Tempted by some cheap GTX460 SLI action? Might want to check this out first before laying down your

[An Exception]

5870is £300
460 is £112 even sli is only £224

the 460 was run on a higher resolution anyway
whats the point in this thread?

if it was a fair comparison it would be worth talking about but as the res is diffrent in both tests its worthless

5850 only £195, which probably delivers smoother REAL performance than dual 460-750mb SLI

 

[An Exception]

One thing that you missed though:

The single 5870 was only running at around 30 fps at a much lower resolution. The dual GTX 460 was still managing better FPS at 4000x+ resolution, despite the microstutter.

You are also taking the cards far out of their league. Even with a crossfire / SLI setup, most people still only play at 1080p resolution, the reason for having two cards is to get much higher FPS, and tonnes of extra AA in their games. The FPS in just about any game at 1080p is never going to fall low enough on a dual GTX 460 setup to notice any microstutter.

At the resolution the OP tested them at, you would only be able to get close to smooth performance with 2, or 3 2 Gb 5870s. It is not an accurate test when you purposefully push an SLI GTX 460 setup up to that kind of resolution, then record the microstutter in Crysis, because hardly anyone with these cards is going to be playing Crysis across three monitors at that kind of resolution.

Also, I can definately say after having owned crossfire 3850s, 4850s, 4870s, 5770s, and SLI GTX 460s, that I have NEVER seen any kind of microstutter in any game running at around 60 fps or higher. I dont think that anyone else has either, the only time you notice micostutter is when your FPS falls to around 30 fps, and I have no idea how that is going to happen on a dual GTX 460 setup.

Also, on any dual card setup, you should have a quad core CPU overclocked as far as you can to reduce CPU bottlenecking. Since I've been running all my dual card setups on both an E8400 @ 4050 Mhz, and then an I7 920 @ 4200 Mhz is probably a large contributing factor to why I never see any microstutter.

What res are you running at?

 

[bhavv]

What res are you running at?

1920x1200, max AA in everything, no microstutter.

I play Guildwars with V Sync enabled to the max FPS is capped to 60, I still dont see any microstuter at all.

 

[tdream]

1920x1200, max AA in everything, no microstutter.

I play Guildwars with V Sync enabled to the max FPS is capped to 60, I still dont see any microstuter at all.

V Sync doesn't fix microstutter. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean a 480 won't be smoother. Check fraps framerate times.

 

[An Exception]

Agree with Cupra, pointless thread. I can only understand it being posted if the OP hasn't heard of Micro stutter before. It's bloody pointless trying to compare a single card at low res, then try to force the other card down, and then say it's crap. It's a well known issue the article has just tried to reinvent.

I see scared of bogey micro-stutter man, so it must be a pointless thread, and not one that educates others about the effect that micro-stutter can bring to potential gamers, just because you know what it is, doesn't mean every does.

Who is realistically going to be trying to run that sort of res on budget cards?

(read the following VERY slowly)

The point of the video was to capture the difference between a single and muti GPU setup running at the same frame-rate, not to compare who has the most FPS.
They both were running at 30 FPS while 5870 was just about playable the 460SLI was hideously stuttery!

But to answer your question, at whatever res your play at (except extreme high res), it's very probable a fast single GPU is the best choice for smoother gameplay than two slower cards that give you modestly more FPS.

And it's the last point that makes this thread useful, as it will help someone out there avoid a costly mistake by making an informed decision even if you have already heard of the issue.

 

[An Exception]

1920x1200, max AA in everything, no microstutter.

I play Guildwars with V Sync enabled to the max FPS is capped to 60, I still dont see any microstuter at all.

What frame-rate does a single 460 yield? (which I presume is overclocked and is a 1gb version)

 

[Duff-Man]

V Sync doesn't fix microstutter.

Actually, so long as you're not right on the threshold, then double-buffer vsync will completely "fix" microstutter.

Since I've been running all my dual card setups on both an E8400 @ 4050 Mhz, and then an I7 920 @ 4200 Mhz is probably a large contributing factor to why I never see any microstutter.

Your comments about a sufficiently powerful CPU helping to reduce microstutter are incorrect. In fact, the converse is true; microstutter disappears under CPU-restricted scenarios, as the GPU output syncs to the regular output of the CPU. I explain (and demonstrate) this in the thread I linked to earlier. That's not to say a slower CPU is a good thing, as there is only a relatively small window where the improved smoothness resulting from CPU-restriction and no microstutter will outweigh a non-CPU-restricted setup with microstutter. And since this window shifts game-scene to game-scene, there is no way to target it.

 

[An Exception]

As said a pointless thread, it's common knowledge that xfire as well as SLI setups microstutter at low FPS so basically this thread is scare mongering. It's not as if this effects the majority of people that go 460 SLI unless you use surround and play crysis on max at the res in the vid.

Please stop trolling this thread unless your going to bother doing some research as to what micro stutter is and how it actually works, to then contribute something useful.

"SLI setups microstutter at low FPS so basically this thread is scare mongering"
News flash, it doesn't just effect low FPS.

 

[Rroff]

I see stuff like on the video all the time on peoples' setups even those with single GPUs due to them loading so much crap in the background that something periodically interupts for a few ms.

