Why Crossfire and SLi is no longer available?

[El-Presidente]

Why dual-gpu era is dead since 2013-2014?For example,i miss time when HD 5970, HD 7990 or gtx 690 was present.
For me Multi GPU is fantastically useful for many, many things,is raw power in a single motherboard slot.I mean what is the reason behind discontinuing dual GPU cards?I want to understand.Since 2013 both company Radeon and GeForce stopped their production of multi gpu solution for consumers.Why they don't want to revive again this solution in present?They are focusing only on single core GPU card

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Cause they won't sell top tier cards if your two cheaper low end cards are faster, but the consumer spent less money. It's business. NV for example didn't make money on "Physx" so they canned the project and left it open source. If they can't make Millions and Billions, they won't do it.

 

[Assimilator]

Why dual-gpu era is dead since 2013-2014?For example,i miss time when HD 5970, HD 7990 or gtx 690 was present.
For me Multi GPU is fantastically useful for many, many things,is raw power in a single motherboard slot.I mean what is the reason behind discontinuing dual GPU cards?I want to understand.Since 2013 both company Radeon and GeForce stopped their production of multi gpu solution for consumers.Why they don't want to revive again this solution in present?They are focusing only on single core GPU card

Because multi-GPU is extremely difficult and complicated to get right, and instead of spending time and effort on something that only a small percentage of consumers will use, the GPU manufacturers determined that those resources would be far more usefully used to improve single-GPU performance.

 

[Vayra86]

The fundamental issues with SLI and Crossfire were never truly fixed. We got pretty far, but there were other demands in the market as well. CPU performance for example has been problematic for gaming for a long time, multicore scaling was a problem. Newer APIs cover that much better. Along with DX12 we got mGPU, which would push support for a more hardware-agnostic form of multi GPU but was left to implementation by individual developers. By that moment, SLI/Xfire should have been carried entirely by the market and its demand... and that's the moment it died. Abruptly.

Meanwhile, while both Nvidia and AMD pushed on their multi GPU solutions one last time, they also started phasing out SLI fingers and support slowly but surely. The writing has always been on the wall. Its inefficiency is only compensated by the fact you could buy lower tier hardware to get higher tier performance, but as a technology on its own, it really wasn't ever a great thing that worked very well. It worked, at best, but frametimes were all over the place. You'd need twice the FPS to get similar frame latency to a single GPU running the same content, for example.

 

[ir_cow]

Because now a RTX 4090 beats 4x GTX 1080 Tis. That and SLI / Crossfire took so much company resources and always had issues. Its bad PR.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

On top of issues already brought up, support from developers was terrible. Time again Nvidia/AMD has to write heavy driver patches to force dual GPU functionality, and I imagine they were getting very ties of doing all the heavy lifting.

We've seen that since, dx12 has multi GPU functionality, yet to date only a tiny handful of titles have supported it.

 

[TheEndIsNear]

I wish it still was I'd get 2 4090's that would be insane

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

Why dual-gpu era is dead since 2013-2014?For example,i miss time when HD 5970, HD 7990 or gtx 690 was present.
For me Multi GPU is fantastically useful for many, many things,is raw power in a single motherboard slot.I mean what is the reason behind discontinuing dual GPU cards?I want to understand.Since 2013 both company Radeon and GeForce stopped their production of multi gpu solution for consumers.Why they don't want to revive again this solution in present?They are focusing only on single core GPU card

Because Reviewer & so called "Pc gamer enthusiast" prepuetrated a myth about it not being supported, & actaully believed it.
If you want to know the actaul statics of how many games in % were actaully support private message me.

On top of issues already brought up, support from developers was terrible. Time again Nvidia/AMD has to write heavy driver patches to force dual GPU functionality, and I imagine they were getting very ties of doing all the heavy lifting.

We've seen that since, dx12 has multi GPU functionality, yet to date only a tiny handful of titles have supported it.

