An Anthem for SLI: Bioware's New Universe in 60 FPS 4K Run on Two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti GPUs

[Raevenlord]

Lo and Behold: SLI working properly. This was my first reaction whilst reading up on this potential news piece (which, somewhat breaking the fourth wall, actually did end up as one). My thought likely isn't alone; it's been a while since we heard of any relevant dual graphics card configuration and performance improvement now, as developers seem to be throwing dreams of any "Explicit Multi-GPU" tech out of the water. This slight deviation from the news story aside, though: Anthem needed two of the world's fastest GPUs running in tandem to deliver a 4K, 60 FPS experience.





Naturally, this doesn't mean that much by now: performance will improve, optimizations will happen - perhaps a watering of the graphics will happen (to be fair, we have seen that before, so the precedent is there). We know that. Still, it does speak volumes that that kind of graphics power was needed. Still, SLI'd GTX 1080Ti graphics cards for 4K and 60 FPS really isn't that extravagant: remember that the Cyberpunk 2077 demo from E3 ran at 1080p on a single such graphics card. Anthem used double the graphics power to push through a fourfold resolution increase - not too shabby. Anthem is just 7 months away (February 22nd) from release, though, while the bets are still off for Cyberpunk 2077. Still, both games look glorious, and Bioware's Anthem really does showcase the Frostbite engine as never seen before. Digital Foundry even seems to think that the showcased demo wasn't running with the full effects galore they observed on their playthroug at E3 - screen-space reflections were absent, for one. It seems the PC version of the game could look even better than what it does right now. Here's to that.

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[Upgrayedd]

I like the idea of SLI. I would get another 970 if it wasn't for the 3.5GB VRAM.

 

[Ravenmaster]

I just can't seem to feel interested about this game. It looks like a boring arcade shooter.

 

[kastriot]

SLI is long time dead, and btw game is crap anyway

 

[Upgrayedd]

SLI is long time dead, and btw game is crap anyway

Plz elaborate. Games are are still releasing with SLI support.

 

[Ravenmaster]

Plz elaborate. Games are are still releasing with SLI support.

I've been running SLI setups since the GTX 280 days. I've tried dual, triple, quad SLI. Dual SLI seems to be the sweet spot. With dual SLI you'll see around 60-80% performance boost as opposed to just using 1 card in many games. With triple SLI, the 3rd card usually only gives an extra 15-20% performance boost on top of dual SLI. Then a 4th card usually only gives you an extra 4% performance on top of triple SLI. So 3-way and 4-way SLI are absolutely not worth it but 2-way SLI gives you quite a huge boost in FPS.

 

[cadaveca]

Plz elaborate. Games are are still releasing with SLI support.

Name one in the last 6 months that actually works properly? Devs are ignoring multi-GPU in a big way.

 

[Vya Domus]

Alternate frame rendering , a relic.

 

[etayorius]

Man, just kill DX11 already... we already got DX12 and Vulkan with a much better multi GPU's system, which also support Cross vendor GPU's.

 

[Basard]

It's nice to have the option of getting a second card... later down the road, when they become almost obsolete (cheaper).... Instead of having to buy an all new, expensive card to replace your old one. But then we wouldn't be spending money on new cards, so they don't really give two shits anymore.

Speaking on watering of graphics, as mentioned in the article: I remember "Maximum PC" magazine doing actual quality comparisons in reviews. The only number that really seemed to matter was the FPS though--people gobble that shit up. Nobody seems to care anymore though.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Name one in the last 6 months that actually works properly? Devs are ignoring multi-GPU in a big way.

Far Cry 5 : )

 

[Vario]

Graphics look blurry as hell. If you are going to HD games, turn off the damn blur.

 

[erixx]

GPU sales are down, so let's "necro" the old SLI adagio....

 

[hyp36rmax]

Name one in the last 6 months that actually works properly? Devs are ignoring multi-GPU in a big way.

