Crossfire Info

[Geeforcer]

CrossFire is just the start of some exciting things to come (not talking R520 here).

What are you talking about? :|

The follow-up, FrienlyFireâ„¢: Subtract and Dictate!

 

[tEd]

Finally found a 14x AA pic

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=689

 

[tEd]

I believe macci has a crossfire system in his possession.

 

[Ailuros]

Finally found a 14x AA pic

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=689

Hmmmm....

Lastly we see a near 100% increase in performance for Splinter Cell, which we assume to be the original title, as apposed to the recently released Chaos Theory addition to the series.

It says underneath the graph that those are performance numbers in 1600 with 4xAA/8xAF. I don't recall Multisampling to be an option in the original SC; what exactly am I missing here?

 

[DSC]

http://www.techreport.com/etc/2005q2/ati-crossfire/index.x?pg=1

After talking to ATI's Catalyst driver team, we learned that although CrossFire's Direct3D and OpenGL defaults allow it to accelerate any application, the drivers will also ship with application-specific profiles. These profiles generally use Alternate Frame Rendering, which apparently offers better performance than superTiling or scissor modes. However, AFR apparently can't be blindly enabled without the danger of causing display corruption or stability problems, so scissor and supertiling modes provide good fallback positions for games that lack AFR profiles.

So what is it about not needing profiles again?

 

[tEd]

http://www.techreport.com/etc/2005q2/ati-crossfire/index.x?pg=1

After talking to ATI's Catalyst driver team, we learned that although CrossFire's Direct3D and OpenGL defaults allow it to accelerate any application, the drivers will also ship with application-specific profiles. These profiles generally use Alternate Frame Rendering, which apparently offers better performance than superTiling or scissor modes. However, AFR apparently can't be blindly enabled without the danger of causing display corruption or stability problems, so scissor and supertiling modes provide good fallback positions for games that lack AFR profiles.

So what is it about not needing profiles again?

will ship but don't need

 

[Geo]

Surely there's a difference between "no profile = No multi-vpu acceleration" and "no profile = default multi-vpu acceleration". The latter gives you an optimum, but is still quite different than getting no benefit at all if it isn't present. If the statement was you won't need profiles to enjoy multi-vpu acceleration with ATI, then it is still correct so far as I can see.

 

[trinibwoy]

From what I've gathered so far ATi is hanging its "high-compatibility" claims on the SuperAA mode. For the other modes they will have profiles since they are affected by the same issues as Nvidia. It seems that these profiles are also hard-coded in the driver at the moment and you do not have control over which mode is used for a particular game.

 

[Geeforcer]

will ship but don't need

I don't think ATI would bother implementing them if they were not needed. What if you have an OGL game that breaks AFR? How are you going to pre-set SFR split ratios?

 

[tEd]

There are default modes for d3d and opengl which will be used if there is no profile in which is specified the mode used

 

[Geeforcer]

There are default modes for d3d and opengl which will be used if there is no profile in which is specified the mode used

So what happens if the game breaks AFR and has no profile?

 

[Mark]

There are default modes for d3d and opengl which will be used if there is no profile in which is specified the mode used

So what happens if the game breaks AFR and has no profile?

If it's an OGL game it'll use scissor, if it's D3D it'll use ST.

 

[Geeforcer]

There are default modes for d3d and opengl which will be used if there is no profile in which is specified the mode used

So what happens if the game breaks AFR and has no profile?

If it's an OGL game it'll use scissor, if it's D3D it'll use ST.

I don't follow. My understating of various articles I've read is that OGL will use AFR by default while D3D will use Super Tiling, again, by default. However, AFAIK not every OGL game works with AFR. Thus, my question stands: What happens if an OGL game breaks AFR but has no profile entry in the drivers?

 

[trinibwoy]

I don't follow. My understating of various articles I've read is that OGL will use AFR by default while D3D will use Super Tiling, again, by default. However, AFAIK not every OGL game works with AFR. Thus, my question stands: What happens if an OGL game breaks AFR but has no profile entry in the drivers?

Isn't the default OGL mode SFR?

 

[Mark]

There are default modes for d3d and opengl which will be used if there is no profile in which is specified the mode used

So what happens if the game breaks AFR and has no profile?

If it's an OGL game it'll use scissor, if it's D3D it'll use ST.

I don't follow. My understating of various articles I've read is that OGL will use AFR by default while D3D will use Super Tiling, again, by default. However, AFAIK not every OGL game works with AFR. Thus, my question stands: What happens if an OGL game breaks AFR but has no profile entry in the drivers?

I would guess that if OGL breaks AFR then it'll try scissors, if it breaks then you can use Super AA. If a D3D game breaks in AFR then it'll try ST, if it breaks there then it can use Super AA. I would assume there's some level of control of what mode to use in whatever game you are trying to get working, but I dunno.

 

[Demirug]

Default mode is supertilling or scissor.

Supertilling only for D3D and cards with all 16 pipes active.

AFR will only used for applications identified by CATALYST A.I.

 

[Khronus]

I'd skip the framerate increases and kick up the AA as high as it'd go!

 

[Geo]

Our initial performance test on prerelease hardware and drivers shows roughly 50 to 85 percent improved performance under Doom 3 from CrossFire.

It must be nice to be king. . .

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432&p=11

Edit: Otoh, there is someone else who thinks He is King, and I suspect he's gonna be pissed. . .

While in Taipei on Monday, we were lucky enough to preview ATI’s CrossFire technology working on both AMD and Intel platforms. No performance data was allowed to be collected at this time. We were allowed to take some photographs of the working CrossFire technology to share with our readers.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzc4LDU=

 

[HVZ]

Our initial performance test on prerelease hardware and drivers shows roughly 50 to 85 percent improved performance under Doom 3 from CrossFire.

It must be nice to be king. . .

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432&p=11

king? how is launching a platform that will allow you to combine 2 sm 2.0 cards for a price of around 1k that will probly lose to the next nvidia card that will cost around 500 and offer a host of features that the crossfire cards wont make any company king? it took ati almost a year to match what nvidia has already released(multi gpu is rly just a gimmick anyway.)

with r520 being delayed further and further, and rumors running rampant that the card will be a disappointment in comparison to the competition, not to mention nvidia gaining marketshare by the minute id say ati is far from king.

 

[Geo]

king? [rant, rant, rant]

Not ATI, silly. Anand. See anybody else with specific CrossFire performance data they collected themself?