Dual GPU/SLI/CrossFire @ 2560x1600 - World of Warcraft

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loki7

Limp Gawd
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I stumbled on this recent blue post regarding dual GPUs and WoW:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1083360040#2

World of Warcraft does run on CrossFire and SLI setups with the proper driver and CrossFire/SLI profile but it generally doesn't do very much, though. World of Warcraft isn't very GPU-bound to begin with when you have decently beefy video cards running it.
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What about 2560x1600 resolution? The higher the resolution the more GPU draw (less bottleneck from the CPU). Does a 2nd GPU do more for WoW at 2560x1600? I have a 30" LCD, and rebuilding my PC in January with the upcoming Intel Sandy Bridge. I may outfit the PC with dual PCB GTX 595 or ATI 6990, or SLI GTX 580 or CrossFire 6970. Needless to say I'm going all out. I play first person shooters and other games besides WoW, but I play WoW the most. I want to make sure dual GPUs are utilized heavily in WoW at 2560x1600 before dropping the cash.

My doubts surfaced after reading Tom's Hardware recent technical evaluation of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793.html

FTA - regarding CrossFire:

Now's probably a good time to point out the Radeon HD 5970 languishing in the middle of our charts. AMD claims World of Warcraft is supported by CrossFire, but all of our testing (and a good number of posts to Blizzard's forums) suggest that this game simply will not scale beyond one GPU, even when the GPUs are built onto the same card. As a result, what should be the fastest board here falls to the center of the pack.
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FTA - regarding SLI:

Once again, we'll point out a problem with the second dual-GPU card in our little benchmark-fest. The GeForce GTX 295, like AMD's Radeon HD 5970, sees no gains from its second graphics processor. In fact, it even runs slower than a single-GPU GeForce GTX 275 at all three resolutions. Nvidia claims SLI should function normally, but the settings we were told enable proper scaling did little to improve performance.
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Their dual PCB GTX 295 performed very poorly, even bested by the GTX 275:

nvidia20ultra20graphics.png


A WoW poster named Kodiack reported contradictory findings with his CrossFire dual PCB 5970, acknowledging excellent multi-GPU scaling:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1305770941

Tonight, I decided to test just what difference CrossFire made when running D3D11 mode. That's probably where I conflict with Tom's; I always, always run the DX11 API. I also run in fullscreen all the time. Windowed mode does not work with multi-GPU setups!

Using the /timetest command and the flight path from Light's Hope, Zul'drak to Camp Oneqwah, Grizzly Hills, I was able to get a feel of just what was happening. I ran the game with everything cranked to Ultra at a resolution of 1920x1080 with 8xMSAA. My results are as follows:

CrossFire + D3D11 - 12/6/10
Minimum FPS: 2.097
Average FPS: 80.703
Maximum FPS: 188.454

No CrossFire + D3D11 - 12/6/10
Minimum FPS: 11.131
Average FPS: 49.638
Maximum FPS: 177.494
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I'm not sure what to believe. Could DX11 be the deciding factor to efficient multi-GPU scaling in WoW? GTX 295 isn't DX11. Did Tom's not test the 5970 under WoW's DX11 mode? Maybe they test it in Windowed Mode? CrossFire only works in fullscreen, for WoW at least.

I wonder the implications at 2560x1600. Anyone else out there sporting that resolution w/multi-GPUs and playing WoW with positive results?

General thoughts about multi-GPU and WoW 4.0?
 
Ha, there is no such thing as a GTX 580.

I should know. I just bought a GTX 480 this past spring. Yeah, Nvidia is going to release a new card this early and screw its most loyal customers who early adopted... as if.

No, but seriously, these numbers are surprising to me. This game is kind of demanding? Wow.
 
WabeWalker said:
Ha, there is no such thing as a GTX 580.

I should know. I just bought a GTX 480 this past spring. Yeah, Nvidia is going to release a new card this early and screw its most loyal customers who early adopted... as if.
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Are you serious? You should pay closer attention to what's going on in the world. NVIDIA doesn't care what you bought last spring. The GeForce GTX 480 was released around six months or so ago. It's new card time.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/09/nvidia_geforce_gtx_580_video_card_review/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/14/geforce_gtx_580_vs_radeon_hd_5970_2gb_performance/

Back on topic. World of Warcraft has never scaled worth a damn with multiple GPUs. If you want justification for dropping the cash on some high end multi-GPU setup then the other games you play are going to have to be enough. If they aren't then some ultra expensive multi-GPU configuration isn't for you.
 
