..:: PCSX2 Forums ::..

I know that GPU is no where near as important as CPU but i just got an SLI rig and was curious. Does PCSX2 support SLI? (probably not) and if not, is it planned in the future?

If anything force it off as it has caused problems for some users before.

And on another note, most cards that support SLI can run PCSX2 games just fine by themselves. The CPU is the most important factor, completely.

Admittedly, it's possible that PCSX2 could utilize SLI. Although as mentioned above, few games are limited by GPU anyway, so speedup would be minimal... and really even on GPU limited games the outlook is grim. SLI has a mode for rendering alternate frames in parallel and that would probably be the most 'workable' solution. However, PCSX2's emulation of the GS relies at least partly on texture upload bandwidth, which is mostly a function of the PCI-E x16 bus. This is one bus shared by both sides of an SLI setup, so SLI provides no benefits there.

But in the end, the real trouble is that SLI is prohibitively expensive in relation the real performance it brings, and I just don't see any of the current active PCSX2 programmers investing in it. And without owning an SLI setup directly, it's impossible to optimize for it.

Thanks Air, i know GPU is barely important, but it was just a curious question. i'll disable it when i emulate

I wouln`t say "barely" important, that would sound like a Ati Radeon 9800 is enough.

Naturally when you buy a fast Core 2 Duo, then you would go for a fast Graphic Card too.

Since the 9800 doesn't even support DX10, that's obviously not the case... That said, even a $50 budget GPU these days will get you playable results in PCSX2, just not necessarily at the resolution you'd like.