Would my planned computer work well with Ultra mode?
By
Chad Gulzow-Man,
Posted on: 2009-12-16 13:27 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
A 32-bit operating system can support up to 3.25GB of RAM. I personally have had no issues with the game since upgrading to Win 7 Pro 64-bit, though I have what is currently considered a low-end video card. From what I've read, you may have to use older nVidia drivers, as the current 64-bit release apparently has a serious memory leak that causes rapid performance degredation.
As for 2 GTX 260s working in SLI, you should get pretty decent results according to Positron's thread on what video cards Ultra Graphics Mode will support. However, a single GTX 285 card might cost less and perform just as well (if not better due to specialized chip architecture).
Check his thread out here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...38&postcount=1
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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According to the tech report coverage of the 285, the 260 SLI seems to preform significantly better then a single 260
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16229/9
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see this thread : http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=200612|
Originally Posted by westfallen
I'm very noobish when it comes to building a new computer, and I've heard read a few threads that SLI GTX 260s wouldn't work so well with this game. I was hoping to go with 4GB of RAM, But I've heard you can't go past 2GB RAM on a 32-bit OS, But I've heard of problems with 64-bit NVIDIA Drivers..
The OS I was looking at was Window 7, BTW Can someone explain this to an idiot? : D |
both the first post and #14 address your question about multi-gpu support in the current engine and some of the other issues: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...6&postcount=14
The ram question was also semi-addressed in Post #16: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...3&postcount=16
Although, re-reading it, I think I failed to use the correct terms. If you hand a 32bit Operating System more than 3gigs of ram with enabling PAE, it will indeed use up to 3.5gigs. However, the amount of memory that both NT5 and NT6 systems actually presents each process is still limited to around ~2 to ~2.5gb.
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Now, the short version is that the current game engine does not leverage multi-gpu support on the systems I have that I can directly test with. This does not mean that the upcoming UltraMode Engine will not leverage multi-gpu setups. Given that the HeroCon demo was done on a Crossfire system, it's likely that yes, the upcoming UltraMode will show performance gains on Multi-GPU setups. It's also likely that multi-gpu setups from the RadeonHD 2x00 series and Geforce 8x00 series will be able to run ultra-mode graphics without issues.
Now, I also have an extremely low opinion of Nvidia's 64bit driver support. I've been doing most of my conversing with another player having an issue with a system coupled with a GTX 285 in a PM... because quite frankly I think I'm being a bit too fanATIcal about Nvidia's quality control, or lack there-of. I really wish that other vendors like say, S3, who does make an add-in card: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15934 : could play in the same performance arena as ATi and Nvidia. Having another vendor with a different card with a different architecture would help weed out problems that are vendor specific.
So, as I did with the PAE bit, here's what I've been saying in PM's:
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Yes. This has been one of the problems I have encountered with NT6 64bit and NT5 64bit in other games. Specifically speaking, many LithTech based games which also use OpenGL as the rendering API exhibit this issue, such as AvP2, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, and to some extent, F.E.A.R.. The problem has also exhibited itself under another OpenGL title, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. I've also encountered this performance issue in a couple of 32bit titles on Nvidia hardware. Planetside used to behave in a similar manner across Geforce4 TI 4200 and Geforce 6600 GT... but given that Planetside had an equal number of major problems on both ATi and Nvidia, I'm not really confident in saying that was Nvidia's fault so much as SOE's. I have not explicitly had this problem occur with City of Heroes with the Windows 7 final for a couple of reasons: 1: When I did run CoH on both the GTS 250's and the 7900 GT KO against the Win7 RC's and Vista SP1, I typically ran into other show-stopping problems such as complete lock-ups or out-of-date driver errors, or the sound-loop error since I like to use Via Envy based sound cards or the Asus DX1 / DX2 sound cards. (edit: clarification: the 64bit versions of these NT6 variants: the 32bit variants ran fine) 2: Given my own personal experience with Nvidia and 64bit drivers, I wasn't about to use a 64bit base as a production system, and I certainly wasn't going to try to run CoH for any length of time in a 64bit environment with Nvidia drivers. For the most part, I wouldn't try to run any 64bit platform with Nvidia graphics |
