Vulkan Will Support Multiple GPUs Only in Windows 10

[MrBonk]

Except microsoft collecting private analytics about us for marketing
Or forcing updates against our will
Or forcing ads into our desktop as a means of revenue.

Other than that, Windows 10 is great....

It won't be long before Windows becomes more and more like the Xbox dashboards. Give it 5 years tops.

Just remember what they did to the 360. They turned it from a great, usable unique OS focused on user features. And slowly turned it into 90% ads bloating up the entire screen.

 

[Master_shake_]

wasn't mantle the first stepping stone for Vulkan?

why does mantle crossfire work on windows 8 but not windows 7 vulkan crossfire?????

it's obviously doing something. so why is it broken now?

 

[mesyn191]

wasn't mantle the first stepping stone for Vulkan? why does mantle crossfire work on windows 8 but not windows 7 vulkan crossfire????? it's obviously doing something. so why is it broken now?

Vulkan is derived from Mantle but they're not the same thing also blame MS.

 

[oldmanbal]

MGPU is in a state of decay. This would be a good editorial piece, as I've mentioned recently. Between the limited scaling in both crossfire and SLI, dropping support for low and mid range gpus, and the reduced adoption in recent titles, I would love to read an in depth article with some nice charts and interviews from the players involved.

I know we're in a 1% of a 1% market, but Duel Card has never looked so grim in all the years I've been building rigs.

Eventually I'm gonna have to install a backup duel os boot for a game or two I want to play that will only work in windows 10, so atleast that will save me from actually switching from 7 since there's no other benefits.

 

[BulletDust]

MGPU is in a state of decay. This would be a good editorial piece, as I've mentioned recently. Between the limited scaling in both crossfire and SLI, dropping support for low and mid range gpus, and the reduced adoption in recent titles, I would love to read an in depth article with some nice charts and interviews from the players involved.

I know we're in a 1% of a 1% market, but Duel Card has never looked so grim in all the years I've been building rigs.

Eventually I'm gonna have to install a backup duel os boot for a game or two I want to play that will only work in windows 10, so atleast that will save me from actually switching from 7 since there's no other benefits.

I've got to agree with this, as a long time SLI user I ended up dumping SLI for a single card. Scaling issues, not to mention heat output and power consumption just made it not worth my while in the end. Not to mention the issues I was experiencing under Nvidia Surround, surround worked better on earlier drivers than it did under later drivers by the time I gave the whole setup the flick.

 

[Presbytier]

I've got to agree with this, as a long time SLI user I ended up dumping SLI for a single card. Scaling issues, not to mention heat output and power consumption just made it not worth my while in the end. Not to mention the issues I was experiencing under Nvidia Surround, surround worked better on earlier drivers than it did under later drivers by the time I gave the whole setup the flick.

The heat output on non-blower cards can get crazy on the one on top, and the fact is SLI is dead now. Vulkan and DX12 puts the burden on mgpu to the game or software developer and i just don't see game developers coding for mgpu on their own.

 

[Trimlock]

wasn't mantle the first stepping stone for Vulkan?

why does mantle crossfire work on windows 8 but not windows 7 vulkan crossfire?????

it's obviously doing something. so why is it broken now?

It's not derived but AMD did assist and it's believed they shared code.

Also, Mantle only worked on specific models, didn't support multi monitor and had many more issues. Vulcan doesn't support one company and is covering more OS'.

 

[Silverlok]

This is a crack in the flow of the old stream ( wherein consumer 'first adopters' paid top dollar to push the bleeding edge because it's what their blood is made of and what use to drive chip tech advances forward , producing both the feed-back loop (for better tech ) and the resonate cascade ( that almost all military tech uses to achieve cost effectiveness) into the mass market )

Abandon or manhandle first ( consumer ) adopters and you just killed the albatross, so , then , water , water every where and na'er a drop to drink ; microsoft (certainly living up to both the name and the legacy)

perhaps if AMD is 'Rizen' from the ashes, it will again understand what has driven the great tech , or it will simmer as Microsoft topples

 

[Presbytier]

This is a crack in the flow of the old stream ( wherein consumer 'first adopters' paid top dollar to push the bleeding edge because it's what their blood is made of and what use to drive chip tech advances forward , producing both the feed-back loop (for better tech ) and the resonate cascade ( that almost all military tech uses to achieve cost effectiveness) into the mass market )

Abandon or manhandle first ( consumer ) adopters and you just killed the albatross, so , then , water , water every where and na'er a drop to drink ; microsoft (certainly living up to both the name and the legacy)

perhaps if AMD is 'Rizen' from the ashes, it will again understand what has driven the great tech , or it will simmer as Microsoft topples

What?????

