SLI and VU 10 - Does it Work?

[Heap]

Hey folks, a buddy of mine has bought a new PC the specs are:
Core I7 920
6 Gb DDR3 Ram
300 Gb 10K RPM HD
Dual GTX260s in SLI

He has all settings on max with no AA going and is experiencing between 20-40 (I'd say avg is 30) FPS. This rig, at least in my opinion, should be running better that it is with EU.

Is this a typical level of performance for people with similar hardware? Does anyone know if SLI is working with EU and what kind of % frame rate increase it provides?

I will be checking out my friends PC sometime in the next couple of weeks and if I find anything interesting with respect to SLI and frame rates I will report back here... In the meantime thanks for the feedback about how your similar systems are running.

 

[kygon]

it 'helps' but there is no way im getting 2x my 275's in SLI ran on 1 for a week to be sure there were a difference and there is but not all that amazing, so either my setup is wrong (might be 1st time SLIing) or EU is not quite optimised for it (yet?)

im running at 1920x1200 and medium with most things turned up max looks sweet but when i change all to high and add AA things are just not smooth def an "old EU - 30%" kinda level

 

[nutter]

You could try the following...

In your Nvidia control panel, select Manage 3d settings, and select the advanced settings. Here is the settings to change..

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]

There are 3 settings in this dropdown applicable to SLI. Force alternate 1, force alternate 2 and Force split frame rendering. Try to see which is best for your setup...

Also...

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]

AFAIK, disabling physx processing by a GPU moves it to a CPU, and as such the second setting allows both GPU's to render graphics.

I am running a 9800GX2 card, and getting 45FPS with all settings to very high Can use 2x AA with a drop of 10/15 FPS...


Hope this helps...it certainly cant hurt

 

[Legion]

You could try the following...

In your Nvidia control panel, select Manage 3d settings, and select the advanced settings. Here is the settings to change..

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]

There are 3 settings in this dropdown applicable to SLI. Force alternate 1, force alternate 2 and Force split frame rendering. Try to see which is best for your setup...

Also...

[br]Click to enlarge[/br]

AFAIK, disabling physx processing by a GPU moves it to a CPU, and as such the second setting allows both GPU's to render graphics.

I am running a 9800GX2 card, and getting 45FPS with all settings to very high Can use 2x AA with a drop of 10/15 FPS...


Hope this helps...it certainly cant hurt

mainly a comment about the phsyx, as cryengine2 dont use physx it wont matter if you disable it

Also you might want to try out nhancer.com and dl that prog. then copy the crysis settings for sli to apply to eu aswell.

 

[Dav]

I'm running 2 x 9800 GTX+ in SLI and considering the temp of the cards (even after hours ingame one card is at 48-50C immediately after logout while the other is at ~80C) it's obvious to me EU doesn't work at all with SLI yet. I'm getting 15-40 fps depending on my whereabouts ingame.

Maybe SLI isn't "activated" in EU yet?

 

[Rayne Jade]

...Maybe SLI isn't "activated" in EU yet?

That was my understanding... I would like to know if that is incorrect.

 

[Legion]

I'm running 2 x 9800 GTX+ in SLI and considering the temp of the cards (even after hours ingame one card is at 48-50C immediately after logout while the other is at ~80C) it's obvious to me EU doesn't work at all with SLI yet. I'm getting 15-40 fps depending on my whereabouts ingame.

Maybe SLI isn't "activated" in EU yet?

dont think it is but you can force it with nhancer or should be able to.

 

[kygon]

That was my understanding... I would like to know if that is incorrect.

I belive that crysis wasnt SLI 'friendly' so by default I get the feeling EU is also not SLI friendly

I'm trying out nhancer (sadly only got 32bit version to install in win7.64) but I'll see how that goes.

