Sammy, I am beginning to come around to your way of thinking

"Tilly" <nospam DeleteThis @willbeletin.com> wrote in message
news:1181496972.20887.0@damia.uk.clara.net...
> Some darn old flight simmer called Sammy wrote:
>
>> Just be aware at the moment MS flight sim does not support SLI.
>
>
> Yep, but my other games will


I have to wonder, how much does a program need to " support" SLI, to benefit
from it?
I really don't know much about sli, but am thinking about trying it in the
future, possibly adding another 8800 GTS when prices start to fall some.

I would be curious to hear, impressions from folks with FSX, that have gone
from a single card to a sli setup, preferably using the same card.




--
Don

"Don Burnette" <d.burnette.TakeThisOut@clothes.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:YpmdnbbfT8zA2vHbnZ2dnUVZ_uWlnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
>
>
>
> "Tilly" <nospam.TakeThisOut@willbeletin.com> wrote in message
> news:1181496972.20887.0@damia.uk.clara.net...
>> Some darn old flight simmer called Sammy wrote:
>>
>>> Just be aware at the moment MS flight sim does not support SLI.
>>
>>
>> Yep, but my other games will
>
>
> I have to wonder, how much does a program need to " support" SLI, to
> benefit from it?
> I really don't know much about sli, but am thinking about trying it in the
> future, possibly adding another 8800 GTS when prices start to fall some.

SLI is on the level of adding more RAM. Your app can't control it, and
doesn't need programming or configuration changes to take advantage of it.
You might program differently knowing that more parallel pipes are
available, or you might optimize differently given different expectations of
texture and vector bandwidth. These are already issues without introducing
SLI, simply because of the wide variety of graphics cards in use.

Just add the card and enable SLI options on the nvidia control applet.
Adding a second PCI-E device typically slows the first one down. My main
PCI-E slot is 32x when used alone; adding the second card will split its bus
bandwidth to 16x and 16x for the two cards.

> I would be curious to hear, impressions from folks with FSX, that have
> gone from a single card to a sli setup, preferably using the same card.

Yep. It would be interesting to compare fps with just one 8800 installed to
a pari running SLI. I'm expecting only a modest boost in fps. It might even
amount to a net loss.

Here's what I do know firsthand. Turning down AA and AF from 16xQ and 16x to
4x and 2x netted a few fps with a single 8800 GTS. There's a tiny bit of
moire in very fine autogen textures in the middle distance with the much
lower AA. I can live with it. SP1 is now fast enough that graphics
processing on the 8800 makes a noticeable and measurable difference.