Issue 19 Teaser: Sli Mentioned

Not quite.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/sli_multi_os.html

No Mac OS at all.

Nvidia doesn't provide OSX drivers.

Apple writes their own OSX drivers for Nvidia hardware. Apple may have access to the BSD source code and may pull from the BSD driver.

Just because Apple may have access doesn't mean they have an implementation. It is my understanding that the Mac drivers for the graphics cards are written by the manufacturer under contract to Apple, so Apple controls the release of the drivers, and this allows nVidia and AMD to release their own cards without having to do the development all over again for 'their' stand alone cards, like the GTX285 that was released by EVGA. I'm not sure where I got that information though, and it could be incorrect afaik. So I believe that SLI support is entirely possible but Apple simply doesn't want to pay nVidia to implement it.

BTW, nVidia does provide mac driver support directly, as evidenced by this link:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-...23-driver.html

Your link talks about Quadros and Multi-OS SLI, but there is no mention of Mac OS SLI support at all.

I've looked for any evidence regarding SLI support for Mac Pros in Mac OS X, and every link points to the contrary.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...crossfire.html
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....readID=1992099
http://forums.macnn.com/65/mac-pro-a...orted-mac-pro/
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=66134
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/app...-question.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro#Expansion_cards
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/.../t-661818.html

So what's the point of slapping a big AMD/ATi badge on the current splash screens? Even the Catalyst driver plugs this game. I really don't understand what the issue is with getting up-to-date support when Ultra Mode was written from the ground up with the support of AMD/ATi. Are their drivers really that poorly written/supported that nVidia can be first with multi GPU support without needing an official sponsorship?

First off, yeah, ATI drives are pretty poorly written, I've never had one uninstall correctly, and upgrading drivers was always a mess. As far as the "corporate splash" AMD (before or shortly after the merge) was a corporate sponsor of serveral major CoH events (as Razer is now as well), and I think that's probably why the predomenance on the splash screens, and why CoH is "plugged in the drivers". Ultra Mode itself may have been written "from the ground up" with ATI support--I doubt that it was, quite honestly, and even if it was, Ultra Mode alone won't ensure the kind of support you're thinking of--but the game itself was not.

The reality of the situation is that the CoH engine from the ground up, back in the ancient days of yore was written with Nvidia support and/or coding optimizations/whatever they give to games and teams that are part of the NVIDIA "TWIMTBP" project, which CoH was. No matter what kind of semi-reverse retooling Ultra Mode may have had (I honestly don't believe it had any, it may have just improved support for ATI a little to a moderate amount, but it was always horrendous anyway). So yeah, because of that, SLI would be a lot easier to support in a game already written with NVIDIA optimizations when it was made.

The sad reality of that is, no matter how much ATI/AMD and PS/NC pander to each other and/or do corporate deals and promotions, that optomized code is still there, and even if disabilng it was possible, why do that? It wouldn't help ATI work any better and would hurt those running NVIDIA products.

When I got really into CoH (around the time CoV released) and I realized the card I had then (X800XT AGP 256MB) wasn't really good enough to drive CoH at the resolution I'd gone up to when I borrowed a friend's monitor when mine died (1280x720 4:3 to a 1680x1050 widescreen apple cinema display). I knew that whatever monitor I ended up buying, I was going to need a better graphics card. For the short term and to extend the life of that machine, I got a 7800GS because I knew and had realized NVIDIA worked much better with CoH. I was ALWAYS an ATI/AMD person, but the reality was the reality. Down the line I saved up and got a 24" Dell flat (1920x1200) which I still use, and boy, then it was time to build a new system and I used the top of the line at the time (8800 GTX 768MB). Fast forward a few years, and that older machine runs a pair of GTS 250 1GB cards in SLI (thanks to BFGs replacing my dying cards with better stuff twice--RIP BFG, one of the best in the biz). My new machine runs a GTX 470 1280MB.

Now, I'm not trying to sound like an NVIDIA sales pitch, but it wasn't until I gave up my preconceived notions of Nvidia and actually used one I realize how much easier their driver installs were (only a handfull of times...maybe 5-10 in the last 5 years) have I had to roll back and/or fully clean and fresh install a new driver because of some issue. The most recent being the upgrade from 260.89 to 260.96 (for some reason install kept 'failing' so I used the "clean driver before install" checkbox now included in the last 2 releases, and short of unplugging my network cable so Win 7 didn't go ballistic trying to correct my errors and installing drivers without asking me and not letting me stop, I didn't have to do anything special except a pair of reboots, and rebuilding my game profiles.

I do like ATI cards for a lot of things, especially home theatre, they've always done that well, I have always believed though, that they rushed out their DX11 product, and that the 400 series NV cards are much better handled in that regard.

Long story short: some games are better with one, some are better with the other, CoH just happens to really favor NVIDIA, which is honestly likely more a holdover/corporate decision from Cryptic back in the original design/sponsorship days than it is any reflection on NC and/or PS's current crop of people, because of that SLI was likely easier to impliment. I guess it's possible Crossfire might be supported sometime, but I wouldn't hold my breath. SLI is more finiky and problematic to get supported WELL in something (without a lot of NV customization and "help") but tends to IMO perform better when it is than Crossfire does. On the flip side, Crossfire is generally easier to get working in a partial sense, or just a quick boost, but tends not to be as stable in those situations.

Now...I'd like to see PhysX supported poperly on card with NVIDIA cards, but I'm not sure that, for the vast majority of users, it would help much, though lower-end machines and/or laptops might get decent benifits as opposed to using the CPU for CoH's (admittedly minimal) Physics.

Originally Posted by McNum Between the Loyalists and Resistance, I'd be tempted to support Praetorian Hamidon. One side uses mind police and will "disappear" you and the other uses poison gas and bombs on civilians. Hamidon? He'll just have a tree eat you. Much simpler. If we're all going to be oppressed and/or killed by someone, it might as well be the walking trees. At least they don't speak in annoying code or doublespeak. They just devour you.

I'm not sure why they can't talk about ATI Crossfire setup, I mean they do support the ATI branding logo on their site showing they support ATI. Unless they made a deal with Nvidia to not support ATI's Crossfire, which wouldn't surprise me none.

It either means "can't talk about" in the sense of: 1) something is being discussed or worked on that is private between the two companies.
2) We can't talk about it because we have no/idea if when that might happen. or 3) Something akin to what you're suggesting (which is such a thing *was* done, it was likely done back in the early days of CoH, and the agreement either applies to the engine, or the product, and therefore doesn't have an 'expiration date'. In that sense whatever code and/or optimizations that might've been done or given to them by NVIDIA are still NVIDIA'S right within the agreement. I'm sure it would've been done by Cryptic back in the day, but may well still be binding.

I would tend to think any of these or a combination of these are possible.

Maybe Paragon Studios is poised to buy out ATI?!!

I'll post that all over the Internet... brb...