nvidia surround?

W

wadec22

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
3,948
just venting... better part of april is over and no surround drivers. starting to wonder if they will be out this month. :(
 
Yeah I hear you man. Was looking forward to see what they are bringing to the table. I think if you slap that shit on the box as "ready", the damn thing should be READY. I feel bad for the people who bought Fermi and were counting on surround. Hopefully they release drivers soon.
 
King Icewind said:
IMO, I would just wait until it could be done on one card anyways. :eek:
Click to expand...

since i already have sli, i would like to check it out as is to see if "need" to have it. if i'm not impressed, my current rig can drive games on one monitor just fine.
 
The card just came out less than 2 weeks ago. Heaven forbid they take a driver release or two to get Surround out :rolleyes:

Especially because people don't typically use cards they just bought for very long, right? :rolleyes:
 
wadec22 said:
since i already have sli, i would like to check it out as is to see if "need" to have it. if i'm not impressed, my current rig can drive games on one monitor just fine.
Click to expand...

I was under the assumption that Surround was for Fermi only. Not older generation of cards (your 260's).
 
It's been rumored for a long time that it would come out at the end of April and I've not seen anything saying that still isn't the case, might slip into early May but by this time next month the 256 drivers will be out.
 
well they still got 9 days for april.would good to compare performance between surround and eyefinity
 
coldstorm said:
well they still got 9 days for april.would good to compare performance between surround and eyefinity
Click to expand...

This is what the world want to know right no. Either this will improve the image of the GTX 400 series or tarnish it, I have NO idea which at this time. My gut is telling me that its going to be positive simply because I think that nVidia will have much better performance and compatibility with multi-GPU multi-monitor setups than AMD.

And yes I know you need at least two cards for the GTXs which at these resolutions isn't that big of a deal I think.
 
heatlesssun said:
This is what the world want to know right no. Either this will improve the image of the GTX 400 series or tarnish it, I have NO idea which at this time. My gut is telling me that its going to be positive simply because I think that nVidia will have much better performance and compatibility with multi-GPU multi-monitor setups than AMD.

And yes I know you need at least two cards for the GTXs which at these resolutions isn't that big of a deal I think.
Click to expand...

well we all hope they perform at least as good as eyefinity. they do have the advantage of being able to drive all dvi natively from the cards which will be a benefit for some and be alot easier to mix and match model hopefully. as for the 3d part well we know that going to 1/2 your relative framerate so dual gpu solution would be a must.
 
wadec22 said:
since i already have sli, i would like to check it out as is to see if "need" to have it. if i'm not impressed, my current rig can drive games on one monitor just fine.
Click to expand...

Try SoftTH. If you like it I think it's safe to assume that nVidia surround will perform better. Deciding you want multi-monitor is only the first step. Deciding what monitor configuration is best for you is much more difficult.
 
vjcsmoke said:
It's already the 21st of April, what is Nvidia waiting for an engraved invitation?

BTW Nvidia Surround is needed for Triple Monitors in SLI or can you just plug it in and go?
Click to expand...

We're going to need the 256 for this I believe, I tried plugging up three 24" monitors today with my two cards and nothing was getting picked up from the second card as far as I could tell.
 
hell i am almost scared to change the drivers on this thing now it runs so well. other than grid every single game runs amazing. grid for whatever reason will not run on my triplehead anymore. it runs fine on my 28" monitor but crashes at the beginning of every race now out of the blue. it ran fine for the first few days but now forget about it. its a shame too because it looks incredible on my triplehead in 3d discover surround. id love to get it working again...
 
If I recall, it took ATI a couple of months to release EyeFinity.

I would think nvidia wants to get this right, so it's worth waiting for.:D
 
heatlesssun said:
We're going to need the 256 for this I believe, I tried plugging up three 24" monitors today with my two cards and nothing was getting picked up from the second card as far as I could tell.
Click to expand...

Here's the weird thing, if even 2xx series cards will be able to do Surround + Triple Monitors, That suggests to me that those cards have had Quadro type abilities since the beginning, they've just needed the proper drivers to unlock those abilities. And there's no way Nvidia would have offered that ability now unless ATI had not popularized it first with Eyefinity. Nvidia has to offer a similar ability to compete in the consumer video card sector. Previously 3 or more monitor simultaneous display capability had been reserved only for their professional and business class cards. Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Hamish Campbell said:
You don't recall well. Eyefinity was working out of the box and going strong ever since. It was a major launch feature 7 months ago (to the exact day as a matter of fact) for the 5XXX series. Here's Kyles full review from September 28th 2009, 6 days after the 5870 launch.
Click to expand...

Yup, Eyefinity worked from the get go. The actual sticking point for consumers was the requirement of an expensive Active Adapter to get it working if at least one of their monitors did not have a native displayport connector.
 
coldstorm said:
as for the 3d part well we know that going to 1/2 your relative framerate so dual gpu solution would be a must.
Click to expand...

It really depends on your resolution. I'm playing Crysis maxed at 5040x1200 on a single 5870, just fine.

