Running Dual SLI - advantage of running both cards FC

[Wombat1940]

I've been doing some test with my Dual SLI System .... 2 x 7800GTX's ....... to see if its working in Dual SLI Mode with FC1.1. So far I have my doubts:

 

(1) FRAPS TEST

1 x SLI card - Avge: 68.569

2 x SLI cards - Avge: 65.057 (approx. no change over one card)

 

Any comments?

__________________

Asus A8N-SLI Delux, AMD Athlon 64 4000+, 2 x BFG 7800GTX-OC, 4 x 0.5Gb Corsair TwinX 3200 Pro, Antec Super Lanboy, Antec 2TP-550PS12V, 2 x 200Gb Seagate 7200rpm SATA, NEC 19" Flat CRT, Pioneer DVD/CD R/RW, TM Cougar, TrackerIR, Win XP Pro

[Shaman]

 

I've found it once on some lockon site. Can't quite remember where. Though I knew I better save it for the future. So here it is :D

These are average framerates from some default heavy lockon track. (I think the one which was removed during some patch, the one with MiG-29)

The white numbers are minimum frames.

[Pilotasso]

SLI is not much good for SIM's. They are aimed for graphics intesive games where the botleneck is the GFX not the CPU. With LOMAC you have precisley the CPU as the bottleneck plus your actualy demanding more data with it for the SLI data since then the CPU is suplying data to 2 cards instead of 1.

 

This is why I always will avoid going SLI. My fav Games are SIM's and strategy games. and then when you want to upgrade you trash 2 cards in place of 1. Too expensive and wastefull for my case. I hope you got SLI for other aplications as well or you might have well wasted alot of money.

 

Just my 2 cents here.

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

Any comments?

What are your graphic settings?

[Prophet_169th]

I have a 7900GTX from a 7800GT, and I really didnt have that much of an increase in performance.

 

What I did gain though, was that the game runs the same FPS regardless of the graphic settings (besides vis). 1600x1200 16xAF 8xAA..... no problem.

[Wombat1940]

What are your graphic settings?

 

Thanks for all the responses.

 

My setting are as follows for FC/LockOn:

 

GPU's

Res 1600 x 1200

Refresh Rate: 75Hz

Color: 32 Bit

AA: 4x

AF: 8x

Image Settings: Quality

Color Profile: Not Available

Vert Sync: Application Controlled

Force mipmaps: Bilinear

Conformant Texture Clamp: On

Extension Limit: Off

Hardware Accel: Single-display Mode

Tilinear opimization: On

Anisotropic mip filter optermization: On

Gamma Correct AA: On

Tranparency AA: Multisampling

Triple buffering: On

SLI rendering mode: Predefined

Negative LOD bias: Allow

 

Graphic Setting in Sim

Tex: High

Scenes: High

Terr: 50Kms

Civ Traffic: On

Water: Medium

Hase: Basic

Lights: All

Vis Range: Medium

Effects: High

Heat Blur: On

Shadows: Full

Color: 32bit

Res: 1600 x 1200

Full Screen: Off

 

Any comments?

 

Wombat

[Nate Dogg]

AA: 4x ---------- Could run at 8x

AF: 8x ----------- Could run at 16x

Image Settings: Quality ---------- change to High Quality

 

Graphic Setting in Sim

Tex: High

Scenes: High

Terr: 50Kms ---------- Change to 100km

Civ Traffic: On

Water: Medium -------- Try High, but i think med looks the best.

Hase: Basic ------------ Change to advanced

Lights: All

Vis Range: Medium ------ Try High and see what happens.

Effects: High

Heat Blur: On

Shadows: Full

Color: 32bit

Res: 1600 x 1200

Full Screen: Off -------------- Why?

 

With that setup you should have most things maxed out and still not notice any difference in fps.

[Wombat1940]

Thanks Nate ....... I'll try your settings ........ Full Screen Off? I've forgotten:rolleyes::rolleyes: but it still shows in Full Screen.:D

 

Have you got a single or dual 6800's?

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

I find that for me anyway, that sli AA 16x was the best setting for lomac, just as smooth and fast as any other sli setting, but with a ton of Anti Aliasing at no cost to performance....

 

thats what i used to use, the game was maxed except for water which was on high...

 

16x AA 16x AF is what I used to run with the 78s.

 

Now that I use a 79, I only go for 8xaa and 16xaf and i have the water at medium, the rest of the settings are the same except for the water.....

[Wombat1940]

I find that for me anyway, that sli AA 16x was the best setting for lomac, just as smooth and fast as any other sli setting, but with a ton of Anti Aliasing at no cost to performance....

 

thats what i used to use, the game was maxed except for water which was on high...

 

16x AA 16x AF is what I used to run with the 78s.

 

Now that I use a 79, I only go for 8xaa and 16xaf and i have the water at medium, the rest of the settings are the same except for the water.....

 

Thanks Scotty

 

Edit: 79? ....... you mean a 7900GTX? ....... you gave up 2 x 78's for one 79?