There is only a tiny amount of DX12 games currently anyways, it's just under 300 games so far, as of the date of this post 2-4-13

 

[damric]

I've been messing around benching some old Quadro M4000s (Similar to GTX 970 but no memory system gimp and they are 8GB). I put them in SLI and am getting nearly 100% scaling. Besides that I've overclocked them almost +100% on the core Not as fast as my RX 6900XT but very fun.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

It takes resources to support this feature for only very small market share of people that actually used it.

Said resources are better spent elsewhere.

 

[El-Presidente]

If you want to know the actaul statics of how many games in % were actaully support private message me.

no need,i found my self

List of games that support SLI - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

List of games that support Crossfire - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

no need,i found my self

List of games that support SLI - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

List of games that support Crossfire - PCGamingWiki PCGW - bugs, fixes, crashes, mods, guides and improvements for every PC game

www.pcgamingwiki.com

That's for older games in DX11 DX10 DX9.

I have a short list for DX12
DX12 uses mGPU which is now done by the game engines/Deverlopers, with developers doing most of the support for it & no longer relied on driver for support for it to work.

 

[El-Presidente]

ok then share here if u want,to see.thanks,
Anyway from what i know for sure: GTA V and Rise of the tomb raider have no issue in Cross or SLi for example

 

[Deleted member 177333]

I miss it, too, that's for sure. Ran a number of multi gpu configurations and had a very good experience.

 

[El-Presidente]

I miss it, too, that's for sure. Ran a number of multi gpu configurations and had a very good experience.

true,me too. For example HD 7990 was a real monster,a real behemoth power for that time for 2013 era, using 6Gb gddr5 with 768bits BUS speed and a total bandwidth of 576GB/s.Was a real monster...
Another powerfull card r9 295x2...640GB/s bandwith with 1024 bits....powerfull card

 

[TumbleGeorge]

and am getting nearly 100% scaling

Seems like has not problem with SLi itself, only artificial killed for use with consumer graphic cards

 

[rjc34]

Because Reviewer & so called "Pc gamer enthusiast" prepuetrated a myth about it not being supported, & actaully believed it.

So... the people who were most likely to actually be using or benchmarking multi-GPU setups then? Not sure what you're implying by calling the lack of support a myth. Unsupported titles would often scale poorly, not at all, or even negatively. Even in supported games microstuttering and frame pacing problems were rampant, especially once reviewers started measuring and reporting frametimes and writing reports on multi-GPU pacing issues.

The problem of course is simply one of money. Even back during the peak of multi-GPU popularity the actual install size of users running gaming rigs with multiple cards was barely a sliver. Yet making the tech function correctly required a significant resource investment from AMD and Nvidia's driver teams in addition to the game developers.

The root answer to OP's question is that both AMD and Nvidia spent years investing in their multi-GPU tech, but were never able to address the core issues hindering widespread adoption. It's not unfathomable that either of them could have eventually cracked the code that finally delivered the better (but not perfect) multi-GPU experience of mGPU, but pretty much every argument in favour of them having continued investing time and money into that development would likely result in reduced profits. These are giant publicly-traded corporations, which of course means they work for the shareholders, not the consumers buying their products. Tech like that would mean far more of your customers with previous gen products might look towards doubling their performance by picking up a second of the card their already have to drop in rather than buying the latest product generation when they're looking for an upgrade. Older cards would potentially be kept relevant for far longer. Buyers would be swayed to invest less into their GPU at the start and more into a motherboard with dual CPU-fed PCIe 16x slots for a future drop in upgrade, rather than spending that money to move up to a faster GPU.

If you want to know the actaul statics of how many games in % were actaully support private message me.

Why hide behind PMs? If you've compiled a more thorough list of DX12 mGPU supporting titles than what can be found on existing wikis around the net, why not either help update those existing pages, or even just publish that information yourself for others to make use of?

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

So... the people who were most likely to actually be using or benchmarking multi-GPU setups then? Not sure what you're implying by calling the lack of support a myth. Unsupported titles would often scale poorly, not at all, or even negatively. Even in supported games microstuttering and frame pacing problems were rampant, especially once reviewers started measuring and reporting frametimes and writing reports on multi-GPU pacing issues.

