graphics cards in sli underperforming (being beaten by x1 gtx260 !!

[Dark79]

Hi,

Im looking for some help regarding my apparent SLI set up. I have an i7 950 quad core, 6gb of Ram and x2 gtx460's and im not sure that the sli is working as it should be.

I would have thought on crysis 1920 x 1080 all on very high settings that my pc would wipe the floor with it but it doesn't, its quite jerky, playing on high is very smooth ( or is this wishful thinking ?)

Also I did a benchmark on mafia 2, all settings on high AA turned off and Antistroping (or whatever its called) on x8 and got a Rank D average 32fps maximum 90fps and a message to say game not running at optimal level, change system settings and retry. I looked at a you tube vid and someone with the same gfx cards as me got Rank B (average 63 fps and maximum 200+fps) which meant game was running well.

Also a friend did a benchmark with same settings as mine, he has an i7 920, x1 gtx 260 and got an average of 52.8 fps, so something is not right as x2 gtx460's should get a much better score !

Any help on this would be well appreciated.

 

[MickyG]

Dark79

Have you made sure you have the latest drivers installed? If you go to the Nvidia website you can download the latest drivers (you only need to download and install them once even though you have two cards). Make sure you have uninstalled the previous drivers (I believe the installer gives you this option, if not then uninstall it through the Control Panel).

Hope this helps, write back if you need any further assistance

G

 

[Dark79]

Ok will try, will get back and let you know at work in day should get on sometime this week

 

[Dark79]

Have updated the drivers and old ones have been uninstalled and still the same 32 fps. It starts off at 54 fps then after around 5-10 seconds it dips and then stays on 32 fps.

 

[Dark79]

I've been doing some research online into 460 performance issues and others are reporting their 460's are only running at 30%, great, it's so weird cos these cards get great reviews and pcs said they would be amazing, really hope this gets resolved as have crysis 2 on pre order

 

[Meds]

Please go into the nVidia Control Panel and DISABLE SLi and run the benchmark - see if you get any changes in fps.

 

[Dark79]

Yeah will do that is what I was gonna try next, will have to try tonight I'll let you know

 

[Dark79]

Ok I disabled sli Nvidia control panel stopped responding for a little while then came back to normal ran benchmark and got a steady 38 fps not great it just stays between 38 and 39 and does not budge regardless of what's going on explosions etc some people are talking about using driver sweeper to clean old driver files not sure if this would help though

 

[pengipete]

I'm not a gamer and have no personal knowledge of using SLI but I've read a couple of things that may help (even if I don't understand them enough to explain why)

One thing that I've read a few times is that an overclocked CPU can actually cause lower frame-rates with SLI - I read one post where someone lowered his i920 overclock from 4.2GHz to 4.0Ghz and gained 10fps in a particular game. I can only assume that the cause is related to mistimed data transfers - that some data is being queued until the next clock-cycle of another component. If that's the case, lowering the overclock is a quick and simple "cure" compared to messing with latencies, PCI frequencies etc. If you are overclocked, try with stock settings and see if it makes a difference - if so, look at tweaking your overclock settings.

I also read that there was an "AA bug" - as it was described - with earlier 460 SLIs and Crysis was most affected - frame rates of ~30fps on very high detail rather than the expected ~60fps. That was supposedly sorted months ago but check around the NVidia forums - just in case.

Reviews I read at Tomshardware gave Crysis@ 1920x1080 and very high detail around 56fps - but that dropped to around 48fps with 4X anti-aliasing.

FPS also vary enormously throughout the game - even the most powerful cards will drop to low rates on certain scenes, especially ones with a lot of middle-distance detail being rendered. What are you maximum and minimum rates - it may give a clue if the low rates are down to filtering or other 3D settings.

 

[Dark79]

Hi, I would not know how to overclock any thing as have had no experience of it, my gtx460's are overclocked versions but have not done any experimenting with these not sure of my exact highs and lows as they don't show on the mafia 2 in game benchmark, shall I try with fraps or any other way to check, on dirt 2 i get around 62 fps with sli enabled is that a good score? All on highest settings aa on x8 I believe? I'm starting to wish I went with x1 gfx card as there seems to be too many issues with sli

 

[Dark79]

Hi pengipete,

Thanks for your last reply, wot a noob I've been, it does give u high and low fps score I'll try again and get the high and low score, (this problem is so annoying) gonna stop doing research today it now seems it could be a CPU and gpu conflict as the 460's are fermi cards wateva that means neway I'll leave the suggestions/fix to the experts ....

 

[pengipete]

I just read something on Nvidia's forum whilst looking up a problem for someone else - it might not apply to you but worth mentioning.

According to a number of posters on the NVidia thread, there's an odd-ball bug in PowerDVD10 that causes slow frame rates in some (unnamed) games if you have fermi's in SLI. I have to say, it sounds bizarre to me but they're saying that there is a patch available for PowerDVD10 - no links so I assume it will require a visit to Cyberlink's website.

As I say, may not apply - just read it and remembered your post.

I'll keep looking around but - as I said earlier - it's not my strong point. Hopefully one of the game enthusiasts will have some better ideas.

 

[Dark79]

Yeah tried that I uninstalled pd 10 but no joy, i heard a lot of people were bitching about physx so I enabled sli again and turned physx off in mafia and got a rank c 59 fps avg, tried dedicating physx to card 2 but then it says sli disabled as soon as I do so maybe my settings aren't right?

 

[Dark79]

Im starting to learn more about sli now, i think, if I dedicate the physx to card (2) then i am not using sli hence why it disables it, its just one card running the game minus the physx and the physx all being done on the other card which should hopefully give me a better fps score in mafia and other games.

Can anyone give me the best global settings or just leave on default, also sli profiles, i have not d/l any from nvidia but in the program settings part of global settings I have a drop down box which shows a list of games I have, which I take are the profiles ? these are all set to default to global settings.

 

[pengipete]

Can't advise you on settings but I just checked NVidia's website and there are new Beta drivers out forGeForce cards - might be worth taking a look to see if there's anything in the notes about you set-up and those games (every new driver release "cures" problems in specific hardware/games combinations)

 

[Dark79]

Yeah definitely will check that out pronto cheers for your support pe
ngi!

 

[pengipete]

Anytime.

 

[Dark79]

How do I give pengipete a rep boost?!

Oh yes, I don't think there is a problem with my machine wotsoever now, solved the crysis performance problem by installing all patches for the game and clean installing new nvidia beta driver, I d/l the natural mod too, set all settings in game to very high and am getting 58 fps looks so amazing on mny 42" Tv, I'm sure if I play around with the global settings I'll get more but who needs more ne way. As for mafia 2, i still get 32 fps in 2 way sli but if I disable sli and dedicate the second card to physx I get around 59 fps which is sweet and inline with some results on techbit. Just wanna say a big again a big Thankyou to pengipete u da man!.... and you're not even a gamer!

 

[pengipete]

I'm really pleased you got it sorted but you're selling yourself short - you worked most of that out for yourself.

 

[Dark79]

Yeah ok im amazing .... but you gave me the ideas, ie aa bug in crysis which made me apply the patches, and nvidia drivers which meds also advised, ne way gave ya some rep !! - just wanna play crysis now and im stuck at work