Xmas said:
rusty said:
I just don't really understand why it is so uncomprehensible that waiting for the next gen of parts would be the answer. If something is not acheivable given current technology without a somewhat bodged work around, then so be it - you need to wait for technology to catch up with your ambitions before you can implement an elegant solution.
But it
is possible today, and it's "sufficiently elegant" for most tasks where it makes sense.
The obvious question then being - where does it make sense?
and it's not just a question of the graphics cards - other tech needs to catch up too... how is your average cpu going to keep up with this? or are we going to throw 4 of them in there too... what about bandwidth?
The nice thing about graphics is that you can just up the resolution or AA and be GPU limited again.
Sure, but - why? What's so grand about being GPU limited?
The only thing multi card rendering buys you is pixels. Not features.
Go dual and you can reaise resolution one notch, if you're completely GPU limited. Go quad and you can raise it another step. That's it. Sure it's a benefit but hardly much to get excited about, now is it?
either way i think it's a fairly moot point - i doubt this is aimed at your general gaming computer geek - these would be of more benefit in workstations would they not?
Certainly. For any task where you just can't have enough rendering power.
Wrong.
Multi card rendering only help with very particular limitations. Not "rendering" in the broader sense by a far stretch.
What bugs me about the proponents of SLI/AMR/whatever is that they steadfastly refuse to discuss the benefits in real world terms. You are just the most recent example Xmas, and you are more than bright enough to be aware of what you're doing. What you say is mostly correct, but the analysis of what it actually means in real world terms is lacking.
And I suspect this reluctance is because stating the actual benefit in real terms makes it bleeding obvious that noone in their right mind would find it particularly worthwhile to spend $500 or so plus hassle and noise to be able to play DOOM3 at 1600x1200 4xAA instead of using 1280x1024 4xAA.
Who the hell gives a shit about something like that? Now really?
Going SLI might also buy you some cred points in some very narrow and none too bright circles, and if you belong to such circles, then fine. Or if you always dreamt about having a Voodoo SLI setup but could never afford it, and now that you have a job that pays OK you decide to splurge just because you can. That's fine as well.
But take the benefits from the purely theoretical "you can gain benefits in fill rate limited cases" to actual examples which show just how much better your real life gaming experience gets. To some extent I really do wonder, because I have 80 or so titles standing behind me on the shelves, and I just can't see my gaming experience getting one whit better by going SLI. Come on, spell it out!
