ATI MultiGPU Done Right: The Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition
by Derek Wilson on December 20, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Black and White 2 Performance
Black and White 2 is completely unplayable with CrossFire. Anyone who has a CrossFire setup will need to disable it in order to get any kind of useful performance out of Black and White 2. We aren't exactly impressed with ATI's performance in general under this game, but it is clear that this game and ATI's multiGPU solution do not get along. SuperTiling is used for B&W2, and we really aren't sure why we are seeing this type of performance. It seems a bit odd to be inundated with red during BW2's ATI splash screen while performance is so abysmal.
The test was run with all the graphics options set on the highest level in all cases. We would hope to see ATI's latest generation handle high quality as well as their previous generation, and, whatever the problem is, someone needs to fix this. Only 1280x960 was tested because the performance was so low and because it was too difficult to even navigate the menu due to the low frame rate.
Black and White 2 is completely unplayable with CrossFire. Anyone who has a CrossFire setup will need to disable it in order to get any kind of useful performance out of Black and White 2. We aren't exactly impressed with ATI's performance in general under this game, but it is clear that this game and ATI's multiGPU solution do not get along. SuperTiling is used for B&W2, and we really aren't sure why we are seeing this type of performance. It seems a bit odd to be inundated with red during BW2's ATI splash screen while performance is so abysmal.
The test was run with all the graphics options set on the highest level in all cases. We would hope to see ATI's latest generation handle high quality as well as their previous generation, and, whatever the problem is, someone needs to fix this. Only 1280x960 was tested because the performance was so low and because it was too difficult to even navigate the menu due to the low frame rate.
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almvtb - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
Has anyone ever compared SLI and crossfire performance using a dual core compared to just a single core cpu? I mean if there is enough overhead for sli or crossfire a dual core chip could improve performance.kristof007 - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
I don't know if that dual core thing would work. I mean it might but the two slower CPUs would not help in my opinion. Games are single threaded so the multi CPU wouldn't take off the overhead .. at least that's my knowledge of it.almvtb - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
See I thought that was a big deal with one of the latest Nvidia driver releases. That it was made multithreaded so that in a situation such as when you have sli or any other kind of driver overhead it would be taken care of by the a second core if one existed. I do not know it was just a thought that i had never seen discussed, so I thought I would ask.bob661 - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
That was an ATI driver release that had the multithreading stuff, I think.kilkennycat - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
We shall shortly soon find out whether Crossfire is serious or just a ATi marketing straw-grabbing ploy to get some suckers (er, "enthusiasts") not to buy SLI. If the compositor is fully integrated into EVERY R580 GPU, (thus never requiring a masterboard and implementing the board communications via a passive bridge a la nVidia) then we shall finally know that ATI is serious with Crossfire. It was probably a stupid cheese-pairing management decision not to integrate the Crossfire functionality fully into the R520 GPU, or else Crossfire does not have enthusiastic support from ATI engineering and is purely a ATi marketing ploy anyway. The R580 details will reveal the truth.Spacecomber - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
What changed since the http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2466...">Battlefield 2 GPU Performance Analysis article? It seemed like you were able to demonstrate the advantages of SLI in those benchmarks.Space
bob661 - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
I think AT has a different benchmark now for BF2.Spacecomber - Thursday, December 22, 2005 - link
As far as I know the only thing that has changed along the way are the addition of BF2 patches (according to the overclocking the Athlon X2 article, they are up to using the 1.03 patch) and newer nvidia drivers. I believe they are still creating a demo and running it with the timedemo option. With this being such a popular game (BF2), it seems like it would be worthwhile to confirm whether SLI/Crossfire does or does not offer significant improvements for BF2.ViRGE - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Ya, DICE seems to screw up demos with new BF2 patches.ElFenix - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
i wonder if you can change b&w2's name to make the score go up as well. maybe there is poor optimization going on in the catalyst AI?