Thinking about surround with 470 SLI... No AA required?

[BallaTheFeared]

I'm thinking of getting two more of the screens I currently have, but I'm hesitant. Both because of my vram limitation and because I'm not sure the games I play would really benefit from a triple screen setup as it seems more for people who play mostly racing sims.

I play mostly RPGs, RTSs, FPSs, and LoL.

It's hard to find any real reviews of 470 surround in SLI, but the ones I've seen shown it to actually beat 5870 CF (probably 1gb models)

So the real question is, assuming 470s clocked to around 900/1800/2100 would handle the resolutions with lower settings such as AA and perhaps a few others... Is a triple screen setup even worth it? Often the side screens just show walls like in racing sims, so I'm not sure if I'd actually enjoy it. Also the bars seem like they would get extremely annoying rather quickly... Especially in games like Skyrim where there really is no place for the bars unlike racing sims where the window has bars anyways lol...

I'll probably run the 470's until the end of the year and hopefully get a steal on two 28nm cards during black friday.


I'm only looking to spend about $260 which is what two more screens would cost, most likely I'd wouldn't get anything more than $200 per card now if I decided to sell them and for 1080p I currently do not need anymore gpu power.

Thoughts?

 

[Elfear]

I honestly think you'd be vram limited at that res unless you want to turn all the settings down and then what's the point?

At a weak 1600p (compared to 5760x1080) and with high-res texture mods, Skyrim was using 2.2GB of memory.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

All settings? AA and imagine quality as well?

I can live without going overboard on high res textures, but then again what is the advantage of having three screens over one? Is there more immersion, or do the bars kill that?

Currently in Skyrim I do tap out my vram, but not to the point of producing slow downs. I can go over my vram budget, that's what drivers and buffers are for... Just not by a ton.

How much would each additional screen increase vram in other titles? Most other games use around 900 to 1000MB at 1080p with typically the highest AA setting, a notable exception would be BF3 which can max out my frame buffer now with 4xAA and ultra deferred. However I think Nvidia is having some driver problems there as with older drivers I was able to max it out fine while now I simply can't.

I would upgrade into a larger vram card sometime later this year, so even if vram is a problem I won't have to deal with it forever. I'm just not sold on what a triple screen setup would bring over a single display.

 

[notty22]

You can do it, here is gtx 260's sli surround.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1q-ktiY3fE

 

[Grooveriding]

You can do it but you'll need to take a pass on certain settings, mostly depending on the game you are playing. Generally it will be AA and texture settings.

Think Crysis, Crysis 2, BF3, Metro 2033 type games will have to be run with no AA at all and texture settings lowered down. Other games will probably run just fine with most/all settings turned up and even with some AA.

You also need to account for just needing more horsepower with all those additional pixels. Take the framerate you get in games now and assuming you don't hit VRAM walls, expect to see 1/3 the FPS you currently do at those settings.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Dang, 1/3? With or without max AA settings? lol...


What about immersion, and/or other benefits of a triple screen setup? Do you really even notice what is going on in the other screens most the time or is it all just a blur?

 

[Grooveriding]

Dang, 1/3? With or without max AA settings? lol...


What about immersion, and/or other benefits of a triple screen setup? Do you really even notice what is going on in the other screens most the time or is it all just a blur?

Running identical settings you should get about 1/3 the FPS because of having 300% the amount of pixels. For games that are a bit older where you are already getting 100FPS+ it's a non-issue. For games where you are running tight on FPS, you'll need to turn settings down. Then for games where you run out of VRAM, you'll need to turn down texture and AA settings or you'll get hitching.

It's a pretty subjective experience. Try it first imo. You definitely notice everything on the other screens if you have them angled correctly for where you are sitting.

It's the bezels that bother me about it, for a lot of people they get used to them though and no longer notice it. The wider fov is awesome though for certain games. World of Warcraft is probably the best game I have seen for playing with that kind of setup apart from racing games which feel like they are made for triple-screen setups. For FPS games, particularly online ones, I think it's pretty fail from my experience and makes the game more difficult. Not that it makes it look worse, but makes competing against others a pain with the wide fov.

 

[Subyman]

It will be trial and error. Watch your memory usage and play with texture size, AA, and AF from there. It will be great for some games. If you ever want to roll through skyrim with all the high res packs on then it is easy to just go back to a single screen.

 

[nitromullet]

Yeah, seems like video RAM would be tight at 5760x1080. BF3 at 2560x1440 uses over 1GB with Ultra settings and FXAA on high on my rig. I don't use deferred AA at all in BF3 even though it does look better.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

How bad would the aliasing be at 5760x1080? I know AA can tack on a large amount of ram overhead, I wouldn't mind simply injecting FXAA into most titles.

At 900 core I basically have stock 580 SLI performance, at least at 1080p. However with 2050 mem I only have 172GB/s of memory bandwidth which is 20GB/s less than a 580.

As far as gpu power goes I do have a third 470 but no board support, not sure if I want to invest into a WS rev or just wait out next gen deals this November... I'm thinking of grabbing either a 7950 3GB CF setup or possibly a 770 SLI setup depending on how things pan out over the coming months.

Edit: I checked vanilla skyrim, max usage was 806MB with FXAA 16xAF no AA... That's with all draw distances maxed out as well was ultra distant detail. That gives me about 480mb leftover before I start getting into swapping lol.. Ugh. I wonder if I'd be able to fit in a few med res textures of the 2xxx by 2xxx flavor.

Thanks for the input guys, I'm going to do a bit a research to see if it's possible for me to remove the bezel on the middle screen to remove the bars from the equation.