ATi 3870x2

Im just curious if anyone is using one of these mentioned in title.. how do they fair running SL, probs n such? debating on getting one for my other pc. and plz no.. nividia is better blah blah blah.. im using evga right now.. dont need to preach to the chior. just need opinions



edit: and possible the new 4850 series too if possible.. thnx again

Does it run well, no, and I guess I will refrain telling you ATI is blacklisted and blah, blah, blah Seriously, it's now god awful, I can choose between low and medium video card settings, I suppose I crash as much as the next guy. Aside from that I am way above spec for the mins to run the client. And for the past year all was well, until Windlight. It's not that nVidia is better, it's that it clearly says in many lists that ATI just isn't supported by SL. Is it better? Not necessarily, but why would you intentionally buy an unsupported video driver if you know it's not compatable?

The 3870 and 4870 are very powerful video cards.

At this point in time, SL is really only optimized to run on nVidia hardware, but it still runs on ATI hardware.

If you play games other than SL, ATI is a good choice (not a better choice than nVidia, but a good choice). If you are buying it only for SL, then I'd suggest nVidia, merely due to Linden Labs not taking the time to optimize for the other major GPU manufacturer.

im using it for lots of differnt uses.. just something high/midrange.. and this seemed to do the trick on paper anyways.. just wanted others opinion instead of what they want ya to know.. i got a 9800gtx right now.. works fine with SL besides the normal lag we exp in SL.

Well i got my cards in today.. hooked em up, "spider platform" and guess what.. the 3870x2 run smoooooth.. using drivers vers 8.6, not one glitch.. windlight and all work just fine.. so i must say Ati is just fine with SL, and i might say that one 3870x2 is stomping my other comp with the 9800gtx in frame rates so far on sl in a medium populated area on ultra high.. hiting around 40 fps, guess i awnsered my own question ..

i dont think SL was optimized to run solely on nvidia as some suggested, its optimized for open GL, nvidia happens to have the advantage there, since they are not constantly banging their heads to make some screwball systems to gain a benchmark point or 2 in pc magazine (15 bit color, 12-18-24 bit z buffers ect)

ever since the 64 bit days ati has been coming up with screwball schemes to improve performance and visual quality while lacking in their actual hardware execution, which for the most part is fine, but you do run into some programs (like SL) that just wont deal with it

for what its worth, eventho i dont have an ati card past a 9550, ive never had any issue with SL and ati cards to date, nor any other programs

out of all the people running ati video, in their laptops, in their macs, in whatever only a small percentage of them have trouble with it ... eventho as a tech support issue ati cards out rank nvidia cards

yes i avoid them, cause one day it MIGHT bite me in the ..., but im also abit of a nvidia fanboy, usually i find ati graphics to be a tad grainey or blocky, mostly in the old cards tho

i have absolutely no problem with them, altho i would suggest using nvida to lessen your chance of a headace

i dont think SL was optimized to run solely on either..just favors a "lil" bit to one side,lol.. but im not a fanboy of either..i like both brands.. but if me owning more Ati/amd products make me a Amd/ati fanboy, so be it .. Ati seem to finally pulling out of this stump they have been in for awhile.. im rooting for em..esp since im building up a spider platform.. waiting on a new MoBo now..and a Psu.. i wont even say anything about a PSU..ive seen those post,lol..but from what i read so far the new GC's are doing great,, this 3870x2 run great as mentioned. i got to comps right here in front of me though so if my amd setup goes boom.. i turn to the left and bang.. nvidia setup..lol.. even though my spider is a bit faster.

Wow, how do you do that? I have a 3870X2 hooked to a 3870 in Crossfire and can't get past 10-12 FPS in medium populated areas. Cat 8.6, custom settings (between high and ultra), Phenom 9600, 8 GB DDR2-800, Vista Ultimate x64.

Turn Xfire off for one....SL doesnt support Sli nor Xfire at this moment..other than that i dont know.. checkyour drivers might reinstall them.. or such...in a busy busy area at high/ultra my fps drop down to high 20s to mid 30s.. all previous test with FPS were donw with about 10 or so people..but u still encounter network lag though...my 4870 does about the same..but the 4870 has immature drivers right now and will get better n time.. but there is allways the conspiracy agaisnt SL and Ati too...


here is a link ot a pic of it...http://s349.photobucket.com/albums/q387/shegotlockjaw/?action=view&current=Slfpssnapshot_002.jpg

Turning off Crossfire didn't help much, if at all. I dunno... VBO off, texture mem to 1024, antialiasing and anisotropic off, etc.

Try turning your texture memory allocation to half, what ram you have on your card. That can actually improve things. It is half the reason some have bad experiences when they use a GC welded to a MB and SL reports they have 1024mb available, whereas in reality, they probably only have 64kb or less. You need some ram space to render prim facets etc.

2 years ago ATI ruled, nVidia had driver issues, but then they did a smart thing thankfully for us SL users, they upgraded their OpenGL drivers and pipelines, ATI did not. In SL nVidia rules, maybe recently they (ATi) have focued more on the OpenGL platforms (not many about) with their drivers and especially the Vertex Buffer pipelines. Both ATI and nVidia are fighting it out over the new DirectX 10, but for the past 2 years, it has been a one horse race for OpenGL.