The problem of course is simply one of money. Even back during the peak of multi-GPU popularity the actual install size of users running gaming rigs with multiple cards was barely a sliver. Yet making the tech function correctly required a significant resource investment from AMD and Nvidia's driver teams in addition to the game developers.

The root answer to OP's question is that both AMD and Nvidia spent years investing in their multi-GPU tech, but were never able to address the core issues hindering widespread adoption. It's not unfathomable that either of them could have eventually cracked the code that finally delivered the better (but not perfect) multi-GPU experience of mGPU, but pretty much every argument in favour of them having continued investing time and money into that development would likely result in reduced profits. These are giant publicly-traded corporations, which of course means they work for the shareholders, not the consumers buying their products. Tech like that would mean far more of your customers with previous gen products might look towards doubling their performance by picking up a second of the card their already have to drop in rather than buying the latest product generation when they're looking for an upgrade. Older cards would potentially be kept relevant for far longer. Buyers would be swayed to invest less into their GPU at the start and more into a motherboard with dual CPU-fed PCIe 16x slots for a future drop in upgrade, rather than spending that money to move up to a faster GPU.




Why hide behind PMs? If you've compiled a more thorough list of DX12 mGPU supporting titles than what can be found on existing wikis around the net, why not either help update those existing pages, or even just publish that information yourself for others to make use of?

What's the the totally "%" of games you think actaully supported SLI or Crossfire back then?

& then what's the total % you call good support ?

Without your answers to those questions. I'm not going to answer the rest of the quote.

 

[tabascosauz]

true,me too. For example HD 7990 was a real monster,a real behemoth power for that time for 2013 era, using 6Gb gddr5 with 768bits BUS speed and a total bandwidth of 576GB/s.Was a real monster...
Another powerfull card r9 295x2...640GB/s bandwith with 1024 bits....powerfull card

This is not the way to remember dual GPU cards or SLI/Xfire setups. 640GB/s 1024bit GDDR5 is meaningless when it's literally just R9 290 numbers multiplied by 2. Everyone knows that, at least for games, you only get the same VRAM as single GPU due to VRAM duplication.

Both were beasts in their own right. But all the performance they have today probably comes not from being dual GPU but because the 7970 and R9 290X aged brilliantly, so even if CFX performed poorly, it still wasn't the end of the world. The GTX 690 was not so fortunate.

Without your answers to those questions. I'm not going to answer the rest of the quote.

He's got a point, though. You raised an interesting opinion, yet hide all the evidence behind PMs like it's classified top secret?

 

[Vya Domus]

Why ?

Short answer, SLI/Crossfire sucked. Long answer is that because of the way they worked (alternate frame rendering) this meant micro stuttering was basically unavoidable, which means that the user experience was ultimately worse than just running the game on one card even if the performance was higher, AFR also meant certain graphical effects which require information from previous frames weren't possible.

Technically you can do multi-GPU now without these issue but you run into the other problem SLI and Crossfire had which is that no one is buying multiple GPUs. It made no sense for most users, there was no reason to buy for example two lower performance GPUs if you could just buy a more powerful one and if you bought one card now with thought that you might add another at some point in the future by the time that was the case technology and performance would have advanced so much you'd be probably tempted to just buy another newer GPU. SLI and Crossfire was basically only for the people with unlimited money at their disposal but those users are so few developers just stopped even considering multi GPU solutions.

 

[Ownedtbh]

because people would make most of the times SLI/xfire setups with used gpu to get better performance than rather buying a new one.
And also the reasons statet above this post

 

[freeagent]

For the games I played I thought SLI was awesome. I bought an SLI board to play with it in the future. But yeah, 2 low to midrange cards usually dominated their bigger expensive brothers in every way.. usually. I am sure shareholders did not like that one bit. The way it shared memory was a bit sucky though.

