Dear Forum. SB run very smooth on vista 64 sp1 ultimate, the big problem is the drivers every time. I have in the past had the following graphic cards.: qty 2 x Nvidia 8800gtx ( Running SLI ) qty 2 x Nvidia 9800gx2 ( running quad SLI ) MSI Radeon 4870gx2 ( im running SLI ) Steelbeasts and SLI = No go In general SLI is really bad for SB and its not enough to just configure your nvidia sytemtools so that you just run with one gpu or 2 or 3... you have to turn off SLI to get the best result. The only card of the above that work perfect with SLI or CrossfireX as its named on the radeon 4870 series i just call it SLI. My experience with the 8800gtx card..: Well the 8800gtx is a really good card, unfortunatly the drivers have been bad for a long time but its starting to be okay. Some of the old drivers like the 158.xx if I recall it correctly that came standard with the card actually work perfect with SB and you can run the game at almost maximum graphics. Unfortunatly pretty much every single driver since then are bad with SB but good with most other newer games and also fix alot of bugs, but not the graphics in SB... As someone wrote in here then you can ofcourse tweak your card by enabling something and disabling some other things and then it might work but to be honest the old driver is to be prefered. Nvidia 9800gx2 Well the 9800gx2 is a really powerfull and fantastic card and its actually 2 cards in one that is why its named gx2 so you can run SLI with just 1 card in your computer so to speak. Well again its a really good card for pretty much all games on the market but unfortuanly not SB... with this card you cannot run SB in SLI mode you have to disable it and it does also not work properbly if you just edit the nvidia control panel and choose to run with 1 core or 2, 3,4 ect. Disable SLI is the only good working option.. Again you can tweak the game with the setting and this maybe help you. Unfortuantly there are no really good drivers for the 9800gx2 not even the original one. Ofcourse you can run the game okay with a 20fps but it will go up and down all the time and some views like the termal view and the commander view is sometimes running with 5fps near buildings ect. Also some maps are terrible since some of the texture on the trees ( a naked tree ) simply make it impossible to play the game due to low fps... Well the nvidia 9800gx2 is great with everything except SB. Radeon 4870gx2..: I just bought this hardware yesterday and ran SB right away.. Its simply perfect Im running SB with maximum fps 62,5 all the time not matter the setting view distance ect. everthing run so smooth. This hardware run SLI as default and it just work perfect. Also all games I tried today except Armed assault ( had to run it in window mode ) work perfect, and even in FSX flight simulator I have the same Fps as I did with the 9800gx2 running quad sli ( pice of crap not wort the money ) it run so smooth and stable. Well the ati radeon 4870gx2 is really really really good and a good advice from me to you would be to consider buying this card. I have been an nvidia fan since the company started many years ago but i have to admit i bought the 4870gx2 ati since I was tired of the screen drivers crashing all the time. Well Im very happy about the radeon im not going back to nvidia anytime soon.. cheers
