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My system is as follows:
Falcon Northwest FX-62
Corsair PC6400C4 2Gb
BFG 7950GX2 x 2
ASUS MN32-SLi Deluxe (Nforce 590 rev 0404)
Silverstone SST-ST60F
Philips Brilliance 230WP7NS 23" LCD at 1920x1200 native
Windows XP Pro SP2
FPS
I have done fairly extensive testing of FPS in WoW now under the new drivers. I have tested with in-game settings and with overrides, both in dual mode and quad mode. For those looking to recreate my FPS numbers, go in-game to the far end of the Stormwind Griffin eyrie, nd look out over the water towards the front gates. Stand near the edge, and rotate around and zoom until you find the LOWEST fps. This is the location that all testing was done from, with no other character models in view.
COMMON SETTINGS
All tests were done at the native resolution of the monitor (1920x1200) with 24bit color depth and 24bit textures. All in-game settings were at maximum with vertex shaders off and no triple buffering. V-Synch was forced on by the Nvidia control panel as well as in-game.
DUAL MODE - SLi disabled
Application Controlled:
1 x Multisampling = 58.3 FPS
2 x Multisampling = 40.0 FPS
4 x Multisampling = 30.0 FPS
In-Game settings at 4x MS:
Nvidia 8xS = 20.0 FPS
In all cases there were noticable edge smoothing differences. In no cases were any any screen corruption or system locks present. Game entered and exited smoothly.
QUAD MODE - SLi enabled
Application Controlled:
1 x Multisampling = 60+ FPS
2 x Multisampling = 50.6 FPS
4 x Multisampling = 39.2 FPS (L,L,L,L)
In-Game settings at 4x MS:
Nvidia 8xS = 22.6 FPS (L)
Nvidia SLI 16X = 39.2 FPS (L)
Nvidia SLI 32X = 22.6 FPS (L,L)
In-Game settings at 2x MS:
Nvidia 4x = 38.4 FPS
Nvidia 8xS = 22.6 FPS (C,L)
In-Game settings at 1x MS:
Nvidia 4x = 56.4 FPS (*)
Nvidia 8xS = 49.2 FPS (*)
Nvidia SLI 16X = 54.8 FPS (*)
annotations:
(L) = Machine exited game to desktop and locked up within 30 seconds. The mouse cursor would move but no desktop controls were enabled.
(C) = Game crashed to a completely corrupted multi-colored horizontal line screen
(K) = Machine hard locked without returning to desktop or game
(*) = No perceivable effect of change, i.e. there was no anti-aliasing in-game
NOTES
Anti-aliasing controls from the Nvidia control panel did not work when set globally, only when directly set in the World of Warcraft override screen in the Nvidia tools.
No locks or corruption occured when running only one 7950 in Dual Mode.
SLI16 rendered as the underlying in-game mode (usually 4xMS), and had no effect on render or on FPS
SLI32 rendered identically to 8xS, both of which were a notable improvement over the in-game 4xMS. Both 8xS and SLI32 had the same FPS.
When in Quad mode, any change from an in-game setting of 2x or 4x MS to an in-game setting of 1x MS resulted in a corrupted screen, usually rapidly flickering, or broken into 4 parts. A game restart fixed this problem.
No Nvidia anti-aliasing modes functioned if in-game multisampling was set to 1x
There were no differences in render and little difference in frame rate for a given Nvidia AA setting when in either 2x or 4x MS as set in-game.
CONCLUSIONS
There are significant problems when overriding WoW anti-aliasing settings. There is only one better render possible which can be reached by setting the in-game Multi-sampling to either x2 or x4 and overriding the World of Warcraft controls on the Nvidia application settings screen to either 8xS or SLI32. There is no difference in frame rate or render between these two modes. This is a beautiful setting that virtually eliminates the edge crawl which is still present even at 1920x1200 at 4xMS. This is how I want my game to look!
There are significant issues with Quad SLI when exiting World of Warcraft. Alt-Tab will 50% of the time get you a corrupted screen which you can usually alt-tab back to the game. Exiting the game, whether from the ESC exit game or from the log-out, quit buttons will result in a system lock 50% of the time after a brief moment looking at an uncorrupted windows desktop. Rarely, a completely corrupted screen and crash will occur.
The frame rate increase of Quad over Dual at 1920x1200 is disappointing. using only application supported anit-aliasing settings the increase is 25-30%. This is ok, but just barely. At the anti-aliasing settigns that are the whole purpose for this card setup, i.e. 8xS, we see only a 10% increase in FPS. This is very disappointing. Ideally we should see more like a 50-75% increase in FPS at these high resolution and high anit-aliasing settings.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There are many potential issues here ranging from dual-core CPU's (yes I have the latest windows patch), motherboard implementation of the dual PCIE SLI slots, World of Warcraft's peculiarities, etc.
But some issues are CLEARLY Driver related IMHO. The crashes and corrupted screen do not happen using the dual GPU 7950 by itself, only in quad mode. The manner in whcih the AA settings override the application controls is unclear and chancy at best.
So what's the purpose to hving this card? Supposedly its to get a significant increase in frame rate for large, wide-screened monitors running games at high native resolutions with high anti-aliasing settings. In the case of this machine, these cards and this game the Quad SLI does not deliver as promised.
I would love to have any comments that might change the way my machine responds to these settings.
