Does STO support or benefit from a PC with an SLI or Crossfire setup?
Yes, both SLI and Crossfire are supported and will use both GPUs. Neither SLI nor Crossfire have received any STO specific optimizations yet, so the game may not make the most use of the resources yet. Nvidia (SLI) and AMD (Crossfire) have to release driver updates to address that issue.
Edit: I have dual 5870's in CrossfireX mode and both GPUs show equal utilization in game, so Crossfire is definately working. And Supersampling Antialiasing becomes usable with Crossfire while a single card has to make due with multisampling or face TRIBBLE FPS. So some kind of boost is happening for sure, maybe just not the best it can be as yet.
Cryptic's stance on SLI and Crossfire is that both work, neither is optimized for STO yet.
since there's not much about the subject on the forums, i'll bump/update with quad x-fire. reports say you have to run in fullscreen (not windowed or windowed fullscreen) for multipul cards to be put underload.. (or just one card will actually render) but i am finding that with both my crossfire (two) 5750's and my quad 5970's all render even in windowed mode.
im not sure what the difference in observations are but for me it works windowed too.
typically i get about 40-60fps on the 5750's maxed game and max quality catalyst settings, depending on space or ground combat, ground combat with dynamic lighting and max lights per object cause a 20-30fps drop during ground combat, and since the latest patch crashing on all 6 of my computers ati and nvidia alike.
the quad x-fire is perma-stuck at 199fps.. not sure why but that's as high as it will go, i sometimes drops below on large fleet action ground combat since the latest patch. but it works and works well.
since my sli computers are all 8800series and older machines, i haven't paid much attention to fps, outside of it just being tested working. i never tried window mode on sli.
since there's not much about the subject on the forums, i'll bump/update with quad x-fire. reports say you have to run in fullscreen (not windowed or windowed fullscreen) for multipul cards to be put underload.. (or just one card will actually render) but i am finding that with both my crossfire (two) 5750's and my quad 5970's all render even in windowed mode.
im not sure what the difference in observations are but for me it works windowed too.
typically i get about 40-60fps on the 5750's maxed game and max quality catalyst settings, depending on space or ground combat, ground combat with dynamic lighting and max lights per object cause a 20-30fps drop during ground combat, and since the latest patch crashing on all 6 of my computers ati and nvidia alike.
the quad x-fire is perma-stuck at 199fps.. not sure why but that's as high as it will go, i sometimes drops below on large fleet action ground combat since the latest patch. but it works and works well.
since my sli computers are all 8800series and older machines, i haven't paid much attention to fps, outside of it just being tested working. i never tried window mode on sli.
I notice you did not mention HOW you're monitoring GPU activity. First off, what you just claimed is physically impossible since Crossfire doesn't work with ANY app in windowed mode. Only a single GPU can render in that mode due to a limitation in Windows itself, not in the cards. SLI also suffers the same limitation. While I cannot be sure about the way a single 5970 works since it uses bridged Crossfire on a single card, it may allow both GPUs on a single card to still render in WIndowed mode, but I know for a fact dual cards CANNOT render in Windowed mode, it's physically impossible.
I highly recommend using a tool like MSI Afterburner to monitor your cards activity with for accurate monitoring.
Comments
Yes, both SLI and Crossfire are supported and will use both GPUs. Neither SLI nor Crossfire have received any STO specific optimizations yet, so the game may not make the most use of the resources yet. Nvidia (SLI) and AMD (Crossfire) have to release driver updates to address that issue.
Edit: I have dual 5870's in CrossfireX mode and both GPUs show equal utilization in game, so Crossfire is definately working. And Supersampling Antialiasing becomes usable with Crossfire while a single card has to make due with multisampling or face TRIBBLE FPS. So some kind of boost is happening for sure, maybe just not the best it can be as yet.
Cryptic's stance on SLI and Crossfire is that both work, neither is optimized for STO yet.
im not sure what the difference in observations are but for me it works windowed too.
typically i get about 40-60fps on the 5750's maxed game and max quality catalyst settings, depending on space or ground combat, ground combat with dynamic lighting and max lights per object cause a 20-30fps drop during ground combat, and since the latest patch crashing on all 6 of my computers ati and nvidia alike.
the quad x-fire is perma-stuck at 199fps.. not sure why but that's as high as it will go, i sometimes drops below on large fleet action ground combat since the latest patch. but it works and works well.
since my sli computers are all 8800series and older machines, i haven't paid much attention to fps, outside of it just being tested working. i never tried window mode on sli.
I notice you did not mention HOW you're monitoring GPU activity. First off, what you just claimed is physically impossible since Crossfire doesn't work with ANY app in windowed mode. Only a single GPU can render in that mode due to a limitation in Windows itself, not in the cards. SLI also suffers the same limitation. While I cannot be sure about the way a single 5970 works since it uses bridged Crossfire on a single card, it may allow both GPUs on a single card to still render in WIndowed mode, but I know for a fact dual cards CANNOT render in Windowed mode, it's physically impossible.
I highly recommend using a tool like MSI Afterburner to monitor your cards activity with for accurate monitoring.