NVIDIA to drop SLI profiles for 2000 series and earlier starting Jan 2021

[Master Disaster]

More bad news for traditional multi GPU setups as Nvidia say that, starting Jan 1st 2021 they will no longer be including SLI profiles for new games with drivers (though old profiles will still be included). Instead Nvidia will be requiring developers to code multi GPU support directly into their own games using the features built right into DX12 & Vulkan.

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With the emergence of low level graphics APIs such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan, game developers are able to implement SLI support natively within the game itself instead of relying upon a SLI driver profile. The expertise of the game developer within their own code allows them to achieve the best possible performance from multiple GPUs. As a result, NVIDIA will no longer be adding new SLI driver profiles on RTX 20 Series and earlier GPUs starting on January 1st, 2021. Instead, we will focus efforts on supporting developers to implement SLI natively inside the games. We believe this will provide the best performance for SLI users.

 

Existing SLI driver profiles will continue to be tested and maintained for SLI-ready RTX 20 Series and earlier GPUs.

Remember that the 3090 is the only 3000 series with an NVLink connector anyway.

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For GeForce RTX 3090 and future SLI-capable GPUs, SLI will only be supported when implemented natively within the game.

They also promise that any other software outside of gaming that utilises multi GPUs will continue to work

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What DirectX 12 games support SLI natively within the game?

DirectX 12 titles include Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Civilization VI, Sniper Elite 4, Gears of War 4, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Strange Brigade, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, Hitman, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Battlefield 1, and Halo Wars 2.

 

What Vulkan games support SLI natively within the game?

Vulkan titles include Red Dead Redemption 2, Quake 2 RTX, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, Strange Brigade, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War

 

How about creative and other non-gaming applications — will those still support multiple GPUs?

Yes, many creative and other non-gaming applications support multi-GPU performance scaling without the use of SLI driver profiles. These apps will continue to work across all currently supported GPUs as it does today.

https://videocardz.com/press-release/nvidia-sli-support-transitioning-to-native-game-integrations

 

Not exactly surprised since they've basically made the feature extinct by only including it in the $1400 3090 anyway.

[Kilrah]

You have 2020 in the title

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

You have 2020 in the title

Thanks, fixed now

[Zando_]

If they're pushing new titles to actually use DX12 mGPU vs a janky SLI profile, seems like a positive thing to me. 

[BobVonBob]

5 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

If they're pushing new titles to actually use DX12 mGPU vs a janky SLI profile, seems like a positive thing to me. 

Do we know the performance difference between DX12 mGPU and SLI/Crossfire? Not that it matters much because mGPU is still a dumb idea for gaming, but just out of curiosity.

[AnonymousGuy]

The title should basically be "nvidia dropping all SLI driver support" if they're not even bothering with the 3090?

[Zando_]

6 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

Do we know the performance difference between DX12 mGPU and SLI/Crossfire? Not that it matters much because mGPU is still a dumb idea for gaming, but just out of curiosity.

I don't know of any titles outside of Shadow of The Tomb Raider that support DX12 mGPU, but it seems to scale well: https://hardforum.com/threads/dx12-multi-gpu-live-and-well-in-shadow-of-the-tomb-raider.1967930/. 67% gain with dual cards at 1440p, 91% gain at 4K. 

[Master Disaster]

8 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

The title should basically be "nvidia dropping all SLI driver support" if they're not even bothering with the 3090?

2000 series and earlier, the 3090 will still get support.

[Master Disaster]

21 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

If they're pushing new titles to actually use DX12 mGPU vs a janky SLI profile, seems like a positive thing to me. 

The issue is that there's no real incentive to retroactively add support to older titles and only the 3090 supports NVLink in the 3000 series so there's no real incentive to add support to new games either. Seems like a lot of work to support a single SKU in the entire range.

 

IMO SLI is heading to the same place as 3D Vision, at least for gamers.

[Zodiark1593]

13 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

Do we know the performance difference between DX12 mGPU and SLI/Crossfire? Not that it matters much because mGPU is still a dumb idea for gaming, but just out of curiosity.

Given that Dx12 is in the hands of the developer, I’m unsure if the direct performance comparison would be entirely fair. Theoretically, developers could divide the work however they see fit on a much more granular level to achieve the best scaling for their particular workload at a given time. 

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

The issue is that there's no real incentive to retroactively add support to older titles and only the 3090 supports NVLink in the 3000 series so there's no real incentive to add support to new games either. Seems like a lot of work to support a single SKU in the entire range.

There's less and less incentive to add support to games anyways. 4K 144hz/8K are the main reasons to run an SLI rig now, outside of just goofing around (or doing non-gaming stuff that takes advantage of more than one GPU). Single cards now are powerful enough to run pretty much everything else with little issue. 

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Given that Dx12 is in the hands of the developer, I’m unsure if the direct performance comparison would be entirely fair. Theoretically, developers could divide the work however they see fit on a much more granular level to achieve the best scaling for their particular workload at a given time. 

My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that DX12 offers 2 modes of multi GPU support. The first is like traditional multi GPU but is handled by the application while the second allows for any 2 GPUs to be used in such a way as to pool resources (in otherwords 2 x 8GB cards would mean 16GB VRam).

 

I guess it depends on the mode they choose.

[Trik'Stari]

33 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

The issue is that there's no real incentive to retroactively add support to older titles and only the 3090 supports NVLink in the 3000 series so there's no real incentive to add support to new games either. Seems like a lot of work to support a single SKU in the entire range.

 

IMO SLI is heading to the same place as 3D Vision, at least for gamers.

We must support or start an initiative to keep Skyrim getting drivers for eternity.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

We must support or start an initiative to keep Skyrim getting drivers for eternity.

And GTA V at this point too.

[Trik'Stari]

30 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

And GTA V at this point too.

Rockstar can just afford to pay for that.

 

Isn't GTA V the most profitable piece of media of all time?

[Lii]

I mean the sli/nvlink thing was (and is) shitty documented, so devolopers have issues to implement that (and also it's insane that you need to pay 100 euros for a piece of junk with an stm32 in it)

 

Though in some applications you could profique with multigpus configurations, in the past gen for example x2 2070s > 2080ti on redshift 

 

Imo it's also likely that nvidia cutted down the sli thing on cheaper cards to make the 3090 more appealing rather than two 3080

[Drama Lama]

Is anyone really surprised by that?

[Trik'Stari]

38 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Pronhub laughs

That's an entire site.

 

And I wouldn't be surprised if GTA: V was pulling down bigger numbers. Who actually pays for Phub?

[CTR640]

So NVLink only for 3090 and not 3080?

 

I don't see devs are gonna waste effort, resources and time for a niche GPU. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 9/19/2020 at 11:14 PM, CTR640 said:

So NVLink only for 3090 and not 3080?

 

I don't see devs are gonna waste effort, resources and time for a niche GPU. 

The NVLink is not there for DX12/Vulkan multi-GPU, AFAIK you don't need it - in fact, you don't even need the cards to be the same for explicit multi-GPU through those APIs. 

 

Still, I don't see anyone bothering with it, even less figuring out how to make it work well in all possible configurations. 

[RejZoR]

On 9/17/2020 at 11:44 PM, BobVonBob said:

Do we know the performance difference between DX12 mGPU and SLI/Crossfire? Not that it matters much because mGPU is still a dumb idea for gaming, but just out of curiosity.

It's not dumb when you're wandering into 4K territory with ray tracing and everything maxed out. Maybe for someone 60fps is the "golden baseline", but there are people who are willing to put graphic cards like RTX 3090 into SLi to get higher framerate. You can't possibly get that kind of framerate with single card.