Hey,
I'm in the process of updating my system.

I have a Triplehead2go at the moment, and have gotten two Samsung 204b 20.1"s (1600x1200s). I was thinking of going for a third, but have since then realised that maybe the A$550 the new Triplehead2go Digital will cost me can be better put towards going for new GPU.

I'm thinking of a Quad core QX6700 when it comes down a bit, which I'd want to clock to ~3.2ghz. And instead of the Samsung get a Dell 24" in the middle for proper widescreen gaming when not using ultra wide screen - several of my mates has got this, and it's a beautiful screen. So I'm wondering, what GPU would I need (two of) to render LFS @ max with the resolution of

1600x1200 + 1920x1200 + 1600x1200

preferably with AA and ansio enabled, using Kegety's SoftTH. Will I have to fork out for the 8800 Ultra? Or can lesser models be used?

I'd love to hear from anyone who's done this sort of setup. I'd say around 60fps in the city with a full grid is my target frame rate.

LFS is my only game that requires ultra wide - I'd want to swap to SLI mode for normal gaming, however for normal desktop use I will naturally want to use them all. For other games, e.g. Supreme Commander (which will use all 4 cores), does this require multi booting whenever I want to play in SLI mode, e.g. windows = all three screens and game = middle screen only?

Many thanks,
Funky
ps. this is my rig before getting the Samsungs: http://www.ozbee-racing.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1270

first of all ... what do you need a quad core for ?

now to the main point ... to render at these resolutions with good frame rates youll probably need an 88gtx sli system which means buying a top tier nvidia mainboard with 2 x16 slots for the sli system and one x8 slot for softth (i guess that should work although im not sure if anyone ever tried it before)

Hi,

just few points.You need at least single 8800GTX not sure if SoftTH works with SLI config thought.

Also I dont see your point in quad core CPU.Its uselless for most of the games.Some of them even cant use properly 2 core CPUs!!!.LFS cant untilise multicore CPUs as well.

Be aware that overclocking quad core Intel C2D CPU is very hard.The quadcore from Intel its not native quadcore but 2 silicon of dual core CPU on one chip.Between these 2 silicon is running FSB which is hard to overclock and I know just 2 motherboard(DFI ICFX3200 ,eVGA 122-CK-NF68 - rev T1 and newever) which can do that but no miracles as with usual C2D 2 core CPUs.

But with the etxreme version of Quadcore CPU you have another option which is raising the multiplier so the FSB remain the same and then its only up to the chip limitation if you will get to 3.2Ghz.

Well the problem that only Supreme commander can used multiple cores but how much.there is not so much gain from single to dual core and vice versa.

Untill the upcoming games can show a gain from 2nd core for example at least 50 percent that its only BS from developers how the upcoming titles can utilize multicore CPUs.

Tthe software development in games is nowhere really close to take the advantage of multicore CPUs....sad.

Quote from Shotglass :

first of all ... what do you need a quad core for ?

As I noted in my post, Supreme Commander shows a massive increase in performance with quad cores. I was a huge TA fan and SC will be the only other game than LFS I'll play. My current Gainward 7800GS 512mb GS and watercooled AMD Newcastle 2.3ghz won't cut it though.

I reckon as long as I can get a single of those cores up to speed for LFS then I'll be happy.

Note that the OS will still use other cores for things like network and disk access, so it should help for the occasional stutter. Probably not more than dual core, but certainly shouldn't hurt.

Quote from Shotglass :

now to the main point ... to render at these resolutions with good frame rates youll probably need an 88gtx sli system which means buying a top tier nvidia mainboard with 2 x16 slots for the sli system and one x8 slot for softth (i guess that should work although im not sure if anyone ever tried it before)

MMmm, are we actually talking of _three_ graphics cards here? Anyway, GTXs are cheaper than the Ultras so that sounds nice.

I'm likely to wait until the QX6700 (which is the Extreme, unlocked version) falls a bit in price, hopefully the high end 8800s will have fallen by then as well. And hopefully it won't be too long after I receive my tax return in about a months time

Thanks for the feedback guys, I reckon both threads here are of great interest (the sli power req'd for softth of said 5120x1200 resolution and the merits of quad cores).