 

[Silverlok]

This is a crack in the flow of the old stream ( wherein consumer 'first adopters' paid top dollar to push the bleeding edge because it's what their blood is made of and what use to drive chip tech advances forward , producing both the feed-back loop (for better tech ) and the resonate cascade ( that almost all military tech uses to achieve cost effectiveness) into the mass market )

Abandon or manhandle first ( consumer ) adopters and you just killed the albatross, so , then , water , water every where and na'er a drop to drink ; microsoft (certainly living up to both the name and the legacy)

perhaps if AMD is 'Rizen' from the ashes, it will again understand what has driven the great tech , or it will simmer as Microsoft topples

What?????

Remember Quake 1? it became the standard for if ones machine had the juice or not...and that induced the process wherein game companies made bleeding edge games that FORCED one to upgrade. CPU , MOTHERBOARD then GPU ( not that that was a thing back then ) manufacturers were racing tech forward in this feedback loop: new game comes out ; makes your desktop a potato; new wave of hardware is released AND PURCHASED, rinse repeat, for over a decade. The O.S. providers at first played 'catch-up' in answer to the demand we saw the beginning of the GPU industry in the form of 3dfx( eventually acquired by nvidia) , direct x, and all the others trying to fill the gap between what computing could do , what it was doing , and wht people wanted. In the "olden times" ( hehe) , few doubted that game development ( and acceptance ) was the driving force in the speed of newer and faster processing ( at every level ).
Microsoft current policy obviously believes that that initial dynamic has changed enough that they no longer need cutting edge high end PC users , and that cutting edge PC users will be forced to need them instead.
My assertion is that they are WAY off base in this assumption and (edit) MS has basically become lost at sea ( hence the ancient mariner reference ) , and doomed...
AMD on the other hand is playing a very clever hand and putting some interesting shit on the table at exactly the "right time" , so , if high end gamers still have any connection to pushing tech forward , AMD is in a much better place than MS at this time as MS is basically shooting the cutting edge in the dick by floating " do as I say when I say " as a way to either test the waters or ham handedly grab the needle of fate.
In essence MS is creating a void ; what will fill it ?

 

[heatlesssun]

I've got to agree with this, as a long time SLI user I ended up dumping SLI for a single card. Scaling issues, not to mention heat output and power consumption just made it not worth my while in the end. Not to mention the issues I was experiencing under Nvidia Surround, surround worked better on earlier drivers than it did under later drivers by the time I gave the whole setup the flick.

The heat output on non-blower cards can get crazy on the one on top, and the fact is SLI is dead now. Vulkan and DX12 puts the burden on mgpu to the game or software developer and i just don't see game developers coding for mgpu on their own.

SLI is an enthusiast technology. I'd never recommended to the average gamer. We'll see where it goes with Vulkan and DX 12. There are DX 12 titles out there like RoTR and Sniper Elite 4 that are handling DX 12 mGPU well. I've always recommended people buy the single fast GPU they can afford, indeed that advice tends to be universal even from SLI users. But there are still a good number of games, even new ones, that get benefit from multiple cards. Again, not for everyone one. SLI is about getting tomorrows performance today where it works. These 1080 Tis crush BF1 especially overclocked, all maxed out at 4k at around 120 FPS. These suckers are LOUD overclocked though.

 

[Presbytier]

This is a crack in the flow of the old stream ( wherein consumer 'first adopters' paid top dollar to push the bleeding edge because it's what their blood is made of and what use to drive chip tech advances forward , producing both the feed-back loop (for better tech ) and the resonate cascade ( that almost all military tech uses to achieve cost effectiveness) into the mass market )

Abandon or manhandle first ( consumer ) adopters and you just killed the albatross, so , then , water , water every where and na'er a drop to drink ; microsoft (certainly living up to both the name and the legacy)

perhaps if AMD is 'Rizen' from the ashes, it will again understand what has driven the great tech , or it will simmer as Microsoft topples

