SLI mode can be enabled against the wishes of the drivers. Enabling NVIDIA SLI on any motherboards, detailed guide Using sli mode


If you love playing computer games, you probably want your games to perform as well as possible. One of the key features of a gaming computer is its graphics card; In the case of the manufacturer Nvidia, you can connect two, or even more, identical video cards together to get a huge boost in performance. Follow our tips to find out how to do it.

Steps

Part 1

Installing cards

    Make sure your operating system supports SLI technology. Two cards in SLI mode are supported on Windows 7, Vista, 8, or Linux systems. Three and four cards in SLI mode are supported only on Windows Vista, 7 and 8, but not on Linux OS.

    Check the installed equipment. SLI technology requires a motherboard with several PCI-Express slots, as well as a power supply with a sufficient number of connectors. You will need a power supply that provides at least 800 watts of power.

    • Some cards allow parallel operation of four video cards in SLI mode. Most cards are made to work in dual video card mode.
    • The more video cards, the more power required.

  1. Take video cards that support SLI technology. Almost any modern Nvidia card supports SLI configuration. To do this, you will need at least two identical card models with the same amount of video memory.

    • The cards do not have to be made by the same manufacturer; it is enough that they are the same models with the same amount of memory.
    • The cards don't have to have the same clock speeds, but then you might see a slight drop in performance.
    • For best results, use identical video cards.

  2. Install video cards. Install the cards into two PCI-Express slots on your motherboard. Graphic cards are installed in slots in the usual way. Be careful not to damage the mounts or install the cards at the wrong angle. Once the cards are in place, secure them with special fasteners or screws.

    Install an SLI bridge. All cards that support SLI mode usually come with a special SLI "bridge". This connector connects to the top of the video cards, thus connecting them together. This allows cards to transfer data directly to each other.

    • It is not necessary to install a bridge to connect cards in SLI mode. Without a bridge, the cards will work together using the PCI-Express slots on the motherboard. This type of connection will result in reduced performance.

    Part 2

    Setting up SLI mode

    1. Turn on your computer. After installing the video cards, close the computer case and restart it. You do not need to make any settings changes until the system is fully turned on.

    2. Install drivers. Your operating system should automatically detect your graphics cards and try to install the appropriate drivers for them. This process may take longer than installing video cards because drivers will be installed separately for each card.

      • If the installation does not start on its own, download the latest drivers from the Nvidia website and run the installation files when the download is complete.

    3. Set up SLI. Once the drivers are installed, right-click on the desktop and select “Nvidia Control Panel”. A new window will open in which you can change the graphic settings. Find the menu item called "Configure SLI, Physx".

      • Select Maximum 3D Performance and select Apply.
      • The screen will blink several times while the SLI settings are applied. You will be asked if you want to save the new settings.
      • If the control panel does not have the required function, then your system most likely did not recognize one or more of your cards. Open Device Manager in Control Panel and check if all graphics adapters are present in the Display Adapters list. If your video cards are not in the list, check the connection, as well as the installed drivers.

    4. Enable SLI technology. Select Change 3D Image Settings from the menu on the left. In General Settings, scroll down until you find the SLI Performance Mode option. Change the setting from Single GPU to Alternate Processing 2. This will enable SLI mode for all your applications.

      • You can make separate settings for different video games by opening the Application Settings tab and selecting "SLI Performance Mode."

Before describing the modification, we note that this method has been tested in detail on the following systems:

Intel P965 (ASUS P5B Deluxe) + 2 x GeForce 6600LE by xDevs.com
Intel P45 (ASUS MAXIMUS II Formula) + 2 x GeForce 9800GTX + by sveetsnelda
Intel X48 (Gigabyte X48T-DQ6) + 2 x GeForce GTX 260 216sp by DeDaL
Intel X48 (ASUS P5E64WS Evolution) + 2 x GeForce 7900GS by Xtremelabs.org
Intel X38 (ABIT IX38QuadGT) + 2 x GeForce GTX 260 by TheWolf
Intel P55 (ASUS MAXIMUS III Formula) + 2 x GeForce 6600LE by xDevs.com
Intel P45 (ASUS P5Q Deluxe) + 2 x GeForce GTX 285 by Death or Glory
Intel X48 (ASUS Rampage Extreme) + 2 x GeForce 6800Ultra by Turrican
Intel P45 (Gigabyte EP45-UD3P) + 2 x GeForce 8800GT (Win7 32bit)
Intel P45 (Gigabyte EP45-DS4) + 2 x GeForce GTX 260 by cxghjcqr
Intel P965 (Gigabyte P965-DQ6) + 2 x GeForce 6600LE by TiN
Intel X48 (DFI LP LT X48) + 2 x GeForce 7900GS by TiN
Intel X48 (ASUS Rampage Formula) + 2 x GeForce 9800GTX by Ghostleader
AMD 790X (Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P) by akula
AMD 790X (DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RS) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT by aGeoM
Intel P35 (Abit IP35ProXE) + 2 x GeForce GTX 260 (192sp + 216sp) by TheWolf
Intel 5520 (Supermicro X8DAH+) + 2 x Quadro FX 4800 (GT200GL) on Windows 2008 R2 by derGhostrider
AMD 790FX (ASUS Crosshair III Formula) + 2 x GeForce 9800GT by aGeoM

Despite the small (yet) list, the modification allows you to run SLI on ANY chipset, not just Intel. It's just that there are no owners of two or more NVIDIA video cards with other chipsets willing to try SLI. But technically, SLI can be enabled even on motherboards with an AMD chipset, as long as there are enough PCI-Express slots.

