4870x2. First impressions

[slaWter]

Heinz68, I found that post when I searched around for a solution, but thanks for posting! :) I already had those resolutions and frequencies, plus some others, listed and the Alt+Tab trick worked also but only in combination with a GPU scaling change (changing from one mode to another, next time change it back and so on). Then the Crysis Main Menu was at 60Hz but after the loading screen it dropped back to 50Hz every time and the Alt+Tab trick didn't work anymore.

I didn't see a reason to wait for a driver update, the GTX 280 was sitting right on my table at that time ;)
A card that is so dependent on drivers and I ran into annoying driver problems on day one... I don't need stuff like that, no matter how fast the X2 is.

[Heinz68]

Heinz68, I found that post when I searched around for a solution, but thanks for posting! :) I already had those resolutions and frequencies, plus some others, listed and the Alt+Tab trick worked also but only in combination with a GPU scaling change (changing from one mode to another, next time change it back and so on). Then the Crysis Main Menu was at 60Hz but after the loading screen it dropped back to 50Hz every time and the Alt+Tab trick didn't work anymore.

I didn't see a reason to wait for a driver update, the GTX 280 was sitting right on my table at that time ;)
A card that is so dependent on drivers and I ran into annoying driver problems on day one... I don't need stuff like that, no matter how fast the X2 is.Well strangely it worked for others, since it's reported only by few there might not be any drivers update on it.
Wish you did report it.

Anyway I just hope your ONE day experience will not follow with zilions post about how bad the ATI drivers are.

By the way after Google search I did find out some NVIDIA drivers also have (or had not sure) problem with some HDTVs.

Anyway I posted the links mainly for the benefits off others if they might run into same problem. For you it was obviously too late since you gave up only after one day.

Judging by your posting prior too the purchase I think you was not ready for the ATI card period.

[Heinz68]

ok then it is LCD Monitor with 16:9 aspect ratio and many different inputs, it still doesn't make it an HDTV. I know I own LVM-37w1.

edit, btw i'm the only person in my family that owns a huge LCD monitor, rest have real LCD HDTV's. I did ran into issues with few Samsung and Toshibas when it comes to PC input. Even with possible issues, I made a mitake buying that Westy, should have waited for real HDTV.
There are few differences between the LVM-37w1 and the later LVM-37w3 model and it was not only the look. Now I don't remember them all but I remember the LVM-37w1 din't have HDMI connection.

I could have buy the LVM-37w1 at BestBuy which kind of had Westinghouse exclusive in Canada but refused to do it after seeing much better reviews on the LVM-37w3 selling in the US.

Finally Crutchfield moved to Canada, luckily I put myself on waiting list since the LVM-37w3 was sold out in just about the same day.

Couple months ago It looked like not everything is so great about the LVM-37w3 after about 15 months use it died on me completely. It had only 12 months guaranty and I didn't buy the extended one.

I decided to call the Westinghouse support and after describing the problem was told the LVM-37w3 is going to be replaced. Almost could not believe it and was thinking maybe they didn't get the right date when I bought it.

But no problem after sending the LVM-37w3 in, I received new monitor about 2 weeks later with the latest firmware.

The bottom line is, unlike you I sure didn't make a mistake and it was the best PC upgrade I ever made.

[nekrosoft13]

depends what you aim for in Monitor/HDTV. All Westy screens I had seen are disapointing.

[jcossin]

A card that is so dependent on drivers and I ran into annoying driver problems on day one... I don't need stuff like that, no matter how fast the X2 is.

I ran into the same problem with my 9800GX2 and that's why I dumped it. Two chips on a card isn't a good solution when it requires drivers that need to behave differently than if it was a single chip. Both nVidia and AMD need to get to a point of having multi GPUs look the exact same to the drivers as 1 GPU and behave the same before these solutions will be appealing to me again. For now I'm happy with the 4870 as a single chip solution and will stick to single chip solutions going forward.

[slaWter]

Judging by your posting prior too the purchase I think you was not ready for the ATI card period.

Well I was ready for it and the drivers. I even bought a now useless X38 and a new PSU because of CrossfireX with two X2. I was prepared to go through some driver troubles, but I was thinking of multi-GPU issues, not scaling and frequency problems. I can understand multi-GPU problems and that it takes a bit of time to get it right (new games and demos).
The problems I ran into shouldn't even be a topic anymore, stuff like that has to work, no excuses. That goes for any card, nV or ATI, I don't have the patience for bugs like this, that's why I didn't wait for possible driver fixes.
IMO this is not about nV or ATI, not sure why you're defending ATI again...

[Heinz68]

Well I was ready for it and the drivers. I even bought a now useless X38 and a new PSU because of CrossfireX with two X2. I was prepared to go through some driver troubles, but I was thinking of multi-GPU issues, not scaling and frequency problems. I can understand multi-GPU problems and that it takes a bit of time to get it right (new games and demos).
The problems I ran into shouldn't even be a topic anymore, stuff like that has to work, no excuses. That goes for any card, nV or ATI, I don't have the patience for bugs like this, that's why I didn't wait for possible driver fixes.
IMO this is not about nV or ATI, not sure why you're defending ATI again...
Guess somebody happy with the 4000 card has the right to defend the ATI plus I did explain why. Your selective post reply doesn't show any off that. I hope you dont want me to take your few hours experince with the card seriously so it leaves me with no other options than to listen to others with more experience or get my own.