I'm really looking forward to surround numbers coming out as well. I love 3 screen gaming, and if Nvidia could come up with a better product to support that I would switch cards in a heartbeat.
 
BlueStorm said:
The card just came out less than 2 weeks ago. Heaven forbid they take a driver release or two to get Surround out :rolleyes:

Especially because people don't typically use cards they just bought for very long, right? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I hate to "yeah but." you, but 3D Surround was supposed to be a launch feature and is an advertised feature plastered all over the 6 retail boxes I've seen. If you don't have it ready, you don't advertise it as a current feature (or at least annotate whereever advertised that it's not yet supported). To consider an analogy, it's like a dealer saying a car has two headlights, but not telling the buyer that the second headlight won't work until several weeks after the car is bought.

Not that I'm getting on a soap box here, but I have a pretty deep understanding of advertising and consumer protection law and nV has definitely been playing fast and loose with the marketing of their products and features.

I'm not taking this too seriously as stuff like this has become par for the course when buying new products, but I do have a horse in this race so to speak as I have two monitors that have been useless for the past two weeks...
 
harmattan said:
I hate to "yeah but." you, but 3D Surround was supposed to be a launch feature and is an advertised feature plastered all over the 6 retail boxes I've seen. If you don't have it ready, you don't advertise it as a current feature (or at least annotate whereever advertised that it's not yet supported). To consider an analogy, it's like a dealer saying a car has two headlights, but not telling the buyer that the second headlight won't work until several weeks after the car is bought.

Not that I'm getting on a soap box here, but I have a pretty deep understanding of advertising and consumer protection law and nV has definitely been playing fast and loose with the marketing of their products and features.

I'm not taking this too seriously as stuff like this has become par for the course when buying new products, but I do have a horse in this race so to speak as I have two monitors that have been useless for the past two weeks...
Click to expand...

Really pissed me off when I went to Newegg and saw Surround in the advertised specs for GTX470/80. Bullshit as of today.
 
Oldie said:
It really depends on your resolution. I'm playing Crysis maxed at 5040x1200 on a single 5870, just fine.
Click to expand...

Seriously? I doubt that for some reason, and what the hell is 1680x1200, 14:10? My bro's 5870 needs a serious tone down on most games (not even Crysis), and definitely no AA.

WTF is the point of getting nvidia for surround if you can max Crysis on a single 5870 in eyefinity.
 
I'd be happy to post SS's proving it. My native res is 4800x1200 (don't want widescreens due to current space constraints); the 5040 is with bezel management on.

I have to say that I'm skeptical that Nvidia's solution will be anywhere near on-par with AMD's, but if I had my wish it would blow it away. Raising the bar on the competition provides gamers with cooler toys a lot more quickly, so go NVidia go! :cool:

I can all but guarantee you Nvidia wouldn't be providing 3 screen gaming if AMD hadn't first.
 
And amd wouldn't have offered it if matrox hadn't been offering it since early 2007 and built a loyal following over the years from simmers and the like. Amd's solution was too early and not elegant enough in that it needs a DP monitor or a hinky adapter that more times than not does not work well. In a year or so when most all new LCDs are DP then the matter will be moot. Nvidia's solution is not elegant in that it requires 2 cards to pull off when most of their cards seem to require more and more power and generate more heat. I will be sticking with my th2g for the rest of the year until I see something definitive about where 3d LCD's are headed and then I am moving on to nvidia 3d surround which imo justifies the use of 2 cards.
 
But you have to have SLI to use Nvidia surround? Sounds like a reason to sell you another GPU. They already want you to buy an extra one for PhysX as well as your main GPU has to be Nvidia also. Tell me a closed system like this that was ever successful?
 
bigdogchris said:
But you have to have SLI to use Nvidia surround? Sounds like a reason to sell you another GPU. They already want you to buy an extra one for PhysX as well as your main GPU has to be Nvidia also. Tell me a closed system like this that was ever successful?
Click to expand...

well for physx you can you much less expensive gpu. for surround you would need same model gpu as your primary card. but it does get over issue of needing a dp screen or dp active adapter. though as the year goes on dp port would become more standard on all screens
 
If a display port adapter weren't literally the same cost as a used GTX260(ON the cheap side.) Then yeah Id be screaming blood mary too, but I'd rather do the nvidia thing since I actually get more power of it instead of feeling like I blew $100+ on an adapter. I know I know its active blah blah whatever. All I know is I have a big bags of DVI to VGA adapters that cost .50 and a DP to DVI costs $100?????? it's teeth grinding I tell you.
 
thehybridfrog said:
Seriously? I doubt that for some reason, and what the hell is 1680x1200, 14:10? My bro's 5870 needs a serious tone down on most games (not even Crysis), and definitely no AA.

WTF is the point of getting nvidia for surround if you can max Crysis on a single 5870 in eyefinity.
Click to expand...
Probably bezel management for the wierd resolution
 
equity space said:
Has anyone checked Nvida support on this issue?
Click to expand...

Their patent response is "expected in April". They're cutting it pretty close...

