ATI's unannounced SLI solution compatible with nforce4?

[Guden Oden]

What makes you silly people think ATi's SLI would need some kind of "chipset level link"? PCI interface has allowed busmaster DMA operations from device to device since, well...forever. It could also be done with a device->system memory->device DMA operation too, though this would probably be a little slower.

You wouldn't need any particular "ATi-SLI" chipset support, unless ATi deliberately decided to fuck up their implementation...

 

[Sage]

you shouldnt need any ATi-SLI chipset lever support but it may, however, be possible for nVidia unsupport it.

 

[Guden Oden]

So they'd need to "unsupport" Intel too then. However, they haven't done that so far at least, which makes me think they won't do it to ATi either. After all, ATi vidcards have always worked in Nforce mobos... (Barring the odd glitch here and there as usual of course.)

 

[Sage]

So they'd need to "unsupport" Intel too then. However, they haven't done that so far at least, which makes me think they won't do it to ATi either. After all, ATi vidcards have always worked in Nforce mobos... (Barring the odd glitch here and there as usual of course.)

you're saying Intel is going to come out with an SLI solution that will run on the nForce4???

 

[DOGMA1138]

there are intel based chipset 915/925 mobo`s that are SLi certified.

 

[Dave Baumann]

What makes you silly people think ATi's SLI would need some kind of "chipset level link"? PCI interface has allowed busmaster DMA operations from device to device since, well...forever. It could also be done with a device->system memory->device DMA operation too, though this would probably be a little slower.

If its what I think it is then its nothing to do with PCI Express.

 

[dksuiko]

you shouldnt need any ATi-SLI chipset lever support but it may, however, be possible for nVidia unsupport it.

Hell, why stop there? They should go ahead and unsupport ATI's single-card solutions as well!

 

[Sage]

Hell, why stop there? They should go ahead and unsupport ATI's single-card solutions as well!

i think that's a little unreasonable and I think that then they would end up taking the blame and losing a lot of marketshare.

 

[DegustatoR]

i think that's a little unreasonable and I think that then they would end up taking the blame and losing a lot of marketshare.

Same can be applied to SLI support. If ATI's SLI will stay in PCIE compliance (as NV's does) then by "unsupporting" it NV will probably lose PCIE compliance for it's chipsets. And i see virtually no reason for them to do it - why wouldn't you get some money for a chipset from customer who prefers ATI cards anyway? Or you'd prefer to not get any money at all from this customer?

But if ATI's SLI is what Dave thinks it is, then 8)

 

[Sage]

Same can be applied to SLI support. If ATI's SLI will stay in PCIE compliance (as NV's does) then by "unsupporting" it NV will probably lose PCIE compliance for it's chipsets.

and how is that? it could be something in the chipset drivers that will kill ATi's SLI drivers.

And i see virtually no reason for them to do it - why wouldn't you get some money for a chipset from customer who prefers ATI cards anyway? Or you'd prefer to not get any money at all from this customer?

well how about pride / spite? It may not make sense to us but you have to remember how nVidia tends to do things- the company acts like a little kid often.

 

[KimB]

and how is that? it could be something in the chipset drivers that will kill ATi's SLI drivers.

As far as the PCI Express bus is concerned, two PCIE boards acting like two separate graphics cards or acting like SLI are absolutely identical scenarios. So I just don't see how this is remotely possible.

well how about pride / spite? It may not make sense to us but you have to remember how nVidia tends to do things- the company acts like a little kid often.

As far as I know, they've never manually disabled certain features upon detecting specific device ID's (except their own, obviously). What you're talking about would require disabling one PCI Express slot if an ATI device ID was detected. Given that this would not only be a monopolistic practice, but that it would also result in nVidia-based motherboards being less useful to consumers, I just don't see it being possible.

 

[Sage]

uhh... how about just some drivers that detected when ATi's drivers were running SLi and the proceded to maim them?

 

[KimB]

uhh... how about just some drivers that detected when ATi's drivers were running SLi and the proceded to maim them?

And how, pray tell, would you detect this? Current nForce4 SLI drivers certainly wouldn't be able to tell, and so it'd become blatantly obvious if this was done because only later drivers would break compatibility. Once again, there's just no freakin' way. You're really far out in conspiracy land. Way far out. Aliens are in control of the government far out.

The only way that an imaginary future ATI SLI-like solution could possibly be incompatible with nVidia's chipsets is if ATI designs it that way. Examples may be required PCIE x16 for each card, or special division of the PCIE bus between the two x16 slots, or other such things.

 

[Sage]

meh, you just refuse to believe that nVidia would pull a dirty stunt like that. I'm sure that if they wanted to it wouldnt take them long at all to think of something you haven't... especially considering they know a lot more about how thier chipset works than you do.

i'd say something like that would be very typical of nvidia's personality.

 

[Razor1]

at the moment isn't it possible to run one nvidia and one ati graphics card in both pci-e slots on a SLi motherboard, maybe not in SLi modes but they do run? I wouldn't think nvidia would sabotage that if ATi makes thier cards compatiable with their motherboards. Damn why, sells thier motherboard lol!

 

[KimB]

meh, you just refuse to believe that nVidia would pull a dirty stunt like that. I'm sure that if they wanted to it wouldnt take them long at all to think of something you haven't... especially considering they know a lot more about how thier chipset works than you do.

I'm not even saying they wouldn't. I'm saying that they realistically cannot do this. Number one, not upgrading motherboard drivers is frequently a very good option (not to mention you can even just upgrade specific pieces of the driver). Since detection can't be in the drivers now, gamers could just use old drivers.

Number two, ATI can always change how their software works in such a way that it breaks any hypothetical detection scheme.

And, finally, it'd be flat-out illegal and against anti-trust laws.

So, beyond the inability for nVidia to do it, there's also what Rayzor1 pointed out: ensuring that their motherboards are compatible with any competing form of SLI just sells more motherboard chipsets for nVidia.

 

[hovz]

sage they are after you

*x files theme plays*

 

[martrox]

While nVidia may not totally disable SLI for ATI ( they may be prideful, they arn't stupid!), I can imagine them biasing their motherboards in favor of their own cards...... it's not THAT much different than the way they approch benchmarking......

 

[KimB]

While nVidia may not totally disable SLI for ATI ( they may be prideful, they arn't stupid!), I can imagine them biasing their motherboards in favor of their own cards...... it's not THAT much different than the way they approch benchmarking......

Well, they may use their own cards exclusively for performance analyses and such, but given that there've been no performance problems with performance reported for nForce + Radeon systems so far (not that I've heard anyway), there's no reason to expect any similar problems in the future.

 

[Razor1]

While nVidia may not totally disable SLI for ATI ( they may be prideful, they arn't stupid!), I can imagine them biasing their motherboards in favor of their own cards...... it's not THAT much different than the way they approch benchmarking......

Thats a possiblity they wouldn't hurt ATi's SLi but would probably improve performance of thier own cards. As the nforce boards already do this.