Crossfire limited to 16X12 resolution!

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Most single link DVI connections can drive 1920x1200@60Hz...

That's still totally unacceptable. You should be able to do at least 2048x1536@85 Hz to match what single GPUs can do now.

Yeah, but as long as it does 1280x728 @ 60hz there will still be a market for it honestly. You know there are plenty of people out there who will get this setup for their HDTV/media center PC's to play games & watch movies & such with. Honestly, this setup will probably run all the games that come out for the next 4-6 years on an HDTV screen, so it's going to be a somewhat moot point to many people....meanwhile there are obviously a ton of you who feel differently...lol

I am in the same boat as you. I used a Dell 30" as my main monitor and it supports 1280 X 768. I keep 8X AA and 16X AF on at all times in all games right now. Everything looks sharp and plays smooth. Nothing beats 30"... WoW looks wonderfull... Never been bettter

But I know many people prefer higher resolution... To each their own.

 

[Insomniak]

If true, ATi REALLY screwed it up.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Most single link DVI connections can drive 1920x1200@60Hz...

That's still totally unacceptable. You should be able to do at least 2048x1536@85 Hz to match what single GPUs can do now.

Yeah, but as long as it does 1280x728 @ 60hz there will still be a market for it honestly. You know there are plenty of people out there who will get this setup for their HDTV/media center PC's to play games & watch movies & such with. Honestly, this setup will probably run all the games that come out for the next 4-6 years on an HDTV screen, so it's going to be a somewhat moot point to many people....meanwhile there are obviously a ton of you who feel differently...lol

I am in the same boat as you. I used a Dell 30" as my main monitor and it supports 1280 X 768. I keep 8X AA and 16X AF on at all times in all games right now. Everything looks sharp and plays smooth. Nothing beats 30"... WoW looks wonderfull... Never been bettter

But I know many people prefer higher resolution... To each their own.

Nice

But my G520P begs for 1400*1050 or higher That is a nice setup though, and one I would consider moving to... I use LCD's a lot and have gotten used to the trade offs... now just to come up with the money!

ATI + XFIRE = waste of money that could/should have gone into something else imho...

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where are the "Crossfire is a more elegant solution" guys now?

Let's see:

Last we heard here at AT, AA only works on D3d games that allow you to enable it in the game.

Now we learn you can only use it up to 16X12, at an eyeball burning 60Hz refresh rate that hasn't been acceptable since the 1970s.

What's next? It will only run in DOS? :roll:

ATI really screwed the pooch with this "tech"......

LOL @ the 1970s comment. I always get a laugh out of your posts.

 

[nitromullet]

I wonder why AT didn't mention this in their benchmark article. I couldn't imagine that they wouldn't have at least tried to bench at higher than 1600x1200... Even if they were told that it was a driver issue that was going to be fixed before release, you would have thought they would have at least mentioned it.

 

[n7]

Unbe-freakin'-lievable! :Q:roll:

Single card > SLI > Crossfire.

What idiocy!

 

[5150Joker]

Well lets be realistic here: Assuming this rumor (that is what it is right now) is true, 1600x1200@60 hz covers most of the LCD and CRT market. Additionally, what percentage of enthusiasts will actually go out and buy 2 high end cards? Not many judging by SLI numbers so we're talking a small percentage of an already tiny fraction of the gaming market - it won't even put a dent on their R520 sales.

 

[lavaheadache]

This amongst most the the R520 and crossfire talk is pure speculation and has no backbone. Leave it up to Rollo to find some obscure piece of info about ATI's shortcomings, and then taking to the forums with it asif it were straight from the holy gospels:roll:. Alright already! I'm ready to raise the white flag. Rollo, you remind of a saying I always used to hear from my sister when we were younger: "whatever girls can do boys can do better." Only thing I have to do to make the saying "Rollo appropriate" is change the words girls and boys to Ati and Nvidia respectively. Although I do have to admit that if you (Rollo) didnt post the things you post, I probably wouldnt have the same level of fun on AT.

Cheers I guess
Lava

 

[CP5670]

Wow. If this is true then it's an absolutely ridiculous oversight by ATI's engineers. 60hz is basically unuseable on CRTs, so the effective max resolution there would be 1024x768 or 1280x960, and people with Dell 2405s are also out of luck. This limitation means that a single card would effectively be better than two of them; at least you can use some decent resolutions in older games. This seems too crazy too be true, but Rage3D is after all an ATI fansite, so I don't know what to make of it.

