GeForce + Radeon: Previewing DirectX 12 Multi-Adapter with Ashes of the Singularity
by Ryan Smith on October 26, 2015 10:00 AM ESTFirst Thoughts
Wrapping up our first look at Ashes of the Singularity and DirectX 12 Explicit Multi-Adapter, when Microsoft first unveiled the technology back at BUILD 2015, I figured it would only be a matter of time until someone put together a game utilizing the technology. After all, Epic and Square already had their tech demos up and running. However with the DirectX 12 ecosystem still coming together here in the final months of 2015 – and that goes for games as well as drivers – I wasn’t expecting something quite this soon.
As it stands the Ashes of the Singularity multi-GPU tech demo is just that, a tech demo for a game that itself is only in Alpha testing. There are still optimizations to be made and numerous bugs to be squashed. But despite all of that, seeing AMD and NVIDIA video cards working together to render a game is damn impressive.
Seeing as this build of Ashes is a tech demo, I’m hesitant to read too much into the precise benchmark numbers we’re seeing. That said, the fact that the fastest multi-GPU setup was a mixed AMD/NVIDIA GPU setup was something I wasn’t expecting and definitely makes it all the more interesting. DirectX 11 games are going to be around for a while longer yet, so we’re likely still some time away from a mixed GPU gaming setup being truly viable, but it will be interesting to see just what Oxide and other developers can pull off with explicit multi-adapter as they become more familiar with the technology and implement more advanced rendering modes.
Meanwhile it’s interesting to note just how far the industry as a whole has come since 2005 or even 2010. GPU architectures have become increasingly similar and tighter API standards have greatly curtailed the number of implementation differences that would prevent interoperability. And with Explicit Multi-Adapter, Microsoft and the GPU vendors have laid down a solid path for allowing game developers to finally tap the performance of multiple GPUs in a system, both integrated and discrete.
The timing couldn’t be any better either. As integrated GPUs have consumed the low-end GPU market and both CPU vendors devote more die space than ever to their respective integrated GPUs, using a discrete GPU leaves an increasingly large amount of silicon unused in the modern gaming system. Explicit multi-adapter in turn isn’t the silver bullet to that problem, but it is a means to finally putting the integrated GPU to good use even when it’s not a system’s primary GPU.
However with that said, it’s important to note that what happens from here is ultimately more in the hands of game developers than hardware developers. Given the nature of the explicit API, it’s now the game developers that have to do most of the legwork on implementing multi-GPU, and I’m left to wonder how many of them are up to the challenge. Hardware developers have an obvious interest in promoting and developing multi-GPU technology in order to sell more GPUs – which is how we got SLI and Crossfire in the first place – but software developers don’t have that same incentive.
Ultimately as gamers all we can do is take a wait-and-see approach to the whole matter. But as DirectX 12 game development ramps up, I am cautiously optimistic that positive experiences like Ashes will help encourage other developers to plan for multi-adapter support as well.
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AndrewJacksonZA - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Did you try running three cards Ryan?BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
It's pretty interesting stuff, but I think most of the people who buy computing hardware could care less about the performance of a pair of high end graphics processors that are individually priced well above the cost of a nice laptop. What's more substantial in this is the ability to make use of an iGPU whena dGPU is present in the system to obtain a better overall user experience. Very, very few people are going to bother throwing away money to buy even one graphics card at a cost of over $400 let alone two and then also soak up the cost of the components necessary to support their operation. I can't imagine developers, those in control of whether or not this new feature gets any support in the industry, are going to invest much money by writing code to support such a small subset of the overall market. In the end, what DX12 might do is have the exact opposite effect of what we're predicting...it could ultimately kill off high end multi GPU setups as impractical and wholly unsupported by game production studios. The most I'd see this ever doing is making the i+dGPU scenario practical. Everything else seems a little too expensive to implement for a limited market of large desktop computers that are rapidly fading away as small form factor and mobile devices replace them.diola - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Hi, after connecting the cards in mainboard and install the drivers, you need something else to work?I was unable to recognize the second card when the first is from AMD and the second from Nvidia.Wunkbanok - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
How does this multi-adapter thing works? can i use a new card with an older card and get any improvement? wich cards are supported?dray67 - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
I'm very tempted to give the Ashes alpha a try, I've recently upgraded from a 680 to a 980 ti and I like the idea of a linked setup, but theres so many questions, the main one being compatibility with other hardware, motherboards etc.I can't help but think that the bigger the disparity between cards the less you'd gain but either way I like where this is going (giggly).
Valantar - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
I really wish you would take this one step further and test combinations of new and old cards - Fury X + 7970/GTX 680 and 980 Ti + GTX 680/7970 would be the really interesting combinations here. Also, far more relevant for most gamers looking to upgrade at some point in the next few years.loguerto - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
I would like to mention an off-topic argument:the kepler gtx 680 as it's time was constantly outperforming the GCN 1.0 7970, and was on pair with the 7970 ghz edition. Now we have the the 7970 non ghz edition outperforming the gtx 680 by 20%. It's just a fact that proves how AMD cards compared to Nvidias.
Clone12100 - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Why no comparison of the older cards with the newer cards? Like a 7970 with a 980tiWhisperingEye - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Because they are using Alternate Frame Rendering. This means that the slowest card drives the set. So your new $400 card will go at the speed of your (now) $150 card.Oxford Guy - Friday, October 30, 2015 - link
Would have liked to have seen the 290X or 390X.