ElementXsoftwarE
12-17-2007, 12:54 PM
Ok fellow hardware junkies. I've sorta gotten out of the loop in the past few years about SLI. After my hiatus from windows and PC gaming for the past few months, I came to realize that I do actually like to play PC games still. So, I built myself the following machine so I had something decent to play games on:
Intel Core 2 duo E6550 CPU
4 gigs DDR2
256 meg XFX 8800 GT Alpha Dog
Vista 32 bit
22" LCD @ 1680x1050
Now, I know that I need 64 bit vista to get my full 4 gigs of ram, but that's another question ;)
What I actually want to know is if SLI would help enough to justify spending the extra $200 on a second 8800 GT? Would having 512 total video memory help quite a bit?
The reason I'm asking is because the first game I loaded on this rig was Crysis. Crysis doesn't work in DX 10 mode very well, but it plays quite well in DX 9 mode and high detail settings. However, whenever those monster things freeze stuff, the FPS slows to a crawl, even in DX 9, until I get out of the frozen area. I'm pretty sure later in the game you are mostly in frozen stuff, so I'd hate for the game not to run at all when I get there. I don't know if the extra card will help that significantly or not.
And, unrelated to the title, are drivers stable enough now for vista 64 bit that I could convert to that, get my full 4 gigs of ram, and still have games and software run well? The only articles I seem to be able to find about vista 64 are from last year, so they are not up to date with the current state of things.
I'd appreciate some input. I can't seem to find quite what I'm looking for in searching around, and I've just paid far too little attention to this stuff for the past couple of years to be at all "in the know".
I didn't expect this system to play Crysis at max settings, but the fact that it plays how it does worries me a bit. This system does play everything else I've tried so far quite well though, so it's just Crysis at this time.
Intel Core 2 duo E6550 CPU
4 gigs DDR2
256 meg XFX 8800 GT Alpha Dog
Vista 32 bit
22" LCD @ 1680x1050
Now, I know that I need 64 bit vista to get my full 4 gigs of ram, but that's another question ;)
What I actually want to know is if SLI would help enough to justify spending the extra $200 on a second 8800 GT? Would having 512 total video memory help quite a bit?
The reason I'm asking is because the first game I loaded on this rig was Crysis. Crysis doesn't work in DX 10 mode very well, but it plays quite well in DX 9 mode and high detail settings. However, whenever those monster things freeze stuff, the FPS slows to a crawl, even in DX 9, until I get out of the frozen area. I'm pretty sure later in the game you are mostly in frozen stuff, so I'd hate for the game not to run at all when I get there. I don't know if the extra card will help that significantly or not.
And, unrelated to the title, are drivers stable enough now for vista 64 bit that I could convert to that, get my full 4 gigs of ram, and still have games and software run well? The only articles I seem to be able to find about vista 64 are from last year, so they are not up to date with the current state of things.
I'd appreciate some input. I can't seem to find quite what I'm looking for in searching around, and I've just paid far too little attention to this stuff for the past couple of years to be at all "in the know".
I didn't expect this system to play Crysis at max settings, but the fact that it plays how it does worries me a bit. This system does play everything else I've tried so far quite well though, so it's just Crysis at this time.