Multiboxing Hardware Science!

[MiRai]

In addition to the SLI testing, I did attempt to utilize the total VRAM of both cards and "split" the games
between them essentially giving me 6GB of VRAM.

I was successful and it does indeed work.

However, due to what seems to be a bug on Blizzard's end this can only currently be accomplished using DX9.
Using DX11, I was unable to successfully set which monitor I wanted certain windows to launch on w/o getting
an error during the selection in the drop down menu. If I tried to force this through the config.wtf the windows
would revert back to their default 800x600 resolution which is not what I wanted. There are a few reports of
this on Blizzard's Technical Support forum but, changing from DX11 to DX9 alleviated the problem.

Doing this while using DX9 and five clients did not seem to be worth anyone's time. DX9 was really showing its
age because I was easily able to set all 5 clients to Ultra and they would barely take up over 1GB of combined
VRAM between the cards. On the other hand, using High settings and a single GTX 580 I can take up over 2GB
of VRAM in DX11.

Even in it's current bugged state, I can definitely see this feature being useful for people who 10+ box. I'm
going to guess that I could throw at least 10 characters on each video card and still be under the 3GB limit in
DX9 and without using horseshit video settings. If someone really wanted to crank down the settings I'd bet
you could jam 20 characters per 3GB card on there. I'm not saying a single CPU could handle this by any
means... but, perhaps I just sparked another idea for the next test.

If you are wanting to attempt to use this, you'll need to create a special window layout with whatever software
you're using because you need to keep the game windows running on the monitors they launch on. If you start
swapping game windows between monitors you do take a performance hit.

I was going to provide a screenshot for this but, it accidentally got overwritten in my late night stupor.



As for the Hyper-Threading VS No-Hyper-Threading testing. Soon™

[Knytestorme]

Thanks for the work Fen, seems like grabbing a 3Gb 580 is the go for now and hold off on SLI until we see how a single handles RAGE, BF3, Skyrim etc later in the year

[EDIT]

To add to what you said about DX9 and 11 I just noticed something interesting.

4 DK's in starting area under DX11 = 994Mb usage with some artifacting starting on a 1Gb card
Same 4 in same spot with same settings under DX9 = 667 Mb usage.

[MiRai]

Thanks for the work Fen, seems like grabbing a 3Gb 580 is the go for now and hold off on SLI until we see how a single handles RAGE, BF3, Skyrim etc later in the year.

SLI did immediately give a noticeable boost in both TERA Online and Civilization V completely maxed out so it
isn't a complete loss but, I'm still not entirely sure I can justify the $600 price tag of this second card. I keep
telling myself just give it a few weeks but... I have a feeling this card is going back and I'll just eat the
restocking fee.

[remanz]

SLI did help with boxing rift right ? A lot of new games had problems supporting it at launch (just look at Crysis 2, the once benchmark hardcore PC game doesn't support SLI at a launch, GG).


but I would need a new PSU first.


Another mistake that I made with my current built, (other than purchasing a GTX 295 lol) is to go with a mediocre power supply. The PSU does degrade over time. It is slowly dying. and I had this constant problem of rebooting my PC automatically when I try to push the graphics. Damn you "witcher 2"~. as soon as I do anything in that game, it reboots.

longer than 2 hrs of rift, reboots. I first thought it was software crash or my card was overheating. But more and more, I think it was due to the PSU as how can the card overheat when I am just 5 seconds into the game. It was at 50 degree to start with. Insufficient power/unstable current seems to be the cause.


on a side note,
Speaking of upgrading hardware, have you guys noticed those "rent a gaming PC/or graphic cards services"? With the frequency that we are upgrading, maybe it will be worth while just to rent cards/PCs than buy them. 2k for 2 years, that's like 84 dollar every month.

[Knytestorme]

SLI did immediately give a noticeable boost in both TERA Online and Civilization V completely maxed out so it
isn't a complete loss but, I'm still not entirely sure I can justify the $600 price tag of this second card. I keep
telling myself just give it a few weeks but... I have a feeling this card is going back and I'll just eat the
restocking fee.

Yeah, looking at costs now that my tax has been done.

Looking at benches and your results here I'm wondering if a 2Gb 560Ti would be just as effective for 5-boxing as a 3Gb 580. Looking at $319 vs $609 I'm not sure if it's worth it atm or in the long-run if I look to move to Ivy Bridge next year when I'm assuming the 6xx's will be out.

[MiRai]

Yeah, looking at costs now that my tax has been done.

Looking at benches and your results here I'm wondering if a 2Gb 560Ti would be just as effective for 5-boxing as a 3Gb 580. Looking at $319 vs $609 I'm not sure if it's worth it atm or in the long-run if I look to move to Ivy Bridge next year when I'm assuming the 6xx's will be out.

There's also something like the 2.5GB 570 that falls in between (even though I personally don't like those fan designs).

[Sam DeathWalker]

4 DK's in starting area under DX11 = 994Mb usage with some artifacting starting on a 1Gb card
Same 4 in same spot with same settings under DX9 = 667 Mb usage

I guess there is no way to know if wow or win7 uses the extra video ram for cacheing. Probably not ....

Looks like then for up to 7 boxing 2G ram will do the job for sure, even with DX11.

[MiRai]

I got bored last night so I thought I'd see how far I could push my hardware.











All windows are rendering at 1920x1080 with instant swapping enabled. Even with 30 screens there is zero
lag while swapping between any of them. Main @ 60FPS / Slaves @ 10 FPS. I would advise against taking
these 30 characters into a major city anywhere near peak times as you can see my system RAM is almost
maxed out.

I split the GPU load between my video cards and they are rendering 15 clients each. As you can see I could
have put all 30 on a single card and I would have still been way under the 3GB limit. This is of course using
DX9 since DX11 would have most likely maxed out the VRAM. If your interest is to box as many characters
as you can on a single machine it's unlikely that you care how high your video settings are anyway.

I would say running 20 on a single machine would allow you the system RAM headroom you would need to
visit major cities and PvP with; although, it would still be cutting it close during intense situations.

[Tonuss]

That's hysterical.

I upgraded to a 3GB 580 a week ago. I had a problem with one of the RAID 1 drives where I keep my data and figured that if I was going to pop open the case to install a new hard drive, I may as well fulfill a few dreams.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Humm so 15 clients don't even take up 1G of video card ram ...


How do you say you render 15 clients per card, there seems only one screen, are they tiled on the 2nd screen?

If they are not tiled they are not being rendered (although there are 15 clients per card) to my way of thinking. Or if they are all in the background not visible they are also not being rendered. If that is the case your fast swaping times is just because the 580 can redraw a new screen faster then your fps. The fact you have 10fps in background would tend to indicate that you are not gaining anything by tiling in full resolution. Your card is fast enough to render a full screen in less then 1/60th of a second. Which I think should give you instant swaping no matter what.

I wonder what would be the result if you were in different zones, does the card use so little Video Ram because its able to share data between the 15 clients? How does the ram go up from when you load 1 to many is the first load a lot lot bigger then 950/15? If it is then the video ram is being shared between clients. Or does each client just take 60MB of ram?

So it takes 30 clients to use up 16G of system ram. More good infos.

Good testing for sure though.

Do you think you can 15 box on your system (with just one 3G card) with no trouble in populated areas?