The method has been successfully tested and implemented on operating systems:

Microsoft Windows XP 32 bit
Microsoft Windows Vista/7 32 bit
Microsoft Windows Vista/7 64 bit

Now combining several NVIDIA video cards in SLI mode can be done on any motherboard. This became a reality thanks to the advent of a simplified verification procedure, which is implemented to support SLI on the Intel X58 platform. The technology described below in the article and the modified driver have been successfully tested on systems with Intel P45 (ASUS Maximus II Formula + 2 x 9800GTX+, XP) and Intel P965 (ASUS P5B Deluxe + 2 x 6600LE, XP) chipsets, but there are no restrictions on chipset support, therefore, in the near future the list of tested chipsets will be expanded as they are tested by enthusiasts.

encrypted "allowed" list in the NVIDIA driver. In the case of the “outside” Intel X58, a simplified compatibility testing scheme was developed that uses text identifier strings, or otherwise SLIC certificates, for all X58 boards.

The essence of the modification is to force the NVIDIA video driver to identify the “Intel X58” chipset, regardless of what set of logic is actually used in the hardware. Having received the X58 identification, the video driver checks for the presence of the correct SLI compatibility certificate, which should be found in the ACPI system tables. Initially, table data is loaded from the computer's BIOS, but later an entry in the Windows registry is used.

At the current stage of installation, only a corrected driver with a substituted chipset identifier is not enough to activate SLI; you also need to manually enter a suitable certificate into the ACPI configuration tables. Fortunately, to make changes it is not necessary to adjust the BIOS and put the motherboard at risk with unnecessary flashing. Let's use a simpler method, thanks to storing the DSDT table we need in the Windows registry. At the moment, all certificates are associated with the name of the motherboard manufacturer, and are checked by the driver for correctness. This means that for ASUS motherboards (any model) you can only use a certificate from X58-based motherboards manufactured by ASUS, for example Rampage III Extreme. For EVGA boards – similar to EVGA Classified.

To work you will need two utilities: Intel ASL Optimizing Compiler and Microsoft ASL 3.0

The entire procedure for adding a certificate for the Windows XP 32bit operating system looks something like this:

Procedure for adding an X58 SLI certificate for the Gigabyte P965-DQ6 board.

Step 0. We check the availability of our manufacturer's (Gigabyte) X58 board in the list of certificates below. We use the string "" in this case.

Step 1. We read the ACPI table from the Windows registry and disassemble it. To do this, create a directory c:/ACPI and copy the IASL and ASL 3.0 utilities into it. On the command line, run iasl –g. If everything went well, you will see something like this:

The table we are interested in is disassembled and stored in the file dsdt_GBTUACPI.dsl. Open this file with any text editor.

Step 2. Insert the certificate into the table. The essence of editing comes down to finding a block similar to:

Scope(\_SB_)
{
Various code not of interest to us
}

And inserting a block with a certificate immediately after this block. In our example it looks like this:

Original file

Device (\_SB.PCI0.EXPL)
{
Code that doesn't interest us...
}
}
}
}

File with added certificate.

Device (\_SB.PCI0.EXPL)
{
Code that doesn't interest us...
}

Scope (\_SB.PCI0)
{
Name (SLIC, Buffer (0x9E)
{
"987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for GIGABYTE GA EX58-UD38432-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)"
})
Device (WMI1)
{
Name(_HID, "pnp0c14")
Name(_UID, "MXM2")
Name (_WDG, Buffer (0x14)
{
/* 0000 */ 0x3C, 0x5C, 0xCB, 0xF6, 0xAE, 0x9C, 0xBD, 0x4E,
/* 0008 */ 0xB5, 0x77, 0x93, 0x1E, 0xA3, 0x2A, 0x2C, 0xC0,
/* 0010 */ 0x4D, 0x58, 0x01, 0x02
})
Method(WMMX, 3, NotSerialized)
{
CreateDWordField(Arg2, 0x00, FUNC)
If (LEqual (FUNC, 0x41494C53))
{
Return (\_SB.PCI0.SLIC)
}

Return (0x00)
}
}
}

We save the final text file with the table and the added certificate under the name sli.dsl.

Step 3. We compile the final table into a binary file. To do this, we will use the Microsoft ASL 3.0 utility, the link to which was provided earlier.

If compilation is successful, the DSDL.aml file will appear in the folder, in which the certificate string will already be embedded. This can be seen using any file viewing utility, the string is not encrypted.

Step 4. We load the modified DSDT table into the computer registry.

Step 5. We reboot the system, and if the download is successful, install the modified driver as usual. If everything went correctly, your system will immediately report the presence of SLI support and the driver will activate the SLI control tab. If, due to some error, the system does not boot, or displays errors and blue screens, press F8 during boot and select “Load last working configuration.”

If you need to return the original state of the DSDT table, discarding all changes, use the command asl /localtable DSDT.aml -d

The principle is similar for the ASUS P5B Deluxe board. Let's just dwell on the differences.

Step 0. We use the line “987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for ASUS RAMPAGE II EXT 3287-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)”.
Step 1. We read the tables from the registry and disassemble using iasl –g. The resulting file name is dsdt_A0483035.dsl.
Step 2. We look for the _SB block and immediately after it insert the SLIC block.
Step 3. We compile the file using the asl command dsdt_A0483035.dsl, we get DSDT.aml
Step 4. Load asl.exe /loadtable DSDT.aml
Step 5. Reboot and install the modified driver.

Despite the apparent complexity, all these steps are completed in 5 minutes with a tea break, there is nothing complicated in the procedure, the main thing is to do everything carefully and without mistakes. Please note that these operations interact with PC hardware at a low level, so if your PC fails, data is lost, or any other negative event, the responsibility lies solely with you. All transactions are presented for informational purposes, and no one except you is responsible for possible losses.

However, we did not notice any problems on various systems; everything went without a single error.

And now the results after modifications and activation of SLI in popular benchmarks

P5B Deluxe (Intel 965 chipset) + two GeForce 6600LE video cards in SLI:

3D"03: one video card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 660/670: 10044
3D"03: two video cards in SLI, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522: 11087
3D"05: one video card, QX9650 @ 4213MHz, 6600LE DDR3 646/660: 3729
3D"05: two video cards in SLI, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522: 4975
3D"06: one video card, Q6700 @ 3600MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/585: 1510
3D"06: two video cards in SLI, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522: 1808
Aqua: one video card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 670/670: 71435
Aqua: two video cards in SLI, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522: 88185

A detailed description of the procedure for the more popular and modern operating systems Windows 7 and Windows Vista 32 bit and 64 bit options will also be described here in the coming days.

