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How many have given up on SLI/Crossfire?

eyetrip

eyetrip

eyetrip

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
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I tried it with 7900GS many moons ago and went back to single GPU

I tried it way back with 3850's, and went back to single GPU.

I tried with 4850's and went back to single GPU.

Currently have 6950 Toxic's and am considering going back to single GPU.

It's just so hard getting consistent performance without issues of one type or another.

Take for example, BF3. Sure, it reports high frame rates, but just never felt right. Tried disabling X-Fire last night, and while the frame rate as reported by Afterburner was lower, it just felt so much smoother and easier to play.

It's not just BF 3 though. Metro 2033 just doesn't feel right with crossfire.

Only reason I decided to go X-fire was because I went 2560x1440, but am considering just resorting to dropping settings.

What your guys experience?
 
I have for the reason that a smooth frame rate is much more important than a high max frame rate.

Until drivers are mature enough to deal with that issue, I'll keep avoiding it.
 
Why not try Sli again?

I know you said you tried it with your 7900GS's, but the drivers have mooved on so much since then.

Battlefield 3 runs, plays and gives me fantastic frame rates and looks so good with my 580's in sli as does Metro, I really cannot imagine gaming with out sli.

I appreciate that for some games (like Rage) disabling one card gives better performance, but I do not see that as a disadvantage.

Crysis 2 was a similar problem, but now with better drivers it runs great.

What sli does for me is it allows me to max out any game with AA and still play at smooth and high frame rates.
 
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sammo62 said:
I have for the reason that a smooth frame rate is much more important than a high max frame rate.

Until drivers are mature enough to deal with that issue, I'll keep avoiding it.
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I think drivers are mature enough to allow this now.

I find that yes, I do get higher max frame rates but it also gives me higher average frame rates, which in turn give a smoother playing experience.
 
nickrose said:
I find that yes, I do get higher max frame rates but it also gives me higher average frame rates, which in turn give a smoother playing experience.
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But thats the problem. At least for me. X-Fire provides higher frame rates according to afterburner, but it just doesn't feel smoother.

Sometimes it will be smooth in X-fire, but then it will feel juddery again (without frame rate noticeably dropping), when will go smooth again.

It's the inconsistency that drives me mental. It's just that once again, I am spending more time mucking about trying to get things running nicely, than playing any games.
 
There was a good article about microstutter on tomshardware.

It does exist and to stop it completely in xfire you need to actually Tri-fire.

Adding the third GPU seems to average out the frame rate across the board stopping any dips in framerate which would remove your feeling of smooth gameplay.
 
Not having experienced Xfire recently, it seems there a lot of people on the web in general not happy with recent driver updates.

I can honestly say that with sli i very rarely get the 'juddery' feeling that you seem to be getting.

I think with whatever multi gpu setup we have running there are going to be problems of one sort or another.
 
Random Guy said:
Tried BF3 for the first time yesterday, and I have to say that at 1440p, my GTX 480 SLI (eh, nick? ;)) performed very well, without stutter or lag.
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Yeah, thet are good arn't they, now why on earth did I sell them?!? :confused: ;)

Really, really pleased you are happy with it, and btw thanks for the feedback on the sale.

Sorry, back on topic, I am not ATI bashing in the slightest, I think they do some really well priced products, but there do seem to be a lot of unhappy ATI people out there at the moment.
 
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nickrose said:
Yeah, thet are good arn't they, now why on earth did I sell them?!? :confused: ;)

Really, really pleased you are happy with it, and btw thanks for the feedback on the sale.

Sorry, back on topic, I am not ATI bashing in the slightest, I think they do some really well priced products, but there do seem to be a lot of unhappy ATI people out there at the moment.
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There seem to be as many AMD users having issues as nVidia users. You just have to look around :)
 
I've had 2 crossfire setups, 5770's and a 6990, both were great and drivers have improved tons since the 5770's (they were pretty good then anayway). a lot of problems seem to arise from user error or beta drivers that are not ment to solve every ill.
 
Went from 4870's in crossfire to a 6970. Not working in windowed mode, not compatible with many games the extra heat generated from two cards, just wasn't worth it.
 
Jano said:
Went from 4870's in crossfire to a 6970. Not working in windowed mode, not compatible with many games the extra heat generated from two cards, just wasn't worth it.
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Crossfire has come on a long way since the 4 series, you cannot really base an opinion of multi gpu setups on experience with older cards. The heat and window mode are still the same.
 
I ditched sli a few years back with my 9600GT's, drivers were such a pain in the backside. More than one time forcing me to reformat my system, loosing data in the process!
 
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