CFire without dongle

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xX_Jack_Carver_Xx

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Just want to point out, for the record, that I was correct in asserting there is NO TECHNICAL reason why CFire cant be done over the PCIe bus....other than x8 x8 SLI connections couldn't handle the bandwidth.

But x16 x16 boards can, and the new R550 chipset implements x16 x8 fully to allow it.... at least thats the rumor.

Glad I have waited, maybe someone will make an R550 board worth a damn, vcore, vdimm, features all worth switching. Then 2 normal X1900XT's will CFire just fine as is.

Showing the idiocy of ATI and the schizophrenia within, instead of implementing a motherboard chipset to do dongle free CFire, they build an inane CFire version of the video cards....and LIMIT thier use to CFire R480based motherboards.

So the ONLY use for a X1900/X1900CF combo is on a PoS R480 based motherboard. How much more narrow a market niche can you focus on, must be all of 2,000 of those setups worldwide, maybe.....wooo hoooo really knocking NV dead. Smoke Dopers.

Remove the prohibition in the drivers, allow CFire on SLI boards (sure, it'll be slower on x8 x8 config) but it will work.

Stupidity due most likely from the low temperatures of Canadia.
 
Jesus. You have some serious issues pal.

For one. The X1300 and X1600 crossfire setup works over the PCIE bus anyway. Only the X1800/1900 need the dongle.

Secondly, ATI will NEVER let Crossfire work on sli boards. How are they to sell their own mobo chipsets if they let that happen. Even Nvidia needed their own chipset to enable SLI. I also dont have any problems with the R480 chipset either. Even with the less than perfect USB2 performance (which i for one dont notice at all).

Ati have made some mistakes sure, but they arent that bad.

Now go run a bath, make a nice cup of hot chocolate, take some ritalin and relax.
 
Why would they support nvidia boards in dual mode and let nvidia profit from it. Not in a hundred years...relax.
 
It's not like you can use nVidia cards in SLI on a crossfire motherboard either... wow... :rolleyes:
 
wow, using a dongle automatically makes you an idiot... pal you need to go to a different market

the R480 chipset horrible? news to me, seems to be doing better then most nv boards, except for a slight few issues

so... the RD550 will allow dongless CF, thats cool, but it wouldn't sway me from my purchase if i still had to purchase a dongle


whats taking so long for them to release the RD580? i've been waiting for this board for a while :(
 
I think the OP's problem isn't with the dongle itself, but the requirement of a Master card. That's an issue I can justify, and I think ATI really did mess up by requiring it. Allowing an nVidia-like pairing of two identical cards makes much more sense, and I can't wait for chipset- and driver- support to facilitate that.
 
Exactly.

First, economics. NF4 production has passed 5 MILLION units in use, while RD480 hasn't hit more than a few 100K maybe. Even if they were EVEN as A64 motherboards, there is simply no comparison.

So is ATI brilliant to limit themselves ARTIFICIALLY to only do CFire on the few thousands of RD480 boards that might sell in order to bolster RD480 sales, rather than sell 2x1900's into the 5+ MILLION unit marketplace of NF4 motherboards?

I'd almost say, ok, providing one caveat.... that thier motherboard product actually at least EQUAL the NF4 product. Did they accomplish that? Not even remotely close. RD480 is trash in comparison, and everyone SERIOUS about A64 performance is using what? motherboard? NF4..... typically DFI MF4-SLI-D/R.

I'm one of those people who really genuinely prefers the ATI video cards, and has pent close to $1400 in the last few years with ATI.... not NV. However, I really resent not being able to just plug a second X850/X1800/X1900 into my SLI-DR and have it work.... when I KNOW DAMN WELL there is no technical reason it cant other than ATI deliberately prohibits this in thier drivers by choice, as a marketing ploy.

Im not going to by a RD480 board, ever, so all ATI accomplished at a minimum is making me buy only ONE X1900, worst case, they could drive me to buy 7900's instead and writeoff ATI for good. Brilliant.

Now who knows, MAYBE they will actually make a competative product in the RD550, and maybe DFI will make one as good as the SLI-DR and then Ill consider it. Meantime how many sales has ATI lost to NV? Alot, just look at the shift in the larketshare in the last yr.

Im here ranting in a public place that ATI watches to try and wake them the FK up. They look like simps, and it has cost marketshare, and hurt the share price so knock it the hell off and wake up.

There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why SLI wont work on CFire motherboards or CFire wont work on SLI motherboards OTHER THAN the manufacturer deliberately coding thier driver to PROHIBIT it. Not a consumer and enthusiast friendly policy. Im here to make my feelings about it known to BOTH companies.

If others dont like that, tough.
 
I am still really surprised that we have not seen hacked drivers that allow Xfire on Nf4 and Sli on r480..

