Nvidia Surround to be Windows 7 Only?

M

Matrices

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 5, 2003
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Is this truly the case? The folks at Widescreen Gaming Forum certainly seem to think so:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=19097&p=194247#p194247

And the official page does only list Windows 7 as supported:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3dv-system-requirements-surround-technology.html

And I could not get the 32-bit Surround betas to show me a Surround option using 32-bit Vista (installed with modded INF).

I'm surprised I've never heard this elsewhere. If true, this is a big flaw compared with Eyefinity. I have no intention of upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 simply because MS had a PR disaster with Vista and desperately wanted to switch to a new name. Yes, it has a couple nice features, but nothing that would warrant an upgrade.

So do I have to toss even more money down the drain to get this working?
 
This is a good thing from my standpoint. They can dedicate more resources to dev and QA to stability and performance on Windows 7 rather than testing on three platforms.
 
if you can afford a couple of GTX480 or GTX470 you can afford a new OS ;)
 
Windows 7 is a better platform for gaming performance anyways imo. I know some people who stuck with xp and vista. I don't see the point of it anymore after having used Windows 7 for nearly a year now.
 
Matrices said:
Yes, it has a couple nice features, but nothing that would warrant an upgrade.
Click to expand...

Now you have a reason to upgrade! For some I can understand that 7 may not offer enough to upgrade to. For me it's turning out to be a HUGE upgrade as Vista is useless for me on my personal machines.

With the rate that 7 is growing this isn't a big deal IMHO. I know that I didn't buy $1500 worth of GPUs to run an obsolete OS.
 
Obsolete how, though? Eyefinity works fine on Vista, so there is nothing inherently about 3-monitor gaming that Vista is "obsolete" for.


I don't like throwing away money. Vista is stable and does everything I need. Sigh. $200 to buy a new OS is ridiculous in the first place.
 
The Home Premium upgrade version is only $120, the cost of two games, really it is not that expensive when you compare the price to any other software.. And you can imagine it as the equivalent to the DP -> DVI adapter that ATI users usually have to get for their eyefinity configurations. :)
 
Windows 7 Premium Upgrade is $110.

Good to see Nvidia isn't wasting resources making this for XP. Time to let go of your 8-tracks folks. :)
 
I am considering getting the downloadable upgrade version of 7 Premium.

I suspect, however, that it's going to be a pain in the ass. I'm running Vista Ultimate so I will be downgrading to 7 Premium. How will I ever install the OS without a disc if the OS gets fucked up or I need to reformat? I'll first have to install Vista, and then install the 7 upgrade, won't I?
 
I believe the downloadable version is actually an ISO that you then burn to a disc to use to install.
 
Is there a reason people think Win 7 x64 is not a viable option when bought OEM? Buying the retail versions seems silly.
 
Delphium from WSGF said:
As I understand it ATI's Eyefinity technology is a hardware based solution, and as such the hardware is able to pass to windows what appears as a single monitor at the hardware level, this is how the eyefinity tech is able to work around the WDDM 1.0 limitations, Nvidia's solution however is a software solution at the driver level, something of which WDDM 1.0 does not have the flexability to handle.

With the introduction of WDDM 1.1 in win 7, Nvidia's solution can work due to the addition of "Support multiple drivers in a multi-adapter, multi-monitor setup".
Click to expand...

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=194242#p194242

WDDM 1.0 is also what causes you to not be able to run Nvidia and ATi cards at the same time, no matter what. WDDM 1.0 was one of the worst parts of Vista, and it's worth the upgrade to get away from its limitations. Nvidia is going to end up with the better solution here by not having to jerry-rig a hardware hack around WDDM 1.0's serious limitations.
 
Matrices said:
Obsolete how, though? Eyefinity works fine on Vista, so there is nothing inherently about 3-monitor gaming that Vista is "obsolete" for.


I don't like throwing away money. Vista is stable and does everything I need. Sigh. $200 to buy a new OS is ridiculous in the first place.
Click to expand...

So buy OEM Home premium for $130?

Vista is already almost what, 4 years old... time to move on, people cant expect to get all the latest toys with their aging OS.
 
evilsofa said:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=194242#p194242

WDDM 1.0 is also what causes you to not be able to run Nvidia and ATi cards at the same time, no matter what. WDDM 1.0 was one of the worst parts of Vista, and it's worth the upgrade to get away from its limitations. Nvidia is going to end up with the better solution here by not having to jerry-rig a hardware hack around WDDM 1.0's serious limitations.
Click to expand...

Any negative can be spun into a positive, it seems.
 
The Home Premium upgrade and Professional upgrade are back down to $30 if you have a .edu address.
 
ighardcore said:
I believe the downloadable version is actually an ISO that you then burn to a disc to use to install.
Click to expand...

