News from nVidia re: Widescreen monitor concerns

[nRollo]

Some non SLI users apparent great concern for the widescreen SLI issue prompted me to email my ol' buddy at nVidia about the situation.

He said they are most concerned about it as well, and that they have a new driver release candidate entering the final stages of testing that will be released soon to address it.

Hopefully that will put the matter to rest.

Thought you'd want to know.

 

[darkswordsman17]

No offense, but I'll believe it when I see it. Pity its too little too late for me, I've given up on SLI after not being able to resolve the issue with it and my 2405FPW.

Hopefully this will be more than Purevideo and they won't make people using SLI have to buy the damn thing in order for it to work.

Sorry if I sound negative, but there've been so many false promises from both nVidia and ATi in the last year that I only care when I see actual results and not more promises.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
No offense, but I'll believe it when I see it. Pity its too little too late for me, I've given up on SLI after not being able to resolve the issue with it and my 2405FPW.

Hopefully this will be more than Purevideo and they won't make people using SLI have to buy the damn thing in order for it to work.

Sorry if I sound negative, but there've been so many false promises from both nVidia and ATi in the last year that I only care when I see actual results and not more promises.

That's fine, the people at nVidia just want you to know they are close to a solution.

IMO they've worked VERY fast on SLI issues- the list of officially supported games is huge, there have been many fixes, and for a lot of us, SLI never really had any issues.

Sorry your monitor choice made you one, but even at that you could have run your games that support widescreen at a "normal" aspect ratio until the fix came out? How many do you have anyway?

 

[Megatomic]

This is just like the PVP situation last year Rollo. Your buddy made the same claim then and how did that pan out? Sorry, but I remain a skeptic. I hope to go SLI when I make my next big upgrade, I fervently hope that NV has this all worked out by then (next spring).

 

[darkswordsman17]

I only had one. I got the bouncing screen when playing games, and that was after having to come up with a solution for it to use DVI at all.

I do thank you for helping to aid the effort though, Rollo.

Its not just nVidia I'm kinda sick of with the promises, as ATi is as bad if not worse with their hardware "launches".

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
This is just like the PVP situation last year Rollo. Your buddy made the same claim then and how did that pan out? Sorry, but I remain a skeptic. I hope to go SLI when I make my next big upgrade, I fervently hope that NV has this all worked out by then (next spring).

You are correct, they gave me the Purevideo whitepapers last year, but not the chart of supported products. I honestly believe they were trying up until the second NDA elapsing that they were doing their best to implement some sort of shader workaround like ATI uses for this.

As for this, whether their "fix" is for all games or HL2, beats me. I'm just passing on what he told me because some seem concerned nV is "ignoring" the problem.

When you look at DarkSwordsmans reply I have to wonder why a person would deny themselves the amazing gaming experience that SLI provides just because they have one game they can't run widescreen SLI accelerated? Bearing in mind you can run it normal aspect ratio, on a single card, or just wait for the fix?!?!?!

I'm a gamer and can tell you I'd trade my left nut for this level of performance. Can you imagine what it's like to start with 16X12 4X8X as your minimum setting?

I would own this if it meant that I couldn't play Half Life 2 at f***ing all, not just having to make the choice to run it great on a single 6800GT (for now) or SLId in 12X10 or 16X12.

How people make a big deal of this is beyond me.....

 

[n yusef]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Megatomic
This is just like the PVP situation last year Rollo. Your buddy made the same claim then and how did that pan out? Sorry, but I remain a skeptic. I hope to go SLI when I make my next big upgrade, I fervently hope that NV has this all worked out by then (next spring).

You are correct, they gave me the Purevideo whitepapers last year, but not the chart of supported products. I honestly believe they were trying up until the second NDA elapsing that they were doing their best to implement some sort of shader workaround like ATI uses for this.

As for this, whether their "fix" is for all games or HL2, beats me. I'm just passing on what he told me because some seem concerned nV is "ignoring" the problem.

When you look at DarkSwordsmans reply I have to wonder why a person would deny themselves the amazing gaming experience that SLI provides just because they have one game they can't run widescreen SLI accelerated? Bearing in mind you can run it normal aspect ratio, on a single card, or just wait for the fix?!?!?!

I'm a gamer and can tell you I'd trade my left nut for this level of performance. Can you imagine what it's like to start with 16X12 4X8X as your minimum setting?

I would own this if it meant that I couldn't play Half Life 2 at f***ing all, not just having to make the choice to run it great on a single 6800GT (for now) or SLId in 12X10 or 16X12.

