Quad SLI (Two Questions)

[Richieb0y 0]

One:

Anyone tried Quad SLI (ie 2 x 295GTXs) with Arma II?

What are your opinions on it?

and Two:

Can it be done with 2, different GTX295's? The one I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168

14127404

is discontinued now, so I'll have to buy a different one.

Does it matter if its a different brand, as well as have slightly different clock speeds?

hi if you cane besure that the Pcb and all is the same just flash the card to the one you like;)

[dogz 10]

@skypine27

FYI with a system like urs I think you made a mistake using the Green WD drives.

With specs a bit below yours I built identical rigs for my Bro and one for me... mine had WD Black drives and his had the Greens we chose Raid0 for both builds but had to send the Green drives back as they caused stutters in games and streaming video.

If you search the net you will find they are a very poor choice for a top end rig like yours.

Edited August 24, 2009 by dogz

[Game__On 10]

Just finished building this system yesterday. When I originally made this post, I was playing with an X48 mobo, QX9770, 8gb of ram, and a GTX295.

Now, Im running the new system (kept the old video card in it though). And I STILL get choppy frame rates at times in ARMAII. Thats why Im still thinking of adding a 2nd GTX295. Unsure if that will help though.

Thanks guys

Yes i know what you mean. For a brief period i was considering tri-sli , but with more than 2 cards comes another set of problems. Read up on 'microstuttering' for instance.

However, it would be nice to see some benchmarks of tri sli or quad sli with this game in particular.

Google 'sli zone' , or check 'nvnews' perhaps.

[Nazul 10]

Just finished building this system yesterday. When I originally made this post, I was playing with an X48 mobo, QX9770, 8gb of ram, and a GTX295.

Now, Im running the new system (kept the old video card in it though). And I STILL get choppy frame rates at times in ARMAII. Thats why Im still thinking of adding a 2nd GTX295. Unsure if that will help though.

Thanks guys

Disabled hyperthreading? I7 + win7 needs to have HT disabled otherwise it will run like crap.

[GLeek 10]

to sum up that, we all understood the bad choice of bohemia interactive made about vegetation . in a nutshell , all player without crossfire / sli can sit their ass on playable framerate. my game run fin in town , and city , but as soon i enter in a large forest, framerate badly drop . object detail need to be VERY HIGH , regardless config. we need that because we can't play with 1998 era low poly vehicle , and soldier.

but this vegetation (full of useless leaf , but to smoke them ) make it impossible for middly geared player. sadly, vegetation is procedural and i think modders can hardly change that.

[bangtail 0]

Just finished building this system yesterday. When I originally made this post, I was playing with an X48 mobo, QX9770, 8gb of ram, and a GTX295.

Now, Im running the new system (kept the old video card in it though). And I STILL get choppy frame rates at times in ARMAII. Thats why Im still thinking of adding a 2nd GTX295. Unsure if that will help though.

Thanks guys

Honestly, the new ATI cards are about 2 weeks away and the flagship single GPU card is apparently boasting P18000 in Vantage. The Nvidia GT300 is rumoured to be hitting X13000 in vantage (which would translate into ~P25000).

** - X = Extreme settings (more demanding) P = Performance settings (less demanding).

Source :

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=137758

Apart from the fact that 2 x 295 isn't really going to help your cause (as the game is CPU limited and not GPU limited), even if you insisted on another 295, it would be smarter to buy it AFTER the new cards release.

Eth

---------- Post added at 08:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:21 AM ----------

Disabled hyperthreading? I7 + win7 needs to have HT disabled otherwise it will run like crap.

With the newer beta builds, you need only add -cpucount=4 to alleviate the stuttering (at least it worked for me). I'm not sure whether you still need the -winxp switch (under Win 7) or not. Maybe one of the devs can confirm or deny.

[skypine27 0]

Well, I did it.

I dropped 500 bucks on an XFX GTX295, so now I have quad SLI.

And guess what:

ARMA II still runs not-so great! Amazing.

Nazul: I will try turning of HT in the BIOS right now

dogz: I use the 3 x WD 2TB Greens for storage and video editing. I have ARMA II installed on a SSD Raid 0 setup. 2 x Corsair P128 SSDs to be exact. NO stuttering due to HDs, thats for sure. I have my other games installed on a 300 GB Velociraptor.