In the meantime, screenshots confirming the functionality of the method for them:

987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for GIGABYTE GA EX58-UD38432-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for ASUS RAMPAGE II EXT 3287-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for ASUS P6T Deluxe 0101-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for GIGABYTE GA EX58-UD38432-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for GIGABYTE GA EX58UD4P3287-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for DFI LP UT X58 T3EH8 0101-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for MSI X58 PLATINUM 0101-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)
987134512781Genuine NVIDIA Certified SLI Ready Motherboard for FOXCONN BLOODRAGE 3287-Copyright 2008 NVIDIA Corporation All Rights Reserved-765289891023(R)

At the moment, work is underway to eliminate the check for the presence of a certificate in the ACPI tables, so perhaps in a few days this entire procedure will not be required, it will be enough to install only the corrected driver.

Updated:

It is already possible to activate SLI on original unmodified Forceware drivers of any version that support SLI on the X58. This is possible after patching the OS system library to the following versions:

The original file in the /windows/system32 directory must be replaced with the corrected one. After this, the chipset in the system will always be identified as X58, regardless of the drivers. The CPU-Z utility also reports this.

An example of using the original Forceware 185.85 WHQL driver on an XP 32-bit system, with modified HAL.dll, and a pair of GeForce 6600LE video cards.

There is still a need for an SLIC certificate in ACPI tables.

Updated:

The modified Forceware 190.62 driver (Windows XP 32 bit) is available for download:
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/Forceware_XP32_19062_SLImod.rar - 79 MB

Modified file for the Forceware 190.62 driver (Windows XP 32 bit) with forced use of the ASUS certificate:
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/nv4_mini_rev2asus.rar - 2.1 MByte t - for this driver you need to use an ASUS certificate, regardless of the actual manufacturer of the motherboard. This will allow you to enable SLI even on motherboards from manufacturers that do not have X58 solutions.

A modified file for the Forceware 190.62 driver (Windows Vista/7 32 bit) is available for download:
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/nvlddmkm.rar - 2.6 MB

Modified file for Forceware 190.62 (Windows Vista/7 64 bit):
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/nvlddmkm-64bit_rev_2.rar - 3 MB

Modified HAL.DLL file for Windows XP 32 bit:
http://www.xdevs.com/sli/hal.dll - 130 KB- copy to the /%windows%/system32 folder, keeping the original.

Now that the principle is clear, finding similar sections of code and modifying them in any modern drivers, before NVIDIA releases new protection methods, is a matter of technology and time.

This material would not have been possible without the participation of:

If you have a desire to combine two nVidia GeForce video cards to improve performance in games and it turns out that the system unit on the motherboard, although there are two (or more) connectors for video cards, does not support nVidia SLI technology, then do not immediately despair.

Thanks to developer Ember Vulpix, we now have the ability to run GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode on motherboards that only support ATi/AMD CrossFireX or even without the official ability to combine graphics cards for improved 3D performance. Moreover, in an SLI tandem it will be possible to combine two different video cards from nVidia (from the same or similar generations); such functionality is not provided even on boards with official SLI support. In general, download the DifferentSLIAuto 1.4 patch from GitHub (or from our website), unpack it and strictly follow the detailed instructions from the README.md file.

Let's try it in combat conditions on a system of hardware that found itself in the bins: let's take an old ECS P965T-A motherboard on the Intel P965 chipset with two PCI-Ex16 connectors (the second operates in x4 mode), the specifications of which make no mention of supporting configurations SLI or CrossFireX, it only mentions the “Unique ECS S.D.G.E (Scalable Dual Graphic Engines) architecture,” whatever that means. Let's add to it an Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 processor, overclocked to 2.93 GHz and 6 GB of DDR2 PC6400 RAM. All this will run the Windows 7 HP x64 SP1 operating system.

In the same "bins" :) we found several video cards from nVidia:

  • GeForce 9800GT Green 512MB GDDR3 256bit (Palit)
  • GeForce 9800GT 1024MB GDDR3 256bit (Galaxy)
  • GeForce GT240 1024MB GDDR3 128bit (Gigabyte)
  • GeForce GT440 1024MB GDDR5 128bit (PNY, G108 chip)
  • GeForce GT630 2048MB GDDR3 128bit (Palit, G108 chip)
  • GeForce GT630 1024MB GDDR3 64bit (Palit, Kepler chip)
  • GeForce GT730 2048MB GDDR3 64bit (Palit, Kepler chip)

For the first five video cards, driver version 331.82 was used, for the last two - 364.51.

The 9800GT Green 512MB and 9800GT 1024MB, GT440 1024MB (G108) and GT630 2048MB (G108) became friends without any problems, and the GT630 1024MB (Kepler) and GT730 2048MB (Kepler) also worked together.

To check functionality, we ran the Unigine Tropics 1.3 and Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmarks with the SLI activity “thermometer” activated in the driver settings.

But the 9800GT + GT240, GT240 + GT440/GT630 and GT630 (G108) + GT630 (Kepler) refused to work - when trying to enable SLI in the driver settings, the computer froze or was thrown into BSOD.

Another caveat is that a video card with a smaller amount of memory must be installed in the main PCI-E slot. It is also worth remembering that only the overlapping amount of RAM on 3D accelerators will be used - with 1024MB and 2048MB on cards, only 1024MB will be available for games.

dxpc.ru

How to enable SLI antialiasing

How to enable SLI anti-aliasing:
Step 1: Open the NVIDIA Control Panel by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting "NVIDIA Control Panel"
Step 2: Select "3D Settings"
Step 3: Select "Manage 3D Preferences"

Step 4. Click on "Antialiasing Settings" and select the mode you need.

