nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding

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• ajmiles - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

  If i was a doubting type I would suggest that Nvidia spent as much time tuning their drivers for benchmarks as they do games.
  
  Nice to see support for some unreleased games such as Battlefield 2 on the list though.
  
  Wesley, you get my email btw? (sorry for bugging you)?

• Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

  nVidia has just advised the release of Beta 71.84 drivers now supporting 70 games in SLI. The drivers can be downloaded at http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70b... Below is a list of suypported games and benchmarks.
  
  Age of Mythology
  AquaNox 2: Revelation
  Armed & Dangerous
  Battlefield 1942
  Battlefield 2
  Battlefield Vietnam
  Breed
  City of Heroes
  Colin McRae Rally 2005
  Colin McRae Rally 4
  Conan
  Dark Age of Camelot: Atlantis
  Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps
  Dirt Track Racing 2
  Doom 3
  EverQuest
  EverQuest II
  Far Cry
  Flat Out
  Ground Control II : Operation Exodus
  Half-Life 2
  Halo
  Hitman 2
  IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
  Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising
  Kohan II: Kings of War
  Leisure Suit Larry
  Lineage II
  Lock On
  Lord of the Rings, Battle for Middle-earth
  Madden NFL 2005
  Max Payne 2
  Medal of Honor
  NBA Live 2005
  Need for Speed: Underground 2
  Painkiller
  Perimeter
  Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  Quake III
  Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
  Return to Castle Wolfenstien
  Rome: Total War
  Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
  Sid Meier's Pirates!
  Silent Storm
  Sims 2
  SpellForce
  Splinter Cell
  Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  Star Wars Battlefront
  Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
  Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
  Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic
  SWAT 4
  The Chronicles of Riddick
  Thief: Deadly Shadows
  Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005
  ToCA Race Driver 2
  Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
  Tony Hawk's Underground
  Tribes Vengeance
  Tron 2.0
  Unreal
  Unreal 2
  Unreal Tournament 2003
  Unreal Tournament 2004
  Vampire: Bloodlines
  Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
  World of Warcraft
  X2: the Threat
  Xpand Rally
  
  
  In addition to these top games, NVIDIA SLI supports the following applications:
  
  3DMark01
  3DMark03
  3DMark05
  AquaMark 3
  Code Creatures
  D3DRightMark
  HDRLighting
  NVIDIA Clear Sailing Demo
  NVIDIA Dawn Demo
  NVIDIA Nalu Demo
  NVIDIA Timbury Demo
  PCMark04
  Shadermark 2.1
  Trees of Pangaea
  
  

• giz02 - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

  I've done some further testing, and still no luck. The PCStats review also indicated 192Khz output, but I can't find that either. I'm still hoping for something, and will let you guys know if anything comes up.
  
  Other points:
  + The onboard Creative can attenuate the digital outputs just like a regular live could. Most onboard solutions that i have used could not
  
  - Cannot have Analog and Digital outs enabled at the same time (at least I haven't found that yet). All other onboard solutions that I have tried were able to do this. An example of what I'd like to do (ideally) is have my Zalman Real Surround headphones plugged in to the analog ports, and the z5500's plugged into the digital (coax/optical). When the GF complains, I could turn the z5500's off, and put on the headphones. With creative you do this BUT you also have to uncheck the digital out only box. If they can bot h be enabled at the same time, let me know (Y)
  
  - Either the Z5500's can't accept 96/24 on the optical in, or the creative isn't outputting 96/24 on the optical out.
  
  - Only Coax or Optical work at one time (with the Z5500's)
  
  - DD and DTS passthroughs work with Videolan and DVD's/.ts's.
  
  I'll try this board for a while longer, but if encode will not work, I'll be heading to DFI. It's a bit more expensive, but you get the Lan Tote (woohhoo!) and the extra PCIx slots. Anyone have any comments on DFI's onboard sound?
  
  
  

• EODetroit - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

  Thanks giz02. One of these days some manufacturer is going to realize there's demand for this and meet it... I just hope that day comes sooner than later.
  

• SLK75 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  I bought the GA-K8NXP-9 because fo the rave reviews on its OC abilities which Anandtech also proved in their pre-production sample reviewed towards the end of last year...All of a sudden now Gigabyte's production version of the board does not seem to clock high as was expected and proved previously WHYYYY ???? and Anandtech make it really clear to Gigabyte that people went and bought their board not only first its great features but also for its OC capabilities...I hope Gigabyte can address this with a new BIOS

• giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  I feel DUPED by that PCSTATS review. I've asked the reviewer for why he indicated that the board can DICE (either how to do it, or who told him it was possible).
  
  The board is .... OK...
  
  I'da rather had the DFI (if DICE is not possible!)

• Aquila76 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  #89 - looks like we'll both still wait for the next SoundStorm. Maybe the next gen of PCI-E sound cards will have DDL?

• bob661 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  #89
  Thanks for the test.

• giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  So far, It's a negative on the DICE :(
  
  I have a single coax cable connected from the onboard card to my Z-5500's and they are not recieving Dolby on the speaker tests. Left and Right channels come through but that is is... 96-24 is working as well, but zilch on the 5.1 :(

• 1955mm - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

  #87: AMD has NOT made it clear that ECC is an Opteron only feature. Read the document from the link I posted. As for ASUS not supporting ECC, download the manual and look at pages 4-21 and 4-22. In the screenshot for DRAM configuration there is an item for ECC enablement. The ASUS K8N-E deluxe (socket 754) also supports ECC. If you still have doubts that the Athlon 64 supports ECC, go to crucial.com and see what memory is supported by the ASUS K8N-E deluxe and A8N-SLI deluxe. I think that you might be confusing registered memory with ECC. If you write code work with critical data ECC is worth having. I have had bad memory in the past that corrupted data without crashing the machine. Considering misinformation that is sometimes provided by motherboard manufacturers and your obvious confusion about the Athlon 64, I think that ECC deserves some mention by motherboard reviewers. I myself would like to understand why the A8N-SLI apparently supports 4 256MB ECC memory modules but not 2 512MB ECC memory modules (page 2-12 in manual), Wesley?