[windows.com] Pushing the 12K PC Gaming Boundary at 1.5 Billion Pixels per Second

[Final8ty]

PC gaming is all out extreme performance and eye-popping visuals. DirectX games on Windows are always pushing the boundaries of the latest graphics hardware and software technology that will bring things ?to the next level?. In this article I?m going to share with you an amazing set of experiences that I recently had pushing the boundaries of 4K multi-mon gaming with several Sharp PN-K321 4K Ultra HD displays that I had on loan for a short period of time. I?ll start with some scenarios that have been tested before and then walk through a technology demonstration and collaboration that I worked on with AMD to see how far we could push things. Let?s just say this was an intense experience!

Ever since I had my first taste of 4K resolution gaming on Windows 8 (which you can read about here) I?ve been wanting to explore some additional related scenarios. First, I was thinking it would be awesome to try 4K multi-mon gaming. Second, I wanted to see how the 4K gaming experience would change when the screen refresh rate was pushed from 30 Hz to 60 Hz. Finally, I thought it would be amazing if I could push a tri-mon 4K setup to 60 Hz. Things were about to get real interesting.

ReadMore including pics and video.
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/...oundary-at-1-5-billion-pixels-per-second.aspx

 

[wilds]

Now this is an Enthusiast platform! Its strange they didn't have a larger power supply...

I seriously doubt 3 7970's are enough to do any other AAA titles other than Dirt games. I think 3 7990's would be the minimum for 3 4K monitors.

 

[Silverforce11]

Its amazing what turning off some settings enable.. lots of these new games have gimmick (because it adds so little to IQ) features that suck a lot of performance.

 

[Mark Rejhon]

4K triple monitor at 60fps@60Hz FTW!

I reckon we're not too far off from having a quad-GPU setup powerful enough to do real time gaming on NHK's prototype 8K @ 120Hz.

 

[Wag]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/26/12k-gaming-amd-7970-sharp-pnk321/#continued
http://youtu.be/4OEZ9qBxYiw

They do it with three PN-K321 displays, and then just one. Is this the future of gaming? You be the judge.

 

[NLPsajeeth]

Wondering why they are using AMD GPUs rather than NVIDIA GPUs? The reason is simple, at the time of writing this post, the PN-K321 does not work with NVIDIA GPUs at 4K @ 60 Hz due to NVIDIA's artificially crippled driver.

In a pointless attempt to protect the revenues of their very expensive professional Quardro GPUs, NVIDIA artifically cripples their Windows driver to prevent users from using features like Surround 2x1, 2x2 configurations, 10-bit color and multiple display stereoscopic 3D in OpenGL (Quad Buffer Stereo). All Geforce cards are capable of these features and they are accessible when using the Linux GeForce driver but they are artificially disabled in the Windows driver.

Due to silicon limitations, this display requires DisplayPort MST to operate at 4K @ 60 Hz. The display actually appears as two tiled 1920x2160 monitors which is why this monitor is capable of doing 4K @ 60 Hz over 2 HDMI cables.

With the introduction of this monitor, NVIDIA was left with a choice, either support Surround 2x1, 2x2 configurations properly so anyone with any pair of monitors could play a 3D game with any variety of 2 or 4 monitors or they could write some sort of hack in the driver to support these types of monitors specifically while avoiding giving Windows users 2x1 and 2x2 Surround support.

NVIDIA is the lone GPU maker without 2x1 and 2x2 monitor configuration support. AMD has supported it forever with Eyefinity and now even Intel supports these configurations with their integrated GPUs using their Collage feature.

So you can probably guess what NVIDIA decided to do, instead of supporting Surround 2x1 properly, they decided to hack their drivers. They created an EDID white-list so they could detect these kinds of monitors and support their unique 2x1 capability while still disabling general Surround 2x1 support with any pair of monitors.

NVIDIA had an pre-production version of this display and updated their driver based on that. However when Sharp finally shipped this monitor, they changed the EDID data from the pre-production display. This change caused the display to fail the NVIDIA EDID whitelist check and not allow it to operate at 4K @ 60 Hz. So now NVIDIA is in the process of adding the correct EDID data to the white-list in the driver and soon the monitor will finally work with NVIDIA GPUs.

NVIDIA could have avoided all this by just giving everyone proper 2x1 and 2x2 surround support.

This comment is a summary of the following massive 9 page thread with comments directly from NVIDIA confirming the above:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/539645/nvidia-surround/2-monitor-gaming-/1

 

[SithSolo1]

I'm not a fan boy one way or the other but it'd be nice if they showed off a game or two in addition to the most AMD biased on the market. I mean, Dirt 3 is nice but its also one of the few games where a 7970 can go toe-to-toe with a Titan at high resolutions.