Step 5. Click "Apply". SLI anti-aliasing mode is enabled!

Remember, if you use one of the anti-aliasing modes, SLI performance mode will not be active. You cannot use both modes at the same time.

www.nvidia.ru

SLI mode of two GeForce GTX 260 video cards... setup, performance testing.

Introduction. In view of the fact that NVIDIA allowed Intel to organize SLI mode on motherboards with the Intel X58 chipset, it increased the popularity of video cards from this manufacturer. Let me remind you that previously we had to resort to driver modifications in order to activate the SLI mode on motherboards with chipsets from Intel, which have been quite popular lately.

In this review, I decided to present to you the level of performance achieved when installing two GeForce GTX 260 video cards. At the moment, this series is the best choice for organizing SLI mode.

Test participants.

The test participants are two XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX video cards, which we reviewed for quite some time and you can find a detailed review on our portal. Here I would like to remind you of the video card specifications: -GPU: GeForce GTX 260 -Interface: PCI-Express x16 -ROPs/Shaders operating frequencies: 576/1242 MHz -Memory operating frequencies (physical (effective)): 1000 (2000) MHz - Bus width memory exchange: 448bit -Number of universal processors: 192 -Number of texture processors: 80 (BLF/TLF) -Number of ROPs: 32 -Dimensions: 270x100x33 mm (the last value is the maximum thickness of the video card). - Output jacks: 2xDVI (Dual-Link/HDMI), TV-out.

Multiprocessor support: SLI (Hardware), 3-Way SLI

"XXX" in the name of the video card means increased frequencies relative to the nominal ones and are: 1. Core frequency 640 Mhz.

2. Memory frequency 2300 MHz.

Overclocking results.

It was decided to overclock the video cards and evaluate the performance gain from overclocking when using two video cards. These video cards agreed to operate at the frequency: 1. Core 732 Mhz. 2. From memory 1233 Mhz. 3. For shader unit 1560 Mhz.

It was decided to set the same stable frequencies for each video card, otherwise this increases the risk of freezes during the game.

Setting up SLI mode.

First of all, we find ports for SLI mode on video cards.

We open them and try on the cables so that after installing the video card it doesn’t “fiddle around” there for a long time.

After assembling the system, install the drivers. Then, through the control panel, go to the video card driver settings and enable SLI mode, as shown in the screenshot. That's all - you can enjoy all the benefits of SLI mode.

Test configuration. 1. Core I7 920. 2. GA-X58-DQ6. 3. 2x2 Gb Samsung DDR-800 Original. Tests in which the system participated: 1. Crysis. 2. Call of Duty 4. 3. 3Dmark 06.

Evaluation of results: 1. As you can see, this version of the SLI mode provides the highest performance. 2. Overclocking adds a 20% increase in performance.

2. Call of Duty 4.

Rating of results: 1. In this game the performance is also the highest. 2. The performance gain from overclocking decreased to 11%.

Evaluation of results: 1. In the synthetic test, dual-core video cards from AMD HD4850X2 and HD4870X2 are selected ahead.

2. The performance gain from overclocking is 16%.

Conclusion. Of course, the SLI mode of two GeForce GTX260 video cards looks very tempting. But don’t forget that in testing I used video cards already factory overclocked, and in order to achieve confident leadership, even they had to be overclocked to the frequencies indicated above. The cost of a set of two video cards is: 260*2=$520.

Considering the cost, one should not overlook dual-chip video cards from AMD, which show good results.

The article was prepared by FireAiD specifically for Mega Obzor.

megaobzor.com

SLI, windows 7

  1. For multiprocessor video cards, such as GeForce 7950 GX2, 9800 GX2, GTX 295, each GPU has its own amount of video memory and it is not combined with the memory of another processor. Of the declared capacity for the entire card, only half is available to 3D applications - the memory of the second GPU duplicates the data for multiprocessor SLI rendering. A definite exception to the rule are some CUDA applications (OpenCL, DirectCompute), which, when the MultiGPU mode is disabled in the driver panel, can use the video memory of each GPU independently of the memory of the other, thus loading the full amount of memory on the video card.
  2. In Windows Vista and newer operating systems, the mechanism for determining the amount of video memory has been changed. Instead of reporting the video card driver/BIOS, the operating system itself calculates the amount of video memory when using a video card driver that is compatible with the WDDM architecture. Regardless of the amount of video memory on the video card, a certain amount of RAM is added to it according to the formula:

    (RAM - 512) / 2, MB

    “Excess” video memory is allocated from RAM only for the period of immediate need for it. All applications, including many system ones, are reported as the amount of video memory as the amount of memory on the video card, fixed for the video card of RAM (for integrated/mobile solutions) and added according to the formula above the RAM. To determine the exact amount of memory on the video card, the application must use new DirectX 10 calls (Performance Information and Tools control panel applet) or direct access to the hardware (RivaTuner). For applications using older versions of DirectX, there is no programmatic way to determine the physical amount of video memory on a given operating system.