THERE IS DEF. more power from 2x cards than one (without 'tweaks') I ran on 1 card for a week or 2 to make sure I knew what it was capable of before re-installing the 2nd

I do not get 2x the power, by doing the nvidia control panel 'enable SLI' I can tweak textures to they're max with 2 cards , I couldnt with one

If I'd know the gain was so low I would have got a 295 rather than 2x275 (that on paper IS more powerfull but in reality with EU its not)

I was getting one hotter card but that was when i was on they're default shitty AIR cooling, what kind of fucking idiot makes a card cooling system that takes its cold air from bellow making them almost impossible to use in SLI on 2xslot MB ?!? Watercooling is really the most sensible solution if your SLIing and OCing them

im about to try testing nhancer, took a while to track down my crysis install DVD gonna use it as a testbed and 'tweak' whatever and wherever I can to get EU running better in SLI

 

[Shadowmage]

I have a Dual 260 GTX system too and experienced better performance with deactivating one of my cards (20-25% more FPS, not talking about stability on temperature). Don't ask me why please...

 

[FilthyMcNasty]

Don't know about SLI but I am running 3 Asus HD4870 1gb cards in crossfire. I do get a noticeable FPS increase with it. I imagine SLI should be the same.

 

[Legion]

I belive that crysis wasnt SLI 'friendly' so by default I get the feeling EU is also not SLI friendly

I'm trying out nhancer (sadly only got 32bit version to install in win7.64) but I'll see how that goes.

THERE IS DEF. more power from 2x cards than one (without 'tweaks') I ran on 1 card for a week or 2 to make sure I knew what it was capable of before re-installing the 2nd

I do not get 2x the power, by doing the nvidia control panel 'enable SLI' I can tweak textures to they're max with 2 cards , I couldnt with one

If I'd know the gain was so low I would have got a 295 rather than 2x275 (that on paper IS more powerfull but in reality with EU its not)

I was getting one hotter card but that was when i was on they're default shitty AIR cooling, what kind of fucking idiot makes a card cooling system that takes its cold air from bellow making them almost impossible to use in SLI on 2xslot MB ?!? Watercooling is really the most sensible solution if your SLIing and OCing them

im about to try testing nhancer, took a while to track down my crysis install DVD gonna use it as a testbed and 'tweak' whatever and wherever I can to get EU running better in SLI

get the beta from the forum instead. That should install unless the regular 64bit one does.

 

[Rayne Jade]

I belive that crysis wasnt SLI 'friendly' so by default I get the feeling EU is also not SLI friendly

I'm trying out nhancer (sadly only got 32bit version to install in win7.64) but I'll see how that goes.

THERE IS DEF. more power from 2x cards than one (without 'tweaks') I ran on 1 card for a week or 2 to make sure I knew what it was capable of before re-installing the 2nd

I do not get 2x the power, by doing the nvidia control panel 'enable SLI' I can tweak textures to they're max with 2 cards , I couldnt with one

If I'd know the gain was so low I would have got a 295 rather than 2x275 (that on paper IS more powerfull but in reality with EU its not)

I was getting one hotter card but that was when i was on they're default shitty AIR cooling, what kind of fucking idiot makes a card cooling system that takes its cold air from bellow making them almost impossible to use in SLI on 2xslot MB ?!? Watercooling is really the most sensible solution if your SLIing and OCing them

im about to try testing nhancer, took a while to track down my crysis install DVD gonna use it as a testbed and 'tweak' whatever and wherever I can to get EU running better in SLI

Thanks, Kygon... I pretty must did the exact same thing. To be honest, I was nervous to mess with anything else. My graphics look sweet so I figured if it ain't broke...

If you do post some tweaks / results, I am looking forward to seeing it.

 

[kygon]

Thanks, Kygon... I pretty must did the exact same thing. To be honest, I was nervous to mess with anything else. My graphics look sweet so I figured if it ain't broke...

If you do post some tweaks / results, I am looking forward to seeing it.

ok so I got nhancer working, def. improved things, updated all the win7.64 offical ones needed.

BUT crysis profile on crysis I can run 1920x1200 in 32xAA ultra settings at amazing speeds

SAME settings on EU I can run smooth on medium with maxed out textures, anything more hunting is laggy, also anoyingly EU disables my OSD of the balance between SLI cards SO I dont think EU uses them properly.

