Monfort, Jordi RocaGrossman, MarkDavid Luebke and Philipp Slusallek2013-10-292013-10-292009978-1-60558-603-82079-8687https://doi.org/10.1145/1572769.1572776This work supposes a first attempt to characterize the 3D game workload running on commodity multi-GPU systems. Depending on the rendering workload balance mode used, the intra and interframe dependencies due to render-to-texture require a number of synchronizations that can significantly impact the scalability with multiple GPUs. In this paper, a proprietary analytical tool called EMPATHY has been used to evaluate, for a set popular DX9 games, the performance of both classic split frame and alternate frame rendering modes as well as combined modes supporting more than 4 GPUs. We have also evaluated the application of the early copy and concurrent update techniques together as alternative to delayed surface copy of render-to-texture surfaces, showing a 48% percent improvement for some workloads.