Get a 980ti vs an extra r9 290 to crossfire with the one I already have

[ghcannon]

CF works great for me ... just without the Rift

Having proper CF requires ED to implement against the LiquidVR API.
And that, afaik, has not happened yet.

Best bet is a 980Ti for VR if you can afford it. You spare yourselves from current and future issues.
And that comes from a guy with 290 cf'ed

 

[maxpare79]

VR doesn't support SLI or Crossfire, we'll the Rift doesn't, and I had 2x 290s in crossfire for like 2 months and sold my second one because crossfire is driver dependent, and most of the time the driver sucks and you have to turn off your second card... Just buy the better card and forget about crossfire and SLI, it's not worth the headache.

 

[Captain Sharky]

I've tried 2x 970, but due to troubles with latency and some general stability issues moved to overclocked 980ti (msi lightning). Performance is generally the same, but smooth and with no issues. Playing in dk2 with 2560x1440 resolution set, 1,5 supersampling, atialiasing enabled through nvidia panel and disabled in-game. Only settings down are ambient occlusion off and shadows to high (medium makes them moving along with head in rift). Jitter is notable only in busy planetside ports and first 20-30 seconds after glide. Elsewere its bearable 50-60FPS on planets and steady 75+ in space, including asteroid fields. That's on 0.5 SDK win8.1. Moving to 0.8/win10/SteamVR reduces performace considerably, multiboot helps.

So get 980ti by all means, performance won't be exactly perfect, but close.

 

[Aleksej]

OP has waited for almost 6 months. So I don't think it is a good idea to get a to get a 700EUR GPU now, when both NVidia and AMD are going to release next gen GPUs in 2H 2016, and according to the rumours the new GPUs are going to be at least 50% better than corresponding current gen GPUs. This means that in 2H 2016 980Ti is going to become outdated and paying 700EUR now is going to be a waste of money.

 

[Mazhurg]

That is one of the options.

Whilst the current setup on my system (pair of 290's) is currently adequate with the DK2 @1080p getting either one of the 2 main contenders means that whatever hardware I have will need to push many more pixels (‎2160 x 1200 @90Hz or better), something that even with liquidVR taking full advantage of crossfire system is not going to be achievable.

So, in addition to the HDM, I also see some GPU upgrade sometime prior to Q1 2017.

Darn that VR stuff is hard on a retired wallet.

 

[maxpare79]

That is one of the options.

Whilst the current setup on my system (pair of 290's) is currently adequate with the DK2 @1080p getting either one of the 2 main contenders means that whatever hardware I have will need to push many more pixels (‎2160 x 1200 @90Hz or better), something that even with liquidVR taking full advantage of crossfire system is not going to be achievable.

So, in addition to the HDM, I also see some GPU upgrade sometime prior to Q1 2017.

Darn that VR stuff is hard on a retired wallet.

The way I see this is, I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't gamble, might as well spend all the cash I save not doing the above on something :-D

 

[Captain Sharky]

OP has waited for almost 6 months. So I don't think it is a good idea to get a to get a 700EUR GPU now, when both NVidia and AMD are going to release next gen GPUs in 2H 2016, and according to the rumours the new GPUs are going to be at least 50% better than corresponding current gen GPUs. This means that in 2H 2016 980Ti is going to become outdated and paying 700EUR now is going to be a waste of money.

"Rumors" are based on nvidia statement that Pascal gpu will bring 50% performance increase due to new tech-process. No one had ever promised that it's full potential will be available in first gen right away. Technical process change every few years, and cash must flow constantly. So I can safely bet my hat that we will see usual 10% increase. Maybe they will throw in some bone for notebook users, making faster mobile gpu, like 12%. Also, greatly better memory will translate in one or two extra fps in real world, hardly more. Check ATI cards which already have it. And no release dates been confirmed, according again to rumors we'll see updated Quadro and Titan in like August, and that cards are not for people who counting their dimes. Everything else will follow later, christmas perhaps. Then wait for some decent non-reference cards... Year from now looks real. By then Elite VR support can get either optimized or removed, no one could tell for sure. Someone will wait, I'll play while can.

 

[rich_hard1]

I got two R9 200 series cards in quad fire. Have everything on Ultra or High, a Supersampling on 2x, turned off any crappy Anti-aliasing. The HMD Slider is around half way. TBH Elite doesn't utilize Crossfire or SLI at the moment, most VR stuff doesn't right now. I get 75fps everywhere until I reach planetary landing areas where it drops as low as 50fps. The judder is of course real due to SteamVR being a . Nothing to worry about, providing oculus gets fully supported, as asynchronous timewarp manages to provide 75fps even as low as 15fps.

I'm seriously thinking about an NVidia solution as AMD seems to have less and less support these days anyway, would be good to hear some thoughts about anyone moving to other GPU vendors.

 

[ghcannon]

I got two R9 200 series cards in quad fire. Have everything on Ultra or High, a Supersampling on 2x, turned off any crappy Anti-aliasing. The HMD Slider is around half way. TBH Elite doesn't utilize Crossfire or SLI at the moment, most VR stuff doesn't right now.

Get that VR slider to maximum, and tune everything else as much as you can afterwards.
Elite uses crossfire and SLI wonderfully. Just not in VR.

as asynchronous timewarp manages to provide 75fps even as low as 15fps

I'm hoping that was a joke. You can't reasonably interpolate two frames half a second apart

I'm seriously thinking about an NVidia solution as AMD seems to have less and less support these days anyway, would be good to hear some thoughts about anyone moving to other GPU vendors.

I plan on moving to a single chip solution. Whichever camp provides the best single-gpu card of the next finFET generation.
These dual-GPU solutions are just a pain. More so on AMDs side, but on Nvidia's too.

 

[rich_hard1]

Agreed, Elite runs sweetly at 4K on max settings not a problem, it's VR that runs like a dog, frustrating. When using FlyinsideFSX, in dense areas the FPS does drop as low as 15fps, yet the timewarping does very well to provide enough frames to compensate. I too will update to the next gen GPU card, whichever runs quieter, cooler but still fast.

 

[ghcannon]

the FPS does drop as low as 15fps, yet the timewarping does very well to provide enough frames to compensate.

I've no idea what you're talking about.
I don't think you have TW working at all to begin with and even if you did, you'd not see much if any benefit on it on such low frame rates.

You're talking about interpolating visual and tracker data on a 75Hz panel every 0.013s based on an input set that's 5 times sparser. Do you understand the problem?