AMD Ends Crossfire For More Than 2 GPUs – Now Calls It mGPU
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KissSh0t
Maybe they are stopping use of the word fire for a reason.
That.... that's the joke.
I will let myself out.
AlbertX
I still don't understand this Multigpu is Dying scenario.
I Understand it makes no sense to give official support for 3 or 4 cards because the way SLI or CF works at the moment is very complicated to optimize, and this way Nvidia and AMD will just not have to provide support.
But to me 2 cards are more alive than ever, not only FOR MY MONEY, 2 1070 or 1080 works beautiful, but they have lower latency, frame time than years ago. And I tested more than 40 games and 36 of them worked, only 4 games didn't.
The Scalibility has also improved a LOT, I get no less than 70% and on the majority of games I get around 85% some games I got around 95% and in ONE game, no Idea why I got exactly 100% scalability (the game is Sleeping Dogs).
Anyway, I still Think SLI or CF will be alive and is one of the best way to play some games.
fantaskarsef
Marketing. First of all they're just getting rid of the name (in this announcement), maybe they try to push people buying the top card more often than just buying two lower tier cards.
But fact is, in terms of display technology we're a bit ahead of what single GPUs are able to provide, so to drive some displays to their fullest potential, you currently need to have two GPUs running.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "suffering" from 980 SLI, but eventually it's a lot easier and less of a hassle to run a single gpu tbh, no more worrying when this SLI bug will be fixed or that game finally gets mGPU support.
SL4T
rl66
AlbertX
fantaskarsef
OddGentleman
An AMD rep said, "CrossFire isn’t mentioned because it technically refers to DX11 applications. In DirectX 12, we reference multi-GPU as applications must support mGPU, whereas AMD has to create the profiles for DX11. We’ve accordingly moved away from using the CrossFire tag for multi-GPU gaming."
The driver software team no longer have to optimize each multi-GPU profile to work on games. DirectX12 has a feature called ‘Explicit Multiadapter’ which puts that burden on the game developer.
This feature not only makes the traditional similar GPU-type CrossFire or SLI possible, but it also allows different GPUs to work together. This even includes cross-manufacturer mGPU such as AMD + NVIDIA to work together. Ryan Smith from Anandtech actually wrote an article demonstrating this as far back as 2015.
DirectX 12 brings the ability to combine memory pools, provided the game developer creates their games with this feature in mind.
In traditional AFR based Multi GPU rendering, both GPUs are working on separate frames of the same scene, requiring both GPUs to hold exactly the same data in each GPUs VRAM as both are working on the same tasks. Without explicit mechanisms to utilize multiple GPUs, tasks cannot be decided in such a way that the GPUs could do different enough tasks to utilize their memory pools separately.
With DirectX 12 developers can specifically allocate tasks to a specific GPU, allowing them to control the GPU hardware in such a way that each GPU could use their full frame buffer independently, meaning that 2 4GB cards in SLI or Crossfire could create a setup with 8GB of effective GPU memory.
fantaskarsef
Yeah we all know and have seen how dx12 actually supports mGPU systems natively only that the games don't, do they?
JonasBeckman
DirectX 12 and Vulkan support multi-GPU within the API whereas from my understanding DirectX 11 (And earlier.) do not, thus why you needed driver profiles that try to work around this limitation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/727stb/amd_drops_support_for_3_4way_crossfire/
DX12 and VLK are however dependent on the developers using and implementing these features in a good way which is likely why some of the current initial games for these API's had poor or otherwise very limited support for multi-GPU configurations to where it was patched in weeks or months post-release which is a really poor scenario, what with time and skill requirements to implement Crossfire and/or SLI I'm expecting it would be almost required for AMD or Nvidia to have hands-on support for the game in question and in Nvidia's case they seem to favor a DX11 implementation.
A few more years for both DirectX 12 and Vulkan to mature a bit and more developers to give these API's a try and slowly learn and become familiar with them might see the situation improve, have some doubts as to whether mixed-GPU mode will ever see any notable use though although some game might have support for it. (Ashes of Singularity is still the only one that does?)
DX11 isn't going anywhere either as MS supports both in tandem too so DirectX 12 adaption might be slow with developers already being very familiar with D3D11 though AMD might try to push for the API getting some use in some games they're supporting directly.
No clue as how Vulkan will go, seems OpenGL is also still supported but for Windows DirectX is the more popular API by far although with VLK not being limited to Win10 it might see some use although I wouldn't be surprised if the shift also takes a few years.
(Not too sure as to when version 1.1 is planned either, current SDK should be somewhere around version 1.0.6.1 implementing bug fixes and requested extensions but there's very few games actively using the API though applications and software such as emulators have had some benefits from it too.)
asturur
If mGpu, SLI would automatically scale at 200% performance in every game, that would be bad for card market.
When a new card comes out, is easier/cheaper to buy one as you have and double your perf up rather then switching to the new one.
I m not a big gamer, i do not update my computer since long, but when i was doing i was always on SLI and i loved it.
sammarbella
https://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/pc/quantum-break-no-multi-gpu/1/
mGPU is a possibility in DX12 BUT it needs more work (A LOT) from game devs than in old DX11.
In fact in DX12 ALL the NEEDED work to support multi GPU in games must be done exclusively by game devs and NONE by GPU makers.
Yes.
It was done once in the AMD showcase called AOTS
No more "practical cases".
Right now mantle had more success than DX12 mGPU.
LOL
Really? Game devs don't know that. 😀
If this was true ALL DX12 should have mGPU support but that's not the case.
Some "optimized" Windows games like Quantum Break (DX12 version) could use mGPU but devs said:
RzrTrek
It only takes one AMD graphics card to fry an egg.
Kaarme
vbetts
Moderator
geogan
schmidtbag
geogan
Anyone know what the current situation is with multiple GPUs being used for VR on for example Oculus? Does Oculus have to implement it or developers or NVidia? I think even the latest AAA VR games like Project Cars 2 doesn't even support one-GPU-per-eye yet which is a massive PITA...o_O
schmidtbag
Solfaur
As expected and just like with nvidia's SLI, I'm pretty sure even with 2 cards scaling will be questionable, and most likely not working most of the time.
In a way it's weird (even though expected, given how DX12 works) how multigpu dies out right now when 4K and high refresh monitors are calling for gpu power more than ever...