Why I said you was not ready. At one point you was all excited about the card even talking about getting two them all off sudden you changen your mind and most your post were about why not to buy the HD 4870 x2, than shortly before the purchase you changed your mind again. Plus being big NVIDIA fan doesn't also help.
Now there is nothing wrong about being NVIDIA fan as long as there is no need to be critical about ATI in every post.

That's why I did say, I hope your few hours experince with the card is not going to lead to zilion post what a crap the ATI drivers are. I'm sure at some point you must have had some bad experince with NVIDIA drivers and it doesn't make you post, all NVIDIA drivers are crap.

On the other hand after stating you could not get the Crysis run properly you managed to place a vote about the card microstuttering based only on the Crysis test not working properly according to you.
I don't question your honest opinion, what I do question if the vote based on such experince was justified.

[saturnotaku]

Guess somebody happy with the 4000 card has the right to defend the ATI plus I did explain why. Your selective post reply doesn't show any off that. I hope you dont want me to take your few hours experince with the card seriously so it leaves me with no other options than to listen to others with more experience or get my own.

Neither ATI nor NVIDIA needs "defending" by some geek behind a keyboard.

[Heinz68]

About the "defend" I was replying to slaWter post. Not sure why it needed personal attack from you. Some positive posting on this forum sure doesn't hurt anybody.
Or does it?

[Blkout]

Neither ATI nor NVIDIA needs "defending" by some geek behind a keyboard.

Your post was uncalled for. If you have nothing positive to add to this discussion, why did you bother to post?

[slaWter]

Guess somebody happy with the 4000 card has the right to defend the ATI plus I did explain why. Your selective post reply doesn't show any off that. I hope you dont want me to take your few hours experince with the card seriously so it leaves me with no other options than to listen to others with more experience or get my own.

Why I said you was not ready. At one point you was all excited about the card even talking about getting two them all off sudden you changen your mind and most your post were about why not to buy the HD 4870 x2, than shortly before the purchase you changed your mind again. Plus being big NVIDIA fan doesn't also help.
Now there is nothing wrong about being NVIDIA fan as long as there is no need to be critical about ATI in every post.

That's why I did say, I hope your few hours experince with the card is not going to lead to zilion post what a crap the ATI drivers are. I'm sure at some point you must have had some bad experince with NVIDIA drivers and it doesn't make you post, all NVIDIA drivers are crap.

On the other hand after stating you could not get the Crysis run properly you managed to place a vote about the card microstuttering based only on the Crysis test not working properly according to you.
I don't question your honest opinion, what I do question if the vote based on such experince was justified.

Again it's suddenly all about nV and ATI again :( And suddenly I'm a fanboy...
I had the card for one day, that's a fact. But that was enough to run important tests and unfortunately run into driver issues. I did play different Crysis levels in DX9, no scaling issues in DX9, so the gaming experience was the normal X2 experience, no problems at all.
That's why I posted and voted about the micro stuttering. I said it was only noticeable in Crysis.

I was really pleased with the performance, the X2 is a fantastic card. Too bad I had those scaling issues, otherwise I'd have sold the GTX 280. Performance is not the most important factor for me, stability is. That's why I abandoned SLI and absolutely hate nForce chipsets for example.

I'm not criticizing ATI in every post. IMO you're the one that's criticizing, namely everyone that says something against ATI or the 4800 series.

[saturnotaku]

IMO you're the one that's criticizing, namely everyone that says something against ATI or the 4800 series.

It'd be one thing if everyone were saying "AtI sUX0RZ, nViDiA si teH b0MB." But most folks here have been more than fair about the 4800.

[noko]

For those who have a 4870 X2, been asking this question with zero response at Rage3d. Anyways here it is and hopefully someone here has the right scoop.

4870 X2 and dual monitor setup, for a windowed environment, will each gpu drive a single monitor? As in GPU 1 drives the left monitor and GPU 2 drives the right monitor?

This is important for me since I do alot of 3d work in a windowed environment and having multiple 3d windows opened on two monitors would be a great asset if both GPU's can come into play. I am not talking about crossfire, just each GPU doing it's share of 3d load per monitor.

I have a feeling that it won't, that it will go to single gpu while second gpu will do nothing which would be rather wasteful for me. Yes of course I like to game but I spend more time in doing 3d work overall.

[DeusGear]

For those who have a 4870 X2, been asking this question with zero response at Rage3d. Anyways here it is and hopefully someone here has the right scoop.

4870 X2 and dual monitor setup, for a windowed environment, will each gpu drive a single monitor? As in GPU 1 drives the left monitor and GPU 2 drives the right monitor?

This is important for me since I do alot of 3d work in a windowed environment and having multiple 3d windows opened on two monitors would be a great asset if both GPU's can come into play. I am not talking about crossfire, just each GPU doing it's share of 3d load per monitor.

