Current state of nVidia (3D) surround?

[Remko]

When I built my new system some months ago (specs in my sig), I planned for a future enhancement with a 3 screen setup, and with 3D if possible as well. So I already have a 3D capable 24" screen.

At the time the nVidia drivers were only in Beta state, and I decided to hold off, also because of the extra expense.

So what is the current state?

• is anyone successfully using 3D surround yet
• what's the performance penalty to be expected
• are nVidia's drivers mature yet in this area
• does it require DX10 or can it still run in DX9
• as this requires two cards in SLI, does this cause any issues (I know it used to but is that still the case with the latest drivers)
• from a user point of view, is the 3D a great feature you continue to use, or did you revert back to 2D after the novelty had worn off

Thanks in advance

Remko

[Hotspot]

Hullo Remko,

Having fitted two nvidia cards to an SLI board running in surround 2D (no interest in 3D), I tried performance with two cards first on one 22" screen which was 'smooth as' with no tweaks;  then two cards on 3X22 screens, finding no drop in fps but stuttery instead of smooth.

I was able to tweak the cfg to give smooth performance by working thru the bufferpools alternatives, in the finish finding that BP=0 gave smooth performance but a few flashes, which disappeared with the BP=126etc, which is the best I've had with FSX/ORBX.

Drivers are the latest from the nvidia website and my CPU is an i7 975X  @ 4.2 with W7 OS and FSX on separate SSD's.

Sorry I can't help with 3d info.

[Remko]

Thanks Bill - that is encouraging. Are you using DX9 or DX10 with that setup?

I've not done too many tweaks to date, as I prefer flying and my current setup is smooth enough for me. Would you be able to provide me with a link on the "BP=126etc" info?

Any one else any experience with this (Surround, 3D optional)?

Cheers

Remko

[Hotspot]

Hi Remko,

I only use DX9 - there are many threads on the 'Bufferpools' tweaks which can be accessed by  searches on 'Bufferpools' or 'Reject Threshold' and studied at your leisure

- beware of addiction!!

Here's a couple:

http://forums1.avsim.net/topic/281538-the-bp0-conclusions/

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=24610.msg209332#msg209332

Here also is a copy of the relevant part of my cfg file - you can see by appropriate manipulation of numbers and //, I can quickly experiment with each setting:

[bufferPools]

//UsePools=0

RejectThreshold=126976  //524288 //262144  //126976 //98304

At the moment this is configured to use 126976, but can be changed to any of the others quickly.

My aim is to get away from tweaks, but some are quite handy while waiting for technology to catch up with programming, after all it is only a few years since FSX arrived on the scene and we may even have the hardware  to drive it properly by the end of next year!! 

[Wolter van der Spoel]

to add and give some idea as to what the numbers stand for the following :

RejectThreshold=xxxxxxx

768kb =768432

512Kb = 524288

256Kb = 262144

124Kb = 126976

96Kb = 98304

needs some experimenting to determine with wich number your system runs best