Can someone confirm this? I just burn an ISO to a DVD-R? Do I need paid software to do that, too?

I can either get it boxed at $120 from Amazon on Saturday or download it tonight at the same price.
 
noquarter said:
The Home Premium upgrade and Professional upgrade are back down to $30 if you have a .edu address.
Click to expand...

My father has an .edu address, but he is a teacher, not a student, so that's probably not going to work for me.
 
Not if they come around asking him for "proof of enrollment" and then I get my own father in some kind of legal trouble over a few bucks' of software.
 
evilsofa said:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=194242#p194242

WDDM 1.0 is also what causes you to not be able to run Nvidia and ATi cards at the same time, no matter what. WDDM 1.0 was one of the worst parts of Vista, and it's worth the upgrade to get away from its limitations. Nvidia is going to end up with the better solution here by not having to jerry-rig a hardware hack around WDDM 1.0's serious limitations.
Click to expand...

Not quite, because in Win7 you can run heterogeneous WDDM 1.0 and 1.1 cards. It took a lot of work and some significant rejiggering to get that support, though, so I would be surprised to see WinSE take that downlevel.
 
Matrices said:
Not if they come around asking him for "proof of enrollment" and then I get my own father in some kind of legal trouble over a few bucks' of software.
Click to expand...

Really doubt MS checks individual emails but it's your choice if your uncomfortable with it. Another option is OEM OS. $120 for OEM Win7 Home Premium is not bad for an OS you'll probably use for at least 4 years.
 
Isn't it because of the direct x 11? I mean its a direct x 11 card, and 7 is the only 11 OS... Vista is 10 and XP is 9...
But vista and 7 use the same drivers, so it should work on vista if it works on 7. Anyway if your rich enough to buy slied 480's your rich enough not to use an ancient OS like XP...
 
teenk said:
Really doubt MS checks individual emails but it's your choice if your uncomfortable with it. Another option is OEM OS. $120 for OEM Win7 Home Premium is not bad for an OS you'll probably use for at least 4 years.
Click to expand...

We don't know when Windows 8 is coming out.
 
Matrices said:
Not if they come around asking him for "proof of enrollment" and then I get my own father in some kind of legal trouble over a few bucks' of software.
Click to expand...

To my knowledge, there are discounts for education employees (teachers, professors, para-professionals...) depending on the school. I don't think you should do it behind his back, but you may want to ask him how to look into his possible discount.

As for upgrading to Win6.5 (Win7 commercially), I don't see any downsides unless you just bought Vista not long ago and don't have the money to upgrade. Win6.5 uses a slightly cleaner back-end and a simplified front-end from what I've seen. I also don't think that Vista does DX11. Seems to me that if you're going to want a surround view, you'll also want it to utilize max potential.

I was curious when nVidia was going to come out with an Eyefinity-comperable solution. They started SLI and always seemed to be ahead of the curve in things, but they took a while to get to this. Maybe now they'll live up to their slogan ^_^
 
Senryo said:
To my knowledge, there are discounts for education employees (teachers, professors, para-professionals...) depending on the school. I don't think you should do it behind his back, but you may want to ask him how to look into his possible discount.
Click to expand...

Yes my understanding was the .edu deal was for students and teachers both.
 
Chameleoki said:
Vista supports DX11.
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Ahh, I see...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/DirectX-11-for-Windows-Vista-SP2-Available-for-Download-121428.shtml
But it seems that that is a future statement. The way the article reads, SP2 helps backport DX11 to Vista, but SP3 will be the final/full/best DX11 setup for Vista. That leaves only one more SP before Vista's at EOL, so I doubt that Vista will get a DX12 make-over as well.

But that does cut down a bit on the Win6.5 upgraded qualities. Now I'm rather curious as well about nVidia's strategy.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Isn't it because of the direct x 11? I mean its a direct x 11 card, and 7 is the only 11 OS... Vista is 10 and XP is 9...
But vista and 7 use the same drivers, so it should work on vista if it works on 7. Anyway if your rich enough to buy slied 480's your rich enough not to use an ancient OS like XP...
Click to expand...

Other than your final sentence, none of this is true.
 
Senryo said:
Ahh, I see...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/DirectX-11-for-Windows-Vista-SP2-Available-for-Download-121428.shtml
But it seems that that is a future statement. The way the article reads, SP2 helps backport DX11 to Vista, but SP3 will be the final/full/best DX11 setup for Vista. That leaves only one more SP before Vista's at EOL, so I doubt that Vista will get a DX12 make-over as well.

But that does cut down a bit on the Win6.5 upgraded qualities. Now I'm rather curious as well about nVidia's strategy.
Click to expand...