How people make a big deal of this is beyond me.....

Rollo, I think most people don't want to spend $800 on video, so they can feel stupid for buying a $1200 monitor, instead of a $750 one (Dell 2001). There are other games that support widescreen, not just HL2. UT2004, WoW, Doom3 with a registy hack, and many more. Most people don't spend an extra $400 (6800GT) to get black bars at the edges of the screen. If widescreen monitors were low-end (and SLI was still insanely expensive), then nobody would have any complaints. The fact that both SLI, and something like a Dell 2405FPW are both for people with fat wallets means that this shouldn't be such an issue.

 

[nRollo]

BTW- my rant above was in no way directed at Darkswordsman, more a general "what the heck" rant about why this is such a big deal to people.

I guess to me the speed/IQ is worth the bars till they fix it. Happily, I don't have to worry.

<hugs FE2111SB>

 

[darkswordsman17]

I thought you were asking how many monitors I had, not games. It happened with all games, if I could get them to launch correctly at all. Doom 3 would crash and Far Cry wasn't running quite correctly either.

I know that there's not a large number of people who have widescreen LCDs, but they're going to become popular and are already.

I admit it would be nice to have the power handy. I definitely would have liked being able to game at 1920x1200 with 4xAA 8xAF. There's just too much in the way of it though. The cost alone is more than enough to keep me from the experience. Hopefully both ATi and nVidia will make nice strides with their next efforts in multi-card solutions.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
I thought you were asking how many monitors I had, not games. It happened with all games, if I could get them to launch correctly at all. Doom 3 would crash and Far Cry wasn't running quite correctly either.

I know that there's not a large number of people who have widescreen LCDs, but they're going to become popular and are already.

I admit it would be nice to have the power handy. I definitely would have liked being able to game at 1920x1200 with 4xAA 8xAF. There's just too much in the way of it though. The cost alone is more than enough to keep me from the experience. Hopefully both ATi and nVidia will make nice strides with their next efforts in multi-card solutions.

I don't think you'll see any strides in the cost- no one has any reason to sell cards "2 for 1"? If they did, everyone would just buy two and sell the second.

 

[darkswordsman17]

No, but if they could get it to work more smoothly and make it be able to support 4 monitors without it the computer having to be restarted would make it quite a bit better.

Also, if ATi had their solution out, it might have been feasible to run dual X800XLs. Running two of them would cost roughly the same as a single 6800Ultra PCI-e or X850XT PE, and should be able to outperform them. Its very easy to find one for $275 or so these days.

Maybe if the 6800GTs fall to $250 or lower, I might think about getting SLI again (and now that I won't have a widescreen LCD should help things as well).

All the same, I'm kinda bitter about their promises. Purevideo wasn't what it should have been (still doesn't work quite right, but now they can point to it being Microsoft's fault with WMP), and the issues that still plagued SLI whenever I used it (months after it had been released). Maybe if nVidia had come out with new Personal Cinema cards and put the PVP on them only, it might not have made gamers feel like they were paying for something they didn't need.

All I know, is that whoever has the card which actually performs better next time will be getting my money. I'm gonna try to make it a point not to purchase another card that promised something it couldn't deliver, whether that is a feature, or being released on time. I definitely have no allegiance to either company. Lets hope this extended cycle is going to pay off with better R&D and more polished products coming out of the gate. I don't think anybody would mind it being 1.5 years between major card updates (especially when no new games have really come out to take advantage of them), especially if that means better products when they come out.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Rollo
BTW- my rant above was in no way directed at Darkswordsman, more a general "what the heck" rant about why this is such a big deal to people.

I guess to me the speed/IQ is worth the bars till they fix it. Happily, I don't have to worry.

hugs FE2111SB

Rollo, isn't that sort of the reason why you don't see the widescreen problem as a problem? You're running a huge CRT which allows you to make full use of SLI at the highest resolutions. Those of us who want to move to LCD and still enjoy the high resolutions at which SLI really shines are further limited in choices by the SLI widescreen bug.

If I'm going to plunk down money on a new LCD that's going to get the most out of my new SLI rig, my choices only really start with LCDs with native resolutions above 1280 x 1024. That means a minimum size display of 20" (not 19"). The list of 20" non-widescreen LCD displays suitable for gaming sort of begins and ends with the Dell 2001FP. It's a nice monitor, but, assuming money is no object (and at this level it pretty much isn't), I'd much rather go with the newer technology in the Dell 2005 (1680x1050) or Dell 2405 (1920x1200) both of which are, of course, widescren monitors. And since I'm willing to spend the money to get those resolutions, I should also be able to make use of the widescreen features even if I"m running SLI.