Quote from funkdancer :

MMmm, are we actually talking of _three_ graphics cards here? Anyway, GTXs are cheaper than the Ultras so that sounds nice.

well an ultra is only an overclocked gtx anyway so the performance gap isnt really that big ... the improtant bit is that its not a 88 crippled from disabling units on it


but on to lfs ... if i run it at 1920*1200 on my 78gtx with 8xaa and 16xaf i get ~70-80 frames when im alone in single player ... the problem however is it drops massively in multiplayer with 32 cars on screen ... even with 1024 my pc struggles to keep the framerates above 30

now theres been some discussion if the game is cpu or gpu limited in these conditions but id say for the resolutions you want to use an sli system would definately be at an advantage

the thing with softth is youll need a card with a relatively fast link to the cpu sitting there doing practically nothing so for an sli systemyoull actually need 3 cards to use softth

just fyi, do NOT buy an 8800 Ultra, you can buy the 8800GTX and overclock it to (and past) 8800 Ultra speeds with ease

You can "hot-swap" between SLi without restarting

Quote from Jakg :

You can "hot-swap" between SLi without restarting

i think he knows that the point is i doubt anything but an 88 sli system will be able to cope with these kind of resolutions especially in more modern games
and for soft th hell need an additional card to get the picture on his monitors

Quote from Jakg :

just fyi, do NOT buy an 8800 Ultra, you can buy the 8800GTX and overclock it to (and past) 8800 Ultra speeds with ease

You can "hot-swap" between SLi without restarting

Ok, thanks, this is very interesting. My own Gainward 7800GS AGP overclocks rather readily, so I'm no stranger to this.
Is there one particular brand or even better a particular product that lends itself better to serious OC than others?

I've seen Gigabyte 8800GTX 768mb cards here for A$860, this is $200 cheaper than the ultras.

Ahh, just found the "official" softth thread - a lot is explained there.

Seems like I misunderstood the requirement for the two cards, i.e. they don't have to be the same (it was only written in the first sentence on Kegety's page... doh). As SC won't really make too much use of SLI either, I'll try for one high end, overclockable 8800GTX and a semi decent but cheap extra PCIExpress card with 2x DVIs to handle the 2nd and 3rd monitor (better to leave main card w/only 1 monitor connected?), overclock it to the max, then maybe experiment with running the side displays scaled to 1280x960 and centre @ full res - that should ease the load a fair bit.

If there's any mobos out there with support for SLI plus another PCIexpress card then I'll look at getting one of them, for the possible upgrade to SLI later when gpu prices drop.

Seems like this setup will work very well - ultra wide screen for LFS and selected games, full on 1920x1200 performance for other games, plus also with Supreme commander I'll be able to use its dual output mode.

As much as I'll miss the triplehead2go it can't beat the flexibility of SoftTH. Matrox really needed to support dual link dvi and much higher resolutions for the new Digital version to be a viable update path. When this is all running I'm going to have to send Kegety a small contribution for his work, it's really darned good stuff and he's been doing so much good for the LFS! community.

Quote from funkdancer :

better to leave main card w/only 1 monitor connected?

definately not
anything the card which actually draws the image doesnt put out has to be sent through pcie so youll want to keep the amount and resolution of the non pirmary card monitors as low as possible

Quote :

If there's any mobos out there with support for SLI plus another PCIexpress card then I'll look at getting one of them, for the possible upgrade to SLI later when gpu prices drop.

iirc all top tier nvidia boards currently feature 2 16x and a single 8x pcie port

Quote from funkdancer :

then maybe experiment with running the side displays scaled to 1280x960 and centre @ full res - that should ease the load a fair bit.

I'm running SoftTH at 1920x1200 on the center 24" monitor and 1280x1024 on 19" side monitors. SoftTH does great in allowing the mixed aspect ratio (16:10 center, 5:4 sides).
System is a C2D E6600, 8800 GTX, no overclock. Secondary card is a very crappy Nv 7100.
I'm getting 50-70 FPS online with about 15 opponents, max video settings.

Quote from funkdancer :

Ok, thanks, this is very interesting. My own Gainward 7800GS AGP overclocks rather readily, so I'm no stranger to this.
Is there one particular brand or even better a particular product that lends itself better to serious OC than others?

With 8800GTX's the Gainward "Golden Samples" are hand picked for Overclockability (but not necessarily available outside of Europe), and the eVGA "Black Pearls" are too, but they are water cooled only. The Ulta is faster, but the £100 is so easy to save by getting a GTX.

For this setup (ie GTX SLi) a TripleHead2Go might be the best bet

Quote from Jakg :

For this setup (ie GTX SLi) a TripleHead2Go might be the best bet

no because a th2g is very very resolution limited

also xfx and bfg offer factory oced cards

Thanks for the great feedback Shotglass, much appreciated! I'll go for a high end Asus mobo, just trying to figure out which is the best at the moment - don't need wifi, other than that I want to get something that's going to be very fast, rock solid and last me for a while).

