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NVIDIA Quad SLI Disappoints
Vigile writes "While the death of PC gaming might be exaggerated, it's hard not to see the issues gamers have with the platform. A genre that used to dominate innovation in the field now requires a $1200 piece of graphics technology just to participate, and that's just plain bad for the consumer. NVIDIA's SLI technology was supposed to get a boost today by going from two GPUs to four GPUs with the introduction of Quad SLI but both PC Perspective and HardOCP seem to think that NVIDIA drastically missed the mark by pushing an incredibly expensive upgrade that really does nothing for real-world game play and performance. If PC gamers are left with these options to save them from consoles, do they even have a chance?"
You don't need to spend 1200 dollars to be competitive.
9600 GTs went on sale for 130 bucks recently and they can play crysis at a modest detail level.
A decent gaming machine isn't expensive nowadays:
$100 processor
$100 mobo
$50 case
$150-200 videocard
$70 RAM
$50 PS
Bam you got yourself a gaming rig.
~600 bucks and that's not including the corners you can cut with upgrading.
Beaten by ATI Radeon: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce9800-gx2.html
"If you have a 30-inch monitor that supports 2560x1600 resolution, then your choice is clear: ATI 4-way CrossFireX
outperforms the similar solution from Nvidia or runs at comparable speed offering acceptable gaming performance
in such titles as Battlefield 2142, BioShock, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and ompany
of Heroes: Opposing Fronts.
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI platform, however, leads in Call of Duty 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of
Chernobyl and Tomb Raider: Legend. In other games, both quad-GPU configurations either work incorrectly or
cannot provide acceptable performance in 2560x1600 resolution.
So, the total score would be 5:3 in favor of AMD/ATI that offer better compatibility, scalability and fewer technical
issues for the users."
___
So, beaten by Quad Radeon in some games.
However, anyone willing to bet on the Linux 3D performance on Radeon? I'm not...
Actually, most console versions of PC games have watered down poly counts and lower resolution textures. They've been able to get away with sub par graphics for years because standard def TV is only 640x480 at 24 FPS. Compare that to people running PC games on wide screens at 2048x1024 and pushing 60+fps.
I don't think that is really true of *current* console games. I don't have a PC game rig, but PS3 games look VERY nice on a 1080p projector.
Standard Def TV in the USA is NTSC at 29.97 FPS with 525 horizontal lines of resolution, NOT 640x480 @ 30FPS (30 FPS was dropped to 29.97 to adjust to the post WWII color standard.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The 360 and PS3 are a bit slower with a little lower settings than my 18-month old mid price PC. The PC was a $500 upgrade of my 4 year old system (which was in turn a $500 upgrade of my 6 year old system, etc), and is about 1/2 the speed it would be if I spent $180 to put in an 8800GT. On my PC, Oblivion has 16x more pixels in each texture than on my 360 and PS3, draw distance is much higher than on my 360 or PS3, resolution is 1600x1200 (vs 720p or 1080p on the consoles, I'm not sure which mode they render in Oblivion), and I'm forcing AA and HDR to be on. The framerates are about the same between the systems, with a slight edge going to my PC, especially outside.
I alternate between the three systems. I'm currently in a 360 kick, and honestly when I'm console gaming it's almost always 360, but I'm sure I'll swing back to the PC within a few weeks now that I have it set up to output to my 52" LCD. PC Gamers with high end systems will always have a graphical advantage over consoles and midrange systems will have the advantage through 3/4 of the console product cycle. The important difference to me isn't graphics; it's games. Mass Effect was the original game that started my recent console binge, and then I played a bunch of rather low quality but still fun games like Halo 3 and Gears of War and then a lot of Oblivion on each system, just to compare them. Good PC games tend to beat good console games for quality of writing and nuance of gameplay, but at least half the time I just want a popcorn blockbuster game where I sit back and watch 1-dimensional characters do something simple. I'd hate to give up either type of gaming permanently.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
The persistence of vision is 1/20th of a second. But that's ONLY vision. If you don't render faster on an interactive system, your control inputs will lag, because we compensate for the "slow" vision by being able to predict movements according to the rules that are set out. How else could a pitcher catch a ball hit directly back at him? Point is, there IS a very valid reason on games to do faster than 20fps. On movies, not quite so much, but anything interactive definitely so.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
While NTSC technically does render 525 scanlines, only about 486* of them may actually be visible - the rest are used for the vertical blanking interval (which includes stuff like closed captioning), and some of the "visible" ones might get covered up by the frame around an old TV's CRT; thus, the vertical resolution is really only 480. Horizontal resolution, however, is somewhat indeterminate - I've seen numerous values, including 640, 704, and 720.
(* - this is the number Wikipedia quotes, and it mostly agrees with numbers I've seen elsewhere)
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
It's not an uber gaming rig, but it'll play most games fairly decently, and it's only $200 to $300 more expensive than an Xbox 360 or PS3 + accessories. You could drop the 8800GT card down to a 8600GT and save another $110 off the total price, bringing it down to $642.
By comparison, an Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition is $415 with shipping, or a PS3 40GB is $413 with shipping.
It's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but $1200 is not the entry point for PC gaming, and you'd have to go back to the mid to late 1990s to find the last time that it was.
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
But just like consoles, yes you have to do a major upgrade of your PC every once in a while. You might have to spend $300-$500 on new parts, but when you figure that with my gaming PC (still AGP btw) is about 5-6 years old and can keep up with most games today I am getting a pretty good bang for my buck. With the X-box you probably bought one in in 2001 and didn't see a performance upgrade until 2005 and here we are in 2008 with the x-box slowly falling behind again in hardware.
However, you are correct, multi player requires multiple PCs but hell PC gamers have been doing multi player over the net since the early 90s. Multi player on console required you to share a room until recent years.
