FSX & SLI

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]

I would suggest this read to start http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/low_e/

It is about power consumption and performance ratio. Until the newer 45nm cores are released toward the end of this year and during 08 and the chipset makers get with the times and release the interface that matches the needs of the GPU technology, PC/PR is a good measure of how a chip will fair in competition against each other.

[Nick N]

Welcome back, Nick! (Even if only on an occasional basis...)

Thanks

I wont be spending too much time here but will check in

[Nick N]

[quote][quote]

I would suggest this read to start http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/low_e/

It is about power consumption and performance ratio. Until the newer 45nm cores are released toward the end of this year and during 08 and the chipset makers get with the times and release the interface that matches the needs of the GPU technology, PC/PR is a good measure of how a chip will fair in competition against each other.

[ATI_7500]

the 8800GTX supports 128 unified shaders, 1/3rd more MT/s and a substantial GB bandwith increase over the 8800GTS. You can over-clock a GTS till it screams and never hit GTX performance. Its just like over-clocking processors and you do get what you pay for.

Well, prior to the purchase I read an article about the 8800 series. They concluded that, in comparison to the 8800GTX, you'll get 25% less performance for 25% less money. Sounded fair to me, 'cause the benchmarks proved that even the "small" 8800GTS out ran my other card of choice, the 1950XTX.

ATI lost much of its appeal to me anyways since they sold out to AMD.

Losers to losers, oh well...


P.S: Could I "imitate" an E6700 with my E6600? Or do those things have architectural differences, as you mentioned?

P.P.S: Dropping the texture LOD in my NVidia drivers (NGO 97.92) from -6 to 0 gave me a slight FPS boost without loss of quality. Sweet!

[Nick N]

the 8800GTX supports 128 unified shaders, 1/3rd more MT/s and a substantial GB bandwith increase over the 8800GTS. You can over-clock a GTS till it screams and never hit GTX performance. Its just like over-clocking processors and you do get what you pay for.

Well, prior to the purchase I read an article about the 8800 series. They concluded that, in comparison to the 8800GTX, you'll get 25% less performance for 25% less money. Sounded fair to me, 'cause the benchmarks proved that even the "small" 8800GTS out ran my other card of choice, the 1950XTX.

ATI lost much of its appeal to me anyways since they sold out to AMD.

Losers to losers, oh well...


P.S: Could I "imitate" an E6700 with my E6600? Or do those things have architectural differences, as you mentioned?

P.P.S: Dropping the texture LOD in my NVidia drivers (NGO 97.92) from -6 to 0 gave me a slight FPS boost without loss of quality. Sweet!

The real x1900xtx will out perform a 8800GTS where it counts. the only thing a 8800GTS has over a x1900xtx is the fill spec of MT/s and the memory bus of 320bit. If the right manuafacture of xtx is purchased and paired with the right processor, it will overcome the 8800GTS. It also has a better visual quality. It does come with a heat price though.


The E6600 is much better than a 6300 however because the 6600 is actually a glorified 6400, the E6700 will in fact never be touched by it. You are better off with the 6400 than with a 6300 and clocking it will never hurt but as with the 6300 you wont hit the E6700 full potential.

Being you do have the E6600 I would not go out and buy a E6700 at this point but would probably put the money into suppoting components such as PC8000+ memory and motherboard which supports the new quad architecture, the highest bus/memory speeds and available memory/CPU settings. That way you are optimizing the next purchase of processor and putting the money where it will not be lost down the road. At that point all you need do is drop in the new slug and video card, tweak it up, and away you go. In the mean time you are getting the most you can out of the hardware you already have.


As a reference, 8800GTX is somewhat bottle-necked by a E6800 which can be overcome in clocking. If the right supporting products are purchased, a E6700 can be clocked up for 8800GTX use and do it well, but not 100%.

With a E6600, you will always be behind the 8-ball



Yes, I suggest using NvTray to set that to 0 over -6 if you are looking for performance although enabled it does sharpen things. A setting of +6 can also be run but it will degrade the image.

Shimmers can be controlled using that feature too.

[Black ZR-1]

Nick, do you see FSX in the future supporting SLI? If so, would an 8800GTS SLI + an E6700 with 2+ gigs of ram be a good setup? Or just drop everything and start all over say by Summer's time.

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]
Yep, you missed that one. You got the rest of it nailed pretty good though. You have to remember your system is extremely jacked up and we could not have accomplished that without the right parts and some one-on-one work.

Most people set up thier systems and software by trial and error and don't have the advantage of a EE living across the street (in your case across the bay) and personally setting their system up for a free steak dinner and booze you old coot.

[Nick N]

Nick, do you see FSX in the future supporting SLI? If so, would an 8800GTS SLI + an E6700 with 2+ gigs of ram be a good setup? Or just drop everything and start all over say by Summer's time.

