HyperSLI (Enabling SLI on non-sli motherboards)

[oxy93n]

Originally Posted by Z-FiRE

With ASUS P5Q mainboard or P45 chipset mainboard ?

look my pc specs

i have asus crosshair iv formula with 890FX chip

the thing i did think why it works great with this board is that the 990fx from the crosshair V fomula have SLI enabled by default and the 890Fx is the same chip only without the sli certificate.

[Z-FiRE]

Originally Posted by oxy93n

look my pc specs

i have asus crosshair iv formula with 890FX chip

the thing i did think why it works great with this board is that the 990fx from the crosshair V fomula have SLI enabled by default and the 890Fx is the same chip only without the sli certificate.

So, it's not really the same specs of me and Hacko

[tinytiger]

HperSLI 0.7 works well with 290.36

[technogiant]

I'm getting problems with 290.36....I initially tried it with the Hypersli 0.1 which has been working fine for me with previous drivers.
But with 290.36 when I enable sli through NV control panel I get a black screen followed by a black/white message "video mode not supported"

I updated to HyperSli 0.7 reinstalled 290.36 but have the same problem.
Went back to the latest non-beta driver with HyperSli 0.7 and works fine.....its just the latest 290.36 that is causing problems for me.
Intel Q6600 X38A chipset win7 home premium 64bit, 2X Palit gtx460's 2GB versions.

[anatolymik]

i haven't any problems with latest drivers. who else has problems?

[anatolymik]

Originally Posted by technogiant

I'm getting problems with 290.36....I initially tried it with the Hypersli 0.1 which has been working fine for me with previous drivers.
But with 290.36 when I enable sli through NV control panel I get a black screen followed by a black/white message "video mode not supported"

Post screenshot or photo if you can.

by the way. try to set resolution to lowest and after that try to enable sli.

how many monitors you have plugged to cards?

[technogiant]

Originally Posted by anatolymik

by the way. try to set resolution to lowest and after that try to enable sli.

how many monitors you have plugged to cards?

That worked a treat.....I only have the one monitor 1920X1200 60Hz, plugged into the card nearest the cpu...but I have the dvi connected to the second dvi port as that one appears to be a dual link where as the first one is a single link from what I can see.

Thanks Anatolymik...you're the man...

Edit...actually rechecking that I think I'm mistaken...they are both dual link ports apparently.

[federicoz45]

I confirm that driver 290.36 works fine with 3 way SLI. No significant improvements adviced.

About Skyrim:

This driver enables Ambient Occlusion for Skyrim, but it seems to degrade the quality in depth when inside rooms. Disabled solves the issue.

[ThePOO]

I finally got around to putting my system specs on my account today, and reflecting them here just because ...

AMD Phenom II 1090T
MSI 890FXA-GD70
Scythe Orochi Rev B
4 Corsair CMX4GX3M1A1333C9 (16GB)
2 MSI GTX580 Frozr II/OC (Asus SLI Adapter)
4 Crucial RealSSD C300 in Raid-0 (1TB)
2 Seagate ST2000DL003 6Gbps in Raid-0 (4TB)
Lite-On IHAS22406
3 HannStar Hanns.G iF281 28" (2D Surround - 3600x1920)
Cooler Master HAF 932
Cooler Master Silent Pro M 1000W
Window 7 Pro SP1

HyperSLI 0.7 beta

290.36 beta


... because? Because I'm so happy that's why.

Because of the efforts of anatolymik and progressive improvement in the nVidia drivers I can finally play my Battlefield 3 Limited Edition for the first time TODAY!

[timohour]

First of all anatolymik thanks a lot for the awesome tools and work.
I am recently trying to enable sli on a motherboard that comes only with two pci-e x1.
Since you are the only guy who know well of Nvidia drivers I would like your help to find out a way to enable this. Is it possible with older drivers?
Just point me on the right direction.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Waiting for your answer.

[oxy93n]

Originally Posted by timohour

First of all anatolymik thanks a lot for the awesome tools and work.
I am recently trying to enable sli on a motherboard that comes only with two pci-e x1.
Since you are the only guy who know well of Nvidia drivers I would like your help to find out a way to enable this. Is it possible with older drivers?
Just point me on the right direction.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Waiting for your answer.

2x x1 pcie? sorry but why u will spend money in sli with this setup? u will never get any performance boost with pcie-x1 sli.

[phoen]

Originally Posted by oxy93n

2x x1 pcie? sorry but why u will spend money in sli with this setup? u will never get any performance boost with pcie-x1 sli.