  3. In Windows Vista and 7 operating systems, the NVIDIA driver limits the total amount of video memory reported to applications via legacy DirectX interfaces to avoid errors when processing large values. When using video cards with a large buffer size (such as Quadro), this behavior can also limit the amount of physical video memory available to applications. To disable this driver behavior, enable the “Maximum memory” option in the TAG Memory Tool; however, some programs may stop working.
  4. For integrated GPUs and graphics cards with Turbo Cache technology with 64 MB of local video memory or less, the driver always reports the maximum possible memory based on system memory usage. Determining the actual installed amount of video memory on a video card with Turbo Cache technology with a local video memory of 64 MB or less is only possible using low-level utilities such as RivaTuner.
  5. When determining the available amount of video memory through DirectX calls, it is quite difficult to allocate the local memory of the video card from the total amount along with the AGP aperture or system memory added using Turbo Cache technology. Such errors in determining the amount of video memory are typical for most games.
  6. The algorithm for determining the amount of video memory in the computer performance display dialog in Windows Vista and 7 does not work correctly for video cards with a non-standard amount of video memory. Thus, a GeForce 8800 GTS with 640 MB of video memory will be defined as having 512 MB of video memory, and a 8800 GTS with 320 MB of video memory will be defined as having 256 or 384 MB. This is an officially recognized bug.
  7. If you bought a video card secondhand, then you could become a victim of scammers. The memory capacity line displayed by the video BIOS when the computer is turned on can easily be spoofed by editing the BIOS, while the driver determines the true capacity.
  8. There have been cases where this was observed with video cards that physically (chips) had the declared capacity. In addition to cases of defects in the board layout, a number of victims noted that with a different version of the driver the full volume was recognized. Presumably, the driver reinitializes the video card when the system boots, conducting some kind of memory test. Try lowering the operating frequencies of the video memory using RivaTuner or installing additional cooling on the video card memory (radiators on the chips). Try other driver versions. If possible, update the video card BIOS.
  9. Insufficient power supply to the card can also cause this problem. This is especially true for cards based on GeForce 2, GeForce 2 MX and GeForce 4 MX chips, which use video memory with a supply voltage of +3.3V internal circuits. In many of these cards, the memory is powered directly from the power lines in the AGP connector. If the power supply or stabilizer on the motherboard “sags” at +3.3V, the memory may no longer be detected.

CUDA, DirectX, GeForce 2, GeForce 2 MX, GeForce 4 MX, GeForce 7950 GX2, GeForce 8800 GTS, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce GTX 295, RivaTuner, SLI, TAG Memory Tool, Turbo Cache, VRAM, windows 7, windows Vista, video memory, driver, power supply

  1. Check that the video card is firmly seated in the bus slot and that the connector is fully seated in the slot. Check the video card connector and motherboard bus slot for mechanical damage.
  2. You should pay attention to the number of PCI Express lanes supported by the motherboard chipset and the configuration of the PCIE x16 slots on a particular motherboard. First of all, most chipsets do not support a sufficient number of channels to implement two, much less three or four full x16 slots. 16 bus lines (channels) are usually allocated only to the first slot, the rest get a smaller number (x8 or x4). Therefore, you should install the video card in the x16 bus slot closest to the central processor. Or, when installing a second video card, the lines are redistributed from the first bus slot to the second, and both begin to work in x8 mode (this mode is typical for SLI configurations). A number of entry-level chipsets, such as Intel 910/915GL, 945/946GZ and NVIDIA nForce 405/400, in principle, do not support a sufficient number of lanes for a PCI Express x16 slot, however, motherboard manufacturers on these chipsets sometimes implement such a slot, but physically it has a small number of lines.
  3. Another reason for a decrease in bus width may be the erroneous inclusion in the motherboard BIOS Setup of options that control the number of lines (channels) in the bus slots. Such options usually look like “PEG Force X1” or “PCI-E Lanes”. Refer to your motherboard documentation for information on what these options mean and how to disable them.
  4. In laptops, PowerMizer technology can change the number of active PCI Express bus lines as a measure to reduce graphics card power consumption. For information about PowerMizer, please refer to the dedicated FAQ.
  5. One of the possible reasons for the reduction in bus width may be the PCI Express bus power management system that appeared in Windows Vista and Windows 7. In the Windows Control Panel, go to Power Management and edit the advanced settings of the selected power plan by setting the Link State Power Management option to off.

In general, reducing the number of lanes to x8 has a negligible impact on the performance of video cards, excluding dual-processor solutions, but with a x2 or x1 bus width, even cards in the lower price range are very slow.

BIOS, Intel, nForce 400, nForce 405, PCI Express, PowerMizer, SLI, windows 7, windows Vista, laptops

  1. If your game crashes with a blue screen error in nv4_disp.dll, update your NVIDIA driver to the latest official version. You should not force FSAA and AF from the driver panel or RivaTuner; enable these functions only from the settings of the game itself. When using a video card based on GeForce 8X00 or newer, do not use full-screen anti-aliasing at a level higher than 2x. If all else fails, try setting the game to use OpenGL. To do this, either run the Launcher.exe application with the -opengl switch, or in the config.wtf file in the WTF subfolder of the game folder in the SET gxApi line, replace the direct3d value with opengl
  2. Systems with GeForce 4 MX-based graphics cards may experience severe graphical artifacts caused by poor performance of the GPU's geometry unit. You can disable some acceleration features by creating or changing a SET M2UseShaders line in the config.wtf file with a value of 0. If this is not enough, you can force the game to do all geometric calculations programmatically. To do this, run the Launcher.exe application with the -swtnl switch. Forum members report that similar actions can also help in case of problems with video cards based on GeForce FX 5200 and GeForce 2. On systems with other video cards, try setting the game to use OpenGL, as described above. You can also try running the game in a window; to do this, run the Launcher.exe application with the -windowed key
  3. Poor performance on SLI systems may be due to problems with the game interface. It is recommended to disable vertical synchronization (V-sync) in the game settings, enable hardware acceleration of the mouse cursor and disable smoothing of mouse movements. An additional effect can be obtained by disabling interface acceleration (panels and menus). To do this, create or change the Set UIFaster line in the config.wtf file. Try string values ​​of 2 or 0. On Windows Vista, performance drops sharply when running a game in a window.
  4. If character portraits disappear in SLI mode, update your NVIDIA driver to version 93.71 or later.
  5. Enabling the Glow effect in the game settings prevents the game from using high levels of FSAA.
  6. Poor performance with modern versions of the NVIDIA driver is often caused by the game interface scaling feature being enabled. Try turning off the "Use UI Scale" option in the game settings.
  7. On a system that supports DirectX 11 (Windows 7 or Vista with an update and a video card based on NVIDIA GTX 400 or newer) and the Cataclysm add-on installed, you can increase the FPS in the game by enabling Direct3D 11 rendering, for which you can use the config.wtf file in the WTF subfolder of the game folder in in the SET gxApi line, replace the direct3d value with d3d11

BSOD, DirectX, FPS, FSAA, GeForce 2, GeForce 4 MX, GeForce FX 5200, OpenGL, SLI, Vsync, windows 7, windows Vista, World of Warcraft, artifacts, driver, games, anti-aliasing

No. SLI support is available in NVIDIA drivers for operating systems windows XP, Vista, 7 (32- and 64-bit versions), 2003/2008 Server (32- and 64-bit versions, except the Itanium platform), Linux with kernel version 2.4.7 and higher, Solaris x86. On other systems or when using non-NVIDIA drivers (nv, nouveau, snap), the SLI combination will work as two separate video cards.