It could have something to do with the BIOS's of the Mobo's I suppose.. But soft bios's have been around for years, enabling large hd support on very old mobos, for example..

Nf4 has been out for along time now and the r480 has not.. Ati really should have allowed Xfire to work on Nf4 boards.. Of course Nv could stop that with their chipset drivers if they wanted too..
 
PWMK2 said:
It's not like you can use nVidia cards in SLI on a crossfire motherboard either... wow... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

actually the asus p5wd2 premium intel mobo does sli and xfire. nvidia found out and killed it in newer driver but older cards (68 series) and drivers work. current ati drivers work though.

proof that they can work but the companys are to greedy for it to work. you have always been able to xfire without the dongle. it just doesnt render on screen (no gain other than scores). this was the trick before the xfire mobos were available. the mentioned asus would run 2 cards (non-master) and give you the xfires frames and score in 3dmark but it didnt render on screen, only half the image was seen without the dongle. pretty much useless but for benchmarkers it was the ticket.
 
The long and short of it is ATi didn't see multi-gpu coming. It's going to take them a while to recover from it. In the mean time you get dongles.

As for each company being greedy, I would imagine it's more like they don't care to spend the QA dollars to certify their cards to work on other chipsets (or vice versa) when in the end all they would be doing is helping their competitor.
 
But...since the RD550 will support crossfire without dongle, will it support it without a master card?
 
BBA said:
But...since the RD550 will support crossfire without dongle, will it support it without a master card?
Click to expand...

Still need a master card to put the image together...
 
that was only on the hacked motherboard, the X1300's, and the X1600's have no problem with speed increases with no dongle, or master card
 
^eMpTy^ said:
Still need a master card to put the image together...
Click to expand...
Now, yes. I believe that new high-end cards will have the compositing chip on-board, Master or otherwise.
 
Ati also never made a master card for the x1800xl series. Those with one have to buy a x1800xt just to see it downgrade to x1800xl(ony 256mb ram used and underclocked speed) values. If ati has an answer for me and makes me not need a master card or makes a master card X1800 Goto then i'll be happy with them trying to sell crossfire to me.
 
The rendering the image to screen is a driver issue. With no master card ...aka dongle... the image from card B has to be sent to card A over the PCIe bus. The speeds of X1300 X1600 is slow enough that the slower data transmission time isn't an issue. At the high FPS rates at high resolutions with X1800 X1900 the x8 x8 arrangement isnt quite fast enough.

Let me explain. the SLI or CFire so far has 2 x16 connectors but with dual board mode they are wired as x8 x8. This means that each video card has x8 lanes available.... but for what?

Well, best scenario is x4 lanes of card A and x4 lanes of card B each communicate with the A64/memory. The remaining x4 lanes on each are connected together giving a x4 interconnection between the two video cards. Thing is, it isn't going to quite be fast enough to support high FPS at high resolutions.

Now comes a board like the A8N32 or DFI SLI-expert with 2 x16 connectors that are actually x16 and x16. So now you can set them to be x4 and x4 each to the A64/memory, and a x12 interconnect fully able to support high FPS and high resolution rendering, so card A does it's 1/2 of the processing AND the knitting together of the 2 cards output into a rendered image to the monitor.

Hence the RD550 board being a X16 x8 board, They wired it to have just enough extra PCIe lanes to suppoort high speed interconnect between the cards as well as enough lanes for cardA/B to A64/memory to get the job done.

On the software side. Yes, the manufactures can prohibit this in two ways. The VIDEO driver is coded to "look" for the correct motherboard type, and the motherboard drivers is coded to "look" for the correct video card type. You'd need to hack BOTH to remove the checking code and simply return "alls well" so the drivers think the correct cards are installed.

Not something anyone has gotten motivated to do.... and frankly, why should they. If ATI/NV wanna play such stupid games with each other and the marketplace, fk'em.

Meantime ATI is the loser, since the installed base and enthusiast usage is CLEARLY in the NF4-SLI camp, and ATI decided to boycott participation... and has been loosing market share for a year+. SOunds like time to replace the marketing VP, hopefully the shareholders will make that clear before the stock tanks. Even with the RD550, the NF4 already has a huge lead and 90% market share of the platform that ATI sells video cards into.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Exactly.

First, economics. NF4 production has passed 5 MILLION units in use, while RD480 hasn't hit more than a few 100K maybe. Even if they were EVEN as A64 motherboards, there is simply no comparison.

So is ATI brilliant to limit themselves ARTIFICIALLY to only do CFire on the few thousands of RD480 boards that might sell in order to bolster RD480 sales, rather than sell 2x1900's into the 5+ MILLION unit marketplace of NF4 motherboards?

I'd almost say, ok, providing one caveat.... that thier motherboard product actually at least EQUAL the NF4 product. Did they accomplish that? Not even remotely close. RD480 is trash in comparison, and everyone SERIOUS about A64 performance is using what? motherboard? NF4..... typically DFI MF4-SLI-D/R.