It was a future statement because that entry was made nearly a year ago, when Vista hadn't had dx11 support added.
 
Well I submitted (with permission) my father's .edu address and the system accepted it, so my father will forward me the e-mail and apparently I'll be able to get the thing for just $30.

Won't be able to try out the 32-bit beta that way (you have to choose either 32 or 64-bit for this deal) but I can wait a few more days for the full drivers to be released...assuming it is just a few more days...
 
Matrices said:
Obsolete how, though? Eyefinity works fine on Vista, so there is nothing inherently about 3-monitor gaming that Vista is "obsolete" for.


I don't like throwing away money. Vista is stable and does everything I need. Sigh. $200 to buy a new OS is ridiculous in the first place.
Click to expand...

By obsolete I simply mean that Vista is a legacy product. If Eyefinity works great on Vista for you that's awesome. I just bought $2500 worth of GPUs to power a $6000 system (including monitors), why would I in April 2010 run that system on Vista, 6 MONTHS after it was replaced? That's penny wise and pound foolish for this type of a rig.

As others have said when you spend the kind of money that it takes to build this kind of system the VAST majority of people are going to want the latest and greatest OS since its such as small part of the cost of the whole system.

And the great thing about 7 is that it works with both Eyefinity and Surround which I may end up running both.
 
Are you seriously running three GTX 480s on air, man? Jesus, I was mildly annoyed with two 470s on air.
 
Matrices said:
Are you seriously running three GTX 480s on air, man? Jesus, I was mildly annoyed with two 470s on air.
Click to expand...

Yep, and its causing not a single problem or annoyance for me either in spite of the folk lore. Everyone yells "water cool" but I just don't see the need. If you run a lot of hot equipment like I have over the years you should be setup to handle it.

The #1 thing is being a good distance from the rig, in my case 8 ft with the heat blowing out towards my office door and a window AC, which I've been doing for 6 years now. Just not a big water cooling type simply because I switch equipment so much that's its just another thing to not worry about. Something like the H50, I can deal with that, simple and self contained.
 
heatlesssun said:
Yep, and its causing not a single problem or annoyance for me either in spite of the folk lore. Everyone yells "water cool" but I just don't see the need. If you run a lot of hot equipment like I have over the years you should be setup to handle it.

The #1 thing is being a good distance from the rig, in my case 8 ft with the heat blowing out towards my office door and a window AC, which I've been doing for 6 years now. Just not a big water cooling type simply because I switch equipment so much that's its just another thing to not worry about. Something like the H50, I can deal with that, simple and self contained.
Click to expand...

I'm running 3 on air waiting for Surround as well.

With stock clocks and my custom fan profile, the fans never go above 85%, which while loud isn't really that bad. The higher I go the more noise I get. Unigine Heaven maxes my temperature threshold at around 825/2100, hitting 103 after an hour. Most games can't come anywhere close to that, but I figure I should make it stable for everything instead of pushing to 850+.
 
Naieve said:
I'm running 3 on air waiting for Surround as well.

With stock clocks and my custom fan profile, the fans never go above 85%, which while loud isn't really that bad. The higher I go the more noise I get. Unigine Heaven maxes my temperature threshold at around 825/2100, hitting 103 after an hour. Most games can't come anywhere close to that, but I figure I should make it stable for everything instead of pushing to 850+.
Click to expand...

Gah, I don't know how you guys can stand it. I had an air-cooled 480 between my two water-cooled 480s in tri-sli and couldn't take even one card when rev-ed up past 60%. I moved back to dual cards simply because I couldn't stand the extra noise and didn't want to spend the extra dough watercooling a third card. Are you wearing double-insulated headphones? :p

That said, I will have another 480 sitting here shortly hoping 3D Surround works with tri-sli. Any ideas on whether the 3D Surround will support tri-sli...?
 
Supposedly someone got at least regular Surround working on Tri SLI (must connect one display to each card) so it should be feasible. However, people have speculated about bandwidth limits doing 3DVS using more than 1080p...

At any rate, I got Windows 7 Pro upgrade for $30 last night and installed it on my new F3 Samsung. No complaints so far. The UI is a little improved, but nothing I would have upgraded for, given the choice. Oh well, can't complain for $30.
 
ighardcore said:
The Home Premium upgrade version is only $120, the cost of two games, really it is not that expensive when you compare the price to any other software.. And you can imagine it as the equivalent to the DP -> DVI adapter that ATI users usually have to get for their eyefinity configurations. :)
Click to expand...

This is true. I have an ATI card and just happened to have DP on one of my monitors...but I would gladly pay for the OS upgrade to have the freedom of monitor choice and not deal with a flaky adapter. Plus you get more benefit from the OS upgrade in other ares than you do from the adapter purchase.
 
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