Dark, What gpu's were you running in SLI? So your saying that the games felt less smooth with SLI? Yet the framerates are obviously higher then with one card.
I am asking because I have one 680 and would like to get another and run in SLI. What your saying worries me because I would not want to make my games run less smooth.
Let me ask this, if you have a game that runs at 30 fps maxxed out on a 680 and if you add another 680 to get 60 fps, your saying that the one card at 30 fps will feel better then two in SLI running at 60 fps?
OK, it's not that cut and dried. Framerates are rarely that simple on the PC.
First of all, I was using dual GTX580 cards for the test. Why? Well, a Gaffer was selling a GTX580 earlier this year and I wanted to buy it from them...but another buyer had already been lined up. I thought it would fall through so I acted on a deal at Microcenter to get a GTX580 for a decent price. The GAF deal DID come through, however, and I also went with it. This gave me the chance to try the 580 in SLI mode. Ultimately, I returned the card to Microcenter and kept the single card I received from a user here. The two cards were identical and setup was a breeze but the results...were disappointing.
I had jumped from a 5870 to a GTX580 so the improvements were quite obvious. Performance was fast and smooth across a wide range of games. I had no problems hitting 60 fps is virtually everything I tossed at it outside of Metro 2033, which I limited to 30 fps (using a number of solution in parallel).
So, I slotted in the second GTX580 and ran through some tests. I assume that what I was seeing was microstutter, but perhaps it was something else. Regardless, with both cards enabled, all games that I tested were delivering results that looked slower than 60 fps. In some games, it varied, and I would see a smooth framerate in bursts but there was this constant feeling of instability despite FRAPS reading 60 fps. Other times it just felt "off". It was "smooth" in the sense that you could tell the framerate was high, but it just didn't look right. This happens with certain games even with a single card and often requires a lot of tweaking and use of external utilities to solve, but with SLI, I saw it in virtually every game. It's difficult to explain but it jumps out to me immediately and drove me crazy.
I don't actually have a reason to go above 60 fps as I only use 60 Hz displays. Disabling v-sync is ugly, but it does demonstrates the high framerates. I saw some massive increases above 60 fps when v-sync was disabled but all of that was 100% useless to me in the end.
Now, there are occasional games where I use a locked 30 fps instead but it's not simple. Most people will tell you to lock it in the nVidia Inspector or use Bandicam or some other such tool. Those don't work. They DO deliver 30 fps according to FRAPS but also introduce severe microstutter into the image that ruins the consistency. With most games, however, a combination of using the "half refresh" option combined with MSI Afterburner OSD limited to 30 will produce good, stutter free results. This is the ONLY combination that has ever worked properly for me. Unfortunately, this isn't compatible with all games. BethSoft games tend to end up with longer loading or continue to stutter, for instance, and this happens with a few other titles as well. It's not a magic bullet but it's the closest I've seen. Fortunately, I only need to use this in cases where I want to push visuals all the way out while keeping performance consistent. Crysis 2 DX11, for instance, is great with this solution as I can use 1440p + the highest details settings with extra AA while holding 30 fps.
Framerate on PCs are a strange beast, I'm afraid, as a lot of games just don't seem to sync up well with the display and introduce little problems into the mix. SLI just exacerbates this to the extreme.
Obviously, some people don't notice or care (they see a higher number and are satisfied), but I actually do see the difference and it does bother me.
MGS 2 was a graphical marvel. No question about it. But don't forget what the SEGA Dreamcast was capable of in its short life with games like Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur and Shenmue. All before the launch of the PS2. ;-)
Those games had unbelievable graphics. They blew me away. Especially Soul Calibur, jawdropping graphics and the gameplay was just perfect! This game was much prettier looking than the arcade version!
Oh, I have a huge soft spot for Dreamcast and was there on day 1...but it never quite blew me away in the same capacity. Soul Calibur was certainly impressive, though.