JT
Falcon Northwest FX-62
Corsair PC6400C4 2Gb
BFG 7950GX2 x 2
ASUS MN32-SLi Deluxe (Nforce 590 rev 0404)
Silverstone SST-ST60F
Philips Brilliance 230WP7NS 23" LCD at 1920x1200 native
Windows XP Pro SP2
FPS
I have done fairly extensive testing of FPS in WoW now under the new drivers. I have tested with in-game settings and with overrides, both in dual mode and quad mode. For those looking to recreate my FPS numbers, go in-game to the far end of the Stormwind Griffin eyrie, nd look out over the water towards the front gates. Stand near the edge, and rotate around and zoom until you find the LOWEST fps. This is the location that all testing was done from, with no other character models in view.
COMMON SETTINGS
All tests were done at the native resolution of the monitor (1920x1200) with 24bit color depth and 24bit textures. All in-game settings were at maximum with vertex shaders off and no triple buffering. V-Synch was forced on by the Nvidia control panel as well as in-game.
DUAL MODE - SLi disabled
Application Controlled:
1 x Multisampling = 58.3 FPS
2 x Multisampling = 40.0 FPS
4 x Multisampling = 30.0 FPS
In-Game settings at 4x MS:
Nvidia 8xS = 20.0 FPS
In all cases there were noticable edge smoothing differences. In no cases were any any screen corruption or system locks present. Game entered and exited smoothly.
QUAD MODE - SLi enabled
Application Controlled:
1 x Multisampling = 60+ FPS
2 x Multisampling = 50.6 FPS
4 x Multisampling = 39.2 FPS (L,L,L,L)
In-Game settings at 4x MS:
Nvidia 8xS = 22.6 FPS (L)
Nvidia SLI 16X = 39.2 FPS (L)
Nvidia SLI 32X = 22.6 FPS (L,L)
In-Game settings at 2x MS:
Nvidia 4x = 38.4 FPS
Nvidia 8xS = 22.6 FPS (C,L)
In-Game settings at 1x MS:
Nvidia 4x = 56.4 FPS (*)
Nvidia 8xS = 49.2 FPS (*)
Nvidia SLI 16X = 54.8 FPS (*)
annotations:
(L) = Machine exited game to desktop and locked up within 30 seconds. The mouse cursor would move but no desktop controls were enabled.
(C) = Game crashed to a completely corrupted multi-colored horizontal line screen
(K) = Machine hard locked without returning to desktop or game
(*) = No perceivable effect of change, i.e. there was no anti-aliasing in-game
NOTES
Anti-aliasing controls from the Nvidia control panel did not work when set globally, only when directly set in the World of Warcraft override screen in the Nvidia tools.
No locks or corruption occured when running only one 7950 in Dual Mode.
SLI16 rendered as the underlying in-game mode (usually 4xMS), and had no effect on render or on FPS
SLI32 rendered identically to 8xS, both of which were a notable improvement over the in-game 4xMS. Both 8xS and SLI32 had the same FPS.
When in Quad mode, any change from an in-game setting of 2x or 4x MS to an in-game setting of 1x MS resulted in a corrupted screen, usually rapidly flickering, or broken into 4 parts. A game restart fixed this problem.
No Nvidia anti-aliasing modes functioned if in-game multisampling was set to 1x
There were no differences in render and little difference in frame rate for a given Nvidia AA setting when in either 2x or 4x MS as set in-game.
CONCLUSIONS
There are significant problems when overriding WoW anti-aliasing settings. There is only one better render possible which can be reached by setting the in-game Multi-sampling to either x2 or x4 and overriding the World of Warcraft controls on the Nvidia application settings screen to either 8xS or SLI32. There is no difference in frame rate or render between these two modes. This is a beautiful setting that virtually eliminates the edge crawl which is still present even at 1920x1200 at 4xMS. This is how I want my game to look!
There are significant issues with Quad SLI when exiting World of Warcraft. Alt-Tab will 50% of the time get you a corrupted screen which you can usually alt-tab back to the game. Exiting the game, whether from the ESC exit game or from the log-out, quit buttons will result in a system lock 50% of the time after a brief moment looking at an uncorrupted windows desktop. Rarely, a completely corrupted screen and crash will occur.
The frame rate increase of Quad over Dual at 1920x1200 is disappointing. using only application supported anit-aliasing settings the increase is 25-30%. This is ok, but just barely. At the anti-aliasing settigns that are the whole purpose for this card setup, i.e. 8xS, we see only a 10% increase in FPS. This is very disappointing. Ideally we should see more like a 50-75% increase in FPS at these high resolution and high anit-aliasing settings.
FINAL THOUGHTS
There are many potential issues here ranging from dual-core CPU's (yes I have the latest windows patch), motherboard implementation of the dual PCIE SLI slots, World of Warcraft's peculiarities, etc.
But some issues are CLEARLY Driver related IMHO. The crashes and corrupted screen do not happen using the dual GPU 7950 by itself, only in quad mode. The manner in whcih the AA settings override the application controls is unclear and chancy at best.
So what's the purpose to hving this card? Supposedly its to get a significant increase in frame rate for large, wide-screened monitors running games at high native resolutions with high anti-aliasing settings. In the case of this machine, these cards and this game the Quad SLI does not deliver as promised.
I would love to have any comments that might change the way my machine responds to these settings.
JT