Linux, MacOS, SLI, windows 7, windows 9x, windows NT4, windows Server, windows Vista, windows XP, driver

nvworld.ru

SLI mode and solutions to problems associated with this mode

Hello, today we will talk about Nvidia video cards working in SLI mode, namely about their problems and ways to solve them, but first we will understand what SLI mode is. Nvidia SLI is a technology that allows you to use multiple video cards simultaneously and at the same time significantly increase system performance. One of the main requirements is to use the same GPU on the video cards used. Below are more detailed requirements for building a computer that will work with this technology.

  1. The motherboard must have two or more connectors that support this technology;
  2. A good power supply that can power our system (SLI-Ready units are recommended);
  3. Video cards that support this technology;
  4. A bridge that can be used to connect video cards;
  5. A processor with a high clock frequency that can unleash the potential of video cards so that there is no drop in frame rate and overall performance.

From the above, it turns out that building NVIDIA SLI is not something unattainable, but on the contrary, it is practically no different from building a regular home computer.

Problems

Well, the information above was presented about why SLI is needed, its advantages, and now let’s move on to the problems and their solutions.

  • The first problem is the dependence on drivers; drivers need to be updated very often, since serious changes are made and optimizations are made for specific games or applications;
  • The second problem is that not all games/applications support this technology and in some games/applications you need to make several of your video cards work;
  • The third problem with this technology is in the same updates, since with each driver update you need to carry out some manipulations so that all video cards work, and this is not convenient every time and not all owners of this technology are ready to rummage through the settings and deal with their problems.

Problem solving:

  1. The first problem is solved quite simply. Download the utility from the official website of NVIDIA GeForce Experience, register to use this program, log into your account, and click the “Check for updates” button. If a more recent driver is found, it will be downloaded and you will be prompted to install it.
  2. The second problem is not always solvable, since not all application manufacturers optimize their applications for this technology, but you can still try to fix performance problems with some simple manipulations in the settings of the driver itself for your SLI system.

Below I will present to you an example of setting up the game The Sims 2, which by default is not optimized for SLI mode.

Open the “Nvidia Control Panel” - manage 3D parameters - program settings and click on the “Add” button - specify the path to the file that launches our game - look at the second section “Specify settings for this program” - SLI rendering mode, if available “ Nvidia recommends (SLI)”, then select this item, if not, then select “Perform alternative frame construction 2”.

We also need to configure power management, and to do this, go to “Power management mode” and select “Prefer maximum performance mode”.

The last item we will have is the “CUDA - graphic processors” setting; in this setting, absolutely all your video cards that you want to use in this application must be checked.

  1. The third problem is solved quite simply, but it appears every time we update the driver and it takes a few clicks to fix it. Since we have not yet left the Nvidia control panel, we need to click on the “SLI, Surround, PhysX Settings” tab and click on “Update Settings” then on the “Apply” button and this problem will be solved.

Extensiveness and intensity are two key concepts in the development of human progress. Extensive and intensive paths of development of society, technology, and all of humanity as a whole have succeeded each other over the course of many centuries. There are many examples of this in all areas of economic activity. But today we are not interested in agriculture and cattle breeding; we are interested in information technology and computers. As an example, let's briefly look at the development of central processing units.

Let's not delve into the distant 80-90s, let's start right away with the Pentium 4. After a long intensive development of NetBurst technology, increasing the “steroid” megahertz, the industry hit a wall - it turned out to be very difficult to further “overclock” single-core processors and, in order to get more more powerful processor, higher costs required. And then dual-core processors appeared - an extensive solution to the problem. Soon they, too, ceased to provide the required performance, and a new Core architecture appeared, which at lower clock speeds provides greater performance - an intensive solution to the problem. And so it will continue.

But what happens with the development of the second component, which is important for a fan of spectacular games on a PC - the video card? And the same thing happens as with processors. At this stage of development, single-chip video cards can no longer provide the required performance. Therefore, both leading companies in the video card market (NVIDIA and AMD) are developing and actively implementing their own technologies to increase video system performance by combining two, three, or even four video cards in one PC. In this article we will look at the first company (since it was the one that presented its development first) NVIDIA and its SLI technology.

What is SLI technology?

NVIDIA SLI technology is a revolutionary approach to scaling graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA graphics cards into a single system.

Story

In 1998, 3dfx introduced the Voodoo2 graphics processor, among other innovations of which was SLI (Scan Line Interleave) technology, which involved two Voodoo2 chips working together to form an image. Even cards from different manufacturers, as well as cards with different amounts of memory, could work with SLI technology. The SLI system allowed working with resolutions up to 1024x768, which seemed incredible at the time. The disadvantages of SLI from 3dfx were the high cost of accelerators ($600) and high heat dissipation. However, soon video cards are moving from the PCI bus to the faster dedicated AGP graphics port. Since there was only one port on motherboards, the production of video cards with SLI support ceased for a while.

In 2000, with the release of the new VSA-100 chip, 3dfx was able to implement SLI on AGP, but this time within a single board that housed two or four such chips.

