View Full Version : PDF Document from nvidia commenting on crossfire?
I dunno... I never had issues with mine...
Usually you wouldnt , but it never hurt to bring a more flexible desgin .. you'd never know when that can come in handy.
ChrisRay
06-04-05, 01:32 AM
Cant argue with that :| . nVIDIA need to consider a more flexable SLI bridge design ... like a dongle or wired bridge.
They do have these. There are some which are different sizes. Usually the ones you get are the ones that come with the SLI motherboard though. There are some which are flexible and can bend/ect. I have one. But I use the one that came with my asus board.
They do have these. There are some which are different sizes. Usually the ones you get are the ones that come with the SLI motherboard though. There are some which are flexible and can bend/ect. I have one. But I use the one that came with my asus board.
Thats good to know & these should start to be included as standard on all SLI capable mobos instead of the current bridged ones.
ChrisRay
06-04-05, 03:02 AM
Thats good to know & these should start to be included as standard on all SLI capable mobos instead of the current bridged ones.
The reason they use the hard bridge chips is probably because they less subject to be damaged than the paper thin ones.
Lfctony
06-04-05, 05:07 AM
Let's get something clear here...
First of all you can't combine X850 cards with X800 cards.
If you own X800Pro and you buy X800XT Master, it's gonna work. X800XT won't have disabled 4 pipes because of X800Pro. If the screen as a checker board is supposed to be rendered, X800XT GPU will wait a bit more till other card finishes its work. Overall the frame is going to be higher than having X800Pro with X800Pro. Afterall it wouldn't make sense at all to see X800Pro/X800Pro getting the same frame rate like X800XT/X800Pro.
Not really.
Breaking out the chip chart might seem a little indulgent, but it nicely illustrates the potential for CrossFire mismatches, particularly when 12-pipe cards are involved. Since both AFR and supertiling split the rendering load evenly across both cards, the system will be somewhat limited by the speed of the slowest card. To keep the fill rate disparity between mismatched cards to a minimum, CrossFire cards will actually throttle back to 12 pipes when they're paired with 12-pipe partners. That should keep things pretty even, but it's unfortunate that mismatches may cause surplus pixel pushing power to go unused. ATI may be able to leverage scissor mode's dynamic screen segmentation to give extra work to the more powerful card in a CrossFire pair, but workloads are locked in at a 50/50 split for AFR and Supertiling.
http://techreport.com/etc/2005q2/ati-crossfire/index.x?pg=2
The only thing I disagree with on the pdf was it dissing the MAXX- at the time it was a very cool card!
(wasted transistors, enthusiasts want leading technology...
Yeah, they wanted pixel shader 3.0 too, nVidia provided, ATI said "oh the customers don't need that".
Yeah, they wanted pixel shader 3.0 too, nVidia provided, ATI said "oh the customers don't need that".
Ati were partly correct, did we get any use of SM3.0 since launch of GF6 series :rolleyes: ? So we kindaa didnt require it.
BUt, if the g70/r520 cards are not very powerfull, than our current card, then current gf6 with SM3.0 will be pretty helpfull in skipping/resisting this gen cards.
:cool: hense im eagerly waiting for reviews.
Ati were partly correct, did we get any use of SM3.0 since launch of GF6 series :rolleyes: ? So we kindaa didnt require it.
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Not a lot but SCCT and Far Cry were two that made use of it and two that look really good with it.
I completed FC long before sm3.0 pach came out. so didnt bother abt. it. als oi read the anadtech review of FC with sm3.0 pach, they mentioned "There were no BIG noticible differences"
the only things tht took advantage of sm3.0 were the nv demos (nalu, sailing etc) and 3dmark05.
Huh, the HDR they added looks quite a bit different.
I didnt play the 1.3 pach miself, so i wont comment. but i would have never played FC again after completing it. same with doom3 same with HL2.
even if the nexgen cards offer double the performance, in the current games like doom3 and HL2 (wich plays v well on mi 68GT), wy would i wanna upgrade.., similarly, why wuld i wanna SLi or Xfire?
Here are a couple of shots showing the difference when using HDR. Sometimes in Far Cry it looks overdone but I thought it looked pretty good in these. It does cause a pretty big framerate hit. In SCCT, the SM 3.0, HDR, support etc. looks really good. Of course, not a lot of games have really used it and since the hit is pretty big I do see your point.
no hddr........................hddr7................. .....no hddr......................hddr 7
http://img183.echo.cx/img183/5004/farcry00044rq.th.jpg (http://img183.echo.cx/my.php?image=farcry00044rq.jpg) http://img23.echo.cx/img23/947/farcry00056sf.th.jpg (http://img23.echo.cx/my.php?image=farcry00056sf.jpg) http://img128.echo.cx/img128/5350/farcry00242pz.th.jpg (http://img128.echo.cx/my.php?image=farcry00242pz.jpg) http://img128.echo.cx/img128/9606/farcry0024b0ru.th.jpg (http://img128.echo.cx/my.php?image=farcry0024b0ru.jpg)
I dont think anyone will argue with the fact that besides Chaos Theory there are no other games that really require SM3.0 for an actual visual difference.
HDR is nice and all, but the hardware(to do it properly is still a couple gens down the road, IMO) isn't here now, so the effect is being faked, with Farcry and SC:CT being the 2 exceptions that pull it off decently as of now.
