Now That's What I call Graphics Power

[Kotuku]

FASTRA GPU Supercomputer

Wow, four 9800GX2's linked in a 'super computer' set-up for tomography work. To heck with that, I want this for COD4. <smile>

Kotuku

 

[Adrian Wainer]

Does COD4 actually run faster with 4 9800GX2s than it would with 1 or 2 of them?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

[Kotuku]

Does COD4 actually run faster with 4 9800GX2s than it would with 1 or 2 of them?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Who knows! It was just that the Doctor at the start of the video appeared to be playing an FPS game on their supercomputer!

I just made the post out of interest as to what could be done with these GPU's

Kotuku

 

[Everlong]

You won't be able to run 4 9800GX2's in SLI. The drivers for SLI only support up to quad SLI, which is two 9800GX's, so unfortunatley the other 2 would be sitting idle when playing COD4

 

[Kotuku]

You won't be able to run 4 9800GX2's in SLI. The drivers for SLI only support up to quad SLI, which is two 9800GX's, so unfortunatley the other 2 would be sitting idle when playing COD4

So why are they touting in the video how they have 4 cross linked? Maybe it is a bit of a spoof?

I am happy with my single 9800GX2 <smile>

 

[skunksmash]

that's a baby....lol

here's the daddy.------> http://www.vistax64.com/chillout-room/171500-8x9800gx2.html

 

[Kotuku]

that's a baby....lol

here's the daddy.------> http://www.vistax64.com/chillout-room/171500-8x9800gx2.html

Umm, I can't access your URL and get the following

>>
Kotuku, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

>>

However, I can see from the URL name that it has eight of the suckers!

You should be able to toast some bread on the power supply!

 

[Everlong]

You won't be able to run 4 9800GX2's in SLI. The drivers for SLI only support up to quad SLI, which is two 9800GX's, so unfortunatley the other 2 would be sitting idle when playing COD4

So why are they touting in the video how they have 4 cross linked? Maybe it is a bit of a spoof?

I am happy with my single 9800GX2 <smile>

Where do they say they're linked? I watched the video and he's on about how he has 8 GPUs, but didn't hear anything about them being linked unless I missed it.

Unless it's a CUDA thing that can use all 4 gfx cards. Afaik with forceware drivers, only quad SLI is supported. I didn't see an SLI bridge on them either :huh:

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

that's a baby....lol

here's the daddy.------> http://www.vistax64.com/chillout-room/171500-8x9800gx2.html

Umm, I can't access your URL and get the following


However, I can see from the URL name that it has eight of the suckers!

You should be able to toast some bread on the power supply!

Here's a link for that ...

Translated version of http://www.expreview.com/news/hard/2008-07-29/1217297190d9600.html


Later Ted

 

[Adrian Wainer]

Who knows! It was just that the Doctor at the start of the video appeared to be playing an FPS game on their supercomputer!

I just made the post out of interest as to what could be done with these GPU's

Kotuku

Hi Kotuko, thanx for putting the posting about the supercomputer it is fascinating, they are saying it is giving the processing power of more than a 500 PC cluster, I only mentioned the aspect of how it would work when playing COD4 in that with Flight Simulator FSX I know plenty of people who have paid money for a second or more cards to run under SLI, and FSX does not support SLI so it does not run any faster..........

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

You won't be able to run 4 9800GX2's in SLI. The drivers for SLI only support up to quad SLI, which is two 9800GX's, so unfortunatley the other 2 would be sitting idle when playing COD4

Thanx for that Everlong, SLI for the amount of time it has been around has sure got problems in that even if a Game supports SLI and many do not, unless one has seen a test by a reputable organization of a particular card combination with a particular game, one never knows what the result will be of using a particular SLI card / Game combination.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

So why are they touting in the video how they have 4 cross linked? Maybe it is a bit of a spoof?

I am happy with my single 9800GX2 <smile>

99. % sure it is not a spoof, a university would have access to code writers perhaps even people who could code in low level machine languages and no doubt they have written a special software that might even by pass the whole commercial gaming SLI thing entirely for their activity. In theory, using Graphics processors as they have done, might have huge advantages to gamers, in that it would make computers hugely more flexible if the Graphics processors could be used for non Graphics general purpose computing. The problem is that they are using the Graphics processor to translate data in to images, so they are still using a Graphics processor in a traditional way and if one tried to use this technique in gaming for the general purpose aspect of the game, one would run in to the problem of how to go about allocating individual aspects of the overall computational task to each of the many sub-processors within each of the eight 9800 multiprocessor units within the four 9800GX2s and the problem that many of the individually allocated tasks would be interdependent on one another, yet running on different sub-processors. E.G. most software today can not effectively use 2 cores in the likes of AMD Athlon 64 and Intell Conroe, so there is little chance of being able to use hundreds of sub-processors in a multi-graphicards rig for that purpose. Since what they appear to be doing, is rendering images in a non-real time environment and this is one of the relatively few tasks that lend itself easily to multiprocessor use, I can not think it will provide any advantage to gamers in respect of the general computing tasks associated with games, though major organizations using these cards as a replacement for PC clusters might well bring about a massive increase in the capability of these cards, not in SLI but as single cards for gaming.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

[johngalt]

A couple of things:

   Tip

Adrian, there is a Multi button that allows you to select multiple posts (up to 4) to quote at the same time, making readability a lot easier.