I'm going to watercool my 2nd card soon so will do some testing in both crysis and eu and do a few 3dMark scores

I found a really cool OCing app for win7

http://www.evga.com/PRecision/ USE WITH CAUTION I managed to almost fry my card on AIR pushing it too high (it has a nice "force fan to 100% Jet Engine levels but it didnt quite cope as well as the water cooled one)

NOTE - DO NOT USE THE "set on windows startup" until you have stable setup or you will have to uninstall the app in safe mode.

I'm taking notes of my SLI trials but tbh when I see crysis in 1920x1200 in ultra I get all excited about how EU could look when the '2nd SAoB Second Age of Beta' period is over

if MA can make EU 'feel' only 50% as good as crysis does on my 2x274 OC'ed I'll be overjoyed

I'm goint to get this dam SLI thing sused if it kills me, I did think 'fuck it get 2 more cards and new MB then its bound to run better but unless i can get 2 working 3 or 4 is going to cause more problems rather than more performace!

EDIT: will try the nhancer beta, and may start a thread in the support forum for EU and get it done legal (without the need to possibly break EULA)

 

[Zap]

Dont have a SLI machine so cant test this...
Crysis tweak... should work if MA havent disabled it. Tho, you are modding game file that is No No if you ask MindArk

Edit settings-ce.cfg

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Entropia Universe\settings-ce.cfg

add line to it:

r_MultiGPU [0,1,2]

r_MultiGPU = 0 no SLI
r_MultiGPU = 1 force SLI
r_MultiGPU = 2 auto-detect SLI


This option controls whether Crysis enables additional overhead for rendering on multi-GPU systems (i.e. SLI and CrossFire setups). If set to 0 - which is the optimal setting for single-GPU systems - it disables multi-GPU support; if set to 1 it enables multi-GPU support for both SLI and Crossfire; if set to 2 it attempts to auto-detect if a multi-GPU setup is present (system).

 

[kygon]

Dont have a SLI machine so cant test this...
Crysis tweak... should work if MA havent disabled it. Tho, you are modding game file that is No No if you ask MindArk

Edit settings-ce.cfg

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Entropia Universe\settings-ce.cfg

add line to it:

r_MultiGPU [0,1,2]

r_MultiGPU = 0 no SLI
r_MultiGPU = 1 force SLI
r_MultiGPU = 2 auto-detect SLI


This option controls whether Crysis enables additional overhead for rendering on multi-GPU systems (i.e. SLI and CrossFire setups). If set to 0 - which is the optimal setting for single-GPU systems - it disables multi-GPU support; if set to 1 it enables multi-GPU support for both SLI and Crossfire; if set to 2 it attempts to auto-detect if a multi-GPU setup is present (system).

I'm using crysis in nhancer so should already force this but I might give it a go , unless MA added a bunch of features to graphics/advanced menus in .13

 

[nutter]

Just tested all the options whilst in windowed mode and monitoring core1 and core 2 of my CPU, along with the temps on core1 and core 2 of my GPU....

CPU - Core 1 of CPU remained at around 30%, while core 2 was 50% to 99%

Conclusion 1 - EU does not use more than 1 core of a dual core system...

GPU - Core 1 remained at 78 degrees c while core 2 raised to 90 degrees c (both with 40% fan air cooling)

Conclusion 2 - EU does not utilise SLI / dual core graphics cards.

All crysis tweaks tried, along with Nhancer SLI tweaks and optimisations.

Lets hope FPC decide to do the following...

1. Release a x64 version of EU
2. Enable SLI (it took a patch for crysis to use SLI properly...)

This would make the game a lot better in terms of playability...

 

[kygon]

Just tested all the options whilst in windowed mode and monitoring core1 and core 2 of my CPU, along with the temps on core1 and core 2 of my GPU....

CPU - Core 1 of CPU remained at around 30%, while core 2 was 50% to 99%

Conclusion 1 - EU does not use more than 1 core of a dual core system...

GPU - Core 1 remained at 78 degrees c while core 2 raised to 90 degrees c (both with 40% fan air cooling)

Conclusion 2 - EU does not utilise SLI / dual core graphics cards.

All crysis tweaks tried, along with Nhancer SLI tweaks and optimisations.

Lets hope FPC decide to do the following...

1. Release a x64 version of EU
2. Enable SLI (it took a patch for crysis to use SLI properly...)

This would make the game a lot better in terms of playability...

