Addicted to framerate

romperstomper

Hey all,

I looking for some advice or shared experience with SLI. I built a good "bang for the buck" system around xmas with a an AMD64 3700+ (stock at 2.2G but running at 2.75) and a BFG 7800GT also 2G of ram. While the system plays all games no problem, I want to be able to play Oblivion and FEAR at 1280 X 1024 (res i play all my games at) with ALL the candy on.

I'm wondering should i pick up another 7800GT, and would this help? About 200 yo-yos from EBAY so not a light decision.

Thanks

conzy

Hmmmmmmmm

Shiverin Eskimo just got a dual 7800gt SLI setup and he plays oblivion so you could ask him.........

What mainboard have you got?

I think I would sell your 7800gt and get a X1900XT instead, because even with 2 7800gts you still have 256mb of vram..........

The X1900XT architechture is also a lot more future proof and will do better in newer games.......

8T8

romperstomper wrote:

Hey all,

I looking for some advice or shared experience with SLI. I built a good "bang for the buck" system around xmas with a an AMD64 3700+ (stock at 2.2G but running at 2.75) and a BFG 7800GT also 2G of ram. While the system plays all games no problem, I want to be able to play Oblivion and FEAR at 1280 X 1024 (res i play all my games at) with ALL the candy on.

I'm wondering should i pick up another 7800GT, and would this help? About 200 yo-yos from EBAY so not a light decision.

Thanks

SLI with high end GPU's really only benefits if you play games at high resolutions think 1600x1200 at lower resolutions like 1280x1024 the improvement isn't as good.

That said if you play games with the texture optimizations turned off plus the max 4xAA and 16xAF enabled (SLI-AA isnt worth it) plus whatever else image quality enhancements (gamma correct, TrSS-AA) turned on with all the in game eye candy set to the max, SLI will make a difference as the GPU's will have to do a lot more work at 1280x1024 so yeah it would benefit in that scenario and you would be getting the maximum eye candy possible. SLI would also not necessarily improve the max frame rate but it would definitely raise the minimum frame rate.

*FEAR doesn't support 1280x1024 you have to hack it's config to enable it.

**NVIDIA GeForce 7 GPU's cannot perform AA and floating point based HDR lighting at the same time so that feature which is used in Oblivion would have to be disabled if you wanted to use AA.

***If you do go down this route then nHancer is your friend, allows you to set all sorts of properties for the game profiles so you can pile on the image quality enhancements.

romperstomper

thanks very much for the replies guys, just a couple of notes:

i have the samsung 930BF monitor, great for gaming but limited to 1280 X 1024

i have already hacked fear so im running at 1280 X 1024

currently oblivion runs only ok with one gpu and everything at max

im aware of nvidia hdr and aa issue. so far hdr hasnt convinced me enough so im happy to have my aa jacked up and hdr off

i also have to consider selling on etc. with 2 X gpus it should be easier to sell on in a years time as a budget card, rather than look for bigg money for one card. the 1900XT is still very expensive, although in fairness ati are ahead with the physics engine at the moment

my mainboard is a8n-sli premium (highly recommended BTW).

its pretty hard to see where i'll be in a years time with this. a dinosaur no one will want? or still a good system i will be able to sell on?

8T8

romperstomper wrote:

thanks very much for the replies guys, just a couple of notes:

i have the samsung 930BF monitor, great for gaming but limited to 1280 X 1024

i have already hacked fear so im running at 1280 X 1024

currently oblivion runs only ok with one gpu and everything at max

im aware of nvidia hdr and aa issue. so far hdr hasnt convinced me enough so im happy to have my aa jacked up and hdr off

i also have to consider selling on etc. with 2 X gpus it should be easier to sell on in a years time as a budget card, rather than look for bigg money for one card. the 1900XT is still very expensive, although in fairness ati are ahead with the physics engine at the moment

my mainboard is a8n-sli premium (highly recommended BTW).

its pretty hard to see where i'll be in a years time with this. a dinosaur no one will want? or still a good system i will be able to sell on?

Well with 1280x1024 being the max possible resolution of your display the scenario I outlined above the one to make the most out of a SLI 7800GT setup whereby you pile on the IQ enhancements would be the best route.

If you can acquire a 7800GT for €200 or less then I would suggest going for it you are not going to get a top of the line GPU like the 7900GTX or X1900XTX for that kind of money and a 7800GT SLI setup will at least put you roughly in the same league.

As for longevity it's tricky to say obviously as time passes and newer games come out that are more demanding but the 7800GT SLI setup should still be a very capable setup in that regard.


I wouldn't be too hung up on physics a very cheap ATI X1600 standalone GPU can be used with the Havok FX system and in an SLI setup one of your GPU's can be used for physics processing as well.
There aren't really any games that make use of the Havok FX physics anyway but I dare say their system looks a lot more viable than Ageia's PPU which is on increasingly shaky ground.

romperstomper

thanks again for your reply 8T8, it looks like the sli 7800GT road is where im going.

just a side note, i am also upgrading from a 5 year old creative 5.1 live card to a newer x-fi extreme music. this should hopefully free up a few more cpu cycles and improve overall experience.

on cpu, mine is overclocked by more than 25%, from 2.2G to 2.75G and yet i have only experienced another 10% in framerate. im pretty glad i didnt go from a really expensive processor, that being the case.
As long long as your cpu is good enough, it looks like gpu is where the majority of funding should go

just my 2 cents

btw i bought value ram, and that is what prevents the overclock from going further, i think maybe the expensive stuff is worth it if you are gonna o/c

Cuddlesworth

Might not be a good idea to get an x-fi with 2 high end cards in sli. The x-fi seems to lose to the 2 cards for bandwidth and starts making a crackling sound.

conzy

^ Yup.

I had to attempt to repair a PC that was dropped:eek: and it had two 7900GTXs in SLI and a X-fi, and it would detect the X-fi but the creative drivers couldnt detect it............

romperstomper

christ, i can't believe it. damn creative and their xtreme (laziness). i have a 5 yo 5.1 card and they have released a driver update in YEARS

however there really isnt much in the line of competition.

what about an audigy 4 then? would that be ok with sli?

btkm8unsl0w5r4

I have 2 x 512 mb 7900GTX and an XFi Faitality, no probs here and the sound quality is really excellent. As for bandwidth the PCI and PCie bus run off different controllers so I dont see this as a problem. The problem I have is I run a asus board also the delux version and I have no room for a physx card anyway....(not that I can afford one after my last upgrade). I do think that SLI has a lot of untapped power for that kind of thing so I am betting on Havock FX myself...only time will tell.

romperstomper

thats good stuff.

anyone else with sli & x-fi? whats the consensus?

conzy

The X-fi is extremely overpriced.....

Get this if you want to spend that much money, you get a Audigy 2 zs Platinum, a front bay with lots of connectivity, and a remote control!!!!

8T8

I actually have an X-Fi as well only the music edition as I didn't want to waste money on the more expensive models, it's a decent enough card I haven't had any problems with it & the bloat free driver/control panel is a vast improvement over the previous generation cards from Creative which is why I avoided them till the X-Fi.

There were some nForce 4 compatibility issues with the X-Fi but a bios update cured it for the motherboard and Creative updated the firmware on the newer shipping models, but I do know Asus have the fix their bios as I tested an X-Fi with the A8N line & it was fine.

romperstomper

thats sounds good. im currently bidding on a x-fi xtreme music (a friend of mine has one and recommeneds it as well) and if i pick that up and the 7800GT for under 250 delivered, i will be happy enough and it should increase my framerate and experience