No SLI for FSX, at least that I know of.

Originally they were discussing patches and re-writes for multithread and SLI. I think those both went the way of the doe-doe for FSX.

The deveopers explained why SLI will have no real value in FSX even if it was coded for it. FS11 will be different as that one will be coded for multithread but it is still too early to tell which direction that will go. SLI may become extinct in the next 2 years.

You must understand that the newer hardware will be designed to access the CPU and memory controllers of SMP processor technology in a way it has not been done as of yet and the R600 will also have the ability to run tandum with up to 4 (I thinks its 4) cards without off the wall, special motherboard support.

That is the future. If Nivida SLI goes a step further, that is yet to be seen, but it will most likely encompass quad SLI in that design which up till now, quad has been a flop.

For FSX, forget SLI purchases and montior the next generation of hardware for advancement for DX10 in FSX.

DX10 patch will not be released before EDIT the end mid summer (possibly a bit longer) from what I hear. But I dont that for sure.

I guessed this coming May last year in March for real DX10 hardware based on what I had gotten from my contacts in the business. So far that seems to be holding true.


EDIT: By the end of the summer and with the next gen of video technology you may want to think more toward motherboards and processors that support quad with direct access memory controllers to each core. I do not know that for sure but the way its looking, with VISTA there are advantages to that design over anything SLI may provide for games such as FSX. If that design holds then I would think that all games will also go that direction. It's too early to tell at this point.

[krigl]

I too would like to say: Nice to see you back in Nick. Your help and presence is appreciated here!

Krigl

[Nick N]

I too would like to say: Nice to see you back in Nick. Your help and presence is appreciated here!

Krigl

Thank you Krigl.. its nice to see you again as well  :)

[Nick N]

Nick, do you see FSX in the future supporting SLI? If so, would an 8800GTS SLI + an E6700 with 2+ gigs of ram be a good setup? Or just drop everything and start all over say by Summer's time.

Just a follow up on what I posted above... you best start thinking more in terms of 3-4 gigs of high performance memory for VISTA and DX10.

2 gigs in XP for FSX will be the same as 3 with VISTA. The OS will absorb as much as 768MB - 1g for best performance alone.


VISTA also has excessive CPU polling for its core features so dual and quad cores will definitely have an advantage in VISTA



VISTA (driver support) is not ready for prime time gaming yet which is one of the reasons why ATi is going for a 'hold' on the R600. Don't run out and get it until the time is right. Again, May seems to be the target because kids are out of school and entertainment markets tend to move in June and then again in November.

[maxedout]

Thanks for all the tips guys I tried a few things and here is something I found with the FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 command.  I set this to .10 just to see what would happen and my fps went through the roof.  I guess my bottlekneck really is my cpu when it is set to .10 everything runs smooth with the exact settings you have listed full AA and AF here are some screens with max autogen both sliders.  I like to hang around the big cities sometimes and when you are using a chopper this command seems to work well.  I get to see all the scenery and there is so much you cant really even see the textures anyway so sometimes you dont even know if they are loading because of so much scenery blocking the view.  But when using the jets I have to change this setting its just too blurry and it all depends on FPS when Iam in SLC I can get smooth frames and the textures all load fast but in new york or chicago the lower fps makes it harder for the cpu to load scenery.  I also set the max trees to 2000 there is just way too many with full autogen.  Anyway just another setting for those that want to see all the buildings in large cities.  





AMD 3800 dual core
8800gts 340mb
2gb pc3200
raid0

[Black ZR-1]

Miltest,

I downloaded the autogen file, set all my settings according to yours and adjusted my video drivers.

These are my results (Zoom 1.0):

[Black ZR-1]

Nick, do you see FSX in the future supporting SLI? If so, would an 8800GTS SLI + an E6700 with 2+ gigs of ram be a good setup? Or just drop everything and start all over say by Summer's time.

Just a follow up on what I posted above... you best start thinking more in terms of 3-4 gigs of high performance memory for VISTA and DX10.

2 gigs in XP for FSX will be the same as 3 with VISTA. The OS will absorb as much as 768MB - 1g for best performance alone.


VISTA also has excessive CPU polling for its core features so dual and quad cores will definitely have an advantage in VISTA



VISTA (driver support) is not ready for prime time gaming yet which is one of the reasons why ATi is going for a 'hold' on the R600. Don't run out and get it until the time is right. Again, May seems to be the target because kids are out of school and entertainment markets tend to move in June and then again in November.

So what you're saying is the answer to FSX would be an E6700+, 4 gigs of ram & R600 to run it at optimal performance?

[Ashton Lawson]

i think it was on overclockers.co.uk, but kingston hav just released this RAM of 4Gb!!!  in 2 modules!!!  this means ppl will be able to put 8GB in the machines now!!!  will that help? (it should for 3ds max atleast)