Forums » Bugs
Help! I have a huge problem
Eh, I clicked on Surround Gaming Mode, not knowing what it would do, and now I just get a black screen when I start the game...teh
Turn it back off in your config.ini document with any text editor by setting the value to zero.
Heh, I just reinstalled it..oh well :|
Or you can just delete the config.ini file if you don't know what setting to turn off.
I did that once. What exactly IS surround gaming mode, anyway?
It's a function of some video card that allows you to use, like, 3 monitors.
Only works reliably on Parhelia cards. Has worked on dual-display nVidia cards using the 44.03 driver set under DX, but is kinda pointless with 2 mons...
ooo I gotta try that on my card.
Matrox cards are too slow anyway, so its pointless.
Matrox cards are too slow anyway, so its pointless.
Would it be useful with PCI Express, since you can theoretically have more than one high-end graphics cards on a computer?
moved to Bugs
Pyro: Yeah. I actually intend to have two high-powered video cards, one from both of the major makers. Hopefully they'll support simultaneous 3d accel...
It would not work with multiple video cards because Vendetta only uses one device. It would have to coordinate the different video cards to render different parts of the same scene and I'm not about to do that at this time.
>Would it be useful with PCI Express,
>since you can theoretically have more
>than one high-end graphics cards on a
>computer?
No. Well yes, but its not like games will take advantage of it (or be able to use it at all..).
Alienware is working on a dual-video card system (with two PCI-Express 16x slots). It will have software to allow each video card to render part of a scene. Rumors say the preformance gain is somewhere around 50% versus a single video card system.
Chances are noone is going to buy this Alienware. Alienware made this Mainboard and software, so chances are we won't ever be able to get this dual PCI-Express 16x mainboard with software that allows you to use 2 video cards on one screen.
It would be too expensive anyway. Im just curious.. what will preform better, two $250 (preformance mainstream) buck cards or one $500 (high-end enthusiast card) buck card.
Bah, im straying off topic :P.
>since you can theoretically have more
>than one high-end graphics cards on a
>computer?
No. Well yes, but its not like games will take advantage of it (or be able to use it at all..).
Alienware is working on a dual-video card system (with two PCI-Express 16x slots). It will have software to allow each video card to render part of a scene. Rumors say the preformance gain is somewhere around 50% versus a single video card system.
Chances are noone is going to buy this Alienware. Alienware made this Mainboard and software, so chances are we won't ever be able to get this dual PCI-Express 16x mainboard with software that allows you to use 2 video cards on one screen.
It would be too expensive anyway. Im just curious.. what will preform better, two $250 (preformance mainstream) buck cards or one $500 (high-end enthusiast card) buck card.
Bah, im straying off topic :P.
In my small opinion 2 of 250 will be better, hence the multiprocessor mobos, grakas ...
As long as the bus can transfer all the traffic in between then it will work bette rthen one expensive one.
cheers
As long as the bus can transfer all the traffic in between then it will work bette rthen one expensive one.
cheers
I doubt that.
I think 1 uber card would preform better. The 2 cards work together through a software compiler (thats what Alienware claims). Generally, the $500 dollar offerings are double the prefromance of the $250 dollar cards. And Since the rumored prefromance gain of 2 video cards over 1 video card is around 50%... 2 cheap cards would only preform 3/4ths the speed of 1 expensive card.
Nobody here would even pay 5000+ dollars for a machine like this anyway. Its not worth it.
I think 1 uber card would preform better. The 2 cards work together through a software compiler (thats what Alienware claims). Generally, the $500 dollar offerings are double the prefromance of the $250 dollar cards. And Since the rumored prefromance gain of 2 video cards over 1 video card is around 50%... 2 cheap cards would only preform 3/4ths the speed of 1 expensive card.
Nobody here would even pay 5000+ dollars for a machine like this anyway. Its not worth it.
the thing is,
due to the technical difficulties encountered like heating and so much more, the grakas are kinda scratching the top of their abilities. Only reason why I said this.
