Palit NVIDIA GTX460 in Surround: 1GB vs. 2GB - Need For Speed: Shift

Genre: Racing
Surround Support: Excellent

Data was taken from a three lap race on Alpenal, with 9 opponents, starting from the last place on the grid. All settings at maximum, resolution and AA varied.

Here is an interesting situation that draws questions about how NVIDIA handle their bezel correction algorithm, and how it actually functions. Non-bezel corrected Surround is playable, while bezel corrected Surround is not. Any anti-aliasing at Surround resolutions results in a slideshow. The framerate impact of bezel correction is in the order of 20-25% of the fps, while the actual resolution increase is only 5%. Is this a situation similar to GRID, where bezel correction actually causes the game to crash on loading? Well, it’s obviously not causing a crash, but bezel correction is having an impact somewhere in the background that we can’t see.

With the 2GB cards, the bezel correction framerate impact is still evident, but framerates are actually playable. Even 6064x1200 4xAA was easy to race, although I would pick 0xAA myself for those extra few fps which might make a difference. If able to play without bezel correction in Need for Speed: Shift, do so as it saves a fair few frames per second from vanishing into the ether.

Another extremely VRAM hungry game at Surround resolutions…