 

[claes]

I had a 470 SLI setup. I eventually just went back to one card. Wish I had started mining though, could’ve made a small fortune getting in that early

 

[El-Presidente]

He's got a point, though. You raised an interesting opinion, yet hide all the evidence behind PMs like it's classified top secret?

I hope too.With his permission i will share dx12 mgpu list of games.Maybe is usefull to this topic.I hope user DemonicRyzen666 doesn't get upset on me.I hope is not a secret.This is what he wrote to me in pm

1. Ashes of the Singularity Nitrous engine Explicit mGPU use Game engine does it all
2. Battlefield I (Sli & crossfire support) Frostbite3
3. Battlefield V (Crossfire support) Frostbite3 Raytracing game
4. Chasm: The Rift (2022) (VulKan)
5. Civilization VI (SLI maybe turing only for DX12) Gamebryo engine
6. Cyberpunk 2077 ??? Raytracing game
7. Deiliver use the Moon (SLI supported) Unreal 4 engine/ Raytracing game
8. Deus ex Mankind divided (SLI supported, Crossfire supported) Dawn Engine
9. Forza Horizon 3 (SLI & crossfire supported) Unreal4 exclusively Dx12
10. Froza horizon 4 (SLI supported) ForzaTech exclusively Dx12 Raytracing game
11. Forza Motorsport 6 Apex (SLI supported & crossfire) FrozaTech exclusively Dx12
12. Forza Motorsport 7 (SLI supported) ForzaTech exclusively Dx12 Raytracing game
13. Gears Of war 4 (SLI & crossfire Supported) Unreal4 engine exclusively Dx12 Raytracing game
14. Gears of war ulimate eidition (Crossfire & SLI supported) unreal3 engine exclusively Dx12 Raytracing game
15. Hammerting (VulKan)
16. horizon Zero Down ??? exclusively Dx12
17. Journey to the Savage Planet (SLI For NVIDIA Turing GPUs) Unreal4 engine
18. Madden NFL 19 (SLI supported)Frostbite3 exclusively Dx12
19. Madden NFL 20 (SLI support) Forstbite3 exclusively Dx12
20. Merto Exodus (SLI only) A4engine Raytracing game
21. Minecraft RTX ??? Raytracing game
22. mircosoft slight sumlator ??? Raytracing game
23. Moster Hunter World ???
24. Mortal Kombat 11 (SLI supported) unreal3 engine
25. No Man's Sky (VulKan SLI support) VulKan
26. Red dead Rememption 2 (VulKan) exclusively Dx12
27. Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (SLI & Crossfire supported)
28. Path of Exlie (SLI support)
29. Rise of the Tomb Raider (SLI Supported, Crossfire supported) The Foudation engine
30. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (D3D12AFR Both SLI and Crossfire, Not supported in DX11) The Foudation engine Raytracing game
31. Spiderman Remaster ??? Raytracing game
32. Sniper Elite 4 (Crossfire & SLI supported )
33. Strange Brigade (SLI supported in Vulkan) Asura engine exclusively Dx12
34. The Meduim (SLI turing only Implicit) Unreal4 engine Raytracing game
35. Totalwar Warhammer (Crossfire & SLI support)
36. Totalwar Wahammer II (SLI support)
37. watchdogs leigion ???
38. Will to live Online (SLI support) ???
39. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
40. X4: Foundations (Vulkan sli )

So from what i see,there are still many games which suport Cross/SLi............
I can add one more game that supports Cross/Sli for sure: Farcry 5

 

[tabascosauz]

I hope too.With his permission i will share dx12 mgpu list of games.Maybe is usefull to this topic.I hope user DemonicRyzen666 doesn't get upset on me.I hope is not a secret.This is what he wrote to me in pm

So from what i see,there are still many games which suport Cross/SLi............
I can add one more game that supports Cross/Sli for sure: Farcry 5

It's a useful list to have, if all this is already verified by him or others. Only problem I can see is that a bunch of these are marked as ??? or not tested, so I'm not sure why they made the list.