Edit:

Was wondering about overloading my 800 watt PSU with 2 x GTX295s and 4 mechnical harddrives, but this little thing only estimated I need 634 watts!:!:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Edit:

Tested with HT disabled in the BIOS. No improvements. Everything I read when I google Windows 7 and Hyper Threading actually says Windows 7 is optimized for Hyperthreading and benefits greatly from it blah blah blach. So I turned it back on.

Overclocked the CPU to 4.2 (up from 4.06) and will test that now.

Edited August 24, 2009 by skypine27

[bangtail 0]

Yes i know what you mean. For a brief period i was considering tri-sli , but with more than 2 cards comes another set of problems. Read up on 'microstuttering' for instance.

However, it would be nice to see some benchmarks of tri sli or quad sli with this game in particular.

Google 'sli zone' , or check 'nvnews' perhaps.

3rd card doesn't make much of a difference tbh. Probably would help a little more @ 2560 x 1920 but I don't play at that rez.

Microstuttering has nothing to do with "more than 2 cards". It's a bi-product of SLI (that's any more than 1 card).

Eth

---------- Post added at 08:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

Well, I did it.

I dropped 500 bucks on an XFX GTX295, so now I have quad SLI.

And guess what:

ARMA II still runs not-so great! Amazing.

Nazul: I will try turning of HT in the BIOS right now

dogz: I use the 3 x WD 2TB Greens for storage and video editing. I have ARMA II installed on a SSD Raid 0 setup. 2 x Corsair P128 SSDs to be exact. NO stuttering due to HDs, thats for sure. I have my other games installed on a 300 GB Velociraptor.

Will test now with HT off.

I did try to tell you. Throwing video at a CPU limited game is fairly pointless when what you had was more than adequate. Spending $500.00 with cards that will significantly outperform the 295 (and offer DX11 compatibility as well as a new architecture) just around the corner doesn't make much sense to me.

But hey, it's your money :)

As far as H/T goes, there is little point in owning an i7 and disabling H/T. You might as well buy a 9770 as the performance will be about the same and it will run colder. That's why I ran A2 under XP 64 until they got the -cpucount switch working. A2 was the ONLY game where I ever had issues with H/T. The fact is that I need it for many of the apps I use, so disabling it isn't an option.

Eth

---------- Post added at 08:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 AM ----------

that should be a good setup, but then ill already have my 58XX_X2's... haha because they are "not need for this game".... Mo Power!

The X2 and the Nvidia equivalent (dual GPU) card are not going to be out before Q1 2010 by all accounts.

It's only the single GPU "5870" that is coming on the 10th of September. That doesn't affect me as I prefer 2 (or more) cards in SLI/Xfire over a "dual GPU" card like the 295.

I was thinking about going ATI, but after reading what little info is available, it seems that the single GPU GT300 is going to be quite a bit faster than the 58xx, so I'll wait for those TBH.

Eth

Edited August 24, 2009 by BangTail

[bangtail 0]

Edit:

Was wondering about overloading my 800 watt PSU with 2 x GTX295s and 4 mechnical harddrives, but this little thing only estimated I need 634 watts!:!:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Edit:

Tested with HT disabled in the BIOS. No improvements. Everything I read when I google Windows 7 and Hyper Threading actually says Windows 7 is optimized for Hyperthreading and benefits greatly from it blah blah blach. So I turned it back on.

Overclocked the CPU to 4.2 (up from 4.06) and will test that now.

I don't know if I agree with that estimation tbh.

2 x 295 and the overclock may well cause trouble. Run Vantage (on Extreme) at least 3 x and see if it holds. Then run the Intel burn test for an hour or two (minimum) (Do NOT run the IBT if you are using the stock Intel cooler).

http://downloads.guru3d.com/IntelBurnTest-v2.3-download-2047.html

It might be ok, but that's pretty close to the edge under full load IMHO. 1 x 295 uses over 300 watts (in your case, multiplied by 2) under full load and that isn't leaving you a lot of headroom with the CPU (Ocing drastically increases the power requirements), MB, HDDs, SSDs etc etc.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/bfggtx295/14.html

Eth

Edited August 24, 2009 by BangTail

[OUT FOX EM 10]

Honestly, the new ATI cards are about 2 weeks away and the flagship single GPU card is apparently boasting P18000 in Vantage. The Nvidia GT300 is rumoured to be hitting X13000 in vantage (which would translate into ~P25000).