WabeWalker said:
No, but seriously, these numbers are surprising to me. This game is kind of demanding? Wow.
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You can't look at one set of numbers and claim WOW is 'demanding' or otherwise.

The performance variance is going to be HUGE with the most demanding parts being the big cities and 25 man raids. You can get 200 fps or you can get 20 fps depending on what's going on. You can artificially tax a system by simply making 'more of' certain low quality objects/effects. This is a variable in multiplayer games like MMO's that you can't account for with engine or quality settings. Another example is a game like SC2. You can bring ANY system to its knees if you have enough units on the screen. Sins of a Solar Empire is similar. Sure you get over 100 fps at the start... but when each player starts getting giant fleets, you can barely pan the camera when there's a multi-fleet engagement in a system.

SP games like Crysis are VERY controlled. People don't realize the amount of optimization that goes into level design that ensures levels run as smooth as possible.

@OP: I don't have WOW installed, but I'm also curious about this as well as eyefinity resolutions. AFAIK, you can transfer WOW via thumbdrive without actually installing and it runs. I have a roommate who has WOW and I could run some tests for you. Off the top of my head though... there's going to be times when the game is GPU bound and times when the game is CPU bound. Logically though, it seems that the most taxing times will probably be CPU bound. On top of that, single cards can run the game fine at 2560x1600 especially by the time you make your new system.
 
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Well, if you are going all out, get a 580 SLI setup for games that require it at 2560x1600, and when it does not, then unSLI them and game on one, and fold on the second.

I do that currently with my 460 SLI, in some of the older games.
 
From my own persoanl experience WoW mostly works just fine with SLI. Force it to alternate frame rendering 2. Single card in Dalaran on a busy Sunday afternoon/evening avg around 20's to as high as 45. With SLI avg goes from high 60's to around 150. Believe what you will, those are my results on my PC.
 
It would be great if you could monitor both GPUs using GPU-Z in a second monitor and tell us what sort of loads you are seeing.
 
It would be great if you could monitor both GPUs using GPU-Z in a second monitor and tell us what sort of loads you are seeing.
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It this an accurate way to test multi-GPU scalability? I mean it makes sense, but I've never heard nor seen results of multi-GPU performance evaluated by watching the loads on secondary/tertiary GPUs.
 
Kangg said:
From my own persoanl experience WoW mostly works just fine with SLI. Force it to alternate frame rendering 2. Single card in Dalaran on a busy Sunday afternoon/evening avg around 20's to as high as 45. With SLI avg goes from high 60's to around 150. Believe what you will, those are my results on my PC.
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How can I set this up???
 
If you have the Evga utility you can just run it in the back ground while playing wow for a few mintues and it will show the load when you ALT tab out. So then you can see if it's loading both cards...
 
From what I've gathered about multi-GPU scaling in WoW is that it really is very poor or even non-existent. Its interesting because I've read reports anywhere from the scaling being non-existent to nearly doubling performance, but the general consensus is that its very poor. I still wonder if the people that claim that it significantly increased performance are lying or there is something else that they're not aware of that is increasing their performance.
 
exlink said:
From what I've gathered about multi-GPU scaling in WoW is that it really is very poor or even non-existent. Its interesting because I've read reports anywhere from the scaling being non-existent to nearly doubling performance, but the general consensus is that its very poor. I still wonder if the people that claim that it significantly increased performance are lying or there is something else that they're not aware of that is increasing their performance.
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It probably varies a lot with where you are and what's going on...
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
It probably varies a lot with where you are and what's going on...
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That shouldn't matter though since either the multi-GPU scales well or it doesn't. I don't think that the situation you are in: raids, high population city or out grinding should change anything when it comes to scaling (not saying it doesn't change performance though).
 
exlink said:
From what I've gathered about multi-GPU scaling in WoW is that it really is very poor or even non-existent. Its interesting because I've read reports anywhere from the scaling being non-existent to nearly doubling performance, but the general consensus is that its very poor. I still wonder if the people that claim that it significantly increased performance are lying or there is something else that they're not aware of that is increasing their performance.
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The reports vary widely because the variables vary widely. You cannot use a blanket statement one way or the other as absolutes. If I run my SLI system on a tiny 1680x1050 screen, I am not going to see any improvements in FPS as I will easily be CPU limited before even my first GTX 580 is maxed.

But when I enable my 3x 30" at 4800x2560, to push 12.3 mega pixels both of my 580's max out and the GPU scaling in SLI is incredible.
 
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