So, I just kinda realized how bad a solution nVidia Surround is for surround gaming. Theirs a lot of things that they are doing wrong.
1. First and Foremost, NOT ENOUGH VRAM. Their card hit the wall in a lot of test, and i would never think of going nVidia until there's a card that has 2GB of VRAM or more. 12MP is a lot to render folks and it still need AA.
--I'm aware of the new 560's with 3GB of VRAM. But I'm sure it's gonna cost out the butt for them. I'm just poor so bleh.
2. It Takes AT LEAST 2 Cards in SLI to work. There are a lot of games that don't like SLI. Basically when SLI doesn't work, it really doesn't work. But when it does, it works well. But it's not gonna work well with a lot of obscure games. On top of that, the frame issue I though up. With having 2 cards, you have to cut each frame after they are rendered and send it to the correct card where then it maybe cut again and sent to the right port. This will create lag as to make sure each monitor is in sync with each other. Dumb. If the card could handle at least 3 monitors per gpu, then the only thing that would be needed is a transfer of the frame and then a clean cut and then out the ports. Done. No real syncing required.
--I'm aware of the 295, but that's not 3 screens per gpu, it's 2 per gpu, but there are two gpu's...DUMB.
3. The lack of different configurations. It's 3 monitors in landscape or portrait. Or 3 projectors in landscape. Or 3 3D monitors in landscape. All require 3 displays. Wtf?
--There's nothing to say about this except that they do allow for a 4 monitor to be extended while on the desktop, not a fullscreen game. DUMB.
So in summary I want nVidia to get serious about surround on their next GPU line. Make 2GB the baseline, allow for more display lanes per GPU, and Allow for more display configurations. (I mean why cant we have 2 screens?)
Rant over. Questions? Comments?
Having used Matrox TH2G, NVIDIA Surround, SoftTH and AMD Eyefinity I agree with your overall assessment. NVIDIA simply doesn't get surround-screen gaming. They implemented it to combat Eyefinity, not to meet a need of users -- which is the wrong mindset to go into feature development. What is sickening is that way back when the TH2G first debuted a half-decade ago NVIDIA dominated the triple-screen gaming market for years thanks to Matrox exclusivity. It took AMD cashing in on it before NVIDIA could get their head out of the sand and realize there was money to be made.
1. We all know how much ram can make a difference with large multi-screen resolutions. Just casual observation between my GTX260 and GTX470 surround rigs showed me how much video ram can choke up a system.
2. NVIDIA simply doesn't get it when it comes to the cost of entry into surround-screen. AMD has a bit of an issue with that too, but it's mostly to do with their self-described "legacy" ports. In order for surround-screen to gain any traction in the market, it needs to run off a single card and not be required to purchase any excess adapters. AMD only half understands that and NVIDIA doesn't understand that at all -- to the point of forcing two-card solutions. This will continue to be an issue on both sides of the fence until DP 1.2 gains traction in the display and projector market and every single product ships with it by default. I don't see that happening for another 2-5 years.
3. This goes back to my initial statement -- NVIDIA simply doesn't understand the surround-gaming market. No dual-display or quad-display options either? Totally forget about 3x2 or 5x1 outright. Triple-screen is not the end-all-be-all of surround-screen gaming. NVIDIA Surround is so dumbed down as to be crippled compared to Eyefinity configuration offerings.
Having direct dealings with both NVIDIA and AMD -- it's like night and day with how they interact with people. NVIDIA doesn't want your input or ideas as they claim they might inadvertently steal them and don't want the legal liability. AMD, on the other hand, openly asks for input on surround-screen and seeks out partners to help better flesh out the feature set. I just have to shake my head and wonder -- AMD and NVIDIA are really at polar opposites as far as how they deal with development.
I'm not so sure it's an NVIDIA initiated occurrence, but I saw at CES 2011 several prototypes that implement DP1.2 into 500-series cards. I saw NVIDIA cards with DP 1.2 from Palit, EVGA and Zotac. The problem is, despite how many DP 1.2 ports a card has, NVIDIA Surround is still hard coded at the driver level to require SLI and two cards for just 3x1 only.
Just where is the innovation and vision when it comes to NVIDIA and surround? I sum it up as too little, too late and too expensive. An optimist might look at the current feature set and think NVIDIA has a lot of room to add new goodies in the future, but frankly I think 3x1 SLI is going to be their frozen feature-set for the foreseeable future. Frankly the only thing I see that NVIDIA does better than AMD with surround is being able to span multiple ports between cards to do surround - even then it's a very fixed and static configuration.
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