** - X = Extreme settings (more demanding) P = Performance settings (less demanding).

Source :

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=137758

Apart from the fact that 2 x 295 isn't really going to help your cause (as the game is CPU limited and not GPU limited), even if you insisted on another 295, it would be smarter to buy it AFTER the new cards release.

Eth

I certainly hope that's true. However, I followed the chain of links, and even tried deciphering the Chinese translation, but I found nothing indicating those scores unfortunately. This was the closest I came:

"G300 is slightly a bit of it, but also your head refers to the Vantage X13000"

That's certainly nothing concrete.

At this point I'll have to throw that into the rumor bin and wait until some real benchmarks comes out. I definitely do hope they're that good though...

Edited August 24, 2009 by OUT FOX EM

[bangtail 0]

I certainly hope that's true. However, I followed the chain of links, and even tried deciphering the Chinese translation, but I found nothing indicating those scores unfortunately. This was the closest I came:

"G300 is slightly a bit of it, but also your head refers to the Vantage X13000"

That's certainly nothing concrete.

At this point I'll have to throw that into the rumor bin and wait until some real benchmarks comes out. I definitely do hope they're that good though...

The numbers are there (albeit the details are sparse), you just have to look around. I have no doubt that the Flagship GT300 will be about twice as fast as a 285. It makes sense given the rumoured specifications and is now being backed up (albeit in limited form) by people who seem to have some insider info. The silicon has taped out so we should see some more concrete details soon.

Time will tell :)

This just in,

Lol, ATI is having a paper launch - pathetic

Launch = September, Availability = October. I wasn't planning on buying one anyway, but that's weak.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=137807

Eth

Edited August 24, 2009 by BangTail

[OUT FOX EM 10]

The numbers are there (albeit the details are sparse), you just have to look around. I have no doubt that the Flagship GT300 will be about twice as fast as a 285. It makes sense given the rumoured specifications and is now being backed up (albeit in limited form) by people who seem to have some insider info. The silicon has taped out so we should see some more concrete details soon.

Time will tell :)

This just in,

Lol, ATI is having a paper launch - pathetic

Launch = September, Availability = October. I wasn't planning on buying one anyway, but that's weak.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=137807

Eth

Where? I read both pages and that quote is the only post mentioning X13000. I also tracked down the original article in that thread, which is found here (in English):

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/08/13/gt300-have-nvio-chip/

There's no mention of any scores at all on any of those sites, other than the quote in my last post. I think you shouldn't get your hopes up until some real scores do emerge.

On the other hand, I definitely agree that a paper launch is pretty weak but they're in no need to rush, seeing as Nvidia currently has no DX11 competition yet.

[bangtail 0]

Where? I read both pages and that quote is the only post mentioning X13000. I also tracked down the original article in that thread, which is found here (in English):

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/08/13/gt300-have-nvio-chip/

There's no mention of any scores at all on any of those sites, other than the quote in my last post. I think you shouldn't get your hopes up until some real scores do emerge.

On the other hand, I definitely agree that a paper launch is pretty weak but they're in no need to rush, seeing as Nvidia currently has no DX11 competition yet.

Apparently, the post(s) were deleted and that rating speaks to the GT300 being ~twice as fast as a 285. This isn't going to be a surprise. The 280 was ~twice as fast as an 8800 and so it goes. Unlike the 280, the GT300 is a new architecture altogether.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/4/22/nvidias-gt300-specifications-revealed---its-a-cgpu!.aspx

I'm not "getting my hopes up". I know what I know :)

I don't think Nvidia's announcement is far off (although you will have to wait for the "dual GPU" cards from both camps).

Stay tuned.

Edited August 24, 2009 by BangTail

[Game__On 10]

GT300 is still at least 6 months off though. So to those who want to wait, they may be waiting for what i think is quite a long time.

About the GT300 being twice as fast. Well that's quite a jump up . There's nothing concrete on that and it often seems that when specs are getting out there performance is over estimated.

It would be awesome though, but i am reserved about it. But again, it'll take some time before we know for sure.

[bangtail 0]

GT300 is still at least 6 months off though. So to those who want to wait, they may be waiting for what i think is quite a long time.

About the GT300 being twice as fast. Well that's quite a jump up . There's nothing concrete on that and it often seems that when specs are getting out there performance is over estimated.

It would be awesome though, but i am reserved about it. But again, it'll take some time before we know for sure.

The GT300 not "at least 6 months off". The "dual GPU" version might be, but the GT300 class of cards will likely appear before Xmas (maybe not all flavours).

