AMD Releases CrossFire API on GPUOpen

[btarunr]

AMD posted resources that help game developers take advantage of the AMD CrossFire multi-GPU technology, through its GPUOpen initiative. In a detailed blog post on its GPUOpen website, AMD detailed that since its Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers, the company has been offering CrossFire API as an extension of DirectX 11. While it posted a detailed CrossFire Guide with developer resources, in its GPUOpen blog post, AMD also posted the basics of the simplest way to take advantage of a multi-GPU setup - alternate frame rendering (AFR), in which GPUs render alternating frames of a 3D scene, theoretically multiplying frame-rates.



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[ZoneDymo]

so they show devs how to use crossfire?
aaand....that was needed? how long does freaking crossfire exist now?

Im confused man.

 

[Suka]

so they show devs how to use crossfire?
aaand....that was needed? how long does freaking crossfire exist now?

Im confused man.

Am with you

 

[Prima.Vera]

My guess is that until now, the devs relied exclusively on AMD to make their engine CrossFire worth by tunning their drivers (with some notable exceptions, of course). Now AMD is proving an official guide to the devs to implement that function directly into the game engine first. Probably...

 

[R-T-B]

so they show devs how to use crossfire?
aaand....that was needed? how long does freaking crossfire exist now?

Im confused man.

Indie devs. If you are writing your own engine, the materials to do something like this used to be commercial and very expensive, so you had to use something like Unity if you wanted to support multi-gpu. Now they are free.

I know because I am one.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Indie devs. If you are writing your own engine, the materials to do something like this used to be commercial and very expensive, so you had to use something like Unity if you wanted to support multi-gpu. Now they are free.

I know because I am one.

Wait you had to get extra programs to add crossfire function to you own made engine?
you could not just program it like that from the start?
and what kind if stupid sh*t is that from a gpu maker, you would want fantastic multi gpu support in all games because it might help sales......
although I dont know too many indie titles with graphics that advanced that multi gpu's are desirable.

 

[HD64G]

Indie devs. If you are writing your own engine, the materials to do something like this used to be commercial and very expensive, so you had to use something like Unity if you wanted to support multi-gpu. Now they are free.

I know because I am one.

If that's so, it is a great move from AMD then! Maybe now nVidia will follow this also?

 

[vega22]

Wait you had to get extra programs to add crossfire function to you own made engine?
you could not just program it like that from the start?
and what kind if stupid sh*t is that from a gpu maker, you would want fantastic multi gpu support in all games because it might help sales......
although I dont know too many indie titles with graphics that advanced that multi gpu's are desirable.

indy has only just started to get support during the last gen. amd have made all their stuff open source and this is a continuation of that.

 

[ZoneDymo]

indy has only just started to get support during the last gen. amd have made all their stuff open source and this is a continuation of that.

indie or not, I still would want everyone and their mothers to have the easiest time ever to make sure multiple gpu support for my gpu's would work, thats just smart (or more like, not stupid) business.

 

[cdawall]

If that's so, it is a great move from AMD then! Maybe now nVidia will follow this also?

Nvidia doesn't even offer proper Linux drivers. Keep dreaming if you think they will do this.

 

[Suka]

My guess is that until now, the devs relied exclusively on AMD to make their engine CrossFire worth by tunning their drivers (with some notable exceptions, of course). Now AMD is proving an official guide to the devs to implement that function directly into the game engine first. Probably...

Ok

 

[R-T-B]

Wait you had to get extra programs to add crossfire function to you own made engine?
you could not just program it like that from the start?

You technically can, but it's difficult and requires very direct knowledge of how GPUs work that most indie-grade devs do not have. Having access to a API to manage things is much easier.

 

[truth teller]

Nvidia doesn't even offer proper Linux drivers. Keep dreaming if you think they will do this.

to be fair, crossfire in linux isnt exactly a bouquet of roses. sure, it kinda works but the amount of applications that can take advantage of it is almost nil (unigine being the exception last time i checked)

maybe after the widespread usage of crossfire things will change, maybe

 

[cdawall]

Nvidia drivers just single card don't work right let alone SLI lol

 

[Aquinus]

to be fair, crossfire in linux isnt exactly a bouquet of roses. sure, it kinda works but the amount of applications that can take advantage of it is almost nil (unigine being the exception last time i checked)

maybe after the widespread usage of crossfire things will change, maybe

It mostly worked, problem is that you're forced to use a single display when running in CFX mode. Just like DirectX, OpenGL has some constraints that limit performance improvement if you do something weird like relying on the last frame for updates to the current one such as for certain forms of motion blur. I won't lie though, Linux support could use a little love but, I would rather use an AMD GPU than a nVidia GPU on Linux... and I do. I do most of my dev work in Linux, I only use Windows for gaming.

We all know what Torvalds thinks of nVidia when it comes to hardware support in the Linux community.

 

[GoldenX]

Maybe this could help the Mesa drivers to have multiGPU capabilities.