I know I can def. get more detail and smoothness out of 2 cards than 1 so there is some half arsed default unoptimised usage, also unsure about how SLI and windowed mode works

 

[kygon]

Edit settings-ce.cfg

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Entropia Universe\settings-ce.cfg

add line to it:

r_MultiGPU [0,1,2]

r_MultiGPU = 0 no SLI
r_MultiGPU = 1 force SLI
r_MultiGPU = 2 auto-detect SLI

tried this, no noticable difference, I just wish EU didnt remove the load balancing OSD from my GFX card tools... but this could also be the fact there is simply no load balancing of GPU's going on and actually when I think about it, 2nd card could simply be adding to the avail Graphics memory allowing for higher texture levels.... hmmm the more i think of this explanation the more is makes sense

double the GFX RAM = double the textures
double the GPU = nothing

BUT rembmer that I think MA is concetrating on getting the low end people back ingame rather than tweaking for the SLI'ers (a priority I agree with)

they'd better make EU handle more like crysis does, its absolutly stunning running on 2x275 OC'ed to the max on nhancer crysis settings at 1920x1200... i cant help replay it now.

What I love about EU and Cry2 is the old "upgrades make a difference" thing every new setup i get I reinstall farcry (well I used too) , crysis and a bunch of other older FPS and ultra max them and replay them, I hope EU ends up that way too. Each new upgrade I'll see a difference in EU

 

[kygon]

right ive managed to get eu running better using SLI and nhancer, I just started to force different types of SLIing and added forced SLI of AAing and actually noticed a big difference (dont know if the edit to the config i did before helped this)

I actually see the SLI balancing on screen bar for AAing so a few more hours of testing and I should have a profile for nhancer and 2x275s to run on high at 1920x1200 (that would be very high at lower res's)

1x 275 can handle medium and a few of the texture settings to high at max res for me

so bottom line, NO EU does not use SLI you have to force your OS todo it (regardless of the settings ingame) for the 1st time ive seen high and maxed textures run smooth at my 1920x1200 res... so i have some hope a VU far far away will make EU look like crysis does for me (drrrrooooollll)

 

[slupor]

right ive managed to get eu running better using SLI and nhancer, I just started to force different types of SLIing and added forced SLI of AAing and actually noticed a big difference (dont know if the edit to the config i did before helped this)

I actually see the SLI balancing on screen bar for AAing so a few more hours of testing and I should have a profile for nhancer and 2x275s to run on high at 1920x1200

so bottom line, NO EU does not use SLI you have to force your OS todo it (regardless of the settings ingame) for the 1st time ive seen high and maxed textures run smooth at my 1920x1200 res... so i have some hope a VU far far away will make EU look like crysis does for me (drrrrooooollll)

I so much want to see this too, looking forward to your settings overview so I can try as well!

/Slupor

 

[Dav]

right ive managed to get eu running better using SLI and nhancer, I just started to force different types of SLIing and added forced SLI of AAing and actually noticed a big difference

Same here, and it made quite an improvement, from (roughly) 15-20 fps on very high settings with 2 x AA to 45 fps with AA @ max (16xQ)

 

[misao]

I know this is an old thread but I'm just wondering if there has been
any developments in support of sli or crossfire?

Or do you still have to force sli to work?

Thanks

 

[Nor Alien]

I believe I read somewhere that SLI works.. but I know I can't get my crossfire to work.. nor can I get my second gpu to work when even using one card..

Sorry that didn't help too much..

 

[misao]

I believe I read somewhere that SLI works.. but I know I can't get my crossfire to work.. nor can I get my second gpu to work when even using one card..

Sorry that didn't help too much..

No worries, its MindArks lack of communication where the problem lies.

 

[Nor Alien]

No worries, its MindArks lack of communication where the problem lies.

LOL yeah and ATI hasn't been soo helpful either.. They know about the problem and say its MA's problem and MA says it's a problem with the drivers/card/ATI!!

 

[misao]

Well been playing around and seems like EU works with SLI.

Here's a picture of it in action you can see all 4 GPU's are being used.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/gallery/files/1/9/8/4/7/untitled.jpg