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Before this calendar week, we discussed new test results for Ashes of the Singularity that showed GPUs from AMD and Nvidia running the game side-past-side. Unfortunately, Oxide has made the decision not to make this build of the game public immediately. What we do have, courtesy of Oxide,  is video testify of the ultimate Frankenstein rig running both AMD and Nvidia GPUs.

Annotation that in this case, the hardware plain isn't configured for any kind of SLI passthrough — AMD doesn't employ physical bridges the mode Nvidia still does, and this kind of hardware wouldn't be able to accept advantage of it, since the 2 company's use very different pinouts. All the same, the rig works and works well.

Oxide's benchmark test pairs a GTX 980 with a Fury Nano and notes that scaling is extremely good, though not quite perfect. While the video isn't quite equally gameplay-focused every bit we might like, the footage that exists runs without apparent problems. As we've noted, there's very petty that any ODM can do to prevent this mode from working. AMD and Nvidia can certainly try to encourage developers to adopt LDA (Linked Display Adapter), which mimics DX11 functionality, as opposed to the MDA mode shown hither, which allows GPUs from multiple vendors to work together. But AMD and Nvidia tin can't prevent information technology outright.

Some readers have asked whether or non PCI-E has enough bandwidth to make MDA plausible in all scenarios. This is a valid question, and we'll need more data from other games earlier we have a guaranteed answer, but given that AMD stopped using span cables back in 2013, we suspect PCIe 3.0 has all the bandwidth necessary to feed even 4K multi-GPU configurations.

With PCI-Express four.0 now non expected to debut until 2017 or 2018 due to the difficulty of achieving the standard'south 16GT/s transfer rate, it'll be important to balance any new capabilities against what PCI-E three.0 can provide. So again, Ashes shows extremely strong scaling in the Nano + GTX 980 test, and a still-impressive i.62x when the higher-end Fury Ten and GTX 980 Ti were used. Neither AMD nor Nvidia take fallen over themselves to publicly congratulate Oxide, so we'll do it for them — gentlemen, we appreciate your efforts in making gaming more accessible to consumers who adopt to buy based on price/performance ratios rather than sticking to any single visitor.

Ashes of the Singularity is currently in Early on Access on Steam. As with all EA titles, be aware that the game is still in early stages and that current gameplay or unit balance may not reflect the last retail product.