I'm not trying to start a flame-war with you Rollo, but I don't share your view that this is not a real problem. It's a big problem and shame on Nvidia for not advising purchasers of their SLI-capable GPUs that they will not be able to run in widescreen with a digital output. The problem has been reported since December and Nvidia has done nothing about it except continue to promise it will be solved with each new patch.

Well, it hasn't been solved and I don't hold out much hope that it will be any time soon until ATI's multi card solution hits the marketplace.

I've already made the commitment to Nvidia SLI, now I want Nvidia to respond in kind.

 

[dworley]

Rollo,

It would be helpful to know what version is being tested so that if it leaks out we know which one to try ;-)

I was an early adopter of SLI (December 04) and paid over retail for many of the components. I also specifically purchased a new Dell 2005FPW to use with this setup and an FX-55 CPU - so you can imagine my frustration in waiting for a fix!

I also have alot of time invested as well as money testing practically every driver that has been released or leaked, hoping for that elusive fix! Finally there is a glimmer of hope as the x64 76.71 drivers seemed to resolve the problem. (I had to re-do my entire box with Windows x64 edition just to try this driver.)

This "jittery" screen issue is not just a problem with DVI Widescreen monitors, I also have a Sony 17" Widescreen analog monitor that I have tested and it exhibits the same problems. In addition whenever I launch a game after the monitor was in standby the game hangs (CS:S or HL2). After a reboot it launches OK. There is also an issue with enabling VSYNC in games with SLI - without SLI enabled I can run VSYNC to eliminate tearing which is very noticeable on a Widescreen LCD monitor!

I have posted my symptoms and workarounds on just about every tech forum hoping NVIDIA would at least respond, or put out some update that they were aware of this problem. For several months now there was no official response which is totally unnaceptable!

I for one will likely switch back to ATI for the next generation and have already mothballed my SLI rig and used the parts in two new AMD PCI-E Shuttles.

I am getting close to parting out the rest of my SLI rig and completely giving up - It would be nice to see an OFFICIAL response from Nvidia that they are addressing this problem instead of unoficially leaking info through third parties.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
I'm not trying to start a flame-war with you Rollo, but I don't share your view that this is not a real problem. It's a big problem and shame on Nvidia for not advising purchasers of their SLI-capable GPUs that they will not be able to run in widescreen with a digital output. The problem has been reported since December and Nvidia has done nothing about it except continue to promise it will be solved with each new patch.

Well, it hasn't been solved and I don't hold out much hope that it will be any time soon until ATI's multi card solution hits the marketplace.

I've already made the commitment to Nvidia SLI, now I want Nvidia to respond in kind.

It's ON! You don't want war, but I'm bringing it! Yeeeeaaarggg!



I can appreciate your position, if I wasn't pretty darn happy with the picture my monitor puts in front of me, I'd be considering the 20" WS LCDs as well.

My only comment is this:
If they're telling me, it's got to be close. I don't get info about stuff that's not about out the door, the only time I ever did was with the Pure Video, and I still think they were scrambling to try and make it as right as they could.

It serves nVs interests to address this, because with this out of the way, what stops them from selling SLI? No Win2K support? I really do think you'll see something soon on this.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: dworley
Rollo,

It would be helpful to know what version is being tested so that if it leaks out we know which one to try ;-)

I was an early adopter of SLI (December 04) and paid over retail for many of the components. I also specifically purchased a new Dell 2005FPW to use with this setup and an FX-55 CPU - so you can imagine my frustration in waiting for a fix!

I also have alot of time invested as well as money testing practically every driver that has been released or leaked, hoping for that elusive fix! Finally there is a glimmer of hope as the x64 76.71 drivers seemed to resolve the problem. (I had to re-do my entire box with Windows x64 edition just to try this driver.)

This "jittery" screen issue is not just a problem with DVI Widescreen monitors, I also have a Sony 17" Widescreen analog monitor that I have tested and it exhibits the same problems. In addition whenever I launch a game after the monitor was in standby the game hangs (CS:S or HL2). After a reboot it launches OK. There is also an issue with enabling VSYNC in games with SLI - without SLI enabled I can run VSYNC to eliminate tearing which is very noticeable on a Widescreen LCD monitor!