GT300 is just the class, like GT200. It's not known if the GT300 flagship (the GTX380 if you like) will be around before Xmas but it has taped out and I can't see Nvidia giving ATI too much space. That's a lot of potential enthusiasts that will go with ATI merely because Nvidia doesn't have an equivalent card.

Having said that, Nvidia had trouble taping out the GT300 which significantly delayed it's production. There is nothing to say they won't have more design issues or that the flagship card won't be ridiculously expensive due to the lower than expected yield.

As long as ATI's launch goes well, they will be in very good shape because the fact is, even though it isn't 6 months, the Nvidia GT300 line will not be around in the next 3 months. Should Nvidia drop the ball again and incur more delays, ATI will be sitting very pretty.

We'll see. As usual, there is a distinct lack of concrete information concerning these respective launches.

Eth

[skypine27 0]

Ran 2 passes of Vantage @ Extreme, made it thru fine.

Ran the IBT test for 30 minutes (got bored and needed to use the computer), made it fine.

So Im hoping 800 Watts is cool.

NOW, if I could just get ARMA II to play worth a sh*t.

Time to replay Far Cry 2 until another patch and new nvidia drivers come out...

[GLeek 10]

Honestly, the new ATI cards are about 2 weeks away

lolwhut ? ATI always made paper launch ! :o no one will be able to graba card, but tech site tester ! no way man, to get a such card before october end or november !

let alone GT300. its building seem slow, and test arent finish . chips will probably need bug fix too . i heard Q1 2010 for GT300 availability .

[bangtail 0]

lolwhut ? ATI always made paper launch ! :o no one will be able to graba card, but tech site tester ! no way man, to get a such card before october end or november !

let alone GT300. its building seem slow, and test arent finish . chips will probably need bug fix too . i heard Q1 2010 for GT300 availability .

ATI's last 2 major launches were not paper, neither were Nvidia's. I bought my 8800 on launch day and my first 280 on launch day. ATI had a few slight delays with the 4870 cards, but the cards launched on their respective launch days nonetheless.

4890 Launch date was actually EARLIER than predicted.

http://vr-zone.com/comments/amd-brings-foward-hd-4890-launch-date-to-2nd-april/6795.html

It's not the end of October or November. There will be widespread availability of the ATI cards towards the beginning of October.

The GT300 (single GPU flavour) has taped out (almost a month ago) short of a major problem, it's more than likely that it will appear before Xmas (might be limited quantities and expensive), but that doesn't change the fact that you will likely be able to buy it and, let's face it, you always pay a premium for being first.

Q1 2010 is the rumoured availability for the "dual GPU" flavours of either company's card.

Eth

---------- Post added at 09:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 AM ----------

Ran 2 passes of Vantage @ Extreme, made it thru fine.

Ran the IBT test for 30 minutes (got bored and needed to use the computer), made it fine.

So Im hoping 800 Watts is cool.

NOW, if I could just get ARMA II to play worth a sh*t.

Time to replay Far Cry 2 until another patch and new nvidia drivers come out...

Good to hear. I still think you are pretty close to the border with that PSU but if it works, it works.

:D

Eth

Edited August 25, 2009 by BangTail

[GLeek 10]

ATI's last 2 major launches were not paper, neither were Nvidia's. I bought my 8800 on launch day and my first 280 on launch day. ATI had a few slight delays with the 4870 cards, but the cards launched on their respective launch days nonetheless.

4890 Launch date was actually EARLIER than predicted.

http://vr-zone.com/comments/amd-brings-foward-hd-4890-launch-date-to-2nd-april/6795.html

It's not the end of October or November. There will be widespread availability of the ATI cards towards the beginning of October.

The GT300 (single GPU flavour) has taped out (almost a month ago) short of a major problem, it's more than likely that it will appear before Xmas (might be limited quantities and expensive), but that doesn't change the fact that you will likely be able to buy it and, let's face it, you always pay a premium for being first.

Q1 2010 is the rumoured availability for the "dual GPU" flavours of either company's card.

Eth

---------- Post added at 09:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 AM ----------

Good to hear. I still think you are pretty close to the border with that PSU but if it works, it works.

:D

Eth

i said Q1 2010 for GT300. not ATI . here @west europe , i bet november for ATI !

[bangtail 0]

i said Q1 2010 for GT300. not ATI . here @west europe , i bet november for ATI !

