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How many have given up on SLI/Crossfire?

Well, there are things I have done which seem to improve things, such as putting card with 1536 shaders as primary, and using on-board sound rather than hdmi for audio.

I really want to use hdmi for audio though (even though I don't use it for display as my monitor 2560x1440) so can get 5.1 audio. My onboard won't allow for 5.1 and is matx board, so no space for sound card. Having the hdmi connected seems to affect performance sometimes...

Am desperately trying to avoid upgrading mobo and cpu here, as i have already spent a ton.

I have noticed in BF3, that for the game to appear smooth, a single gpu must run around 40+ fps for me, but for crossfire, it needs to run 80+ fps to appear smooth.

I know there is v-sync, but sometimes that makes things worse for some reason.

I have on more thing to try tonight with regards to using my hdmi for audio, before decide if am going to keep crossfire, or go back to single.

If go single, will just need to lower settings til faster cards are out.

But damn, 2560x1440 hammers cards!
 
Have had hardly any issues with my Sli GTX570's. In fact, quite the opposite since they seem to scale really well, especially in games like Crysis 2 where I saw a nice increase in fps.

Only slight glitch I had was Deus Ex: HR kept crashing, but a reinstall seems to have solved that.
 
Have to say, the only bit of microstuttering I encountered was in Grid with my 4870s. Other than that, smooth as silk.

Considering dropping in another 5850 to do the same :)

EDIT: Brainfreeze: I have a 6950, not 5850. DUH!
 
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2x 5770 here. BF3 performs great (considering)
One thing I noticed though is that with Afterburner running, BF3 feels slow and laggy. If I run without, fast and smooth.
FPS feels around the same.

Afterburner problem? Placebo effect? Dunno.

Happy with my cheap crossfire setup though. :)
 
2x 5770 here. BF3 performs great (considering)
One thing I noticed though is that with Afterburner running, BF3 feels slow and laggy. If I run without, fast and smooth.
FPS feels around the same.

Afterburner problem? Placebo effect? Dunno.

Happy with my cheap crossfire setup though. :)

Actually I have a 5770. I'd be interested to know how does Battlefield improve between running with one card and with another? For a guide, I have a q9450 (mild overclock) socket 775 system with 8gb of DDR3 ram.
 
I've had a few Multi-GPU setups over the last few years, (6800GT SLI, 7800GTX SLI, 8800GTX SLI, 5850 Crossfire, 470GTX SLI and 580GTX SLI), I've not had any real, insurmountable issues with any of them.
 
Actually I have a 5770. I'd be interested to know how does Battlefield improve between running with one card and with another? For a guide, I have a q9450 (mild overclock) socket 775 system with 8gb of DDR3 ram.

I don't actually know for BF3 since I've had 2x5770 for a little while now so not tried it with a single card.
However, it's doubled the fps for every other game I've played. Good budget upgrade for me at the time.

It's pretty much the same speed as a single 5870 would get overall.
It was cheaper at the time to get 1 5770 and then a few months later another for me :)
 
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Damm u 2560x1600 Res !

Well after some hard thinking I've laid out £1200 on two new 3Gb EVGA 580's and EK w/blocks..hope they run it ok lol !!:eek: Battlefield 3 that is !:p

Hey RevbillyG you didn't used to play a lot of Unreal 1 did you and make maps for it ??:o

Just checked your web page it is you !!!! Its X-Terminator[VoRTeX] :D !!! still put all the unreal games on ! best games ever imho !
 
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Damm u 2560x1600 Res !

Well after some hard thinking I've laid out £1200 on two new 3Gb EVGA 580's and EK w/blocks..hope they run it ok lol !!:eek: Battlefield 3 that is !:p

Hey RevbillyG you didn't used to play a lot of Unreal 1 did you and make maps for it ??:o

Just checked your web page it is you !!!! Its X-Terminator[VoRTeX] :D !!! still put all the unreal games on ! best games ever imho !

haha! Hello mate :)
I haven't mapped for a long time now :(
Brief stint for UT3 Jailbreak but that's about it.
 
Currently have 11.10 and CAP 4 installed.

BF3

With crossfire, all Ultra apart from turning AA off is smooth at 2560 x 1440.

Without v-sync is usually around 80 fps, with drops to around mid 50's. Soon as drops below 70ish starts feeling bit juddery.

With v-sync, typically keeps 60 fps with GPU usage around 80%. Sometimes things too intense and drop to around mid 50's - can definitely feel diff when it drops below 60

With single GPU at 2560x1440 I manage all high with no AA and SSAO rather than HBAO.

This typically keeps the FPS from 40 to 50, though might see the odd drop below 40 momentarily. When i goes below 40 it can start to feel a bit juddery.

Have to say, while I have not spent much time on single GPU, it somehow feels better at lower settings than crossfire at higher.

Tried for a bit this morning, and just seemed to be able to aim much better, whereas with crossfire I just seem to be a terrible shot.
 
Things I don't like about corssfire is waiting weeks and weeks for crossfire profiles to come out, F1 2011 being a prime example here. I've had issues with my 4870x2 in the past with several games (stutter, only using 1 GPU, etc).

Very tempted to ditch it for a 580 (or two..). But my gut is telling me to wait until ATi's next offering early next year.
 
I've never seen the point in SLI/XFire I looked into it and for the potnetial risk of issues I'd rather just have one decent card, in fact these days you dont really even need that you can get away with middle of the range stuff
 
Running 480 sli and I never had a problem in bf3, not even with beta drivers. Only problem I ever had was with shogun 2 where my frame rates were lower with sli for some reason but that was at release.
 
Things I don't like about corssfire is waiting weeks and weeks for crossfire profiles to come out, F1 2011 being a prime example here. I've had issues with my 4870x2 in the past with several games (stutter, only using 1 GPU, etc).

Very tempted to ditch it for a 580 (or two..). But my gut is telling me to wait until ATi's next offering early next year.

Nvidia have an SLI profile creator, but it isnt working for me with the latest drivers (errors when trying to import a new profile).

One solution was to individually set the program to force AFR through the drivers though, and that worked.
 
haha! Hello mate :)
I haven't mapped for a long time now :(
Brief stint for UT3 Jailbreak but that's about it.

know the feeling still love messing with the editor now and then ! UT3 didn't do much for me and I was really looking forward to it ! :( it just didn't seem to have the soul of 2k4 etc..

Nice to see your still gaming matey :D

What a waste imo. You could have just waited for next gen, and used lower settings until then.

Thats a true and fair comment..it was a case of Battlefield Bad comapny 2 and battlefield 3 were always written around nvidia and I had issues in crossfire with the ATI cards and now they struggle like mad in B3 1Gb of memory is really unplayable on them at 2560x1600.:(
So I was looking at going nvidia on my next upgrade anyway not ATI that ment wait another month + (and I think it will be longer) for the new ATI cards which may or may not give me problems or wait till the middle of next year to get the new nvidia cards.
I know that b3 is written for nvidia and that with the 3Gb cards I shouldn't run out of video memory!
And it would give me what I'm looking for that is max settings 2560x1600 at 60fps in any game.:o at a later date I will get a 3rd and that will seal 60fps minimum for sure me thinks !:cool:
 
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