Worth going SLI?

SupaFredSupaFred Join Date: 2013-03-03 Member: 183652Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
in NS2 General Discussion
I'm thinking about buying another GTX 760 but before I do I would like to know if NS2 supports SLI well enough to justify the expense? At the moment I've got an i5 4670 and one GTX 760. The game runs fine with everything on at 1920*1080 but I would like to be able to run it at 2560*1440. Would another graphics card help?
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  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    Nvidia have been updating their SLI support every other driver, which is pretty awesome for NS2. I hear it works pretty good, and better than AMD's support.
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Back in the day I had dual VOODOO2 mon 3DFX High Five!
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  • StrikerX3StrikerX3 Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168423Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Oh man, the Voodoo 2! I remember being awed playing Unreal at 800x600, beautifully maxed out graphics and not a dip in the frame rate! Good times :D
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  • IronsoulIronsoul Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
    AMD has recently essentially fixed their 2 graphics card crossfire issues for single monitors below 4k. 2560x1600(and 1440) counts as below 4k, so it's included in the fix.

    Anyway, I've experienced interesting performance issues with NS2, namely: Even at high framerates, if the settings are turned up high, the game has an annoying amount of latency to responding to input. I think it's to do with the render pipeline ns2 uses. So I run the game on low, I get the same framerates, but the game itself seems much much more responsive. I don't have a setup in order to properly test this though.

    I'm running a single 7970 at 1080p. The 7970 can easily handle NS2 on low at 2560x1600.
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  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    StrikerX3 wrote: »
    Oh man, the Voodoo 2! I remember being awed playing Unreal at 800x600, beautifully maxed out graphics and not a dip in the frame rate! Good times :D

    800x600? What are you, rich? No one could afford the technology to run that.
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  • NeokenNeoken Bruges, Belgium Join Date: 2004-03-20 Member: 27447Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester
    TNT2 for life!
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  • RammlerRammler Join Date: 2013-06-18 Member: 185607Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Ns2 is a game that stresses your cpu more than the gpu. i got a lot of fps boost by overclocking my i5 up to 4,5 ghz. overclocking my gtx 680 gave me only 2 or 4% more fps. but no guarantee. this was my personal experience. and overclocking is always a risk.
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  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    It's mostly effective when running crazy resolutions like Eyefinity... Well you'd need multiple cards for that anyways...
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  • GhoulofGSG9GhoulofGSG9 Join Date: 2013-03-31 Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
    edited August 2013
    I would test what fps you currently get at 2560*1440 and multiply it with 1,5 that should be the worst improvement you could get by Sli.
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  • StrikerX3StrikerX3 Join Date: 2012-11-08 Member: 168423Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    StrikerX3 wrote: »
    Oh man, the Voodoo 2! I remember being awed playing Unreal at 800x600, beautifully maxed out graphics and not a dip in the frame rate! Good times :D

    800x600? What are you, rich? No one could afford the technology to run that.

    That was the maximum allowed resolution for one Voodoo 2 card in 3D acceleration mode, which required the game to run in fullscreen. I ran Windows 95 in 1024x768 back then.

    Sorry for derailing the thread guys, but that brought back memories...
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  • DavilDavil Florida, USA Join Date: 2012-08-14 Member: 155602Members, Constellation
    Having recently switched SLI back on for NS2, yea it's a pretty big difference, I am however running my i7 at 4.8ghz so the cpu isn't going to be the limiting factor. Either way SLI wouldn't hurt in other games too, it really depends on whether things are limited by your CPU or GPU.
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  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Just be sure to run SFR , not AFR if you are sensitive to input delays!
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  • NarfwakNarfwak Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
    edited August 2013
    The next time you play a game run "r_stats" in the console and keep an eye on the number below your framerate. If that number is ever something other than 0, then it means your performance is limited by GPU; opposite if it is zero. If you notice that you're not consistently GPU limited then I wouldn't bother. In fact, if you are CPU limited most/all of the time you should instead consider an overclock and/or new CPU cooler to go with it instead of a new GPU.

    Your system is so far and away from what we usually play NS2 on, though, that I honestly have no idea.
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  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited August 2013
    They did not fix it for dx9, which is what ns2 is. Only dx10 and dx11.
    Ironsoul wrote: »
    AMD has recently essentially fixed their 2 graphics card crossfire issues for single monitors below 4k. 2560x1600(and 1440) counts as below 4k, so it's included in the fix.
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  • IronsoulIronsoul Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
    @james888 I just read an article about it because of your reply. I didn't realise it was for dx 10 and dx11 only. By the same token, NS2 will be getting a DX11 mode soon (probably before 2013 ends) so there's still no real harm in a crossfire setup for NS2.
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  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Ironsoul wrote: »
    @james888 I just read an article about it because of your reply. I didn't realise it was for dx 10 and dx11 only. By the same token, NS2 will be getting a DX11 mode soon (probably before 2013 ends) so there's still no real harm in a crossfire setup for NS2.

    I'm not saying anything is harm with crossfire for ns2. Amd is also working on dx9 too by what I read. I too have a 7970.
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  • IronsoulIronsoul Join Date: 2011-03-12 Member: 86048Members
    Kinda going off topic, but how beastly is the 7970? The only times I've experienced frame rate issues is where the game itself is poorly optimised on the CPU or Graphics Renderer(I'm looking at you RAGE) side. I'm not running at 2560x1440+ though (1080p). I don't even have a GHz edition.
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  • SupaFredSupaFred Join Date: 2013-03-03 Member: 183652Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
    Rammler wrote: »
    Ns2 is a game that stresses your cpu more than the gpu. i got a lot of fps boost by overclocking my i5 up to 4,5 ghz. overclocking my gtx 680 gave me only 2 or 4% more fps. but no guarantee. this was my personal experience. and overclocking is always a risk.
    Narfwak wrote: »
    The next time you play a game run "r_stats" in the console and keep an eye on the number below your framerate. If that number is ever something other than 0, then it means your performance is limited by GPU; opposite if it is zero.

    I've constantly got about 10-20 ms waiting for render which, as I understand it, means that the bottleneck in my system is the GPU. Like I said, the game runs fine in 1920*1080 but once I tried playing it in 2560*1440 I don't want to go back.

    Thank you all for your comments and advice!
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