Remember Quake 1? it became the standard for if ones machine had the juice or not...and that induced the process wherein game companies made bleeding edge games that FORCED one to upgrade. CPU , MOTHERBOARD then GPU ( not that that was a thing back then ) manufacturers were racing tech forward in this feedback loop: new game comes out ; makes your desktop a potato; new wave of hardware is released AND PURCHASED, rinse repeat, for over a decade. The O.S. providers at first played 'catch-up' in answer to the demand we saw the beginning of the GPU industry in the form of 3dfx( eventually acquired by nvidia) , direct x, and all the others trying to fill the gap between what computing could do , what it was doing , and wht people wanted. In the "olden times" ( hehe) , few doubted that game development ( and acceptance ) was the driving force in the speed of newer and faster processing ( at every level ).
Microsoft current policy obviously believes that that initial dynamic has changed enough that they no longer need cutting edge high and PC users , and that cutting edge PC users will be forced to need them instead.
My assertion is that they are WAY off base in this assumption and has basically become lost at sea ( hence the ancient mariner reference ) , and doomed...
AMD on the other hand is playing a very clever hand and putting some interesting shit on the table at exactly the "right time" , so , if high end gamers still have any connection to pushing tech forward , AMD is in a much better place than MS at this time as MS is basically shooting the cutting edge in the dick by floating " do as I say when I say " as a way to either test the waters or ham handedly grab the needle of fate.
In essence MS is creating a void ; what will fill it ?

That is a big leap in logic.Programming complexity, even though quake was revolutionary for its time, has drastically grown exponentially. The OS in no way is holding games back instead what we are seeing is the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to in the early years of hardware accelerated graphics. In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU.

 

[BulletDust]

SLI is an enthusiast technology. I'd never recommended to the average gamer. We'll see where it goes with Vulkan and DX 12. There are DX 12 titles out there like RoTR and Sniper Elite 4 that are handling DX 12 mGPU well. I've always recommended people buy the single fast GPU they can afford, indeed that advice tends to be universal even from SLI users. But there are still a good number of games, even new ones, that get benefit from multiple cards. Again, not for everyone one. SLI is about getting tomorrows performance today where it works. These 1080 Tis crush BF1 especially overclocked, all maxed out at 4k at around 120 FPS. These suckers are LOUD overclocked though.

As an enthusiast from the beginning running two 6800 ultra's in SLI, it's a dying technology.

 

[Presbytier]

As an enthusiast from the beginning running two 6800 ultra's in SLI, it's a dying technology.

The scaling just got worse and worse. I went from 2 980Ti to one 1080 and the performance loss of going to a single card was negated by literally no multi GPU issues anymore.

 

[heatlesssun]

As an enthusiast from the beginning running two 6800 ultra's in SLI, it's a dying technology.

I have to disagree. These two 1080 Tis are crushing a number of things at 4k. But a lot they aren't. And that's always been the history of SLI, it's hit or miss. Which is why it's always been a thing for enthusiasts.

 

[heatlesssun]

The scaling just got worse and worse. I went from 2 980Ti to one 1080 and the performance loss of going to a single card was negated by literally no multi GPU issues anymore.

And that's all going to depend on the games you play. I have tons of games that don't work with SLI. But have a number that do. Again, gaming enthusiast. Right now I have six different display configurations, single 1080P and 3D, 3x 1080P Surround and 3D, 4k and VR. No game is going to support all of those things.

 

[Silverlok]

That is a big leap in logic.Programming complexity, even though quake was revolutionary for its time, has drastically grown exponentially. The OS in no way is holding games back instead what we are seeing is the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to in the early years of hardware accelerated graphics. In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU.

hmm, closer...no wait ..you missed it entirely.Quake became the poster child because it highlighted , no delineated , the difference between hardware and software solutions . Quake pushed machines because at the time colored light was ALL DONE IN SOFTWARE ( you can thank zelznack for talking carmack into that one ( p.s. I agree it was a good idea ) ) ...so your , i guess, ...argument, about complexity is still exactly applicable today; how much of the software you write today will be hardware tomorrow?. ANd that leads directly to direct x12: MS is still doing exactly what it has always done; try to guide the missle by the nose ( hint: the current management DOES NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES )

For you to say the the OS is "in no way holding back the games" is beyond nebulous, and frankly ridiculous. If an OS manufacturer refuses to update it's older versions WHEN THEY UPGRADE HARDWARE, then YES THE OS IS EXACTLY HOLDING BACK GAMES.