Oh well, I'm not really a potential buyer for a multi-card setup anyway.

 

[gunblade]

What people didn't realize is that if you use vga connection, it doesn't matter to you since that is using the analog output so you can have the resolution and freq to however high your CRT can synch to.

It affects the LCD crowd that have big screens and use DVI connection only. The limitations is due to bandwidth issues with the interface chips. I believe if the graphic chip can already output dual-link DVI signal you just need to replace the SIL 1161 chip to a dual-link capable interface chip to convert the signal and feed to the composite engine. So, it should not affect the coming generation at all. As for the X800 people, well, crossfire ain't gonna do anything for you.

 

[CP5670]

well, the video card has to support it too on an analog connection. It's just that even the absolute cheapest cards these days can do 2048x1536 at 85hz, so they can feed the fastest refreshing CRTs out there.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

The Anandtech Xfire Preview article has many benchmarks faster than 60 FPS (although not any higher rez than 1600x1200):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2477&p=1

Maybe they were using the analog output (I didn't read close enough to find out).

I do wonder though, what most other graphics cards use as their digital output chip. Can't most video cards do better than 1600x1200 using the DVI, even without a dual link? The fact that the entire point of X-fire/SLI is to accelerate the high rez stuff makes me question the validity of this info.

If it is true, then it does seem like a very limiting factor for the ATI solution.

I guess we'll find out eventually.

-D'oh!

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
This amongst most the the R520 and crossfire talk is pure speculation and has no backbone. Leave it up to Rollo to find some obscure piece of info about ATI's shortcomings, and then taking to the forums with it asif it were straight from the holy gospels:roll:. Alright already! I'm ready to raise the white flag. Rollo, you remind of a saying I always used to hear from my sister when we were younger: "whatever girls can do boys can do better." Only thing I have to do to make the saying "Rollo appropriate" is change the words girls and boys to Ati and Nvidia respectively. Although I do have to admit that if you (Rollo) didnt post the things you post, I probably wouldnt have the same level of fun on AT.

Cheers I guess
Lava

ATi fanboy or just trolling and behaving at the same level with Rollo.
Your post didnt contribute to this thread in anyways,
take your flame war somewhere else.

And i agree about 60hz on a CRT. It irritate your eyes to much.

By the way, Rage3d is a ATi FANSITE like NVnews is Nvidia FANSITE.

 

[Todd33]

So each crossfire card is rendering 100% of every frame?

 

[malG]

I guess you can't use the R520 with Dell 2405FPW or Apple 23"/30" Cinema LCD. This is extremely disappointing since most enthusiasts who own $600 video cards don't game @ 1280 x 1024 :thumbsdown:

 

[DRavisher]

Wow (joining teh crowd here). If this holds true for R520 (the inq seems to think so: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26198) then... just wow. I guess it is kind of useful @1600x1200, but I am just speechless.

Edit: Any one else seen any info on this holding true for R520? The Inq seems to be confused in that article (The Inq is a pretty good source when you can tell confused from certain from rumour )

 

[Pete]

gunblade, the potential issue is that the compositing is limited to 19x12@60Hz, meaning the framerate is limited to around that.* But, even if you use a CRT, the image is first composited using this DVI link, so is potentially limited to the TDMS transmitter's data rate. Yeah, the RAMDAC may be 400MHz, but it's (potentially) only getting 165MHz's worth of info per second, as the TDMS thingy is the bottleneck.

I wonder if ATI can "overclock" the transmitter up to TDMS' specced limit of 225MHz? From the SI pdf in the R3D thread:

Silicon Image?s TMDS technology serves as the underlying protocol for both the DVI and HDMI standards. TMDS is the key to transferring digital data from a TMDS transmitter to a TMDS receiver at high speeds up to 225 MHz, enabling support for resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 (QXGA) in a single-link configuration. The DVI standard supports speeds up to 165 MHz.

D'oh!, I was thinking the same thing. If we've seen framerates above 60 (edit: or 120 with AFR) at 16x12, then it doesn't seem like this is an issue. The latest leaked Xfire numbers only showed 12x10, but AT's article showed 136fps in HL2 at 16x12.

Hmmm. This seems like too big of a limitation for a premium feature for ATI to have overlooked or rationalized.