Microstutter is blown out of proportion imo, most hardcore gamers will "feel" it if it does happen to a big enough degree but it rarely shows up like that unless you either under 15-16fps or have something setup wrong.

 

[An Exception]

Actually, so long as you're not right on the threshold, then double-buffer vsync will completely "fix" microstutter.

This looks like a useful solution to it, but what's the hit on FPS like normally?

 

[Duff-Man]

Microstutter is blown out of proportion imo, most hardcore gamers will "feel" it if it does happen to a big enough degree but it rarely shows up like that unless you either under 15-16fps or have something setup wrong.

The real-world effect of microstutter is to eat away at your framerate, even though this effect cannot show up on a FPS counter.

If "hardcore gamers" don't care about anything more than a basic playable framerate, then why would they be buying a multi-GPU setup in the first place?

Microstutter is a constant and consistent issue. It is only removed in the case of CPU restriction and with vsync enabled. This is an easily demonstrated fact.

 

[Rroff]

VSync has its own issues tho - especially with SLI + wrong framerates can induce hideous input lag.

 

[An Exception]

I see stuff like on the video all the time on peoples' setups even those with single GPUs due to them loading so much crap in the background that something periodically interupts for a few ms.

Microstutter is blown out of proportion imo, most hardcore gamers will "feel" it if it does happen to a big enough degree but it rarely shows up like that unless you either under 15-16fps or have something setup wrong.

Rroff, I think the guy was using the same setup apart from the cards, and I doubt he suddenly loading some background tasks for when he tested the 460's.

 

[Rroff]

The real-world effect of microstutter is to eat away at your framerate, even though this effect cannot show up on a FPS counter.

If "hardcore gamers" don't care about anything more than a basic playable framerate, then why would they be buying a multi-GPU setup in the first place?

Microstutter is a constant and consistent issue. It is only removed in the case of CPU restriction and with vsync enabled. This is an easily demonstrated fact.

If it was to that extent far more hardcore fps gamers, etc. would notice it and complain about it... coming from a competitive fps background where people tweak their mice for 1000Hz, still using CRTs for 200Hz, etc. many of them use multi GPUs setups without complaint and trust me if there was that much of an effect they would be the first people complaining.

 

[layte]

I always use vsync with my sli 480's and I cannot say micro stutter is anything I have ever noticed. That is on my 30" Dell 3008 which has more pixels than either of the resolutions used in the OP videos. I use vsync to stop tearing, that it most likely diminishes the impact of micro stutter to unnoticeable levels is a bruciebonus in my opinion.

 

[Duff-Man]

If it was to that extent far more hardcore fps gamers, etc. would notice it and complain about it... coming from a competitive fps background where people tweak their mice for 1000Hz, still using CRTs for 200Hz, etc. many of them use multi GPUs setups without complaint and trust me if there was that much of an effect they would be the first people complaining.

Let me get this straight...

My argument is: I have written a program to quantify the effect of microstutter, and used it to analyse a wide range of multi-GPU setups. I have discovered that in GPU-limited scenarios without vsync the effective framerate reduction is generally between 10 and 35%, and that CPU restricted scenarios remove microstutter entirely. Therefore it exists and its effect is well defined.

Your argument is: I've never heard any pro gamers complain about it, therefore it does not exist.




For one thing, as I mentioned earlier, multi-GPU setups still improve real-world performance over single GPU setups. The point is that the performance increase you expect from looking at benchmarks is NOT the same as the real-world performance increase you get. In addition, in most circumstances the reduction in performance is sufficient that doubling-up on slower GPUs is a bad idea, when a single GPU alternative is available. Case in point: GTX260s or 5770s.

 

[Rroff]

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I know very well it exists to an extent and have talked about it for years on these forums. I think the extent it is noticeable at is a lot less than your analysis would seem to reveal.

 

[bhavv]

The only reason I used the V Sync example was because people said you will still see microstutter at 60 FPS.

V Sync forces my FPS to 60, at which I still dont see any microstutter.

I didnt imply that V Sync does anything to improve microstutter, just that I do not have it in any game when I use V Sync to force 60 FPS.

Your comments about a sufficiently powerful CPU helping to reduce microstutter are incorrect.

I didnt mean that either. Faster CPU clocks vastly improve SLI / Crossfire performance, and your max / min FPS will go a lot higher, at which I would assume that even if microstutter does happen, you wouldnt be able to notice it as easilly.

Everysingle time I see any review or opinion that SLI / Crossfire is worse than a single card setup, I pretty much always see a stock speed CPU being used in the comparison witch is just complete rubbish.

SLI / Crossfire performance gets crippled by a 2.6 Ghz CPU. You need to overclock the CPU to reduce the bottleneck as much as possible.

 

[Duff-Man]

I think the extent it is noticeable at is a lot less than your analysis would seem to reveal.

Well, good for you I guess

Personally I am uninterested in people's opinions on matters which can be quantified numerically. Opinion has no place in mathematical analysis, and microstutter comes down to the analysis of framerate irregularity.

 

[MOOGLEYS]

I never noticed any stutter running 2 460 1gb,s in Sli... Tried a good few games and was ok no stuttering. ??