I'm one of those people who really genuinely prefers the ATI video cards, and has pent close to $1400 in the last few years with ATI.... not NV. However, I really resent not being able to just plug a second X850/X1800/X1900 into my SLI-DR and have it work.... when I KNOW DAMN WELL there is no technical reason it cant other than ATI deliberately prohibits this in thier drivers by choice, as a marketing ploy.

Im not going to by a RD480 board, ever, so all ATI accomplished at a minimum is making me buy only ONE X1900, worst case, they could drive me to buy 7900's instead and writeoff ATI for good. Brilliant.

Now who knows, MAYBE they will actually make a competative product in the RD550, and maybe DFI will make one as good as the SLI-DR and then Ill consider it. Meantime how many sales has ATI lost to NV? Alot, just look at the shift in the larketshare in the last yr.

Im here ranting in a public place that ATI watches to try and wake them the FK up. They look like simps, and it has cost marketshare, and hurt the share price so knock it the hell off and wake up.

There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why SLI wont work on CFire motherboards or CFire wont work on SLI motherboards OTHER THAN the manufacturer deliberately coding thier driver to PROHIBIT it. Not a consumer and enthusiast friendly policy. Im here to make my feelings about it known to BOTH companies.

If others dont like that, tough.
Click to expand...

i'm supprised how much you spout off under-informed information as fact...

a) i don't know where your getting your statistics, but numbers can be spun any which way, so i'll just move on from that point...

b) ati hasn't limited themselves to their own chipsets... crossfire works on the new intel platforms as well... nvidia is keeping them from being able to do crossfire on their sli platforms, and same with ati... i doubt this will ever change... "want to do dual video? fine... not only are you buying 2 of our gpus, but you have to buy one of our northbridges, and possibly even a southbridge too" (and with nvidia gobbling up ULi, it looks like ati's SB600 will definatly have to perform well)

c) meh, i don't have one, so i'm not going to comment here... i'm in line for a a8r32-mvp though, so i'll let you know about that one when i get it up and running... but the early picture looks good...

d) don't see how this makes any difference... i'd wager a lot of people on these forms have spend a lot more than you on ati products in the last few years... your the only one to blame for this one though, you didn't read the box... crossfire REQUIRES a composeting chip... sorry, but you should really check into things like that before you buy it... again, you call shenanigans on ati for the underhanded scheming they are compleatly responsible for... you know... not being able to do crossfire on SOMEONE ELSES PLATFORM WHO DOESN'T WANT THEM TO!!! (i apoligize to sane people for the yelling)

e) good, i wouldn't suggest it... not with RD580 comming out so soon... i'd just like to point out, ati isn't holding a gun to your head...

f) first off, the dfi rd480 mobo was crippled by the use of the ati southbridge... sb460 sucks... second, to the market share... the fact that it swings back and forth from year to year is a good thing man!! it means there's healthy competition...

g) pass...

h) while you are right, there is no technical reson why sli "couldn't" work on cfire mobos, and visa versa, i think your bitching at the wrong camp here... crossfire works on the new intel mobo's if you hadn't noticed, and as previously stated, nvidia stopped sli from working on the intel platform... as to why they don't work on eachothers boards... that should be abundently clear... they are competetors... they arn't going to support eachothers products....

just as an aside to response h) i find it funny that some of the nvidia cards perform better on the a8r32-mvp than the a8n32-sli in the yoyo-review on anandtech... that reviews been up and down more than the lid on my toilet was this weekend, and i had a stomach flu...


so in closing, before you get up on the soap box, could you at least make sure you know what your up there for?

p.s. and what the hell is everyone complainging about a dongle for... don't you remember voodoo1's and voodoo2's?!?! you wern't complaining then....

p.p.s. just a quick note because you don't seem to have heard about it yet... RD580 is being launched march 1/2 and is a 16x2 lane chipset... not like nvidia's implimentation of the second lane through the southbridge though... linkage: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2703
 
Trimlock said:
thats incorrect, it halfs the memory, but it keeps everything else the same
Click to expand...
It clocks down to the max x1800xl speed. They don't have to be in sync but it still clocks down to the max option on Catalyst control center for the x1800xl. I'm guessing a X1800XT 256 lets it not clock down at all. I read this slight underclock in a forum.

ATI announced a X1800XT 256mb CE edition to come out at the end of December or November I don’t recall but it never came.
 
I don't consider it a bad thing, but I think a lot of people arn't aware of it...

News in the bushes is that the next series of cards onward will all have composeting chips on them... so it doesn't really matter....
 
BuBBa said:
I don't consider it a bad thing, but I think a lot of people arn't aware of it...

