SLI or "CROSSFIRE"

[golem]

Sorry, I was wrong about the 100% faster. But if it is dropping every other frame, then what's the point? It like reading a book fast by skipping every 2nd page.

 

[golem]

Found the thread at Beyond3d where they discuss this

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24626

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: golem
Sorry, I was wrong about the 100% faster. But if it is dropping every other frame, then what's the point? It like reading a book fast by skipping every 2nd page.

The composition engine makes sure the 2 images are put together properly. The crossfire ability is already there through the chip on the motherboard. The BIOS and Catalyst drivers had to be modified for this. It's not just a simple hack or anything. So the hack is not dropping frames or anything (that would be retarded). If its a dropped frame you couldn't count it in the FPS anyways.

Also, you will notice the hacked version to be SLIGHTLY slower than the real crossfire. This may be due to computing needed to be made up for the lack of the composition engine.

 

[golem]

If you're correct, and the Beyond3d thread is wrong, wouldn't there be major image corruption w/o the compositing chip?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I may not be correct though. The Beyond3d guys have a point, but I was reading some other site which wrote a paragraph about these benches (I closed cuz my manager came in) which says that the frames are still being rendered.

I can't be sure. I'm going to read the HKEPC article now...

Edit: If what you're saying is true then in SFR or Tiled rendering, you wuold have half the picture gone??? eep lol

 

[golem]

Rage3d thread sort of confirms what the Beyond3d thread says

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33821527

 

[golem]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
I may not be correct though. The Beyond3d guys have a point, but I was reading some other site which wrote a paragraph about these benches (I closed cuz my manager came in) which says that the frames are still being rendered.

I can't be sure. I'm going to read the HKEPC article now...

Edit: If what you're saying is true then in SFR or Tiled rendering, you wuold have half the picture gone??? eep lol

Yeah. LOL. you'd probably have a checkerboard screen of missing tiles.

 

[Gamingphreek]

You SLI the two because you can LATER get a SECOND R520 and then you get two R520s. This is like getting 1 GB of RAM for now and sticking the 2nd GB later. You're just trying random things to bash this feature of Crossfire.

In the meantime you are essentially running 2x X800's and making the R520 run slow as hell. Your logic is so flawed.

I just said read the articles. If you haven't read them and you're telling me I'm behind, then maybe you should examine your own knowledge.

#1. I cannot read chinese plus symbols.
#2. I was not referring to crossfire when i said you are behind the times. I was referring to SLI, if you read my post you would understand this.

I know 0? More like YOU know 0. ATI does support SFR. Read Anand's article on Crossfire. Not only does it support SPLIT SCREEN, it supports scissor-style (checkerboard) scalable up to 64 GPUs. If you read the commentary there, this is clearly a more flexible style of rendering frames compared to NVidia's SFR and AFR.

SOrry. I do not know what i was thinking before, wasn't paying any attention i guess.

Thanks for restating what I said 3 times. It is an IMPROVEMENT to old SLI. In fact it is a significant improvement that they added on SLI, and yes it is very advanced. Crossfire is very advanced too. Your point?

Ok. Well there are only so many ways you can link together 2 cards. I dont see improving on the old standard a bad thing, especially if you have rights to it and can get it out months earlier.

Let's see, you're the one throwing out random insults trying to call me someone outdated and not following news, etc. Then you call Crossfire's ability to link different cards stupid. It may be pointless from a consumer standpoint, but its an ADD ON feature. Who cares if you don't use it, this doesn't mean Crossfire sucks.

I did not throw random insults out. Your posts show that you are merely reciting random facts together with no logical outcome.
THe ability to link different cards together is stupid. THink about this. Why would you even need this.

If you have an X800XL and you buy an R520 for the sole purpose of Crossfire, it would be much faster (i am guessing) to use the single R520. Because the faster card is clocked down to the slower card. If, somehow, the slower card could do 20% of the work and the faster 80 or something like that, then using 2 different cards would be an awesome feature.

Crossfire is nonexistent technology? Before I bash you for your poor logic there and misunderstanding of epistemology, I should just say that it is very existent, and if it weren't we wouldn't be discussing it. It may not be OUT for consumers, but that doesn't mean its non existent. Then whats this R520 talk if its non existent? I'm going to plug in my non existent graphics card once ATI release "it" in September. Awesome!

It is non-existant as in vapor-ware. Do you see either of these technologies on the market? I sure dont.

-Kevin

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
It is non-existant as in vapor-ware. Do you see either of these technologies on the market? I sure dont.

-Kevin

The term "vaporware" is being misused a lot lately.


<jargon> /vay'pr-weir/ Products announced far in advance of
any release (which may or may not actually take place). The
term came from Atari users and was later applied by
Infoworld to Microsoft's continuous lying about Microsoft
Windows.


Half-Life 2 was "vaporware" for quite awhile. Duke Nukem Forever is "vaporware". CrossFire is definitely NOT vaporware as I believe their original launch date was sometime this month. Even if it's pushed back a couple of months, that hardly makes it vaporware.

Originally posted by: golem
Sorry, I was wrong about the 100% faster. But if it is dropping every other frame, then what's the point? It like reading a book fast by skipping every 2nd page.

The CrossFire performance mystery

ATI distributed a special driver to their partners prior to the Computex launch that was designed to simulate CrossFire performance, by only rendering odd frames (effectively doubling the frame rate and simulating AFR performance). Although we can't confirm that we also ran with this driver back at Computex, chances are we probably did. But more importantly, the reviews you've seen where a pair of slave cards are used aren't actually testing CrossFire, they are simply simulating the performance of CrossFire by rendering half the frames.

We have learned however that the performance of this special driver is actually virtually identical to AFR performance with CrossFire actually working, but it is important to understand that when CrossFire is eventually released - you won't be able to just flash the BIOS on a slave card and have it work as a master card. And obviously, you won't be able to use just any cards in CrossFire mode, you'll have to stick with a X850 or X800 master card.