SLI and NL

Would to Geforce 6600gt's running in SLI mode make any difference to
how NL runs.

doubt it, 6600 is good enough on its own i think , still, double never hurt no-one....

only for the better. I'm almost positive that nVidia would never make it so something faster wouldn't run on all the same stuff

whats SLI???

hehe, i was about to ask the same question...

Running multiple graphics cards on one mainboard, thus running them simultaneously theorhetically doubles performance, although bandwith is halved. Still though, it does create a huge performance jump. And the dual 6600gt's are a bad idea, a single 6800GT is cheaper and performs much better.

o so basiclly its like a graphics card?

I heard 6800s are NOT good with OpenGL at all. I would say go with the 7800 GTX which will run NL amazingly.

A single 6800 GT will easily outperform a 6600 Gt.

But to answer what SLI is. Basicially take a standard computer. It has 1 graphics card, most of us run AGP cards. SLI is based on PCI-express and on PCI-x. An SLI motherboard has 2 PCI-x slots on it. So you could purchase two SLI ready graphics cards and hook em in. Problem with SLI is that you have to have the exact same graphics cards, if they are different in any way, it won't work. And SLI is strictly an Nvidia thing.

ATI has their own version which adds a little flexibility to the process. Their Crossfire can link with any x800 or greater graphics cards and it will still work fine and dandy. But you need a crossfire enabled motherboards.

Dual graphics card solutions are still in the infant phase in a year or so the markets are really going to take off. Becuase right now, you'd have to do almost a complete upgrade to take advantage.

[Brtnboarder495]

NL isn't really that demanding on the graphics side, I am running a 9600 w/ 64mb VRAM and it runs everything on high... with of course only 10-20 FPS on average. But it's a weak card, so anything better then it can only run better. And Of course it takes advantage of SLI, there isn't anything that can't. But yea get a 7th generation card if you can, the 6 series will most likely be considered ancient in less then .5-1 year.

SLI was something link interface, forgot what the S was for.

Anyways, with SLI, you will need more RAM and proscessing power, just go with one card. Either way, NL's graphics are a bit old for newer cards, the only thing you can really go for is geometry, but the other users won't be able to handle so many polygons.

Originally posted by IntaminFan397

I heard 6800s are NOT good with OpenGL at all. I would say go with the 7800 GTX which will run NL amazingly.

What are you talking about?! A 7800GT is $370 and a GTX is $430 onwards to $550. A 6800 will run even the most demanding games today perfectly fine, and NL is by no means that game (unless you have millions of scaffloding supports...and i mean millions!) 6800's will run any interface fine, the other being D3D of course, and their drivers are better for OpenGL than ATi's anyways.

Originally posted by Coaster indavidual

Dual graphics card solutions are still in the infant phase in a year or so the markets are really going to take off. Becuase right now, you'd have to do almost a complete upgrade to take advantage.

Ahem... Remember 3DFX? The Voodoo 2 came in SLI Versions for PCI. That was back in 1998. SLI is neither really new nor really good.

Buster.

Originally posted by Hyper_Goliath

Originally posted by IntaminFan397

I heard 6800s are NOT good with OpenGL at all. I would say go with the 7800 GTX which will run NL amazingly.

What are you talking about?! A 7800GT is $370 and a GTX is $430 onwards to $550. A 6800 will run even the most demanding games today perfectly fine, and NL is by no means that game (unless you have millions of scaffloding supports...and i mean millions!) 6800's will run any interface fine, the other being D3D of course, and their drivers are better for OpenGL than ATi's anyways.

It depends on what resolution your running at and what graphics settings you have set. The 7800 GTX will run high resolutions with maximum graphics settings enabled just fine, its a very powerful card and it actually uses LESS power than a 6800 (I think it uses 100-110W where the 6800 Ultra uses about 110-120W). Its the best card on the market right now. Of course, the Radeon X1800 XT surpasses it in everything except OpenGL, but the GTX is superior for OpenGL and the 1800XT isn't even available yet to buy.

I have run NL with a 6800 Ultra, 1GB RAM, and Pentium 4 3.2GHz (without dual core) and with a higher resolution with graphics settings maxed, I got about 5 fps on average. Definitely a bad choice if you plan to run NL with those settings.

Originally posted by Buster

Originally posted by Coaster indavidual

Dual graphics card solutions are still in the infant phase in a year or so the markets are really going to take off. Becuase right now, you'd have to do almost a complete upgrade to take advantage.

Ahem... Remember 3DFX? The Voodoo 2 came in SLI Versions for PCI. That was back in 1998. SLI is neither really new nor really good.

Buster.

I remember them, SLI kinda died out when they died out and got takken over by Nvidia. So much money was being poured in AGP that developing PCI more wasn't as important. Then Nvidia decided to try it out againt and wham, SLI is back.

But upgrading to SLI is still a major pain in the ass right now.

Below is the link to a really good article about the X1800 and has a good benchmark comparison to the 7800 GTX

THe site also has a few other good benchmarks for video cars.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20051006/ati_enters_the_x1000_promised_land-14.html

[Brtnboarder495]

SLI=Scalable Link Interface

And You can get a 7800GT for less than $300 on tigerdirect.com

Oddly, the 6800 is overlooked for the 6800GT. Most pre-built sites use 6600GT's and then jump to 6800GT. One reason may be that the 6600GT is in lower resolutions, nearly as powerful as the 6800. Typically, the 6800 uses DDR memory while the rest of the 6 series uses GDDR3.

if you happen to get a pc that you want to put sli into you gotta make sure its PCI-E x16 or x8 compatible (both pci-e slots)

IMO an sli system running nolimits will boost performance only if a) you have lots of scenery and or supports and b) if your track is really crammed together and you view it all at once (sounds weird but im not good at explaining stuff)

and also, if you're a regular at coaster sims, you know how much scenery and stuff people there cram into their tracks (one trackpack was 17 mb compressed--imagine the strain on my crappy radeon 9200 128mb lol)

Cheers for all the advise, I am going for a 7800gt but this meant a major upgarde.

Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT400C3) (MY-061-CS) 1
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Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 80GB ST380817AS SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-003-SE) 1
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VapoChill Micro High End (Socket 754/939/940) (06-L-0012) (HS-002-VP) 1
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Hiper HPU-4B580 Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Blue (CA-006-HP) 1
?????????54.95 ?????????54.95
Abit AN8-V nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-078-AB) 1
?????????64.95 ?????????64.95
OcUK GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-032-OK) 1
?????????197.50 ?????????197.50
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