However, boards based on the SLI system had high power consumption and failed due to power supply problems. About 200 Voodoo5 6000 boards were sold throughout the world, and only 100 of them actually worked. Such an unsuccessful promotion of a promising accelerator, in which very large amounts of money were invested, actually led to the bankruptcy of the company. In 2001, NVIDIA buys 3dfx for $110 million.

In 2004, with the release of the first solutions based on the new PCI Express bus, NVIDIA announced support in its products for multi-chip data processing technology SLI, which stands for something else - Scalable Link Interface (scalable interface).

At first, the advancement of SLI technology did not go very smoothly, primarily due to constantly identified flaws in the drivers, as well as the need to “sharpen” them for each specific application, otherwise the player would not receive any benefit from purchasing a pair of accelerators. But generations of accelerators changed, drivers were improved, and the list of supported games expanded. And so, at the end of 2007, Triple SLI technology was put into operation, making it possible to combine 3 NVIDIA video cards:

The manufacturer promises a performance increase of up to 250% compared to a single chip. But this was not the limit, now Quad SLI is next in line, making it possible to force 4 GPUs to work on visualizing the game scene, albeit as part of a pair of dual-chip video cards.

Imaging algorithms

Split Frame Rendering

Split Frame Rendering algorithm diagram

This is a frequently used mode when the image is divided into several parts, the number of which corresponds to the number of video cards in the bundle. Each part of the image is processed completely by one video card, including geometric and pixel components. ( Analogue in CrossFire - Scissor algorithm)

The Split Frame Rendering algorithm easily scales to 3, 4, and in the future, possibly even more GPUs.

Alternate Frame Rendering

Alternate Frame Rendering algorithm diagram

Frames are processed one by one: one video card processes only even frames, and the second - only odd ones. However, this algorithm has a drawback. The fact is that one frame can be simple, and another difficult to process. In addition, this algorithm was patented by ATI during the release of a dual-chip video card.

Quad SLI technology also uses a hybrid mode, which combines SFR and AFR.

SLI AA (Anti Aliasing), SLI FSAA (Full Scene Anti Aliasing)

This algorithm is aimed at improving image quality. The same image is generated on all video cards with different anti-aliasing patterns. The video card smoothes the frame with a certain step relative to the image of another video card. The resulting images are then mixed and output. Thus, maximum image clarity and detail is achieved. The following anti-aliasing modes are available: 8x, 10x, 12x, 14x, 16x and 32x. ( Analogue in CrossFire - SuperAA)

Construction principles

To build a computer based on SLI you must have:

  • a motherboard with two or more PCI Express slots that supports SLI technology (as a rule, the name of the motherboard contains the word SLI).
  • A fairly powerful power supply (usually recommended from 550 W);
  • GeForce 6/7/8/9/GTX or Quadro FX video cards with PCI Express bus;
  • a bridge connecting video cards.

However, we note that support for chipsets for working with SLI is carried out in software, not hardware. But video cards must belong to the same class, and the BIOS version of the cards and their manufacturer do not matter.

Currently, SLI technology is supported by the following operating systems:

  • Windows XP 32-bit
  • Windows XP 64-bit
  • Windows Vista 32-bit
  • Windows Vista 64-bit
  • Linux 32-bit
  • Linux 64-bit (AMD-64/EM64T)

An SLI system can be organized in two ways:

  • Using a special bridge;
  • Programmatically.

In the latter case, the load on the PCIe bus increases, which has a bad effect on performance, so this method is not widely used. This mode can only be used with relatively weak accelerators.

If the SLI bridge is not installed, the driver issues a warning that the SLI mode will not work at full capacity.

For example, this is what a special bridge for connecting video cards might look like if it is made on PCB. In addition, flexible bridges have now become widespread as they are cheaper to manufacture. But to activate 3-Way SLI technology, only a special hard bridge is used so far, which actually accommodates three conventional ones in a “ring” mode.

As mentioned above, the Quad SLI system is also popularized. It involves combining two dual-chip boards into a single system. Thus, it turns out that 4 chips are involved in creating the image, but this is still the lot of avid enthusiasts and has no practical significance for ordinary users.

For the average user, something else is important, the reason for which this technology was actually conceived. By purchasing a motherboard that supports SLI, you are setting yourself up well for upgrading your PC in the future, as it provides the ability to add another graphics card. No other “upgrade” method, other than a complete system change, even comes close to the increase in gaming performance that a second video card provides.

It looks something like this. You are buying a good PC with a good modern video card. You can easily play modern games, but after a year and a half, your system can no longer satisfy you with the image quality and speed in the latest games. Then, instead of replacing the old video card (or even the entire PC), you simply add another one and get almost double the video system power.

However, everything sounds so simple in theory. But in practice, the user will have to face many difficulties.

The first is the games and applications themselves. No one has yet come up with a cure for the terrible word “optimization” - yes, not only drivers, but also games must be optimized for SLI technology in order to work correctly with it. NVIDIA states that SLI technology supports " longest list of games ». If the game you're interested in is not on the list, the company suggests creating your own settings profile for it.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of games that are not compatible with SLI, and creating a profile does nothing to fix this. There is only one way out - wait for patches from game developers and new drivers from NVIDIA. However, these games mainly include old ones, which a single modern video card can handle without problems, or less popular ones, which are not interesting to the vast majority of players due to poor “playability”. But new powerful games already provide for the use of two video cards. For example, in the game Call of Duty 4 there is a very specific switch in the graphics settings section.

You can find out that the SLI function is enabled by special indicators right in the game, with the appropriate “test” driver settings.

