SLI Tweaks! Request to the SLI vets here

[Noxis]

I am SLI as of today (yay) got me a cheapo 7800GTX for £170 smackers. Now I need to know the *best* way to get the most performance out of my SLI.

There are several driver options now popped up since I modded my DFI Ultra-D and slapped in a second 7800GTX.

SLI Rendering mode, the options are:

SLI multi-GPU rendering
SLI single-GPU rendering
SLI Antialiasing

Not sure what each of these do

Also do the nvidia drivers automagically know which game I am playing and change accordingly for best SLI setup?

Give me your sli tweaks!

 

[chaparral]

Install coolbits...It give you a lot more options.like SLI 8xAA and SLI 16xAA..Plus more SLI rendering modes..

SLI multi-GPU rendering = using both cards
SLI single-GPU rendering = only using one card
SLI Antialiasing = Very High sli AA modes like 8xAA & 16xAA..(very big FPS hit..but games look totally amazing)

Also do the nvidia drivers automagically know which game I am playing and change accordingly for best SLI setup

Only if the game profile is in the drop down menu in the nvidia driver control panel..If any of your games are not in the list,,then you can make your own profile yourself very easy.

 

[paradigm]

Yeah the latest drivers plus all the coolbits hacks should see you with:

Automatic
Alternate Frame Rendering
Alternate Frame Rendering 2
Split Frame Rendering
Single GPU Rendering
SLI Antialiasing.

It really does appear to be application specific, I get the best performance out of 3Dmark06 with Alternate Frame Rendering, whereas with Trackmania Nations, that would give me rendering issues, however Alternate Frame Rendering 2 is fine, giving me 89FPS with my current config in bench tests (just for reference, split frame only gives me 65, and single GPU only gave me 45!).

 

[JoyPadJedi]

Just a note on SLI AA - for older, more CPU-driven games, use SLI AA.

 

[Noxis]

Cheers for the info guys - I got a geforce_overclock.reg file but it doesnt give me that - any sources for a modern coolbits?

Also, the option to show GPU load balancing - what exactly should I expect to see here? What does the bar down the left mean and shouldnt I see like a line across the middle of the screen where one gpu is doing one half etc.... ?

 

[paradigm]

Cheers for the info guys - I got a geforce_overclock.reg file but it doesnt give me that - any sources for a modern coolbits?

Also, the option to show GPU load balancing - what exactly should I expect to see here? What does the bar down the left mean and shouldnt I see like a line across the middle of the screen where one gpu is doing one half etc.... ?

Load balancing tool is pretty much just a fad. Pointless in reality (and do you really care so long as your framerate is good ). It will only be rendering half and half the current frame if your on "split frame rendering"

I'll stick the reg file online in a sec and edit this post.

EDIT: Grab the registry entries HERE.

 

[bbreezeuk]

cheers for the link it helped me loads

 

[Noxis]

Load balancing tool is pretty much just a fad. Pointless in reality (and do you really care so long as your framerate is good ). It will only be rendering half and half the current frame if your on "split frame rendering"

I'll stick the reg file online in a sec and edit this post.

EDIT: Grab the registry entries HERE.

Ah cheers for that!

In regards to the Load Balancing tool like most people I just wanted to check SLI was all working etc

I got about 7k in 3Dmark06 which i believe is about right for my spec.

One last question - How do I overclock the cards? As when applying my geforce_overclock.reg it only shows one card for clocking.

 

[paradigm]

One last question - How do I overclock the cards? As when applying my geforce_overclock.reg it only shows one card for clocking.

I know that using the coolbits "clock frequency" page within the drivers clocks both cards simultaneously when running in SLI (as they both have to be the same speed).

 

[Noxis]

I know that using the coolbits "clock frequency" page within the drivers clocks both cards simultaneously when running in SLI (as they both have to be the same speed).

Ah ok - thats interesting then coz the speed shown is 450 / 1250 - I am running a OCUK (PoV) 7800GTX and a XFX 7800GTX, the POV card default clock is 430 and the XFX is 450. Had to remove the water cooling from the PoV card Unfortunately but they still both do 500/1300 with air cooling so its all good .