I have a feeling that it won't, that it will go to single gpu while second gpu will do nothing which would be rather wasteful for me. Yes of course I like to game but I spend more time in doing 3d work overall.
In windowed mode only 1 GPU is enabled and the clocks are set to 2d (they don't go up).

[namuk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lz2mHk9zo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCz3HqmfvI

[noko]

In windowed mode only 1 GPU is enabled and the clocks are set to 2d (they don't go up).


Thanks DeusGear, looks like a X2 would be a dissappointment for me then. I do 3d windowed DX environments, X2 wouldn't perform that well single GPU and reduced clock speeds. Actually it would be utterly wasteful. For games yes but that is it. The 280 or Nvidia's next high end maybe the ticket then.

[XMAN52373]

well my evga 8800gts 512 has washed out colors so i use DV to fix it ...so ati colors are spot on?!!! so with ati drivers i can change saturation levels for games>?


I find ATI defaults to be way to bright and to much gamma. 1 should not have to adjust a monitors default 50% brightness and the video card brightness/gamma settings so it doesn't blind you.

[noko]

I don't think multi GPU's will be successful beyond the euthisastic audience until they become transparent to the user. I was hopeing ATI would do a better job at merging the two GPU's but it almost the same as before. Two gpu's but yet only one can drive both monitors, thats seems rather wasteful.

[mullet]

Guess somebody happy with the 4000 card has the right to defend the ATI plus I did explain why. Your selective post reply doesn't show any off that. I hope you dont want me to take your few hours experince with the card seriously so it leaves me with no other options than to listen to others with more experience or get my own.

Why I said you was not ready. At one point you was all excited about the card even talking about getting two them all off sudden you changen your mind and most your post were about why not to buy the HD 4870 x2, than shortly before the purchase you changed your mind again. Plus being big NVIDIA fan doesn't also help.
Now there is nothing wrong about being NVIDIA fan as long as there is no need to be critical about ATI in every post.

That's why I did say, I hope your few hours experince with the card is not going to lead to zilion post what a crap the ATI drivers are. I'm sure at some point you must have had some bad experince with NVIDIA drivers and it doesn't make you post, all NVIDIA drivers are crap.

On the other hand after stating you could not get the Crysis run properly you managed to place a vote about the card microstuttering based only on the Crysis test not working properly according to you.
I don't question your honest opinion, what I do question if the vote based on such experince was justified.

What in the hell makes you think your the authority on how people should and shouldn't feel about ATI or there drivers. Then to call slaWter a fanboy when he has purchased more ATI/Nvidia cards then just about anyone not to mention the fact he has spent more on video cards in the past 8 months then your whole system cost you ****ing moron.

SlaWter is one of the most objective guys on this forum and if he is a fanboy of anything its speed.

end rant.

[Blkout]

I find ATI defaults to be way to bright and to much gamma. 1 should not have to adjust a monitors default 50% brightness and the video card brightness/gamma settings so it doesn't blind you.

It's a lot easier to adjust brightness than it is to correct color inaccuracies with Nvidia.

[Blkout]

I don't think multi GPU's will be successful beyond the euthisastic audience until they become transparent to the user. I was hopeing ATI would do a better job at merging the two GPU's but it almost the same as before. Two gpu's but yet only one can drive both monitors, thats seems rather wasteful.

I'm sorry ATI dissapointed you. In the meantime, myself and the rest of the x2 users will be enjoying the Hell out of the cards. ;)

[Blkout]

What in the hell makes you think your the authority on how people should and shouldn't feel about ATI or there drivers. Then to call slaWter a fanboy when he has purchased more ATI/Nvidia cards then just about anyone not to mention the fact he has spent more on video cards in the past 8 months then your whole system cost you ****ing moron.

SlaWter is one of the most objective guys on this forum and if he is a fanboy of anything its speed.

end rant.

Nothing against Slawter, but Heinz made some good points.

[sammy sung]

It's a lot easier to adjust brightness than it is to correct color inaccuracies with Nvidia.

Idd but then i suggest you adress that issue in a first impressions thread about a nvidia card,this thread doesnt need a counterpost everytime something negative is said about the ATi product.I want to know how people feel about their cards,the positive AND negative so i can take those facts into account when i make my mind up about a purchase,i dont care about color adjustment with nvidia cards in this case so provide relevant information,not fanboyism please.

[Sazar]

Sooooo... back on topic.

Are there any massive/new improvements coming with this months Catalysts?

I am relatively satisfied at the moment but once Nehalem drops, I am planning on doing a purge/rebuild of my HTPC and might move most of my current stuff there. Since I want better hdmi output, I might switch my card from the g92 to an AMD one. Any ideas on if there are new features coming out for video output? :eek:

[Blkout]

Idd but then i suggest you adress that issue in a first impressions thread about a nvidia card,this thread doesnt need a counterpost everytime something negative is said about the ATi product.I want to know how people feel about their cards,the positive AND negative so i can take those facts into account when i make my mind up about a purchase,i dont care about color adjustment with nvidia cards in this case so provide relevant information,not fanboyism please.

You don't own this forum and if I want to reply to a post here, that's my choice. If you don't like some posts within a thread, just ignore them and keep reading.