If you see horizontal or vertical green bars on your monitor screen, this means that the Show SLI Visual Indicators option is enabled in the NVIDIA Display Control Panel. When you enable this option, you can see how the graphics load is distributed on the GPU, and the names of the SLI components in your system will be changed: SLI for two GPUs will be called “SLI”, the name 3-way NVIDIA SLI will be replaced with “SLI x3”, and Quad SLI will be called “Quad SLI”. For games rendered using Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), the vertical green bar will grow or shrink depending on the extent of the expansion. For games rendered using Split-Frame Rendering (SFR), the horizontal green bar will rise and fall to show how the load is distributed across all GPUs. If the level of detail on the top and bottom halves of the screen is the same, the horizontal bar will be close to the middle. To enable or disable this feature, simply open the NVIDIA Control Panel and select 3D Settings.

The second common problem with computing with multiple graphics chips is synchronizing the latter. As mentioned above, the AFR rendering method has one peculiarity: one frame can be simple, and another difficult to process. If there is a large difference in the complexity of processing a frame, one video card can process it much faster than the second. This leads to “microlags” - small delays in the image, like jerks, but at the same time the overall number of FPS looks comfortable. This effect appears quite rarely, but even the developers don’t know how to deal with it. There is a simple solution for the user - in games where “microlags” are observed with the AFR method, switch to the SFR method, indicating it in the game profile.

In SFR mode, the display is split into two parts. The first card shows the top part of the picture, and the second card shows the bottom. With dynamic load balancing, the driver distributes the load evenly between the two cards.

The third problem is the processor. The fact is that when using several video adapters, the load on the processor increases not only due to the use of heavy graphics modes, but also due to the synchronization of video chips. Therefore, in order to unleash the full potential of a combination of several video cards, you will need a powerful processor. Although today this is not such a pressing issue as it was a couple of years ago.

Additional features of the new technology

The new generation of SLI-enabled motherboards and graphics cards provide users with much more features than conventional 3D graphics acceleration.

Hybrid SLI provides for a more rational use of the mode of sharing the graphics core built into the chipset and a discrete video card.

The technology consists of two parts: GeForce Boost And HybridPower.

The first will be used in applications that intensively work with 3D graphics. With GeForce Boost, part of the calculations of the three-dimensional scene will be taken over by the accelerator integrated into the system logic set, which will give a noticeable increase in performance to those systems that do not have the fastest discrete adapter installed, for example GeForce 8500 GT or GeForce 8400 GS.

HybridPower, on the contrary, will allow the use of integrated graphics, disabling the external accelerator when the user is browsing the Internet, office applications or watching videos. According to NVIDIA, the greatest benefit from this technology will be received by owners of laptops with a dedicated graphics card, whose battery life will significantly increase.

Currently, Hybrid SLI is supported by: desktop GPUs GeForce 8500 GT and GeForce 8400 GS for GeForce Boost; powerful GeForce GTX 280, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce 9800 GTX+, GeForce 9800 GTX and GeForce 9800 GT in HybridPower mode; as well as motherboards for AMD processors based on nForce 780a, nForce 750a, nForce 730a (GeForce Boost function only) with built-in GeForce 8200 graphics accelerator.

As you can see, energy savings can reach impressive values.

A very useful feature for overclockers, since in addition to saving energy, it allows the main video card to “rest” when idle and extend its service life, especially if extreme overclocking is used.

Another useful additional feature of the SLI connection is the ability to use up to 4 monitors simultaneously.

Practical use

We have already repeatedly tested various video cards in SLI mode. Let's try to summarize the information received a little.

When preparing this article, information was used from the official NVIDIA website and the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.

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Today we will get acquainted with the construction of SLI or CrossFireX configuration on ASUS ROG Maximus V motherboards.

In this manual, we will look at an example of building an SLI and CrossFireX system based on the ASUS ROG Maximus V Formula motherboard.

Install the first video card in the top red PCI-Express slot (x16).
Since we are interested in installing two video cards, the second one must be installed in the middle (also red) slot. In this case, the operating mode of each slot will be PCI-E 3.0 x8. This bandwidth will be enough (given the 3.0 standard), so there will be no loss of performance.
It remains to make sure that the latches on the slots hold the cards and that we have connected additional power.

Installing a second video card.
The second card should be as similar as possible to the first. For NVIDIA everything is simple - you need to install two identical video cards (you need to install a second GTX 670 to the first GTX 670). In this case, the driver will synchronize the frequencies of the GPU and video memory for correct operation.
But for AMD the situation is more interesting - you can use slightly different video cards. For example, with HD 7970 you can use HD 7950. We have also prepared a special table to simplify the choice:

Please note that you cannot install SLI or CrossFireX NVIDIA + AMD video cards.

On the Maximus V Formula board, the first and second PCI-Express slots (x16 size) are located in such a way that you can easily install even three-slot video cards, such as ASUS DirectCU II.

You should not install a video card in the lowest PCI-Express slot, since its bandwidth is always limited by x4 mode.

Well, when we have installed two video cards, it is worth connecting them with a special bridge. Bridges for SLI are usually included with motherboards, and CrossFire bridges are included with video cards. Bridges must be installed on the same contact pad of both cards.



When using a single monitor, it must be connected to the video output of the top card. If you have a configuration of three monitors, then, when using AMD cards, the third must be connected to the DisplayPort output, while, as in the case of NVIDIA cards, you can connect all three via DVI outputs.

When we have everything connected, all that remains is to configure a few things in the BIOS and drivers.
We need the Advanced tab, then System Agent Configuration and in this menu NB PCIe Configuration. You need to change the “Auto” values ​​to “Gen 3”.

Now you can boot the operating system and install drivers.
When the installation is complete and the system is rebooted, we need to get to the video card control panel.
It needs to enable SLI or CrossFire, depending on our configuration.



And we need to make sure that everything works as it should. For example, using the Unigen Heaven 3.0 benchmark.
The gain from the second GTX 670 is obvious (results may vary for different systems):



For one and two HD 7970 respectively:



It must be said that the increase from installing a second video card may not be in every game. This may be due to both the game itself and the drivers. Therefore, you need to monitor driver updates and the game itself (patches).

All that remains is to add that you need a high-quality and powerful power supply. For a dual-GPU system, we recommend a minimum 700W power supply.

This material is a free translation


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