Of course every fan of Nvidia will say something about "Sure, now ATI is making a big deal of it", and yeah you have that right...but now is the time when its starting to become a requirement for "next-gen graphics". What with some games not even offering a SM2.0 path...which is just rediculous.(thanks Nvidia..)ATI never really said nothing about it not being a good thing, just it not being needed right now..and to an extent they were right. Nvidia was smart in the fact that their hardware was more future proof than ATI's. If x800's were SM3.0, I would simply buy another one and Crossfire it...but its not, so I'm getting the R520.(thanks ATI.. :mad: )
Don't forget Lego Star Wars ;)
What with some games not even offering a SM2.0 path...which is just rediculous.(thanks Nvidia..)
But hasn't SCCT kind of shown that SM 2.0 isn't really all that necessary since it looks and performs great in 1.1. So, why bother with SM 2.0 when 1.x runs a lot better on some of the older hardware like the Fx series.
But hasn't SCCT kind of shown that SM 2.0 isn't really all that necessary since it looks and performs great in 1.1. So, why bother with SM 2.0 when 1.x runs a lot better on some of the older hardware like the Fx series.
Couldn't agree more...SM1.X in SC:CT really shows what can be done with Dx8.0 and good programming, but I believe parallax mapping is reason enough to support SM2.X at least.
Point is...there's more they could have done in supporting DX9.0. I dont really care since I own a GT, but its just one of those things you know? ATI owners felt kinda cheated. I mean, who creates a new game now that doesn't support 2.0 atleast?? 3.0 is 2.0++...they could program for the highest SM that both cards support which is 2.0. There's nothing wrong with Nvidia's TWIMTBP program..afterall thats the point of it, but I dont like that direction for the computer industry...leave that sort of stuff for the consoles you know?
And Jakup, you're right I forgot Lego Starwars. :o ...Wicked little game! :cool: and actually I can think of a couple other games that have features specific for Nvidia cards..but nothing too drastic.
If only I could take ATI's hardware dev team, and pair them with Nvidia's marketing/driver/software team....damn. :D
I get your point OWA, but c it yourself, the difference between HDR enabled and not enabled is not much (visually). for this slight difference i would not play FC all over again. even the new FC patch for amd64 bit (where they hav added 2 new atages specially for amd64 bit owners) doesnt appeal much to me. I wont play FC again for it.
Offcourse if these feaures are gonna be there in new games that i havnt played, like Chaos Th. then i wont mind getting it.
ChrisRay
06-05-05, 08:31 AM
Couldn't agree more...SM1.X in SC:CT really shows what can be done with Dx8.0 and good programming, but I believe parallax mapping is reason enough to support SM2.X at least.
Point is...there's more they could have done in supporting DX9.0. I dont really care since I own a GT, but its just one of those things you know? ATI owners felt kinda cheated. I mean, who creates a new game now that doesn't support 2.0 atleast?? 3.0 is 2.0++...they could program for the highest SM that both cards support which is 2.0. There's nothing wrong with Nvidia's TWIMTBP program..afterall thats the point of it, but I dont like that direction for the computer industry...leave that sort of stuff for the consoles you know?
And Jakup, you're right I forgot Lego Starwars. :o ...Wicked little game! :cool: and actually I can think of a couple other games that have features specific for Nvidia cards..but nothing too drastic.
If only I could take ATI's hardware dev team, and pair them with Nvidia's marketing/driver/software team....damn. :D
I'd rather pair the hardware teams AND marketing/driver/software team. That way we can get the best of both worlds + the exclusive software features. Programmable Multisample AA, Hardware Digital Vibrance, Super Sampling, Hybrid Multisampling, Good application profiles, Would be great.
I get your point OWA, but c it yourself, the difference between HDR enabled and not enabled is not much (visually). for this slight difference i would not play FC all over again. even the new FC patch for amd64 bit (where they hav added 2 new atages specially for amd64 bit owners) doesnt appeal much to me. I wont play FC again for it.
The pics I chose only show a slight difference in Far Cry b/c I think it looks best in those cases. HDR changes some scenes quite a bit but in most of those cases, I think it's overdone. There are also some HDR features that can't really be captured with a screenshot. If you walk from a dark area to a well light area, they simulate your eyes having to adjust to the bright light. Nothing earth-shattering but a nice touch.
To see some more pronounced differences, try this link:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=39383&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Cry
BTW, not trying to convince you to give it another shot or anything. I've never finished Far Cry and mainly just use the devmode to move around on the various levels to look at the graphics. I guess we're kind of going off-topic anyway.
I'm glad we have 2 graphics card companies. I wish we had more! If there were no competition, then graphics cards would not be where they are today.
There are also some HDR features that can't really be captured with a screenshot..
Good point, thats the absolute truth. HDR.....the actual HDR effect, cannot be shown in a screenshot. Its weird because most people judge HDR by the pics they see, and how much the lights are exaggerated and over-exposed...sure, thats part of it...but not even close to the actual "effect" itself.
But to get closer to being back on topic, yea the computer industry definetly needs atleast 2 gfx card competitors, I would love 3...anymore than that though and I think it starts to get too crowded, IMO.
I still think one day some company will come out with a product that will really suprise both ATI and Nvidia...all it will need is the marketing push and the developer support.
chaosmaker
06-25-05, 01:07 PM
why not make the bridge from a material like the io cable of sata drives? wouldn't that suffice and give the needed leeway, and allow everything to still be internal?
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