SLI and Battlefiel 3 gpu usage, what's the best set of drivers?

hyperst · 4 Oct 2012 at 18:58

Ok, just put in another 480 for sli for battlefield 3, only thing is gpu usage is around 70% on both cards, is this a game or driver issue do you know?

I have ran Heaven and everything seems fine in that, around 98% usage for both cards in that, scores 2300 with the settings as per OcUK thread so that seems sli is working fine in heaven but battlefield 3 is not.

So could it be drivers or is it just the game at fault?

Running latest whql drivers.

setter · 4 Oct 2012 at 19:35

Iirc, 301.42 were pretty good with my old sli 470's. A constant 99% usage on both cards in bf3, that was in my previous i7 920 based system clocked at 4.0ghz. Now on a 4.2ghz 3570k, gtx 670 setup.

Gregster · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:05

I run 2 680's on a 2500K @ 4.6 and only see a max usage of 85% in BF3 and assumed it was a CPU bottleneck but I wouldn't have expected your chip to do the same. Maybe others can confim SLI utilises the GPU's to the full?

whyscotty · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:11

gregster said:
I run 2 680's on a 2500K @ 4.6 and only see a max usage of 85% in BF3 and assumed it was a CPU bottleneck but I wouldn't have expected your chip to do the same. Maybe others can confim SLI utilises the GPU's to the full?

mines @85-90%

Gregster · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:14

Could be the game or drivers then.

whyscotty · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:17

I know for mine its a driver issue with surround
page 6 post 105

http://75.126.99.220/showthread.php?t=1707552

this may help

Gregster · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:23

Cheers and at least acknowledged by Nvidia. Hopefully the 310.XX will have it sorted then.

whyscotty · 4 Oct 2012 at 21:30

I did notice that the recent WHQL drivers have lowered my OC settings but
did reduced my temps

Just have to wait for the drivers to mature b4 we see full benefit of surround
and for me TriSli benefits

Marine-RX179 · 4 Oct 2012 at 22:02

Have you by any chance capped frame rate at 60fps?

Gregster · 4 Oct 2012 at 22:03

Not me.

Rusty0611 · 4 Oct 2012 at 22:10

3 way SLI is CPU limited even with a 3930K

Locky found the same

(in BF3 MP)

I get 95-99% on both with i7 3770K @ 4.4

whyscotty · 4 Oct 2012 at 22:25

Marine-RX179 said:
Have you by any chance capped frame rate at 60fps?

No,getting around 90-100 fps max settings.
Just seems strange as the FTW's didn't do this.(680FTW 4GB trisli)

hyperst · 4 Oct 2012 at 22:28

no, no limits, but I tried all settings at Ultra and 4x AA motion blur on and HSBO on and Gpu usage went up in the high 90's as it should, but lower settings are only using around 70%, weird as really it should be giving me more fps with lower settings, but the system gets hot hot hot, max temps are 60 with max settings on each card but it gets the rads working and psu fan at max by the sounds of it, but only when running max settings, at least I have the cooling

Gregster · 5 Oct 2012 at 08:49

Going from an I5 at 4.6 to a 3930K today with SLI 680's still and max GPU usage at 5760*1080 was 85%. It may have been higher but I didn't notice. If I get time after building my new rig, I will test again.

Calin Banc · 5 Oct 2012 at 16:22

Try to run with a program that is able to OC your system from windows without restarting so you can benchmark int the exact same condition. Alt plus TAB from the game and play with the frequency of the CPU up and down and look for the usage variation on your gfx cards.

chipachap · 5 Oct 2012 at 16:50

Rusty0611 said:
3 way SLI is CPU limited even with a 3930K

Locky found the same

(in BF3 MP)

I get 95-99% on both with i7 3770K @ 4.4

That's over 3 monitors though isn't it? Scaling is a lot better at higher resolutions.

BF3 is just optimised terribly in MP. The more players = the worse scaling gets. Try it for yourself.

chipachap · 5 Oct 2012 at 16:52

gregster said:
Going from an I5 at 4.6 to a 3930K today with SLI 680's still and max GPU usage at 5760*1080 was 85%. It may have been higher but I didn't notice. If I get time after building my new rig, I will test again.

That's strange though, I only have scaling issues at 1080p. When I had 3 monitors my results were similar to Rusty's i.e 95-99% scaling.

Rusty0611 · 5 Oct 2012 at 16:53

chipachap said:
That's over 3 monitors though isn't it? Scaling is a lot better at higher resolutions.

BF3 is just optimised terribly in MP. The more players = the worse scaling gets. Try it for yourself.

Nope Locky only has one screen perhaps 1080 resolution I think. I tested on a single screen as well and found the same with an i5 2500k although now with an i7 3770k I'm not limited but I would probably be limited again with a third 680.

chipachap · 5 Oct 2012 at 18:22

Rusty0611 said:
Nope Locky only has one screen perhaps 1080 resolution I think. I tested on a single screen as well and found the same with an i5 2500k although now with an i7 3770k I'm not limited but I would probably be limited again with a third 680.

He's the only person I came across that can get near perfect scaling on 3 cards at that res. I can only think that he was on a map with only a handful of players. I can get perfect scaling in SP and Co-op, just not >20 players online.

Kaapstad · 5 Oct 2012 at 18:39

Rusty0611 said:
Nope Locky only has one screen perhaps 1080 resolution I think. I tested on a single screen as well and found the same with an i5 2500k although now with an i7 3770k I'm not limited but I would probably be limited again with a third 680.

I think he may have access to 1600p. I think I remember him running the Heaven 3.0 benchmark at that resolution once.