SLI Technology..originated by who?

[Syringer]

From NVIDIA's wiki article..

In 2005 NVIDIA also took advantage of the high bandwidth of PCI-Express, to introduce a new technology called Scalable Link Interface (SLI). Under this system, two graphics cards can be combined, to theoretically double graphical performance (though actual "real-world" performance is usually slightly less). This has done much to re-establish NVIDIA's reputation among niche high end gamers. This system is similar to the Crossfire versions of ATI's new X1000 series.

Didn't 3dfx do this ages ago with their Voodoo2 series?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Yes... 3dfx is the correct answer. But after Nvidia bought 3dfx, they also bought the rights to SLI.

New to PCIe then, maybe?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Scan Line Interleave != Scalable Link Interface.

Same acronym doesn't mean same technology.

Though that is sad that most people don't know who 3dfx was anymore.

- M4H

 

[Syringer]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Yes... 3dfx is the correct answer. But after Nvidia bought 3dfx, they also bought the rights to SLI.

New to PCIe then, maybe?

Ha, haven't followed the video cards market since I got my Geforce 2 some 6 years ago.. Didn't realize there were two types of SLIs. What's the difference?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
Scan Line Interleave != Scalable Link Interface.

Same acronym doesn't mean same technology.

Though that is sad that most people don't know who 3dfx was anymore.

- M4H

Oh come on... You know that isn't true...

I'm still pissed that Glide went away, damn it.... It was so nice. All you had to do was "init Glide()" and it was initialized, instead of the three pages of crap you have to do now....

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: Syringer

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Yes... 3dfx is the correct answer. But after Nvidia bought 3dfx, they also bought the rights to SLI.

New to PCIe then, maybe?

Ha, haven't followed the video cards market since I got my Geforce 2 some 6 years ago.. Didn't realize there were two types of SLIs. What's the difference?

Current SLI works by either splitting the screen into two sections and having each card handle a chunk (SFR, Split Frame Rendering) or having the cards take turns handling entire frames (AFR, Alternate Frame Rendering)

eg:

SFR
111111 111111
111111 111122
111222 222222
222222 222222

AFR
111111 222222
111111 222222
111111 222222
111111 222222

3dfx's worked back in the day when the video card only did the final rendering pass to pixels, so each card did a scanline and they got pieced together by the analog VGA cable.

SLI
111111
222222
111111
222222

@FullMetalChocobo - I wasn't big enough into coding back then to touch Glide, but looking at the code samples was night and day. Could always still write Glide code now and use a wrapper ...

- M4H