Notice the video - it is not utilizing the GPU as a GPU but as an alternate CPU, using the CUDA software from nVidia. The idea here is that it is not being used for 3D *visualization* but 3D *development* - the CPU rarely gets used a lot in gaming because most of the games are rendering things already made - this is making from scratch a 3D image, and that requires a lot more CPU power than CPU power for displaying.

Hence, whoever said this was a non SLI technique is correct.

Also, the other one posted about the 16 GPU using the MSI boards - same thing - another poster in our forums pointed out that there was no SLI bridge - and rightly so.

However, if you could harness the power of CUDA and make it use, say, 3 of those GPUs to do all the normal CPU work in a game, and use the 4th as a true GPU, then I have a feeling that the game would bench better overall than using a CPU / GPU combination.

 

[Adrian Wainer]

A couple of things:

   Tip

Adrian, there is a Multi button that allows you to select multiple posts (up to 4) to quote at the same time, making readability a lot easier.

However, if you could harness the power of CUDA and make it use, say, 3 of those GPUs to do all the normal CPU work in a game, and use the 4th as a true GPU, then I have a feeling that the game would bench better overall than using a CPU / GPU combination.

John I think the big issue there would be with trying to do this, is that a game is a realtime anarchic environment and it whilst it might prove very difficult to allocate out subsets of the whole computational task to the 3 cards which are effectively 6 cards if they are X2s and then to the hundreds of sub-processors, I can't see any practical reason why it could not be done, the more crucial problem is that the computational tasks farmed out in this manner are likely to be interdependent and there I think lies the major-obstacle, in that if they are interdependent unless there was a sophiscated manager moving the whole process forward there would be the problem that many of the sub processors had completed their tasks but the results of their work could not be effectively used until the other of the sub-processors had done theirs. All that said, the economic advantages for commerce of being able to tackle a dynamic anarchic computational problem with the likes of an Intel Conroe quad core with four commercial high-end graphics cards attached which had potentially the power of a 100 plus computer cluster might be so attractive that it would force the development of such techniques. Just to think of one real World application, trying to intercept an incoming Missile is a hugely difficult task, if the sort of computing resource of putting the power of a 100 plus computers into a single computer were available, that might mean that interception tasks which may well currently have to be controlled from the ground station could be off-loaded to the interception missile, which would if I have understood such things correctly re this application mean that not only could the interceptor missile respond more quickly since it would be less dependent on the relatively slow wireless uplink from the ground station but an attacker would have less ability to saturate the defences with a multiple missile attack since individual missiles would have significant intelligence through their high capability on board computers.

The target acquisition system in the missile acquires the target in the terminal phase of flight and transmits the data using the TVM downlink via the ground radar to the engagement control station for final course correction calculations. The course correction commands are transmitted to the missile via the missile track command uplink. The high-explosive 90kg warhead is situated behind the terminal guidance section.

Patriot Missile Air Defence System Army Technology

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

[Adrian Wainer]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=+1]Nvidia CUDA : practical uses[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]by Damien Triolet[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Published on August 17, 2007

Nvidia CUDA : practical uses (page 1: Introduction, reminder) - BeHardware

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer
[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[Oskari]

Why do you need more than one GPU (e.g. 4850) to run COD4?

There just aren't enough options in video settings to warrant more GPU power. For instance, running a single 4850 doesn't hesitate for a millisecond running that game...

 

[johngalt]

You misread that Oskari - not COD4 - nVidia's CUDA software for using the power of the GPUs to bolster the CPU.

See the video and read about it at the links in the previous posts.

 

[Oskari]

...I want this for COD4...

Honest mistake?

 

[johngalt]

I know it was - and I realized how it could happen - that's why I mentioned it.

 

[Everlong]

Why do you need more than one GPU (e.g. 4850) to run COD4?

There just aren't enough options in video settings to warrant more GPU power. For instance, running a single 4850 doesn't hesitate for a millisecond running that game...

COD4 is made on the Q3 Engine, which runs at its best at 125FPS and upwards. Doesn't make a difference on single player, but it's best playing at that in multiplayer. The die hard cod4 players will all play at 125FPS+, and getting that constantly with max graphics does need a decent card or SLI with decent cards.

 

[johngalt]

Everlong, he misread our CUDA references as COD4 and was trying to figure out how this setup (from the OP) would help COD4.

 

[Everlong]

Everlong, he misread our CUDA references as COD4 and was trying to figure out how this setup (from the OP) would help COD4.

I know, I was just following on from what he said