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

your edit be correcto mundo, but i still ave meh 3 7800s,

 

I am gonna slowly get parts for a another pc, I already have mobo, the vid cards, ram, all i need is cpu which i want the fx57 and a psu and a case...

 

so teh 78s will not be wasted...

[Groove]

http://www.gigabyte.de/MotherBoard/News/News_620.htm

 

SCOTSMAN, you want this MoBo !

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

I saw it last year, to be honest, it isnt needed now, as you can have quad sli with only 2 slots :)

 

Also its a gigabyte board, so I would have to pass, but, if you want to give me one, I will easily take it off your hands for free ;)

[Groove]

Gigabyte is the best atm in my eyes

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

check this out.

 

When i first saw that mobo on some weird japanese website, i emailed gigabyte asking for a freebie to review, I also said that my web site was called www.motherboardmayhem.com. ( link is not real ) But I never heard back from them, so i never did get my freebie from them :D

 

Personally, I hate gigabyte motherboards, they do make decent stuff, video cards etc, but there motherboards is not included in the decent stuff if you ask me, but still, I would have that one you linked to for free and wouldnt complain about it.....

[Wombat1940]

FLAMING CLIFFS 1.12a

SINGLE CARD

SLI rendering - Not available

Avg: 26.090 - Min: 11 - Max: 58

DUAL CARDS

SLI rendering - AFR2

Avg: 39.195 - Min: 13 - Max: 103 Improvement Over Single Card 50.2%

SLI rendering - SLI AA

Avg: 34.317 - Min: 10 - Max: 73 Improvement Over Single Card 31.5%

SLI rendering - Split FR

Avg: 28.327 - Min: 7 - Max: 65 Improvement Over Single Card 8.6%

SLI rendering - Auto (selected Split FR)

Avg: 28.060 - Min: 8 - Max: 638 Improvement Over Single Card 7.6%

SLI rendering - Single-GPU R

Avg: 26.207 - Min: 11 - Max: 58 Improvement Over Single Card 0.5%

SLI rendering - AFR

Avg: 21.641 - Min: 7 - Max: 40 Improvement Over Single Card -17.1%

 

 

 

GPU SETTINGS FOR FC

Res: 1600 x 1200

Color: 32bit

Refresh rate: 75Hz

AA: 8S x

AF: 16 x

Image setting: High Quality

Vert Sync: Appl. Cont.

Force mipmaps: Bilinear

Cnf. Text. : Off

Ext Limit: Off

Tril. Opt: Off

Anis mip Filter opt.: Off

Ani. Sample Opt.: Off

Gamma Corr. AA: On

Tran. AA: Multi

Tiple Buf: On

SLI Ren: see above

Neg. LOD bias: Clamp

 

GRAPHIC SETTINGS IN FC

Tex: High

Scenes: High

Terr: 100Kms

Civ Traffic: On

Water: high

Hase: Advanced

Lights: All

Vis Range: High

Effects: High

Heat Blur: On

Shadows: Full

Color: 32bit

Res: 1600 x 1200

Full Screen: On

[Nate Dogg]

Wow! thats some good results. So AFR2 works the best. I would be happy with a 50% increase. you can't do much more with those lockon settings, that would just look fantastic.

 

Im only running one 6800gt, i thought about a second, but it would be cheaper to sell my GT and buy a 79gtx. At the moment my gpu is whats holding me back the most, but i can't justify getting a new card now when DX10 cards will be on the horizon soon.

 

Anyways your results are fantastic and id be really happy with that.

 

cheers

[Groove]

check this out.

 

When i first saw that mobo on some weird japanese website, i emailed gigabyte asking for a freebie to review, I also said that my web site was called www.motherboardmayhem.com. ( link is not real ) But I never heard back from them, so i never did get my freebie from them :D

 

Personally, I hate gigabyte motherboards, they do make decent stuff, video cards etc, but there motherboards is not included in the decent stuff if you ask me, but still, I would have that one you linked to for free and wouldnt complain about it.....

 

What is your favourite mobo manufacturer ?

[Wombat1940]

Wow! thats some good results. So AFR2 works the best. I would be happy with a 50% increase. you can't do much more with those lockon settings, that would just look fantastic.

 

I mostly fly in F4AF where the results are very different:

 

http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=102685

 

All the best, Wombat

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

What is your favourite mobo manufacturer ?

 

Asus, or msi, I would say DFI, but they are far too complicated for them to be one of my favourites...

 

Asus would be my top pick tho

[Groove]

Asus was top years ago. then they went down with support and stability. but i heard they coming up again. MSI is very good. My actual Mobo is from MSI.

 

DFI is fastest afaik but as you stated already i dont like them too...

[Hogarth]

I've got a couple of dum questions about dual SLI Boards or Crossfire. Im looking at biulding new rig and Im looking hard at MSI K8N Diamond Plus SLI Nforce Skt 939. Do I have to get two cards at first or can I run just one? Is there a master and slave card? Do they have to be Identical (Manufacter,Model)?

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

you only need one card, no reason to buy 2, as the mobo will work perfectly with one or 2 cards in it...