Also the offset of the terrain on the side monitors was driving me nuts.

 

[stahlhart]

Merged Final8ty's and Wag's threads.
-- stahlhart

 

[Atreidin]

I think the point was just to see how nice that kind of configuration would "feel", so it makes sense that they would use games and graphics settings to give fluid framerates while still looking pretty enough. Also that blog promotes Windows so they want to focus on best-case how great it can look, not an overall evaluation.

 

[Black Octagon]

PC gaming is all out extreme performance and eye-popping visuals.

Is it? I thought it was about superior gameplay, e.g., k&m instead of clunky console controllers for fast-paced FPS games.

Also, extreme performance and eye-popping visuals tend to be in direct conflict with one's wallet. I personally prefer PC for superior in-game resolution and high framerates, at the expense of 'max' visuals if so necessary.

DirectX games on Windows are always pushing the boundaries of the latest graphics hardware and software technology that will bring things ?to the next level?.

Yes...that's why DX11 uptake has been so smooth, fast and problem-free, and why DX9 games haven't existed for years :whiste:

This blog entry refers several times to running 'DirectX11 games' as if their very use is evidence of testing the best out there. Which is garbage. Plenty of DX11 games have very poor implementation of DX11 features, and/or look barely different from their DX9 or 10 modes, and/or run like dogs*

*The kind of dogs that can't run well, of course

 

[csbin]

http://www.techpowerup.com/187847/1...-renders-1-5-billion-pixels-costs-17-000.html

What do you call a person who sets up three 32-inch 4K (that's 3840 x 2160 pixels each) side-by-side, pairs three of ASUS's HD 7970 GPUs together to play games using AMD's EyeInfinity technology, all of which costs a whopping $17,000? Insane is one word, rich another or a crazy gamer? Perhaps a mix of all the three.

The setup consists of three Sharp PN-K321 4K monitors connected to three AMD HD 7970 GPUs which are together capable of pushing a mind-blowing 1.5 billion pixels on the combined 12K screen resolution, together with a Power Supply Unit that conks off in a few minutes, perhaps just not able to bear the pure awesomeness of the setup. Oh, to get the setup working, AMD put together some custom drivers to make sure that EyeInfinity works well. Before using the custom drivers, the whole rig was able to pull together a measly 8 frames per second, to be more accurate, a slideshow.

3x1 4K Eyefinity Display CPL Screen Resolutions

 

[Attic]

In a word, Awsome.


That's a system I could grow into.


With the 3x7970's at 3840x2160x3screens I'd think you'd be at low/medium settings to get any decent frames.

The 8k series from AMD would be the jonsing moment to look forward to on such a setup.


If the system and screens is setting you back 17k. At least put 5k towards a 7.1 audio setup.

 

[Qbah]

1.5 billion pixels? :hmm: Let's see... 11520 x 2160 is 24 883 200 pixels... that's still 60 times less than 1.5 billion.

It does look awesome, though I guess 3GB VRAM is not enough?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

3 Titans couldn't event run that well.

 

[Skurge]

1.5 billion pixels? :hmm: Let's see... 11520 x 2160 is 24 883 200 pixels... that's still 60 times less than 1.5 billion.

It does look awesome, though I guess 3GB VRAM is not enough?

The artical says 1.5billion pixels a second. which at 60hz is correct.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I don't care what GPUs you have. Nothing could run that well.

 

[stahlhart]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2333055

Repost.
-- stahlhart

 

[Pariah]

Quite an impressive setup. Amazing to think, within 20 years we'll look back at this and laugh how bad we had it with a setup like that.

Kind of odd that they had access to all that extreme hardware but not to a PSU more powerful than 750W.

 

[AntonioHG]

Mediocre PC running that godly monitor setup. Crazy.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

[IMG]http://news.mydrivers.com/img...tually using this system for more than a day.

 

[Skullcrusher1.0]

With 4K monitors still being a pipe dream for most gamers due to the prices, it is very easy to say that Nvidia cards would not be able to do this or that and it is another thing entirely to prove it. Keep in mind that AMD created a custom driver also.

New technologies usually start off quite expensive and then gradually pan out to be more affordable as companies compete on prices and the years go by. I remember when a blu-ray drive for PC was $1000 and now you can get one for $39.99.

All I am getting at here is that Nvidia will not allow AMD to corner the 4K multi-monitor gaming market without a good fight and as 4K monitor setups become more commonplace and affordable it will be very interesting and exciting to see what both AMD and Nvidia have in store for us!