spearsd

I've read that the Gigabyte single-board SLI behaves just like a multi-board solution right down to requiring an SLI capable motherboard :-( Of course, I could be wrong as I didn't really spend much time looking into it.

No, my point is LOMAC currently doesn't benefit from SLI regardless of whether its operating in single or dual GPU mode because that's not where the bottle-kneck is. Everyone says the bottleneck is CPU, and part of me wants to jump on that boat but I've tried overclocking my CPU 18% and received only a 3% gain in LOMAC performance. Now, I don't expect 1:1 performance increases with my overclocking, but 1:6 seems somewhat under my expectations if LOMAC is CPU bound as I keep hearing throughout the LOMAC community. Maybe, LOMAC uses some funky job manager for certain "less critical" computations and load-sheds them based on priority. This could explain the funky 6:1 correlation. I just don't know. :roll: As for operating in single GPU mode; yes, you can do this effectively through NVidia's control panel. No need to reconfigure the mainboard if that's what you want to accomplish (unless you will also be running quad display alternatively).

GGTharos, I agree with you about FC not being delayed; t shouldn't be. CPU increases seem to be more important for LOMAC than SLI right now. However, my initial experiences with overclocking an A64 3500+ to 2605MHz 18% from 2200MHz) showed a small performance increase of 3%. I'm still quite confused about the small performance gains and it leads me to believe that LOMAC may have performance issues that go beyond simply being CPU bound. What that may be? I don't know. The important thing is to get the devs to investigate LOMAC performance with CPU scaling (including multiprocessing) and multi-GPU (SLI or other) in mind so that in the near future we will all be able to leverage these technologies as they become more common place on the desktop. -spearsd

I'm not like you. Sorry, but last time I checked this thread wasn't about what "still to be released in stores" video card to buy for LOMAC. It's about "Lock On and SLI technology". BTW, I'm an ATI fan from way back (owned a Mach64, 8500, 9700Pro, 9600XT, and 9800XT) and I think the X850XT PE will be a wonderful card when its finally fabricated reliably and available to the masses. If it had been available a month ago, I probably would have bought one instead of my SLI pair :lol: . So, let's get back to the topic, eh? Wow, I feel sort of like a moderator here :roll:.

That's me! :lol:

yeasty, From a budget perspective, waiting for technology is almost always the smart thing to do. Fortunately, I've never been accused of being smart! :lol: -spearsd

Yeasty, This is quite correct, although certain design approaches chosen may render SLI completely useless (detailed in the gpu programmers guide). I very much doubt this is the case, well, for SLI atleast; remember, SLI was just recently introduced by NVidia. ED probably didn't even take it into consideration during the design of LOMAC's engine because it wasn't available and consequently may have implemented rendering such that SLI can't do what its supposed to. Maybe in a complex way, but maybe in a very, very simple way. I'm just hoping they look at it. If they had, I'm sure they would have told us by now ;-) We shall probably have to wait beyond 1.1 for the possibility of SLI compatibility if we see it at all.

Re: Dual monitor support Hajduk, Try one of these... This guys java prototype for a dedicated LockOn dashboard (I've used this one successfully; functions ok, but it needs better visuals and performance of the app is a bit slow)... JLockOn A college student's project... LOMACGlass And the last one has already been mentioned (adaptation of F4Glass). Oh, and here's some threads over at the UBISoft LOMAC forum pertaining to your question... http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?q=Y&a=tpc&s=400102&f=38610606&m=442100335&p=1 http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=400102&f=38610606&m=284102355&r=815101755 I've considered taking this on as a project similar to JLockOn, and have already investigated some of the design necessary, but I don't really think I'll have time or energy to jump into it. :-( Hope this helped :) -spearsd

That's a great idea! :lol: I'll try it.

Hajduk, If you look at the NVidia documentation I've linked to above, it will explain how SLI works, and what is necessary. No, you typically don't need to have NVidia driver SLI specific support for a game, although some games by design will be unable to use SLI effectively (also explained). The NVidia drivers appear to effectively use SLI to improve most of the games I've tried. The Forceware drivers allow you to create profiles for specific games and adjust the SLI mode used to "Auto,AFR,SFR, or Single GPU". Then again, maybe I've misunderstood what I've read there. Read it for yourself and let me know what you think. I'm not making a sales pitch for SLI. I'm simply noting that if through simple changes it can be supported, then maybe it should be. -spearsd

To partially answer your question, some of guidelines and "don'ts" can be found in the short "SLI" section of NVidia GPU programming guide here... http://developer.nvidia.com/object/sli_home.html There really is no coding directly for SLI, just certain guidelines and particular programming practices to avoid. In a nutshell, it could be a simple enhancement to existing code :) , or a major re-write :cry: . All depends on the developers existing design. -spearsd

Actually, I also play quite a bit of FPS and squad based games in addition to LOMAC and other sims, and FiringSquad gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect out of LOMAC on SLI, but figured I'd try more REZ/FSAA combinations than they did. I'm quite befuddled about LOMAC performance because initially it does seem CPU bound, but even OC'ing my 3500+ from 2200Mhz to 2600MHz (about 18%) only resulted in an average 2fps (3-4%) higher performance at 1024x768 NO FSAA and the one 6800GT that was working barely seemed to be breathing hard. ??? That just doesn't add up. Oh well! Next week I might have some ram good for 260FSB and I'll try re-running the same benchies at various REZ/FSAA settings to see what kind of differences the OC makes. Here's to noodles! :cry: -spearsd Wow... I guess you just answered the question I posted on the other topic about games taking advantage of SLI or not... And BTW, I appreciate when one can keep his/her sense of humor under most circumstances... specially after spending big bucks just to realize it was useless for LOMAC... :D Thank God for noodles!!!