That all being said. I am all for this new era of extra powerful semi PC consoles. I can see consoles getting to the point where PCs are where they become modular and you just upgrade parts. The N64 started doing that with memory expansions, but the only console I have owned since then has been a Wii :)
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Console graphics really aren't that impressive compared to current PC games. The number of polys they can push, and the kinds of lighting effects they kick out is severely limited compared to modern GPUS. Couple that with a (for the most part) max resolution of 720p, along with framerates that tend to hover and dip around the mid 20's, PC GPUS really are kicking out much greater graphical performance. Running 1600x1200, ~40 fps with some FSAA and AF, with much higher poly count is doing multiple times the work of a console GPU. I think this is more a case of diminishing returns. Adding 10x the computational power only adds 10% more visual 'quality', and its harder for people to discern.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
I couldnt help but find this comment funny (stupid not haha).
The PC has THE biggest back catalogue of games in existance, to the extent that by far the largest portion of that catalogue is no longer in circulation. Then lets add to this emulation, where the PC is the only machine on which you can play most of the last generation and older console AND arcade releases. Oh and lets not forgot the absolutely MASSIVE number of flash games out there.
In short, the PC is probably approaching having a hundred THOUSAND games available to play, whereas many consoles wont even SEE a thousand games over its lifespan.
Or did you actually fail to think about what there being "more to gaming than good graphics" actually means?
What is it with all this BS about the PC dying as a gaming rig? What the hell are you doing to jack the price of a PC up to $1,000 ?? ... under $500USD Shall we? ($474.42 total infact before shipping.)
Consoles are the ones that are aging. The prices keep going up while PC gaming prices keep going down. I play all my games at max graphics thusfar and still no problems, and my Monitor on my rig was the most expensive part at $300 (22inch widescreen).
Lets build a gaming rig to connect to your big living room TV for
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This particular model (Shuttle XPC SN27P2) has a 400W PSU, and I've googled around and read through some discussion boards where people claim, at least, that they have run the SN27P2 with an 8800GT. I'd like to find some more specs on the actual power output per rail from the PSU before buying this all together, though.
NVIDIA has a neat graphics and PSU comparison Flash webpage where you can drag sliders to specify your PSU wattage, and it'll recommend video cards accordingly. At least according to them, a 400W PSU should be sufficient to power 8800GT class cards.
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
And, just to be pedantic, you don't want a PCI-X video card. You want a PCI Express video card, which is abbreviated "PCIe". The latest revision of the PCIe standard is 2.0, and doubles the total bandwidth.
And, it's generally far better bang for the buck to upgrade motherboard, CPU, RAM, and video card if it is a move from AGP to PCIe. It would be less than $300 total for the motherboard, CPU, and RAM, but it would allow you to purchase any modern video card and have it perform at full speed.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but weren't Doom, Descent, et al using 8-bit color? Quake I believe used 16-bit color for its textures. In fact, 3dfx's demise came about when the Voodoo3 (1999) didn't support 32-bit color.
As the owner of a 2-way SLI system I can claim that everything about SLI disappoints. As far as my experience is concerned, it only makes a difference at higher frame rates (i.e.: if the game is running at 40fps you can expect it to jump to 60-70fps). That's the case of Oblivion, which fluctuates between 50fps and 250fps on my system (it used to do only 30-140fps with one card). Crysis, however, which was the game that made me upgrade, doesn't benefit the slightest bit from SLI because the areas where I was having 15fps and needed a performance boost the most keep running at 15fps with two cards.
The first two are right, but the last one is wrong. This in fact brings up the point that the "PC gaming is dying" crowd is making- the low end never catches up. This is due to integrated graphics. Sure the CPU power and RAM size might increase for the low end over the years, but the graphics ability has remained at a low level for some time.
Integrated graphics of a low end computer today (say the GMA 950) is actually worse that the graphics card in the original Xbox, never mind the 360. Integrated graphics don't make a jump from generation to generation. The most modern Intel integrated graphics (x3000) is only mildly better than the GMA 950 which is only mildly better than the GMA 915 which is mildly better than GMA8xx. And by mildly I mean "gaming benchmarks won't really run on any of them so we don't know." Heck, the GMA 950 might be the most popular GPU by volume in the world- the new baseline. And that baseline can barely play WOW (a Directx 7 game) let alone anything more modern.
Now I know that the reply might be "throw in a $60 graphics card and you are set," which is true. Problem is that starting last year when the majority of computer sold were laptops, now the bulk of the market is STUCK with integrated graphics.
THAT is what is killing PC Gaming- the fact that the low end (and the mid end in the case of laptops- you usually have to spend over 1k to get one with dedicated graphics) NEVER competes with consoles in their lifetime. Intel has failed Moore's law on graphics. Because most people don't care- GMA 950 does Vista's effects and that is all non gamers need. And actually if it wasn't for ole Aero Glass, the GMA950 wouldn't even be as strong as it is- Intel designed it to be JUST enough to run Vista premium.
So we have a situation were the low end has CPU/RAM/HARDISK power that is 50% of what the mid end has, but has 5% of the graphics power (if by midend you mean "has a low end dedicated graphics card" as I do). Hence Intel is killing PC gaming...
Open Source Sushi
If you say so.
All I know is that my 68000 Amiga ran circles around the NES and Sega systems of the late 80s. They were still stuck using early 80s hardware (6502s) and primitive graphics/sound, while the Amiga was producing arcade-level clones of games.
That may be some of the confusion. You're thinking "IBM PC gaming", while I was thinking of "PC gaming" in the generic sense which included Atari STs and Commodore Amigas which were far more advanced than anything the consoles could do.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.