New build = mediocre results (?)

[MentalIlness]

I think YOU are the primary target market for SLI my friend. :awe:

I was getting ready to post this exact thing.

I can see why you think its underwhelming though. Especially during 3D.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

What is your goal?

Are you trying to "win" at benchmarks, or to enjoy playing some games?

/thread

 

[taltamir]

I'm a little confused as to why I'm towards the bottom of the bell curve, as this isn't exactly crappy hardware. Nothing is overclocked, which may have something to do with it. Any ideas?

You are reading the curve wrong.
Take the first one for example. You have a score of 25877
The X axis is the SCORE axis and it does NOT begin from 0, it begins from 16000
The Y axis is how many people who have submitted their results have a similar result to you.

Above you is the ~27000 bar, this is probable people with a single GTX580 or an xfire/SLI of older hardware. Above that its all only SLI and xfire. Your card is about the second most powerful single GPU card... Highest score is 33,474 (hover over the ~33,000 bar to see it) and you can bet its a multi GPU beast. Thing is, there is really no point to having that much processing power unless you want to do something crazy, like multi monitor 3d... or crysis.

people who post their results on 3dmark vantage tend to be big spenders and is not indicative of the general crowed. Your GPU is still faster then 90% of people out there at least.

 

[Idontcare]

It's not that 580 is underwhelming, your expectations are completely unrealistic. Even an HD6990 can barely exceed 100 fps at 1080P 4AA/16AF in non-3D mode in BF:BC2 (et al).
So there is no way you will ever be able play the latest modern games in 3D @ 120 fps with 4AA at 1080P. Plus I thought 3D works at 60Hz only? Either way, you will need to wait 3-5 years to be able to play today's modern titles in 3D at 120fps. Of course future titles will continue to push cards to their limits (as should be).

Just think about, could you play Doom 3, Oblivion, Far Cry 1, Crysis 1, Metro 2033 on the best single GPU at the time at 1080P 4AA at 120 fps? No.

I think YOU are the primary target market for SLI my friend. :awe:

^ dude know what he's talking about :thumbsup:

 

[taltamir]

So there is no way you will ever be able play the latest modern games in 3D @ 120 fps with 4AA at 1080P. Plus I thought 3D works at 60Hz only? Either way, you will need to wait 3-5 years to be able to play today's modern titles in 3D at 120fps. Of course future titles will continue to push cards to their limits (as should be).

3D works by alternating rednering of the same image at a different view angle (one per eye). So 60FPS 3D is actually 120FPS. 60FPS 3D requires a 120Hz monitor.
thus 120FPS 3D would require a 240Hz monitor. Those do not exist, in fact not only do they not exist, but current output cables (DVI dual link & Display port) cannot output fast enough for it.

I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that when he said 120FPS 3d he meant 60FPS 3D (a term I just invented, there is currently no official / widespread differentiation between 3DFPS and raw FPS)

 

[Idontcare]

3D works by alternating rednering of the same image at a different view angle (one per eye). So 60FPS 3D is actually 120FPS. 60FPS 3D requires a 120Hz monitor.
thus 120FPS 3D would require a 240Hz monitor. Those do not exist, in fact not only do they not exist, but current output cables (DVI dual link & Display port) cannot output fast enough for it.

I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that when he said 120FPS 3d he meant 60FPS 3D

Since 3D is an optical illusion with this technology I have got to assume the minimum FPS is all the more critical to maintaining the illusion than is the average FPS. I'd love to play DAO in 3D but my GTX460 could barely muster 30FPS in 2D at 1920x1200...its gonna cost me plenty of dough to get a system that can do DOA in 3D.

 

[taltamir]

Since 3D is an optical illusion with this technology I have got to assume the minimum FPS is all the more critical to maintaining the illusion than is the average FPS.

AFAIK it is designed to maintain synch above all else (otherwise the results would be catastrophically bad).
This means that if your frame-rate drops rather then losing sync and breaking the optical illusion, it will simply have to repeat the previous frames for both eyes. Meaning that a slight FPS drop causes noticeable jitter without breaking the 3D effect.

Optical illusions are not all bad though. Motion video is an optical illusion as well. The video doesn't actually move (like a real object IRL would), instead the illusion of motion is created by showing many still images per second.

BTW, the reason why they do not allow 3D on typical 60Hz monitors (30FPS per eye) is because it has such poor results.
Even in 120Hz monitors (603DFPS) a lot of people find it very harsh. Headaches, nausea, eye pain, etc. In 30FPS/60Hz it is downright unbearable.

That being said, I covet it. If I had the money I would be playing in surround 3d with a multi GPU setup

 

[Barfo]

The GTX 580 is underwhelming compared to what?

Most AT nerds are running 6 way crossfire 6990s, a single 580 is for the unwashed masses.

 

[RussianSensation]

3D works by alternating rednering of the same image at a different view angle (one per eye). So 60FPS 3D is actually 120FPS. 60FPS 3D requires a 120Hz monitor.

Thanks for the clarification taltamir. :thumbsup:

Hardware Heaven actually ran a 3D benchmark of Left 4 Dead 2. A single GTX580 is able to achieve 58 fps avg / 49 fps min at 8AA. At 1920x1080 8AA, a single GTX480 gets about 100 fps at Xbitlabs without 3D. If we assume that GTX580 would scale linearly at 15%-18% performance advantage that it has over GTX480 on avg., for estimation purposes, the GTX580 may have achieved 115-118 fps under the same scenario (i.e., non-3D). This implies that this game suffered a 2x performance hit by going to 3D at 8AA 1080P. L4D2 isn't a graphically intensive game though.

If we apply this 2x the performance hit to modern games, which can often barely manage 50-60 fps with everything maxed out, then a single GTX580 would only be running at 25-30 fps in 3D mode in those games. That's not even discussing games like Dragon Age 2 with VH settings where a single GPU card can't achieve > 40 fps in non-3D mode.