FAR CRY 5

I don't think devs are ignoring it. it's more like expectations changing to the current gaming climate. I do feel console ports play a percentage of that. the time it takes to optimize for sli could be better used in other area's. it certainly doesn't help that we have a mind hive considering "SLI is dead", if the fans think that, pretty sure some devs feel the same way. Personally i'm all for maximizing pc architecture and hardware. Once 4K 144hz and multi-monitor 4k 144hz becomes commonplace. SLI will still have a place for the cutting edge which is a much smaller demographic because of price of entry and majority of players using 1080p \ 1440p screens.

SLI is long time dead, and btw game is crap anyway

What games do you? What's your monitor setup look like?

 

[Nkd]

Graphics look blurry as hell. If you are going to HD games, turn off the damn blur.

Not sure may be its just the screen shot. Graphics looked damn good to me. But I agree motion blurr is the first thing I turn off lol! Gotta fully agree on that.

 

[dinmaster]

thought with dx12, it would put any gpu together as a pool and the memory as well. something along the lines of any gpu work together to render games. no need for sli or crossfire.. was i wrong? can't remember

 

[Minus Infinity]

Why so obsessed with 4K, 1440p looks fantastic and a single 1080i could run it at 60fps I suspect with half the pixels to push. Sure, if you play games on a big 4K TV but no current console has the power to do this.

 

[hyp36rmax]

thought with dx12, it would put any gpu together as a pool and the memory as well. something along the lines of any gpu work together to render games. no need for sli or crossfire.. was i wrong? can't remember

That's part of it. It's called Explicit Multi-GPU. A form of SLI and Crossfire still exist within DX12 which is still the most common of the two implementations as of right now. Ashes of Singularity is the only app that I know that leverages Explicit Multi-GPU at the moment.

Nvidia has a more in-depth description for those interested: https://developer.nvidia.com/explicit-multi-gpu-programming-directx-12

Why so obsessed with 4K, 1440p looks fantastic and a single 1080i could run it at 60fps I suspect with half the pixels to push. Sure, if you play games on a big 4K TV but no current console has the power to do this.

1440P is great and the best middle ground we have, but 4K is still the next gen. Today's trend is basically reminiscent of 1024x768 Monitors which were more common than 1080P or 1200P during that time. People said the same thing about 1080P, look where we're at now...

 

[RealNeil]

I use SLI on four of my five systems. Once I can afford the second 1080Ti, then all five will be on SLI.

 

[hyp36rmax]

I use SLI on four of my five systems. Once I can afford the second 1080Ti, then all five will be on SLI.

What are your thoughts on performance and use case with SLI?

 

[RealNeil]

I'm getting much better scores with benchmarks using SLI. But I'm not actively measuring my framerates in games.

I'm using 1070 SLI on two systems, 1070Ti SLI on one, 1080 SLI on one, and a single 1080Ti on the last one.
All of the PCs are pretty fast CPUs with at least 32GB of RAM and SSD's for the OS.

We're having some fun LAN games here with the grandkids.

I'm hedging my bet with SLI. It may not be as relevant as it used to be, but I do see better performance with it. So I use it.

 

[hat]

I don't understand why it's so hard to make SLI work properly in the first place... it doesn't seem like it should be that hard of a thing to do?

 

[RealNeil]

Some programs need you to implement an SLI profile to work right. Others have it already enabled and they just work. (or don't)

 

[Jism]

Name one in the last 6 months that actually works properly? Devs are ignoring multi-GPU in a big way.

Pubg did excellent with 2 RX580's. Noticable difference when going from 1 to 2 cards.

 

[Imsochobo]

Pubg did excellent with 2 RX580's. Noticable difference when going from 1 to 2 cards.

pubg is one of the few exceptions were I actually think nothing bad can happen with multigpu cause the game in itself has microstutters and what not.
I've used sli and CF and the microstutter, ohh my god it's terrible.

Last sli was with maxwell and last CF was 6970's.

yay I have 200fps, still feels worse than 80fps...

neither vendor seems to be able to do anything about it.