If you would like to not comprehend very well, or at all, my posts this statement says it best: "what we are seeing is the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to in the early years of hardware accelerated graphics. In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU "

I am getting out the knife.

"the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to"
I cut out the "we" , but when people start saying 'we' I start to wonder about how much group think they participate in everyday. but to the matter; the 'growing size and complexity of game production' changes not one whit of what I am , with crayons, outlining. And that is the relationship between what drives tech and whom is 'trying' to drive tech is/are not the same entity, and are not by any means in the same ballbark , or even , universe at this point.

"In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU"

IF YOU USE WINDOWS TEN( what other platform is dx12 on ) ...what does that tell you about their intent? ( hey let's guess based on history , say using quake as an example; the SOFTWARE (like the coloredl ighting in quake ) from dx12 will become hardware that MS holds the reigns on and tries to use as leveraging them back into top dog space...you know , because their business model is working so well that android has now overtaken MS as THE operating system ( a sorry state of affairs in it's own right ))

 

[BulletDust]

I find I can game just fine at 4k using respectable settings under Windows using a single 980Ti. There was issues with Advanced Warfare using up all the vram on release that's probably been sorted by now, but AW was a rubbish game anyway so I'm not really interested in it any more - The whole series died after CoD4 IMO. BF1 runs great on my system with high settings at 4k.

I actually find gaming smoother using a single card, mirrored vram under SLI is also a disappointing limitation.

 

[BulletDust]

hmm, closer...no wait ..you missed it entirely.Quake became the poster child because it highlighted , no delineated , the difference between hardware and software solutions . Quake pushed machines because at the time colored light was ALL DONE IN SOFTWARE ( you can thank zelznack for talking carmack into that one ( p.s. I agree it was a good idea ) ) ...so your , i guess, ...argument, about complexity is still exactly applicable today; how much of the software you write today will be hardware tomorrow?. ANd that leads directly to direct x12: MS is still doing exactly what it has always done; try to guide the missle by the nose ( hint: the current management DOES NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES )

For you to say the the OS is "in no way holding back the games" is beyond nebulous, and frankly ridiculous. If an OS manufacturer refuses to update it's older versions WHEN THEY UPGRADE HARDWARE, then YES THE OS IS EXACTLY HOLDING BACK GAMES.

If you would like to not comprehend very well, or at all, my posts this statement says it best: "what we are seeing is the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to in the early years of hardware accelerated graphics. In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU "

I am getting out the knife.

"the growing size and complexity of game production slowing the big leaps in performance people where accustomed to"
I cut out the "we" , but when people start saying 'we' I start to wonder about how much group think they participate in everyday. but to the matter; the 'growing size and complexity of game production' changes not one whit of what I am , with crayons, outlining. And that is the relationship between what drives tech and whom is 'trying' to drive tech is/are not the same entity, and are not by any means in the same ballbark , or even , universe at this point.

"In fact Microsoft designed DX12 as a way of getting even further out of the way of devs by helping them program more directly to the GPU"

IF YOU USE WINDOWS TEN( what other platform is dx12 on ) ...what does that tell you about their intent? ( hey let's guess based on history , say using quake as an example; the SOFTWARE (like the coloredl ighting in quake ) from dx12 will become hardware that MS holds the reigns on and tries to use as leveraging them back into top dog space...you know , because their business model is working so well that android has now overtaken MS as THE operating system ( a sorry state of affairs in it's own right ))

I don't really see this as being the fault of MS, Windows 7 is simply too outdated now to support the underlying infrastructure needed for mGPU under Vulkan.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

I wonder how many multi-GPU configurations there really are out there. I ran dual R9 290x's for a while, but only because my GF could borrow the second card.

Muli-GPU support seems to have dropped off quite a bit since back when the 290s came out. I wonder if they're just letting it bleed out and then getting rid of support altogether in a couple years. With GPUs showing such limited gains each generation the chip makers must want to get rid of it.

 

[heatlesssun]

I find I can game just fine at 4k using respectable settings under Windows using a single 980Ti. There was issues with Advanced Warfare using up all the vram on release that's probably been sorted by now, but AW was a rubbish game anyway so I'm not really interested in it any more - The whole series died after CoD4 IMO. BF1 runs great on my system with high settings at 4k.

