying to figure out how to install it correctly and get online with it. Outside of the small corporate corner and university lab, linux is still a novelty OS for end users.

Wake me up when yall see the Mac and linux support all the latest hardwares with more stability and performance than Windows.
 

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
36
91
Originally posted by: Majic 7
This is about adding a lowend card to an IGP system and crossfiring or SLIing the two, not crossfire or SLI. This has no effect on the standard stuff.

This is also about power consumption. I was hoping that hybrid SLI was going to mark the beginning of us seeing IGPs included on all motherboards from lowly mATX boards without a PEG slot at all to high end SLI/CF boards with multiple PEG slots. It's disappointing to see that MS is removing native support instead of pushing NV/AMD to make their technologies better. MS is the perfect third party to drive this type of tech between the 'big three' (Intel, AMD, and NV) because we know the big three won't play nicely with each other on their own .

Originally posted by: shangshang
Wake me up when yall see the Mac and linux support all the latest hardwares with more stability and performance than Windows.

I think you might be in the wrong forum. This is Video Cards and Graphics, not Operating Systems. I don't think you will find many (if any) people here that would argue that Linux or OSX is a superior gaming platform over Windows XP/Vista. There isn't even much talk about OpenGL vs. Direct3D for gaming these days...