Nvidia releases Surround drivers (64- and 32-bit betas)

[Matrices]

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/258.69/258.69_desktop_win7_winvista_64bit_english_beta.exe

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/258.69/258.69_desktop_win7_winvista_32bit_english_beta.exe

 

[Matrices]

 

[Matrices]

I could only tinker for a half-hour before bailing for work so I only had the time to try BC2, World at War, and Serious Sam HD. Everything seemed to work, though Widescreenloader failed to load for me so World at War was stretched out like mad.

I averaged 45-60 FPS (Vsync and triple buffering on) in BC2 single player on the jungle map when it came to the actual shooting and fighting and smoke, but in the part preceding that, where you maneuver a boat through some rapids, the FPS tanked into the teens. Probably something to do with all the effects of water sloshing around. This was using 5760x1200 at 4xMSAA, everything max.

Serious Sam was unplayable at 8xAA, everything max, but I don't know what kind of 8xAA mode it tried to enable since that option doesn't even exist anymore in Nvidia drivers. Going to 4xAA smoothed things out considerably and I got 50 to 60 FPS.

I'm glad Nvidia has finally gotten this thing out the door. I went with Nvidia because there was no way I was going to play on three monitors with only one GPU, so the SLI requirement was a bonus, not a problem, for me, since it meant that Nvidia had to get multi-GPU Surround right, whereas ATI's implementation seems hit or miss. The SLI scaling hopefully proves itself superior to CF even moreso than in regular gaming, especially with the extra video RAM. And finally, yes, no Display Port.

Can't wait to go home and give it a more thorough run. Great to have coincided with the Steam sale!

 

[cbn]

Here is some more info.

http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/20...ailable-another-reason-to-love-pc-gaming.html

 

[zagood]

Your desk needs MOAR HEADPHONES.

What cards are you using? Overclocked?

 

[Matrices]

Haha, I have two headphones and one headset.

I am running two GTX 470 on water overclocked at 800 core and 1950 memory.

 

[aka1nas]

Going to try this with my GTX 260s when I get off work tonight.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I'm glad Nvidia has finally gotten this thing out the door. I went with Nvidia because there was no way I was going to play on three monitors with only one GPU, so the SLI requirement was a bonus, not a problem, for me, since it meant that Nvidia had to get multi-GPU Surround right, whereas ATI's implementation seems hit or miss. The SLI scaling hopefully proves itself superior to CF even moreso than in regular gaming, especially with the extra video RAM. And finally, yes, no Display Port.

Yea... more hardware and SLI (or Crossfire for that matter) means that it just has to work!

 

[Matrices]

Well, it does, and it's faster than Eyefinity in Crossfire mode (or I should say, it widens the performance gap even more than single monitor) according to the two places that have done the comparison so far - Tom's Hardware and PC Perspective.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Well, it does, and it's faster than Eyefinity in Crossfire mode (or I should say, it widens the performance gap even more than single monitor) according to the two places that have done the comparison so far - Tom's Hardware and PC Perspective.

I think it's pretty well know that two 480's will be faster than two 5870's. I was just saying that I doubt that adding more hardware and SLI necessarily makes it more stable as it's just introducing more potential issues, and that would go for Crossfire'd parts as well.

I think AMD has a bit mroe flexibility (but as you are saying, depending on the resolution you wouldn't want a single GPU anyway) than Nvidia. Nvidia has 3D, AMD has nothing for that. Nvidia cards from the GTX2xx seriies can use this. And so on and so on...

 

[*kjm]

I have used duel GPU's from both camps and still prefer single GPU's.... we will have to see how this works out.

 

[ronnn]

Looks good! Am surprised the bezel police haven't found this thread.