Greetings all! I voted "NO"; yeah, SLI is crap! Bahh! LOL, just kidding!!! I already have SLI and contrary to popular belief it happily chews through a ton of games I have that aren't on NVidia's list of tested games. Just some games I've played with benefit of SLI include: America's Army, Operation Flashpoint, IL2, Falcon 4.0, Doom3, FarCry, and Battlefield Vietnam. I hear it works well for Pacific Fighters benefits also :lol: . If one is obsessed with LockOn and doesn't play anything else, well, I guess SLI isn't for that one, but then again, we all have our own opinions of what's good/bad, right/wrong, useful/useless. Oh yes, speaking of multiprocessors, when single-package multiprocessing is available to the masses, I'll get that too. No, I'm not rich; just border-line obsessive about my computer hardware. That's why I eat dehydrated soup for lunch! :wink: :lol: -spearsd

Devs, Have you evaluated LOMAC compatibility with SLI? NVidia has a programming guide on there site with a section pertaining to SLI. http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpu_programming_guide.html My recent experiences running LOMAC with an Athlon 3500+ and 6800GT SLI initially led me to believe that LOMAC was strictly CPU limited, but after overclocking my CPU 10% I only saw a 1% gain in LOMAC performance at 1024x768. Further, I've tweaked settings everywhere possible to reduce CPU overhead and created missions void of AI's and saw minimal improvement in LOMAC framerates. Turning in the GPU display feature in the NVidia drivers confirmed that no matter the settings/mission parameters in LOMAC, the GPU's simply aren't sharing the graphics load in AFR or SFR mode. So, the whole "CPU bottle-neck" idea may be detracting from an additional problem with SLI being fundamentally unworkable with LOMAC in its current state. This message is not intended to start some pathetic flame war about SLI; ITS ADDRESSED SPECIFICALLY TO ED ABOUT SLI OBSERVATION AND FUTURE POTENTIAL :wink: The Nividia programming guide section on SLI is a very quick read. ED, could you provide feedback on feasability of SLI support or correspondance with NVidia on that topic? Any feedback from ED would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, spearsd

Muttley, I'm trying it from my home PC and seems to be accessible from where I'm sitting. What kind of error are you getting? Can you get to http://www.spearstech.com ? -spearsd

Muttley, All I can say is I agree with you on your points, and I for one am glad you hit the submit button :lol: Thanks for your quality post :wink: -spearsd

BIOLOG, I respectfully request you go start a DIFFERENT thread for YOUR topic if you wish to discuss it on this forum. Maybe, you can post some data there to substantiate your LOMAC performance statements :wink: Sorry man, but I've already asked nicely once. -spearsd

LOMAC SLI data... well, some of it... Happy New Year Everyone!!! :lol: Here's some preliminary data running LOMAC SLI... 1. Yes, it appears to be CPU bottle-necked :( 2. No, SLI doesn't appear to do anything nice for performance Sorry, I haven't put more work into it, but I'm sick with the flu. When I feel better, I'll make it spiffy! Demo-MiG29-Intercept / FRAPS 2.50 Measurements -spearsd

I found what's causing the problem with my track file playback. When enabling CockpitMouse in cockpit.lua and using my Logitech MX510, the initial view at track startup is slightly askew. If I try to center the view with the numpad <5> key, all automatic view switching is disabled. I've disabled Cockpit mouse and it working like a charm now. I'll be back with an update soon :wink:

ALDEGA, I did a complete reinstall of LOMAC + 1.02 patch and played back the stock Mig29 Intercept demo with your requested settings while running FRAPS but have run into a slight problem... The views don't appear to switch automatically during playback as they should. Maybe its just me being down with the flu and not thinking clearly, but I could have sworn this track worked perfectly in 1.02 last time I tried it :cry: What am I missing? -spearsd

Goya, I believe you'll find this link in my VERY FIRST POST in this thread :wink: -spearsd

Guys, It could be 250 KLOC or 1000 KLOC; it really doesn't matter. It IS true that a finite number of optimizations in Lock On MAY be identified by developer's profiling the game and concentrating their efforts in areas of code where they would see the most bang-for-buck (most amount of benefit from least amount of effort with the least amount of risk), because that's what its really about... $$$. Will we see SOME of this in 1.1? I suspect very little because 1.1 bread-and-butter is the new flyable, new features, and new bug fixes :lol:, not optimizations. Hopefully, after 1.1, the devs will have some bandwidth to investigate and optimize (fingers crossed). PS: I want my thread back!!! :roll: -spearsd

Re: Lomacfiles.com Merlin, The site architecture looks quite nice and easy on the eyes :wink:. Kudos to you!!! -spearsd

I finally have a tracking number and indications are that I should have the 6800GT OC PCI-E cards tomorrow evening (Dec 29). :) I'll post my findings ASAP.