You'd lose money on that bet as far as North America goes. Further, and from what I understand, it's a global launch and not just a North American one.

I can't really speak for European availability as it doesn't affect me and that's not what you were claiming. I wasn't talking about European dates, and neither were you until it suited your "argument".

The month between the September launch and the actual availability of the product at the beginning of October is merely to swell the release numbers.

I know for a fact they will be available in NA at the beginning of October.

Eth

[Exarch_Belisarius 10]

@skypine27

Lamentably I've only caught your discussion today, so I didn't get to let you know that my Quad SLI setup's not performing optimally, before you went out and purchased the second card. I've two GTX 295s and an i7 940, and despite varying driver versions, command line parameters, disabling HT, and using certain SLI profiles, I can't seem to get the second card to contribute to the game's performance at all. Prior to Forceware 190.62 I was dubious that more than one of my cores was working as required.

I've submitted a bug report on the Community Issue Tracker, and now eagerly await some form of address from BIS. Maybe you could add to it what you're experiencing.

That said, I don't think you'll be disappointed in your purchase, both for other games, and when Arma2's performance bugs are ironed out in the glorious future.

[skypine27 0]

Exarch:

Adding the 2nd GTX295 did absolutely nothing (for ARMA II anyway). In fact, it made things worse.

For example, after installing the 2nd card, when I first loaded a save from my campaign, the frame rates are very slow, like watching a slide show. I was like "WTF?!?!" The for some reason, I alt tabbed out of the game to the Win 7 desktop, then went back into the game. At that point, the frame rates were back to normal, pretty smooth.

However, after playing for a while, the slide show-frame rates would surface again, until I did the alt-tab trick again.

I am forced to play with the -winxp as when I leave that out, I get the horrible flashing black, white, blocky, textures.

Im very dissapointed with the whole ARMA II thing, and have started to replay Far Cry II and GTA-4 until a new patch from BIS as well as new drivers from Nvidia come out.

Are you having to use any -winxp or similar shortcut flags to play?

[Nazul 10]

*cough* told you so *cough*

GTA4 dosnt use SLI either, well it didnt when i was playing it in January.

[Exarch_Belisarius 10]

Aye, prior to 190.62, I was getting about 4fps on the main menu when I had quad SLI enabled. I've gotten to play the game up to now by only enabling a single chip.

I experienced flashing black, white and blocky textures followed promptly by a CTD intermittently during my time with 186.18, but back then I was much less aware of all the proposed solutions, so I didn't use -winxp, for example. At present, I'm pretty sure that none of the command line parameters make the performance better or more reliable for me.

At least SLI for me with 190.62 means performance is not worse than with a single GPU enabled. I suspect that fix was achieved by Nvidia disabling any GTX 295 SLI in-game outright while they looked for the real solution.

Fortunately for us, it was another driver update / game patch a few months ago that made GTA IV's performance in Quad SLI on Windows 7 brilliant.

I understand it's a fair read, but if there are any other Quad SLI users out there with or without issues, it'd be great to have your experience backing up or contradicting my bug submission: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3936 - they're likely to find the fix faster I guess, the more complete the information we supply them with.

[bangtail 0]

Aye, prior to 190.62, I was getting about 4fps on the main menu when I had quad SLI enabled. I've gotten to play the game up to now by only enabling a single chip.

I experienced flashing black, white and blocky textures followed promptly by a CTD intermittently during my time with 186.18, but back then I was much less aware of all the proposed solutions, so I didn't use -winxp, for example. At present, I'm pretty sure that none of the command line parameters make the performance better or more reliable for me.

At least SLI for me with 190.62 means performance is not worse than with a single GPU enabled. I suspect that fix was achieved by Nvidia disabling any GTX 295 SLI in-game outright while they looked for the real solution.

Fortunately for us, it was another driver update / game patch a few months ago that made GTA IV's performance in Quad SLI on Windows 7 brilliant.

I understand it's a fair read, but if there are any other Quad SLI users out there with or without issues, it'd be great to have your experience backing up or contradicting my bug submission: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3936 - they're likely to find the fix faster I guess, the more complete the information we supply them with.

According to your bug report you are playing with 10K view distance?

A2 is CPU limited, and no amount of video hardware is going to bypass that limitation. Turn your view distance down by at least 5K. I only run with 3K (Flying between 4-5K) tbh, and that's with more video/CPU HP than you.

Eth

Edited August 26, 2009 by BangTail