Quad SLI looks like it's dead in the water

WE'RE STARTING to see more and more forum chatter across the interweb bemoaning the lack of Quad SLI support on Windows Vista.

See, for example, this wala.

The Green Team is yet to release a driver which enables Quad SLI - the running together of two 7950 GX2 cards, themselves dual-card 7900s - under the Vole's latest operating system. Prior to the 8800 release, Quad SLI was heralded as the top-performing graphics system, and gamers paid as much as $1000 for the pair of cards with the promise that this was gaming nirvana.

Nvidia's own press release from last year tells eager buyers that "By taking SLI technology to a completely new level, we give PC builders the ability to create an exquisitely engineered gaming PC that is in a class by itself."

The release even says that "NVIDIA Quad SLI technology is optimized for the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista, the first operating system to require a dedicated GPU to realize its full potential."

So optimised, in fact, that it doesn't work. Quad SLI truly is in a class by itself - probably sitting, crying in the corner while all its SLI mates go off and play in pairs outside.

Hilariously, searching Nvidia's much-touted gamer-centric website nZone for "Quad SLI" returns "No matches found." Which just about sums up support.

When is Nvidia going to get its act together and actually enable the functionality that its customers paid thousands of dollars for under, apparently, false pretences? No answer is forthcoming out of Satan Clara. Dang. µ