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The reason why there isn't a giant-sized outcry is that very, very, very few people are running 64bit Operating Systems. Most of the consumer computers sold since x86-64 entered the market in 2003 with the Athlon64... haven't been shipped with a 64bit OS. Windows Xp 64bit didn't hit until late 2005, and you pretty much never saw it in the wild outside of a few select Acer systems. Vista is widely regarded as a complete disaster, hence Microsoft doing everything they can to keep the average consumer from linking Windows 7 with Vista, including not talking about or promoting the platform updates that re-synched the two OS releases shortly after Win7's launch. Pretty much the only consumers that were running into problems with 64bit OS's were running everything but Microsoft products (BSD / Linux)... and unless you were a Hollywood Movie studio, Nvidia had absolutely no interest in fixing your issues. It's only been since the launch of Windows 7, just what... 2 months ago?, that Microsoft 64bit Operating Systems have become common on pre-installs. While Windows 7 has been a qualified success, the amount of users actually running a 64bit version of any Windows system is still a drastic minority. *** As to why it happens? My guess is that it is indeed a memory leak, and that's where things get complex. If you actually are interested in knowing how, or why, problems like this occur, you could go ask the Nouveau developers: http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/ The cut version is that at some point the system isn't clearing stored data. This could either be because of a bug with the GTX 285 itself, a bug with the way the GTX 285 is presented to the system, a bug with the memory controller that occurs just on that motherboard with that PCIE chipset, a bug with the game itself not giving the correct information, or the driver not able to read the correct information. The best way to figure out if it is indeed a driver issue or not, is to start changing drivers. http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_x64_185.81_beta.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_x64_181.71_beta.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_x64_185.85_whql.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_wi...6.18_whql.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_wi...0.62_whql.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_wi...1.07_whql.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_wi...5.62_whql.html See if the problem occurs on a different driver set. |
Are there any workarounds to the drivers? o_o
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Yes and No. |
Originally Posted by westfallen
Are there any workarounds to the drivers? o_o
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No. Nvidia has been notified about, and has known about, their problems with 64-bit support for years, and have chosen to do nothing about that support. In all fairness though, the majority of 64-bit systems in use today are running either a Linux or a BSD, not a Microsoft operating system. For the most part then, Nvidia hasn't exactly been too concerned about addressing problems with the drivers since they've typically rested on a perceived Linux advantage, and didn't really think too much of their user-base. It's only been in the recent months that AMD/ATi has erased the usage gap on *nix based systems as Phoronix noted in their most recent GPU survey.
The immediate situation does stand to change for Nvidia. As I stated in the PM's, Microsoft hasn't been pushing 64-bit versions of their OS's for the past 4~5 years. Now though, if you're looking around to buy a new computer with Windows 7 installed, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that isn't shipping with a 64-bit version.
With more Windows 64bit OS's going into users hands, Nvidia will either have to fix their driver issues... or... well, I'll get to that in a minute.
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The yes is that Nvidia's no longer being given a choice about their driver support. The Linux kernel developers called out Nvidia back in 2008: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/coll...iver-statement
This year Linus finally had enough and kicked David Airlie in the rump to merge the Nouveau driver: http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/12/11/450
Okay, fine, the Nouveau driver only supports 2D right now, and isn't much better than the NV driver. It's probably going to be several more months, if not a couple of years, before we'll see OpenGL 1.x / 2.x / 3.x acceleration through Gallium3D with Nouveau. However, that acceleration is... well.. on it's way.