I actually find gaming smoother using a single card, mirrored vram under SLI is also a disappointing limitation.

https://uk.hardware.info/reviews/72...eview-incl-sli-faster-card-for-the-same-price

Again, it will depend on the game, there are instances where SLI scales well. Two 1080 Tis kick the snot out of single card setups in several games in this review. And then there are instances where it doesn't.

 

[heatlesssun]

I wonder how many multi-GPU configurations there really are out there.

Not that many. But people that spend that kind of money on GPUs, at least at the top end, spend a lot of money on gaming.

Muli-GPU support seems to have dropped off quite a bit since back when the 290s came out. I wonder if they're just letting it bleed out and then getting rid of support altogether in a couple years. With GPUs showing such limited gains each generation the chip makers must want to get rid of it.

The 1080 to 1080 Ti, that's a bit more than a limited gain in just 10 months. For the same price at introduction within 10 months it's there's a pretty big leap there especially at 4k.

 

[Trimlock]

I find I can game just fine at 4k using respectable settings under Windows using a single 980Ti. There was issues with Advanced Warfare using up all the vram on release that's probably been sorted by now, but AW was a rubbish game anyway so I'm not really interested in it any more - The whole series died after CoD4 IMO. BF1 runs great on my system with high settings at 4k.

I actually find gaming smoother using a single card, mirrored vram under SLI is also a disappointing limitation.

If you are going to share vram between two devices over the PCIe bus then you might as well not go mGPU as that would be terrible.

 

[Silverlok]

I don't really see this as being the fault of MS, Windows 7 is simply too outdated now to support the underlying infrastructure needed for mGPU under Vulkan.

"fault of MS"...there are many , but it is an ill wind indeed that blows no man good will, and clearly MS , "management" is testing whether or not it needs the high end , bleeding edge ( only one step away from pure chaos itself ) frontiersmen to keep being edgy , or to be sales leverage ( for w10 ) to the people they influence.

And isnt that whole open source bit part of making Vulkan invulnerable to the emotional platform of any preference ?

 

[Trimlock]

Not that many. But people that spend that kind of money on GPUs, at least at the top end, spend a lot of money on gaming.



The 1080 to 1080 Ti, that's a bit more than a limited gain in just 10 months. For the same price at introduction within 10 months it's there's a pretty big leap there especially at 4k.

SLI has always been for bleeding edge and enabling fidelity at such extreme usages. It's hardly a dominant use of GPUs. I remember when people thought it was viable to combine two mid range cards just to get highend performance for a slightly less price. I'm glad those days are behind us, I had to fix a lot of stupid builds back then...

 

[heatlesssun]

SLI has always been for bleeding edge and enabling fidelity at such extreme usages. It's hardly a dominant use of GPUs. I remember when people thought it was viable to combine two mid range cards just to get highend performance for a slightly less price. I'm glad those days are behind us, I had to fix a lot of stupid builds back then...

You gain the greatest benefit from SLI when using top end cards, that's always been the case. I've never recommended SLI for low and mid-range cards, at least at purchase. It might be something to pick up on the cheap to help out with some games later. In any case, it's an option.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

You gain the greatest benefit from SLI when using top end cards, that's always been the case. I've never recommended SLI for low and mid-range cards, at least at purchase. It might be something to pick up on the cheap to help out with some games later. In any case, it's an option.

Meh, I've been there and done that.

I had dual 6970's in 2011 to try to keep up with my 2560x1600 screen, and dual 980ti's in 2015 to try to keep up with my 4k screen.

I hated both. More headaches than they were worth.

Unless something major changes (maybe the widespread return of SFR modes?) I'll likely never do mGPU again.

 

[Presbytier]

The only situation i see getting direct benefit for multi GPU is VR. VR where one GPU is dedicated to each eye would allow cheaper cards to be used at the same if greater effect then one high end card.

 

[SvenBent]

..and in that license nowhere is it implied the OS will be supported to infinity. All software has end of lifed.

I'm not debating against that. But that still does not make windows 10 "free" when i had to give away something to get it. Has nothing to do with the end of support.

 

[Trimlock]

You gain the greatest benefit from SLI when using top end cards, that's always been the case. I've never recommended SLI for low and mid-range cards, at least at purchase. It might be something to pick up on the cheap to help out with some games later. In any case, it's an option.

In my opinion it was never a good option, the best thing would to purchase a better card if you wanted better performance at the mid level.

