SLI and games running in a window

[imported_Maz]

With an SLI setup, are both cards used to render a game if the game is ran in a window?

I play a game called EvE Online and often I will operate two accounts at once in two windows rather than full screen... just wondering if SLI will be redundant in this situation.

 

[v8envy]

It gets more interesting than that. Unless you're running the premium graphics which just came out with Trinity very little of your video hardware is being used for Eve rendering. I get the same frame rates with a 256 meg DDR2 7600GT as with a 512 meg 8800GT. You'll still black screen and see 2 fps undocking from Jita no matter what you throw at it and big alliance battles will suck.

With premium graphics having a decent video card helps. However there isn't that much eyecandy, so even a single card is plenty (even with 3 clients open). SLI won't help as much as a faster CPU. E8400 and premium ram for you!

 

[imported_Maz]

Yeah I run a core 2 duo at 3.4'ish ghz with 2 gigs at 1000mhz 4-4-4-12 and I understand all the limitations of the game, as in jita lag (been in game for nearly 3 years now) and fleet lag etc etc... I'm not trying to improve that portion of the game really because I know there's nothing I can do. What I'm wondering is, and yes I do turn premium graphics on, do both video cards handle the load if your game is in a window. The eye candy may not be much but it's pretty inefficient imo, so the more power under the hood the better when trying to use shadows/hdr/bloom.

My guess is that SLI only applies to games running in full screen but thought I'd check. I'd love to get that confirmed.

 

[v8envy]

Asking google comes up with the following answer:

In some games, SLI works windowed. In other games it does nothing at best, and introduces graphical glitches at worst.

In other words, it's as bad as SLI full screen, except you have even more issues with more games. I'd be surprised if Eve benefited at all from SLI in full screen or windowed mode and would instead put money on graphical glitches and markedly worse performance. It's not that the eye candy is implemented poorly, it's just that it's targeted at low end hardware. One 7600GT is overkill even for three clients at once, SLI 8800GTs would be insanity.

Might be a better question for the eve-o forums. I'm sure someone there has tried it, and this is more of a game-specific question -- the answer in general seems to be: SLI works windowed mode for some games some of the time for some people.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: v8envy
It gets more interesting than that. Unless you're running the premium graphics which just came out with Trinity very little of your video hardware is being used for Eve rendering. I get the same frame rates with a 256 meg DDR2 7600GT as with a 512 meg 8800GT. You'll still black screen and see 2 fps undocking from Jita no matter what you throw at it and big alliance battles will suck.

With premium graphics having a decent video card helps. However there isn't that much eyecandy, so even a single card is plenty (even with 3 clients open). SLI won't help as much as a faster CPU. E8400 and premium ram for you!

That's mainly because features like AA are currently not working on the new client. I ended up disabling SLI and running 3 monitors because that ended up being a lot more useful.

 

[imported_Maz]

I didn't have much luck searching google... maybe I just couldn't come up with the right term.

I disagree with you about hardware requirements for premium content on eve. The premium content models and textures are no problem at all, but when enabling shadows/HDR/bloom there is a big performance difference between my 7600gt (150fps drops to 30fps) and my friends 8800gt (100fps with all that on). Therefor it stands to reason that I might get a slight boost in frames (even an additional 10fps would be a welcomed improvement) when using those features on SLI, if SLI will work in a windowed game, and that game doesn't crap out with SLI. Any who, it was really a side note about eve online. I'm only gonna run 2 7600gt's because I picked up a second one for 20 dollars, no reason not to do it at that price.