If Nvidia doesn't fix their driver issues, Nouveau will. Well, okay, Nouveau's going to do it anyways. Sure, it might not be as fast as the Nvidia-GLX driver... but even if Nouveau manages 60%~70% rendering speed, you'll still be running into CPU bottlenecks before you bottleneck most add-in cards.
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Now, there is a Not-Really buried under this. That not-really is that we presume that Nvidia's going to stay in the add-in graphics card market. We presume that Fermi is going to be good for gaming.
We don't actually know that. We do know that Nvidia is trying to make itself a target to be taken over by Apple. We do know that Nvidia is in financial trouble. We do know that they've stopped making orders for current G200 chips as used in the GTX 260 and above.
There's actually a very real possibility that in the coming months, drivers like Nouveau will be the only future option for Nvidia users.
...So I'd be better off with a 32-bit Windows 7? The problems ATI has with city of heroes, being on an OpenGL engine, is the crazy jagged lines everywhere, even with anti-aliasing up the ****. I'd so change if they fix that..
No. Running Win7 32-bit would hamstring you in the long run by limiting you to ~3.2GB usable memory max. Use Win7 64-bit. In the mean time, use an nVidia card with an older driver - less people are reporting issues with older drivers, like 1.86 and previous versions.
Would I be able to find older drivers for a GTX 260?
Yes, you should be able to find older versions of nVidia's drivers on their own web site, under the "Beta and Archived Drivers" section.
Noted!
..So I should be safe with 186 drivers? ..Hrm. Are there any ATI cards that don't mess up with OpenGL games? o.O
Not sure about ATI (haven't used them in a while), but AFAIK 1.86 drivers should be OK.
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OpenGL, for the most part, has been fixed on ATi's end since 2007: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6420|
Originally Posted by westfallen
..So I should be safe with 186 drivers? ..Hrm. Are there any ATI cards that don't mess up with OpenGL games? o.O
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According to AMD's Bridgman, the 3D stack is shared across ATi's drivers: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showp...1&postcount=35
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I don't remember seeing any OpenGL bug reports filed against newer extensions recently so not sure what the specific issues might be (which makes it hard to *fix* them)... ... but "yes the OpenGL support will continue to improve". Most of the 3D stack is shared across multiple OSes, so fixes made for one OS will usually benefit the other OSes. |
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| Most of the improvements have come when the Wine devs take the problem from "Windows app ABC does something bad" to "we expect this OpenGL call to do X but it actually does Y" -- then we either respond with "calling that way has undefined results in the OpenGL spec, but if you called <this> way it would work on everyones HW" or "that's not right, we'll fix it". |
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That's odd. Normally we hear about server graphics problems *very* quickly, and I haven't heard anything this time. There are a couple of relatively recent bugs open on fdo - do either of those match what you are seeing ? One is a RandR problem with dual displays, the other looks like a LUT issue but no logs or other info attached : https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23970 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21548 |
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Now, as to whether or not they work in the long run?
Well, I've been using Vista 64bit Ultimate on an Intel Core 2 Duo system coupled against Radeon x1800 XT, x1900 AIW, RadeonHD 3870, and RadeonHD 4650. Across popular OpenGL titles like No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, F.E.A.R., Chronicles of Riddick, Doom3, Quake4, Enemy Territory, and so on, I haven't really had too many problems. Honestly, I can probably count on one hand the number of glitches I've had under the Windows side.
Now, I have been directly told by AMD that they only really intend to focus on OpenGL for workstation usage, a stance I don't agree with. I think they, Intel, and Nvidia should be hammering OpenGL / OpenCL over another vendors rendering / physics API when-ever possible... simply because it's good business.
I'm very noobish when it comes to building a new computer, and I've heard read a few
threads that SLI GTX 260s wouldn't work so well with this game. I was hoping to go with
4GB of RAM, But I've heard you can't go past 2GB RAM on a 32-bit OS, But I've heard of
problems with 64-bit NVIDIA Drivers..
The OS I was looking at was Window 7, BTW
Can someone explain this to an idiot? : D