ATI CrossFire and Physics....anyone using a 3rd video card as a physics card?

[fern420]

I've been reading up on the ati physics/crossfire combo and am wondering if anyone is currently running it and if they could shed some light on it. i just got these two 2900xt cards so i have x1900xt sitting here and my badaxe board has a third pcie slot so i was thinking about using the x1900 as a physics card. the ati/amd website is pretty vague on this area and doesn't give much info on actually setting it up or compatibility.

http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/physics/index.html

http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/physics/Asymmetric_Physics_Processing_with_ATI_CrossFire.pdf

is this setup automatically recognized by the CAT? i just cant seem to find any info on actually setting it up. it only refers to the x series of cards on the site so i don't even know if its possible on the r600 gpu. im just wondering if anyone knows if you can still do this with the r600 gpu series of cards and if so can i mix a x1900 with the two 2900's? i want to see if i can make the meter on the side of the house spin faster so i figured why not 3 power hungry video cards, hehehe.

 

[pbmaster]

Wow, you already have 2 R600's? Damn, that's ownage right there. Not sure how you're going to get that done m8. Good luck though.

 

[yogurt_21]

dunno, you could always pop it in and see. might be no different, might actually work, never seen anyone try it before.

 

[TooFast]

u dont need 3 to do it. it can be done with 2.

 

[Deleted member 3]

2 R600's, must be a very powerhungry system. I haven't seen any real benchmarks of physics cards yet though, and there aren't many games that support it. I would use that 1900 elsewhere.

 

[Agility]

Problem is how are you gonna connect the internal crossfire? Card#1 to Card#2 to Card#3? Meaning using only two connecters to connect #1 and #2 and #2 and #3 since there's two slot for each card.

 

[cjoyce1980]

for the cross fire to work the two 2900 card would have to have the bridges on, thats pretty much a given.

i guess the 1900 card would just sit on it own passing the data through the PCIE bus, unless ati have a connector for connecting 3 cards together.

 

[freaksavior]

wow, i really hope you figure this out, sound like a fun challenge, i want to see some benchies after you get this running, sry i have no info to help you out though........

 

[Agility]

Eh? How are you gonna force the 2900XT to create the phyiscs from the 1900? Even if the 1900 creates the data and transfer to the 2900, wouldn't that stress the 2900? Correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[Namslas90]

Here's some info on that;

http://server1.megagames.com/news/show.cgi?&idtype=hardware&database=350&section=screens&

I believe you need a mobo with 3 pci-e slots and it must support physics acceleration.

 

[mikey8684]

Just some more info for you ....

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=38&page=1

It has a second page in case you dont see it at the bottom.

 

[Agility]

It still doesn't explain how are you gonna interconnect them internally and does youe DVI connect to the main display only? OR there'll be dual-dvi display for one to the 2900XT and the other phyiscs card.

 

[fern420]

thanks for the input guys, im waiting on ati support for a clear answer. i do have a badaxe mobo and it does have 3 pcie slots and the ati demo system showing off the physics system uses a badaxe board so im assuming my board wont be the issue, i just need to find out if i can mix the x series with the hd series. according to ati it will help with any game using the havox fx physics system and there are almost 50 of them:
uu
http://www.havok.com/content/blogcategory/29/73?platformid=7


heres a pic of the ati test setup i found here

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA3OSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[Agility]

Well apparently they're using the old external connecters to do crossfire. So i'm not sure..

 

[fern420]

Well apparently they're using the old external connecters to do crossfire. So i'm not sure..

thats how the 1900 cards are crossfired. they use the external dongle, they dont have internal connectors. with the physiscs setup no connection has to be made to card 3 from 1 or 2, it communicates with the "physics" card through the pci bus.

 

[Agility]

Can you connect the two 2900XT together with internal crossfire with the 1900 stuck in between? If you could then try that configuration. Also make sure you have enough power.

 

[fern420]

well just got off the phone with ati, no go. they say it isnt possible and on top of that there are no drivers yet to make a 3rd card act as a physics card. i just cant understand why ati would of plastering this crap all over their website over a year ago if it isn't even possible. even if i had 3 1900 cards i couldn't do it because the drivers don't exist.


http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/physics/index.html

that was put on their website almost a year ago and it still cant even be done? why even tease people?

 

[Agility]

Yes i've seen it. Then i searched for the info if there's such thing. Well apparently none though. Even if you connect i bet your mobo recongises it as another graphics card. Or just an unsupported PCI-E stuff?

 

[WarEagleAU]

It might if you knew how to hack the drivers and add the code to recognize the third slot. I think in that test system, they were either just showing how it will look, or they used some really shoddy beta drivers. Either way, it is a little misleading.

Perhaps the Omega Drivers have something that might help?

 

[lane]

Hmmm.... good question.. this solution was presented like a preview, in 2006 when the Ageia was out... (Nvidia have something similar).. but in real, i don't think there's anything ready for this yet... Games need be compatible with the new Havok FX, and really i m sure nothing is released on the side of ATI yet for support this.. (it's in developpment, but nothing have been say yet about a date of release /use of this solutions.)

Anyway i can try installing my X1900XTX on one slot of my P5W64 and see what happend.. but i think the only thing i will got, is the multi monitor function...

One thing: the 2900 have many new features integrated for physics and too for the facial animation in real time ( we will see the first restults on next Valve title)..there's too a lot of thing for medical imagery integrated... We can't judge all this features yet, like for Tesselation, cause nothing use it yet... we need wait games or tech demo ( from ATI) is released...( Nobody have see a date of release for the Witheout demo?)

 

[mandelore]

on a similar topic, I have an x1900xtx, if i get an hd2900xt could i use the 1900 as a physics card? how would one set that up?

 

[Namslas90]

on a similar topic, I have an x1900xtx, if i get an hd2900xt could i use the 1900 as a physics card? how would one set that up?

You can't, check post 17 ^.

 

[DaMulta]

well just got off the phone with ati, no go. they say it isnt possible and on top of that there are no drivers yet to make a 3rd card act as a physics card. i just cant understand why ati would of plastering this crap all over their website over a year ago if it isn't even possible. even if i had 3 1900 cards i couldn't do it because the drivers don't exist.


http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/physics/index.html

that was put on their website almost a year ago and it still cant even be done? why even tease people?

Did you ask them that?

 

[lane]

Cause it's a preview.. they don't say it's available yet on the site....i admit, it's not really clear too..

 

[Agility]

The website has been there for like almost a year or so. I've seen it and checked the forums. None managed to get the 3rd ati card to run as a physics acclerator. Only the one physicX card is from aegis which everyone knows.