If I would have known 3D Surround was going to be delayed like this I would have kept my 5870s installed.. :rolleyes:
 
nVidia said last month that it would be about a month from the March 26th launch so I would expect hopefully this week.

Something I just picked up on is that all the monitors HAVE to be connected via DVI, HDMI DOESN'T work at this time. I have 3 24" monitors now I was going to use at first but that don't all have DVI, I was going to pick up a matching set anyway but that's something to be aware of in case you didn't know.
 
Oldie said:
It really depends on your resolution. I'm playing Crysis maxed at 5040x1200 on a single 5870, just fine.

I'm really looking forward to surround numbers coming out as well. I love 3 screen gaming, and if Nvidia could come up with a better product to support that I would switch cards in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

? At 5760x1080 I have to run crysis at high (not very high) and no AA to get playable frames. Warhead runs at gamer and not enthusiast. I'd hardly call that 'maxed out' ... but then again it's crysis.

I've found that running at such high resolution requires fine tuning of graphics options to get as many frames as possible without sacrificing that much IQ.

Nvidia's solution being software based instead of hardware may impact performance just like SoftTH. I'm very interested in seeing xfire 5870/5850 vs. SLI 480/470 in triple head. But as it stands... going to xfire would cost me ~$400. Getting two 480's would cost me $1000+ minus whatever I'd get for my 5870. That price differential would mean the GTX 480's would have to absolutely destroy xfire 5870 in triple head in order for me to switch. Also, I'm very scared of GTX 480 SLI right now. The temps on my roommate's GTX480 while playing BC2 makes me cringe as well as standing in his room while he games. Hot and Loud.

Amd's solution was too early and not elegant enough in that it needs a DP monitor or a hinky adapter that more times than not does not work well. In a year or so when most all new LCDs are DP then the matter will be moot. Nvidia's solution is not elegant in that it requires 2 cards to pull off when most of their cards seem to require more and more power and generate more heat. I will be sticking with my th2g for the rest of the year until I see something definitive about where 3d LCD's are headed and then I am moving on to nvidia 3d surround which imo justifies the use of 2 cards.
Click to expand...

Out of Eyefinity, nvidia surround, and th2go, Eyefinity is the most 'elegant' if you ask me. The only catch is the DP part which is pretty easy to remedy. The only 'adapters' that don't work all the time are the cheap vga->dp adapters and not the tried and true more expensive ones like the dell. Of course all 3 of my monitors have DP so I never went through any adapters.
 
Their website says that the 256 series drivers are still scheduled to be released by the end of this month. Yes, they are cutting it close.

The only reason I am waiting for is release instead of buying a 5870 is because I already have two GTX 275 cards so it is cheaper for me to wait, and two 275 cards *might* be faster than a single 5870 anyway if my benchmark runs with my cards are any indication. But if they are going to delay the drivers needed for Surround like they delayed their release of Fermi, I'll be lining up with the rest of you to buy an ATI card.

Two ATI cards, sadly, are out of may budget and from what I hear CF does not exactly scale well.

Here is to hoping that the overhead of nVidia's software solution is not too much that I am better off with an 5870.

Correct me if I am wrong, but SoftTH does not actually take advantage of the second GPU's horsepower does it? Nor does it work with most games, or any DX10 games does it?
 
Last edited:
Yes nVidia's solution is software based, but its SLI software based, needs at least two cards to work so it shouldn't really impact performance and will typically be faster than a single card AMD solution anyway would be my guess.
 
heatlesssun said:
Yes nVidia's solution is software based, but its SLI software based, needs at least two cards to work so it shouldn't really impact performance and will typically be faster than a single card AMD solution anyway would be my guess.
Click to expand...

Well that's a given... but that's comparing $1000 to $400.

The only problem with crossfire right now is all the reports of stuttering / input lag. I've never seen any reviewers report it, and all the user reports are inconsistent in terms of other hardware. It's really annoying me right now and I wish Kyle / other sites would just come out and say whether or not xfire eyefinity is perfectly fine.

I suspect that I'm ultimately going to wait for the next gen of cards before doing any sort of upgrading.
 
Don't forget that this works with GT200 based solutions as well, so $1000 is far from the base line for this setup, people with existing GT200 SLI setups, 260, won't have to spend ANY money if it works for them. No DX 11 of course the GT200 but I would suspect that people with existing SLI setups will be getting at least some decent multi-monitor experiences for free, at least no more than the cost of the monitors.
 
I'm interested to see if panel-tearing becomes an issue as ATI's Dave Baumann indicated.

That could really break the system for Nvidia should it prove an issue.
 
night_2004 said:
Two ATI cards, sadly, are out of may budget and from what I hear CF does not exactly scale well.
Click to expand...

Scales about as well as SLI does. One of the recent benchmarks showed SLI scaling from 1 to 2 cards at about 80% and CF scaling from 1 to 2 cards at about 70%. CF scaled much better going from 2 to 3 cards than SLI did (~40% vs. ~20% if memory serves)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top