And I dont believe that the extra effectivity between a 250 and a 500$ card is 100%. I would more or less look at it like 20-30% (max)
Besides alienware only needs a couple of people to sell it to. Mostly the people that are out for novelties or that have money to much to spend ... And given time, this technique will become cheaper... Same as with multiple lower end processors made into a cluster for heavy calculations or ...
cheers
due to the technical difficulties encountered like heating and so much more, the grakas are kinda scratching the top of their abilities. Only reason why I said this.
And I dont believe that the extra effectivity between a 250 and a 500$ card is 100%. I would more or less look at it like 20-30% (max)
Besides alienware only needs a couple of people to sell it to. Mostly the people that are out for novelties or that have money to much to spend ... And given time, this technique will become cheaper... Same as with multiple lower end processors made into a cluster for heavy calculations or ...
cheers
ack doublepost
dont watch tele and post at the same time ...
dont watch tele and post at the same time ...
ATI (and 3dfx) has made a dual-chip setup. ATI's Rage Fury Maxx had 2 Rage Fury chips in one but only worked for win98 because NT/2k didn't support the concept of the 2 chips looking like one at the time.
3dfx had their SLI cable that connected 2 voodoo2 cards together. That worked really well and at least doubled the framerate.
I think Wildcat had a 16 tmu chip voodoo 2 card back in the day for use in arcade machines. It was supposedly really fast but cost a large sum of money.
The downside of multiple chips on separate cards is that textures had to be duplicated on both cards and that was a waste of memory. With PCI Express textures could be in system memory and both cards could share the same memory. But of course system memory textures are a little slower under most circumstances.
3dfx had their SLI cable that connected 2 voodoo2 cards together. That worked really well and at least doubled the framerate.
I think Wildcat had a 16 tmu chip voodoo 2 card back in the day for use in arcade machines. It was supposedly really fast but cost a large sum of money.
The downside of multiple chips on separate cards is that textures had to be duplicated on both cards and that was a waste of memory. With PCI Express textures could be in system memory and both cards could share the same memory. But of course system memory textures are a little slower under most circumstances.
New News:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20040620030305.html
"High-end system maker Alienware reportedly released a document that demonstrates advantages of its Video Array technology that allows two PCI Express x16 graphics cards to work in collaboration. The paper showcases about 77% speed improvement in modes when typical graphics cards cannot run really fast.
GameSpot web-site reports about a document presumably sent to some press that covers 3DMark03 performance numbers of an Alienware system equipped with two Intel Xeon 3.40GHz processors and one or two NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics cards. The dual-GeForce 6800 system outperformed the single graphics card system by approximately 77%, scoring 3105 points versus 1758 points in 1600x1200 with 8x FSAA and 8x anisotropic filtering enabled. In 1600x1200 resolution with 8x anisotropic filtering activated, the dual graphics cards solution showed a 42% improvement, scoring 8538 against the single card system’s 5992.
"
Visit the link to read the rest..
It looks like the dual GFX card system really fly in 'tough-to-render' scenes.
One thing I don't like about this test: They didn't release any 'comparable' 3dmark03 score. There is a standard of benchmarking using 3dmark03. (1024x768, no AA or AF...). I wonder why... I assume that current games don't even need this speed.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20040620030305.html
"High-end system maker Alienware reportedly released a document that demonstrates advantages of its Video Array technology that allows two PCI Express x16 graphics cards to work in collaboration. The paper showcases about 77% speed improvement in modes when typical graphics cards cannot run really fast.
GameSpot web-site reports about a document presumably sent to some press that covers 3DMark03 performance numbers of an Alienware system equipped with two Intel Xeon 3.40GHz processors and one or two NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics cards. The dual-GeForce 6800 system outperformed the single graphics card system by approximately 77%, scoring 3105 points versus 1758 points in 1600x1200 with 8x FSAA and 8x anisotropic filtering enabled. In 1600x1200 resolution with 8x anisotropic filtering activated, the dual graphics cards solution showed a 42% improvement, scoring 8538 against the single card system’s 5992.
"
Visit the link to read the rest..
It looks like the dual GFX card system really fly in 'tough-to-render' scenes.
One thing I don't like about this test: They didn't release any 'comparable' 3dmark03 score. There is a standard of benchmarking using 3dmark03. (1024x768, no AA or AF...). I wonder why... I assume that current games don't even need this speed.