I have posted my symptoms and workarounds on just about every tech forum hoping NVIDIA would at least respond, or put out some update that they were aware of this problem. For several months now there was no official response which is totally unnaceptable!

I for one will likely switch back to ATI for the next generation and have already mothballed my SLI rig and used the parts in two new AMD PCI-E Shuttles.

I am getting close to parting out the rest of my SLI rig and completely giving up - It would be nice to see an OFFICIAL response from Nvidia that they are addressing this problem instead of unoficially leaking info through third parties.

Dworley:
For you I have questions and a comment or two:

What is "the jittery screen issue"? I have not seen this?

It hangs launching games after the monitor has been in standby? I've never experienced this? In any case, I don't view this as the end of the world.

I guess I don't use/need V-synch, so I can't comment on that.

As far as the official response goes, sorry, I'm just a gamer like you. I posted because I thought people like you would be interested to know, and my buddy said I could if I wanted to.

 

[darkswordsman17]

The jittery screen is the same thing I experience, where the the image bounces up and down (not sure if you ever saw the PS1 do this back a good while ago, but it does the same thing as that). Its annoying to say the least.

When your computer goes into standby, it locks up if SLI is enabled. You then have to restart the computer. Its another pain. I'd actually say this is a bigger problem than the widescreen DVI issue.

 

[Woofmeister]

I just have to mention that Nvidia's current "SLI Rig of the Month" features a FREAKIN' WIDESCREEN MONITOR! :disgust:

This is getting ridiculous!

Hey Nvidia, either fix the widescreen SLI problem or disclose it but stop pretending it doesn't exist!

 

[Ackmed]

This isnt new news. They've already said they are working on it.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
This isnt new news. They've already said they are working on it.

Er, Ackmed, did you read my prior post:

I'm not trying to start a flame-war with you Rollo, but I don't share your view that this is not a real problem. It's a big problem and shame on Nvidia for not advising purchasers of their SLI-capable GPUs that they will not be able to run in widescreen with a digital output. The problem has been reported since December and Nvidia has done nothing about it except continue to promise it will be solved with each new patch.

You're right though, it's not "new news," it's very much "old news" and that's why its uncouncionable for Nvidia to provide an exemplar of an SLI rig that uses a widescreen LCD.

BTW Ackmed, your rig is absolutely amazing!

 

[Ackmed]

Sorry, my post was directed to the first post, not yours.

A NV Employee posted at their forusm several weeks ago, that they are working on it. (like they wouldnt be, not news in itself). And Hard posted about the issue on the front page; http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTM2NjEsTWF5ICAgICAgLDIwMDU=

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
I just have to mention that Nvidia's current "SLI Rig of the Month" features a FREAKIN' WIDESCREEN MONITOR! :disgust:

This is getting ridiculous!

Hey Nvidia, either fix the widescreen SLI problem or disclose it but stop pretending it doesn't exist!

That is lame. Notice, though, that they only say he achieves 140 FPS on Doom 3 at 1600 X 1200. My favorite part is where the author drools over his (count 'em) 16 MB of ECC RAM! (It's specified correctly later on in the page, but still.)

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
This isnt new news. They've already said they are working on it.

Sorry to bother you with it Ackmed, although since you don't have SLI I don't know why you care.

A nVidia staffer emailed me and said they're putting the final tweaks into their fix for this issue.

IMO, that's more "newsworthy" than you posting about the problem all day long on multiple websites when you don't even have the hardware?

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Sorry to bother you with it Ackmed, although since you don't have SLI I don't know why you care.

I dont have it mainly because of this very issue.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: Rollo

Sorry to bother you with it Ackmed, although since you don't have SLI I don't know why you care.

I dont have it mainly because of this very issue.

Really? Then I'd think you'd be interested in an actual nVidia staffer e-mailing me on 5/5/2005 than to tell me it's about fixed?

 

[Ackmed]

First off, I have never made a topic saying that it wasnt fixed. I have commented in topics already created that its not fixed. Its not the same.

I dont care if you made a new post, was just telling you that its not new news. I was not rude about it.

You took a pot shot at some people, probably me being one. With "Some non SLI users apparent great concern for the widescreen SLI issue", as if we dont have a right to have concerns about it. If something was not working right, and would really hurt your gameplay, would you get it? No, and neither did I. I have a SLI ready mobo, and SLI ready PSU, and if they ever fix this issue, if the price/timing is right, I will gladly go SLI. However, since its not fixed today, I have not.

Do you think the rolleyes icon makes anyone take you more seriously?