DX9 and DX10 performances
The first thing we can conclude from this graph is that performances in Windows XP remain slightly superior in mono-GPU mode and are sometimes clearly higher in multi-GPU mode as we can see in Bioshock and Rainbow Six Vegas which both use the Unreal Engine 3.0. F.E.A.R., however, displays the opposite behavior as results in SLI noticeably increase in the transition from XP to Vista.
The evolution of performances in Vista, however, is weak or at least far from what we could have expected base on Nvidia’s enthusiasm of its newest drivers. They do add a gain in Bioshock and Rainbow Six Vegas, but this is nowhere near to the result in XP.
Note that the 163.67 driver causes several bugs in Oblivion and F.E.A.R. menus once SLI is activated. These problems disappear with the 163.69 and 163.71.
DirectX 10 performances
While performances are more or less stable in Lost Planet which received direct advanced support as Nvidia obviously wanted to have good results in the first DirectX 10 benchmarks, this isn’t the case for Bioshock. In DirectX 10 mode, results are sometime inconsistent. With a single GPU, there are improvements in going from the 162.xx to the 163.xx, however, with multi-GPUs they go down! Nvidia evidently has some work to do in this area.
Note that the 163.67 driver causes cuts in fluidity in Lost Planet although performances are only slightly affected.