 

[WorldExclusive]

DX12, Vulkan and devs in general are killing my enthusiasm for PC gaming.

Regardless of how anyone feels about SLI/CF, having API's refuse to properly support something we had up to DX11 is a travesty.
With 4K and 144Hz monitors being the new wave, limiting us to one GPU makes have these uber rigs useless.

We're just customizing overpriced consoles at this point.
UWP, DX12, Vulkan, devs taking shortcuts...everything sucks.

I'll build a workstation or something else for work, then a modest ITX living room PC for games.
I'm done throwing money at high-end PC parts for broken PC games. It's been fun.

 

[Trimlock]

Lol mGPUs have always had this limitation. It has nothing to do with the API but with the devs properly coding for it.

 

[silent-circuit]

WTF? wasn't Vulkan suppossed to set people free of Windows?... wow, just wow... such a mixed message.

It's a limitation of the driver architecture used in earlier versions of Windows -- an actual sign of Microsoft trying to improve things, not this sneaky underhanded thing people have come to believe. If it were that simple to back-port it would have been done long ago.

 

[BulletDust]

DX12, Vulkan and devs in general are killing my enthusiasm for PC gaming.

Regardless of how anyone feels about SLI/CF, having API's refuse to properly support something we had up to DX11 is a travesty.
With 4K and 144Hz monitors being the new wave, limiting us to one GPU makes have these uber rigs useless.

We're just customizing overpriced consoles at this point.
UWP, DX12, Vulkan, devs taking shortcuts...everything sucks.

I'll build a workstation or something else for work, then a modest ITX living room PC for games.
I'm done throwing money at high-end PC parts for broken PC games. It's been fun.

mGPU is a continuation of CF/SLI, as both in their current form are fairly flawed. Technically speaking this should be a good thing for multiple GPU users, as CF/SLI in it's current form, relying purely on driver support, is beginning to show it's age.

Poor ports of popular games is a bigger issue that an open, cross platform API like Vulkan can hopefully resolve. Improve the porting of games across platforms and hopefully multi GPU setups won't be as necessary.

 

[dgz]

WTF? wasn't Vulkan suppossed to set people free of Windows?... wow, just wow... such a mixed message.

Can't you read, breh?

"Windows 10 is the only Windows OS to get mGPU support in Vulkan"

Personally, I've had it with Microsoft.

 

[Trimlock]

Meh, I've been there and done that.

I had dual 6970's in 2011 to try to keep up with my 2560x1600 screen, and dual 980ti's in 2015 to try to keep up with my 4k screen.

I hated both. More headaches than they were worth.

Unless something major changes (maybe the widespread return of SFR modes?) I'll likely never do mGPU again.

The issue with those auto modes for SLI was their performance wasn't that great to begin with. Sure you got better performance while you waited for either game support or driver support but it wasn't going to justify the cost.

I'm still a fan of mGPU stuff, but the complications that occur around it keeps me away. I'll enjoy my single 1080 for a good while now.

 

[Uvaman2]

Ok so, isn't there a firewall that would make light work of making a connected computer block all traffic other than solicited connections/ allowed programs?
Wouln't that cure W10 spyworks on its tracks?
I tried that for a while, I had a firewall that turned out to phone home itself without permission (forgot the name), i also had a hosts file that set windows to block some connections but gave up on the project on making my computer be connected only with the programs I approved.. pain in the ass to maintain.

 

[polonyc2]

it is useless to resist Windows 10...pretty soon you will need Windows 10 to use your microwave

 

[tetris42]

As an enthusiast from the beginning running two 6800 ultra's in SLI, it's a dying technology.

I believe "the beginning" was the Voodoo 2, sir. I know, I know, it got resurrected with Nvidia later, but that wasn't the start of it.

Regardless of how anyone feels about SLI/CF, having API's refuse to properly support something we had up to DX11 is a travesty.

Now you know how people who care about quality antialiasing have felt for the past 15 years or so. At least now it's starting to be less relevant with high pixel counts.

 

[BulletDust]

I believe "the beginning" was the Voodoo 2, sir. I know, I know, it got resurrected with Nvidia later, but that wasn't the start of it.

I'm well aware of this. Before that the dominant gaming platform was 68k and the Voodoo 2 along with Doom was the beginning of the end for that platform.

Dominant platforms don't last forever.