I read the article, and several others and have a couple questions/comments. I'm looking at picking up a new high end system soon and the SLI/Crossfire issue came up for me so I've been researching it while shopping for the system.
First the "proprietary" hardware architecture raises a frown from me from both manufacturers. I'm not much into the old system of "my way" -- MicroChannel flopped with that versus the more open EISA standard, which was slower, at that generation and other such attempts at proprietary hardware have flopped over time due to folks getting annoyed about it but, if a "standard" is to be born, it often starts in such a way so it's something I can live with...
One thing that struck me about this all of this: How the 2 technologies seem to run. with respect to "operating" and "deployment/maintenance" If you find errors in this, please let me know.
SLI uses a recognition model similar to the old Voodoo 2 model of drivers that recognize the software "image" for multiple cards to function for a software package. If the drivers don't recognize it, the video config drops back to a 'default' behavior of 1 card and simply skips all the fancy multi-card stuff so, for most "non-supporting" software, you gain nothing from having 2 cards.
That old "Voodoo" model was hel". Every time any of your games or apps were updated, the "image" changed so the card would stop working in dual mode until you updated the drivers. With modern day update services, this shouldn't be a big issue -- it can automate the checking 'in the background' -- but is that going to be from NVidia or from each app manufacturer? (as in any software supporting the system will have to submit app image information to NVidia and NVidia will release the driver updates "when they get to it" or what not... Then you have the "fragmentation" potential as you have 20 different games and apps that get patched differently so each goes out to update the drivers or a consolidated update done daily or what not (meaning you lose "multi-card support" until drivers are updated at times...) See where I'm going with "image" and "drivers"? A LOT of potential changes to your "drivers" if this is still the model being proposed -- just picture a "bad update" where NOTHING recognizes 2 cards or the like...
Crossfire is more transparent to the users. It tries to work with whatever is being sent to the video card. It doesn't require custom drivers to be updated for the cards to recognize the "supporting software" versus the cards trying to render whatever is to be displayed on the screen as best as it is able to. It also only uses the "single card" fall back as a "last resort" after trying to render it with multiple cards based upon "advanced" user configurable settings in the drivers.
Now -- this I gleaned from a few different articles and the issues don't seem covered very well but... As you can see, if one is putting the load on companies to release driver updates with every patch from "hundreds" of application companies while the other is transparent... I think I know which one I'll be more comfortable choosing. That transparency is something I kind of like versus a potentially "busy system" as it keeps updating drivers...
Again, if you have any info on this maintenance "use" side of the 2 technologies, I'd appreciate it. I really don't have much on it beyond references to how SLI decides to "fall back to default mode" and how the Crossfire has configuration options on how multiple cards should handle video output "by default"...
and drivers is not my cup of tea since I got no idea of doing it; like I would have taking the risk cos I still will end up with cards I don't want anymore. Thanks again...
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