News in the bushes is that the next series of cards onward will all have composeting chips on them... so it doesn't really matter....
Click to expand...
Rumour made by nvidia sli board owners. What would make sense is that a compositing chip could be part of the new crossfire chipset after the RD580.
 
CrossFire has a lot more potential then we are seeing right now.
SLI has been around for a year longer than CrossFire. ATI made a few different choices off the start that have caused them some backlash (Dongle, Master Card), but they have the right Idea and I feel they just need more time to get it to the level that we (The Comsumer) want.
 
Hartz said:
Rumour made by nvidia sli board owners. What would make sense is that a compositing chip could be part of the new crossfire chipset after the RD580.
Click to expand...

that would make even less sense if you think about it...

think of how much bandwidth would be required to pass the 2 cards outputs to the northbridge, put it together, and then fire it back to one of the cards to display...


including the compositing chip's functionality in the core of upcomming gpu's would make more sense than that imho...


regardless, it's not a selling feature or hinderance in any of my purchasing decisions....
 
regardless, it's not a selling feature or hinderance in any of my purchasing decisions....
Click to expand...

nor mine, putting the compositing chip on the north bridge would ensure your northbridge melting unless you have a nice water cooling system or phase change :eek:

having one on each card would make more sense, and it would get rid of the need for the master card, how they want to share bandwidth with each other instead of just the PCIe buss is up to them
 
BuBBa said:
that would make even less sense if you think about it...

think of how much bandwidth would be required to pass the 2 cards outputs to the northbridge, put it together, and then fire it back to one of the cards to display...


including the compositing chip's functionality in the core of upcomming gpu's would make more sense than that imho...


regardless, it's not a selling feature or hinderance in any of my purchasing decisions....
Click to expand...


How much BW? Ask nvidia...since the SLi pro boards do it.

I'll give you performance is a little less than with the bridge in place, but it DOES work.
I have personally seen it on dual cpu dual chipset.

In ATi's case, the compositing chip can be part of the chipset itself, the only problem is latency in using the rest of the PCIe bandwidth (that we don't use anyway) You might get a little latency between chips...but no frame rate hits.

Nvidia does it with pretty good performance even though it's taking a performance hit from TWO chipsets talking to each other.
 
fair enough...

perhaps this is something to look forward to in the future...
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Just want to point out, for the record, that I was correct in asserting there is NO TECHNICAL reason why CFire cant be done over the PCIe bus....other than x8 x8 SLI connections couldn't handle the bandwidth.

But x16 x16 boards can, and the new R550 chipset implements x16 x8 fully to allow it.... at least thats the rumor.
Click to expand...

Here's the real deal.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1029083295&postcount=38
 
Kyle don't you believe that Conroe is going to be an ass kicking CPU. I do so to exclude intel from ever having a Xfire solution is a little bold isn't it. Or did I read that wrong.
 
Kyle thanks for posting. I do realize that highres/high FPS gaming would require alot more bandwidth on the bus than 2x1300 or 2x1600 with thier lesser maximum capabilities would require.

Im speaking in terms of pure engineering. There is no technilogical reason CFire over a PCIe without dongle/mastercard crap cant be done.

Yes, to do it AND still produce the maximum abilities at the top end would require serious PCIe resources, but 2 real x16 slots, operating as x4 and x4, with a x12 P2P interconnect between the cards would be able to handle 1600x1200, and maybe 1920x1080. The x4 connection between A64/memory and the card is clearly enough to handle the task, this can be proven directly today by limiting an x16 slot to x4 and running benches with an x1900XT. And a x12 direct interconnect feeding CardB data to CardA for compositing would get the job done.

But yes as ATI said to you, current configurations of PCIe wont handle the job. I was hoping the RD580 would make the leap, I'd like to see the OPTION at least, so two stock plain x1900XT/x1800XT/x850XT's could be put to work at the consumer's option. Sure the max maximums would be limited, but how many are actually gaming at 1920x1080?

1280x1024 and 1600x1280 should be able to get the job done with a good boost over ONE card.

Im for consumer/enthusiast options and abilities, not for artifical limitations that as an engineer I know are not real. In fact, not only could the cards work, but you could stick a 10ft ribbon cable interconnect between the video cards and motherboard and have the video cards in the next room from the system.... the power of PCIe's design, pretty amazing.
 
Granted you can get upto 1600 x 1200 but 1920 x 1200 would have been ideal for crossfire. Would have supported higher resolutions with dual card.

Widescreen setups are becoming more popular.
 
Not entirely true read new rd580 manual states can only handle 1600x1200 in CF mode. Unless manual was made before x850 <shrug>. I bought new asus motherboard and says 1600x1200 max on cf setup.

Says using dvi connection.

says in manual at 65 Mhz the 3200 xpress can only do 1600 x 1200 when you use dvi output

Read a review seems manual must be referring to x850.
 
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