Rumour: DirectX 12 will allow use of both GeForce and Radeon GPUs in SLI
According to a report on respected hardware site Tom’s Hardware Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX 12 is reportedly able to support multiple GPUs across different architectures - meaning users can utilize both Geforce and Radeon GPUs in an SLI setup, without any conflict. DirectX 12 will provide new asynchronous SLI capabilities that will should SLI setups to work more efficiently thanks to Split Frame Rendering.
First and foremost, the new DirectX refresh will cut down the barrier of incompatibility between the two GPU manufacturer giants of both Nvidia and AMD. “We were also told that DirectX 12 will support all of this across multiple GPU architectures, simultaneously,” said Tom’s Hardware. “What this means is that Nvidia GeForce GPUs will be able to work in tandem with AMD Radeon GPUs to render the same game – the same frame, even.”
But as with any new technology, there’s a catch. “Lots of the optimization work for the spreading of workloads is left to the developers – the game studios.” Tom’s Hardware explain. “The same went for older APIs, though, and DirectX 12 is intended to be much friendlier. For advanced uses it may be a bit tricky, but according to the source, implementing the SFR should be a relatively simple and painless process for most developers.”
SFR, otherwise known as Split Frame Rendering, is another gift from DirectX 12, which has even more gains for SLI users. The tech will effectively combine all your graphical resources into one, and handing the reins over to the game developer to dictate those resources in any way they wish.
Previously (and presently), multi-GPU setups work by rendering alternate frames together. This unfortunately means that both GPUs need to use their entire memory pool as a frame buffer, which is why if you stick two 4GB cards together, you only still get 4GB of memory to play with. And with the ever increasing GPU memory requirements of games today, that sucks.
SFR will change that however, and more. It gives each GPU a specific portion of the screen to work on, which is divided evenly between the number of GPUs you have in your system; your SLI will effectively become one giant GPU. This means that again, developers will have more control over how resources are dictated and executed.
Of course, this revelation comes from an unverified source which has chosen to remain anonymous, so take all of this with a hefty pinch of salt. We’ll know more come GDC, which begins on Monday.
Would this mean I could put my 470s back in to boost my 980?
Nope, still not going to use more than one card.
it is actually a fairly decent performance boost down the road, I originally got a GTX470 when they first came out, a year or so later I saw one refurbished for £50, it got me all the way to the 980 and even then I didn't really feel I needed to upgrade the 2 470's did well enough just the 1.5gig of memory was getting low.
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so really if you use the same theory of picking up a refurbished card for peanuts a while down the road it will make this even more viable, but as for people who buy 2 or 3 cards all at the same time when they get the PC, that is just throwing money away as your either having way more power than you will ever use or sacrificing a much higher single card in favor of multiple weaker ones.
That's fair enough. :)
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I won my Titan in a PCGamer/ZooStorm competition, so I appreciate I'm one of the 1% when it come to gaming*.
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* Actually, 2.63% according to Steam Stats (GTX780+/Radeon200+).
yeah finding a titan cheap may be pushing it, but with most cards it normally is possible when you get another generation out and they are trying to clear out stock, but even then if you are only putting it in as a second card even second hand wouldn't matter much if it was cheap as even if it failed after a year or so you would still have at least the first card, it's the only reason I went for a £50 refurb as I knew end of the day I still had one good card that shouldn't go anywhere.
i was hoping this meant that all games will support sli.