Jakg, I already have a Triplehead2go, so that bit's already out - and it is indeed resolution limited [and I am surprised Matrox didn't aim higher in their Digital version]

After a bit of thinking I am actually thinking of going straight for the ultimate CBF'ed solution of the XFX xXx Ultra card, in addition to a 8600GTS secondary card (Asus makes a completely silent one).

Good advice to put only 1 monitor on 2nd pci card.

EDIT: Also, with the 2x16 and 1x8 outline, I could look for a cheap Ultra later down the track and give it SLI capabilities when prices have become a bit more sensible.

On the CPU side of things I have rethought the quad core; I'll go get the 6420, o/c the crap out of it, then get a quad core later in the year or early 2008 when they've got some new models out and prices have come down a bit. I am thus heeding the advice that they are notoriously difficult overclockers, also I'll ensure I get maximum core speed for LFS.

Great thread, thanks all for helping me catch up on the very latest - tend to slack off after making a big purchase and core of current system is close to three years old now, with the 7800GS having breathed another year of effective use in it (bloody ripper of a card; it's going to keep on living in my new HD HTPC using an ASROCK mobo and a 6420 core2duo cpu, using my existing 1gb ddr1 ram).

Quote from jfgcatalan :

I'm running SoftTH at 1920x1200 on the center 24" monitor and 1280x1024 on 19" side monitors. SoftTH does great in allowing the mixed aspect ratio (16:10 center, 5:4 sides).
System is a C2D E6600, 8800 GTX, no overclock. Secondary card is a very crappy Nv 7100.
I'm getting 50-70 FPS online with about 15 opponents, max video settings.

Awesome, this is just the kind of confirmation I needed!

I'll report back what I can get with the Ultra card - provided my tax return which I should get in the 2nd week of July isn't completely nerfed

the th2go really is severely limited by the clocks of their fpgas i assume

and about that second card
why go for a 86 ? all it has to do is take what comes in through the pcie port and push it out through its vga port basically any pcie card should suffice ... theres really no point in buying anything remotely expensive

Second card; I guess I was just looking for something very silent and with dual DVI (just in case), plus also of the same driver set as the primary (fwiw). Also would be good if it didn't struggle with anything windowed to the third screen (e.g. running LFS replays whilst performing admin duties). Very open to suggestions though.

For OS, I am thinking of expanding to 4GB and getting at least one Vista install on it when Vista SP1 comes out. However before that I won't bother; support is too crap. Anyway, ram I'm looking at now is http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/22712 . Never had any issues with Geil, whereas Corsair has been nothing but trouble.

Can't say i would recommend 4 GB of DDR2 because nothing uses it - i'd wait until DDR3 matures and then buy some of that to replace your current stuff

Quote from Jakg :

Can't say i would recommend 4 GB of DDR2 because nothing uses it - i'd wait until DDR3 matures and then buy some of that to replace your current stuff

Yeah, maybe I like to shoot in raw though, and Nikon's NEF files consume an atrocious amount of RAM when processed.

It's at the point now where my 1GB system is just so slow I can't do any stuff in it.

Quote from Quint999 :

am pretty sure you need a 64bit os though to address 4gb

youp you do
with xp32 youll only see ~3.25 gig of the 4 in your pc

Oh well then Looks like I'll buy that extra ram together with Vista64bit SP1.

Vista - NO WAY.
Just my opinion.

XP 32-bit only "see's" up to the 3GB of RAM, but it does use up to 4GB.
It's just a reporting discrepancy within XP

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

Vista - NO WAY.
Just my opinion.

And I guess, considering your signature, you gave this some real thought, especially the bit I put there about SP1 [which afaik is ETAed early 2008]?

Sooner or later we'll all be running Vista, same as noone is running 95 anymore.

Anyway, I may delay my purchase into August now as the HTPC I'm building just got bumped up on the priority list - Blockbuster discontinued my entertainment pass and this other place that does movie rentals has a huge library of BR and HD DVDs at the same price as normal. Have been looking at that for some time..! It's not at all LFS related though so will get back here when the main LFS machine gets updated.

(Thought I'd get away reusing my current components but it is looking like I'll buy a brand new M-ATX setup for it, based around the Asus 8600GTS Silent GPU.)

I know it might sound strange together with my signature but I had the Vista installed here and it went away after like a week so I am back with XP.