----------
* Well, technically AFR should mean 19x12@120Hz, as the second card is only sending every other screen to the master. Same with tiling, too. SFR should average 50% of the screen sent per full frame, too, so I'd think they'd be able to offer higher than 60fps at 19x12.

 

[eastvillager]

eh, makes crossfire pointless, imho, if it is true.

The only people who need an sli/crossfire type of solution are people gaming at 1920x1200(and above). Top-end single card solutions will handle any game at 1600x1200 already.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

thats just eliminated Crossfire from being useful. i heard about this a few weeks ago but werent sure if it was true, so said nothing. but rage3d is primarily ATi, so im inclined to believe it

who actually likes 60hz? and who spends the thick end of $1000 on gfx cards that cant go any higher than a single card can

Nv got it straight, G70 in SLI can go up to 2048x1536 @ 75Hz

 

[BFG10K]

Yeah, but as long as it does 1280x728 @ 60hz there will still be a market for it honestly

Not for crossfire there won't be. I mean any single mid-range card like the 9800 Pro can manage 1280x728 quite easily.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
This amongst most the the R520 and crossfire talk is pure speculation and has no backbone. Leave it up to Rollo to find some obscure piece of info about ATI's shortcomings, and then taking to the forums with it asif it were straight from the holy gospels:roll:. Alright already! I'm ready to raise the white flag. Rollo, you remind of a saying I always used to hear from my sister when we were younger: "whatever girls can do boys can do better." Only thing I have to do to make the saying "Rollo appropriate" is change the words girls and boys to Ati and Nvidia respectively. Although I do have to admit that if you (Rollo) didnt post the things you post, I probably wouldnt have the same level of fun on AT.

Cheers I guess
Lava

i heard about this mess up the other week, and now rage 3d, a predominantly pro ATI website, reports on why ATI's answer to SLI is not up to snuff. i think it is true.

though hopefully Ati will change this. maybes the early cards jus had these silicon image chips as a temporary replacement for a better chip thas not ready yet. jus so they could at least get some form of Xfire out the door

 

[imported_Ged]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Most single link DVI connections can drive 1920x1200@60Hz...

That's still totally unacceptable. You should be able to do at least 2048x1536@85 Hz to match what single GPUs can do now.

Yeah, but as long as it does 1280x728 @ 60hz there will still be a market for it honestly. You know there are plenty of people out there who will get this setup for their HDTV/media center PC's to play games & watch movies & such with. Honestly, this setup will probably run all the games that come out for the next 4-6 years on an HDTV screen, so it's going to be a somewhat moot point to many people....meanwhile there are obviously a ton of you who feel differently...lol

I am in the same boat as you. I used a Dell 30" as my main monitor and it supports 1280 X 768. I keep 8X AA and 16X AF on at all times in all games right now. Everything looks sharp and plays smooth. Nothing beats 30"... WoW looks wonderfull... Never been bettter

But I know many people prefer higher resolution... To each their own.

Dell makes a 30"?

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
I still think SLI is an extremely niche idea, so the ATI version of Rollo will be peeing his pants at this news, but for the most part it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over, or most users.

Would that person be The A(n)ti-Rollo?

:beer:

fixed

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
I don't know, in order for that to be true, you'd have to ignore the Voodoo 4/5/6 series, Rage MAXX, everything produced by XGI, etc...

Hey! I loved the MAXX, flashing/missing textures and all. It was a VERY cool piece of hardware, it gets an "A" for effort.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
This amongst most the the R520 and crossfire talk is pure speculation and has no backbone. Leave it up to Rollo to find some obscure piece of info about ATI's shortcomings, and then taking to the forums with it asif it were straight from the holy gospels:roll:. Alright already! I'm ready to raise the white flag. Rollo, you remind of a saying I always used to hear from my sister when we were younger: "whatever girls can do boys can do better." Only thing I have to do to make the saying "Rollo appropriate" is change the words girls and boys to Ati and Nvidia respectively. Although I do have to admit that if you (Rollo) didnt post the things you post, I probably wouldnt have the same level of fun on AT.

Cheers I guess
Lava

You've got to admit it's newsworthy if true Lava. Makes all the "SLI doesn't work on some game" or "SLI doesn't work with Win2000" posts look very trivial.

Like I said, I heard about it two weeks ago but didn't want to spread rumors. If ATIs fansite wants to report it, it definitely adds credibility.