There are several reason but mainly it was due Vista is rousources hog - I dont see reason for 500-700MB of ram for what it brings over XP.The UI and UAC thingy.This is so confusing and must be especially for new users.Also the perfomance lost in games is sometimes too big and I dont think its either NVIDIA or ATI we should blame.We know who...

Vista nothing bring to me regarding usuablity,security(the integrated firewall etc are worst option then the freeware I use here and) and productivity.The pronouced new file system which sound [romising didnt get into Vista etc.Just wanted to let you know that - sorry I was so brief and for the offtopic.

No worries

I've had Vista Ultimate installed on my 2GB Dell 9300 (2.13ghz, Geforce6/256GO,1920x1200res = hooked up to my Viera plasma) since early December last year and I find that it is a lot better for things like video i.e. just much less lag than when on WinXP. I can only _just_ get by with playing back MKV files of 720p quality and results on the 50" are just fantastic.

My bro plays Anarchy online on a Precision M90 (2.13ghz 1gb mem coreDuo, an absolutely savage 7 series GPU w/512mb) and after he went to Ultimate he found much less lag in game. So network must work better.

However for other games it would be different. So for my main PC I'm waiting to SP1. I'm expecting that my new rig should work pretty well with vista by then, e.g. Nvidia's driver dept would have had a year to tune their drivers etc.

EDIT: Have got an order in for a Dell 2407WFP A04 now, A$778 including a Razrback mouse and a Senny headset, by way of special code. Will look very nice next to the Samsungs.

Ok, a good few months have passed now, for those who remember this thread I'm happy to report that my rig is finally up!! (This is an initial report after having done one race, I may report back with more if there's any interest once I've gotten some more time with it.)

First of all, I got a P35 Blitz Formula motherboard in August, along with a 8800gts and a 7300 silent pcie card. CPU a Q6600, 1066mhz Memory; clocked to 3ghz initially.
With this config I hit a major bump in that the PCIEX drops to 8x even though I'm not running SLI/Crossfire. I was expecting it to stay at 16x 4x but it goes to 8x just having two cards inserted; this is pre-bios stuff so cannot be changed.

Whilst working fine in windows for 3 screens, 8x caused severe slowdown / sound stuttering in games like STALKER. In LFS 1280x1024 + 1920 +1200 + 1280x1024 got me around 40fps, however I didn't test it too much.

So I changed my strategy; I shelved the 7300 card and decided to wait for the X38 and then put the P35 board into my quad core Zalman HD HTPC project -- and get the X38 Maximus Formula for my main.

This has just been completed, with my pre order I was amongst the first in Australia to receive the Maximus SE from Scorpion Technologies.

The X38 features PCIE2.0 with dual 16x bus speed. To get straight into the meat, I'm getting 60fps and up (seeing 90 at times) in LFS with AA at default (i.e. off) but all details at max . Haven't finished tweaking it, i.e. no OC of the 8800gts yet but it performed flawlessly in last Monday's league race with around 20 cars on the track starting from the back (might have been slightly less than 60 then but no slowdowns experienced; wasn't looking at the FPS) of the grid (didn't get to do any praccy due to the reformatting etc required, finished setting it up all the wheels, teamspeak trackir only 15 mins before qual...).

(I may try turning side screen resolution down further and enabling AA, however didn't see any jaggies due to the increased distance to the screen so might just leave everything as it is now. Even though side screens are 1600x1200 screens, using 1280x1024 has no perceptible difference as the side screens are "distorted angle" / peripheral vision only.)

So my word of advice is, if you're buying a system now with the purpose of SoftTH, AVOID the P35 and GET the X38.

Dual 16x bus is quite obviously a massive boost for SoftTH which makes sense as the 2nd card gets its data across the bus 4 times faster than where your second card is @ 4x multiplier. Not sure how much the quad adds to it but look at this way, I'm running teamspeak, g25 wheel and trackir drivers - these are all separate processes, so quad can't hurt.

A triple rad Laing D5 Watercooling kit is coming my way soon and aim to get the speed up a fair bit from the 3.08 I'm running now. Will report back on LFS performance then.

Final word, as a first impression I'm stoked with having a 24" in the middle at native res and getting the side screens working perfectly with SoftTH. It's not been cheap, but I'm going to spend many, many hours over the next few years enjoying it.

Great work Kegety!

The Maximus is out now?

If what you've said is true, seems like my idea of getting a 6200 for my P5K might not work that well.... :'(