Same with only one graphics card xD

[timohour]

Originally Posted by oxy93n

2x x1 pcie? sorry but why u will spend money in sli with this setup? u will never get any performance boost with pcie-x1 sli.

Actually it is a laptop hooking up two eGPUs.
When I first read this forum I was thinking the same thing. But when I hooked up my 460 and gave me 11000 GPU Vantage points I changed my mind. Right now I have another 460 up and running but it won't do any good until I find a way to enable sli.

any advice will be welcome.

Thanks i advance oxy93n

Originally Posted by phoen

Same with only one graphics card xD

Why is that? I mean there aren't particular tests that show that. GPUs are doing their job on their own and only when it comes to export data they communicate through the sli bridge.
Theoritically the performance limitation is due to the reduced lanes x1 vs x16 that they use. Ain't that right?

Thanks in advance phoen

[oxy93n]

Originally Posted by timohour

Why is that? I mean there aren't particular tests that show that. GPUs are doing their job on their own and only when it comes to export data they communicate through the sli bridge.
Theoritically the performance limitation is due to the reduced lanes x1 vs x16 that they use. Ain't that right?

Thanks in advance phoen

thats not right
sli works without bridge with older drivers so ther is a comunication betwen the pci-e slots. the only thing why a bridge is used to relieve the pci-e slots.

sorry my english is bad i hope u know what i mean.

[technogiant]

The game engine running on the cpu needs to deliver all the graphics requests via the pcie connection, also as mentioned above data transfer occurs between the two cards on both the pcie bus and the sli bridge.

Many comparisons have been done on the effect of pcie bandwith on sli/crosffire setups, generally there is little difference going from an X16 by X16 to an X8 by X8 but on older mobos with X16 by X4 there was a large reducing in multi gpu efficiency.....X1 by X1 as you are suggesting would be point less. Infact is there any point in putting any graphics card in an x1 pcie slot?

[timohour]

Originally Posted by technogiant

Many comparisons have been done on the effect of pcie bandwith on sli/crosffire setups, generally there is little difference going from an X16 by X16 to an X8 by X8 but on older mobos with X16 by X4 there was a large reducing in multi gpu efficiency.....X1 by X1 as you are suggesting would be point less.

In fact that is because the x4 port was running @ 1.0 speeds, meaning that you are actually running x2 2.0 speeds (1GB/s). This is happening even on P55 boards. The differencies can be seen here where I have made a test for all speeds X16, x4, x2, x1 with a i7 and a 5850 extreme.

Originally Posted by technogiant

Infact is there any point in putting any graphics card in an x1 pcie slot?

This is the only way to have a cheap gaming laptop. I thought the original thought for this patch was to save money. That's what I 'm trying to do right now.

Originally Posted by oxy93n

thats not right
sli works without bridge with older drivers so ther is a comunication betwen the pci-e slots. the only thing why a bridge is used to relieve the pci-e slots.

sorry my english is bad i hope u know what i mean.

I understand what you mean, but since I have the cards I am thinking to test it for myself.
Thanks


That was the only place I thought I would find help, but instead I get advice why not to do it.
Thanks.

[technogiant]

That's all interesting stuff, I'm not sure how the benchmark you have been using actually works though. By that I mean is the benchmark essentially running internally on the gpu structure and as such relatively independent of the bus bandwidth?
I don't know if this is the case but if it were then the results would be flawed.
Personally I think I would run real world game benchmarks before throwing much money at such a system.

[timohour]

Originally Posted by technogiant

That's all interesting stuff, I'm not sure how the benchmark you have been using actually works though. By that I mean is the benchmark essentially running internally on the gpu structure and as such relatively independent of the bus bandwidth?
I don't know if this is the case but if it were then the results would be flawed.
Personally I think I would run real world game benchmarks before throwing much money at such a system.

Since the GPU is connected to an external monitor there is no need for too much bandwidth. Of course actual benchmarks (RE5, Devil May Cry) show bigger differencies, but most times you get 60-80% of the performance the gpu would gave on a x16 2.0 port (with a decent CPU offcourse).

Connecting two cards since they are using two different pci-e ports will widen the bandwidth and according to my calculations it would be around 120-150% of a single card @ x16 2.0.
I would be able to check right now (since I have everything) if it wasn't for the fact that sli won't show on nvidia Control Panel, maybe because I am running @ x1-x1. Thats what I am trying to overcome. If I will be able, we can discuss the results later.

[technogiant]

Sounds an interesting project, my guess is though that as your pcie bandwidth is already limiting your cards performance that when you use sli you will further reduce the performance of each gpu.
I say that because although you are doubling your bandwidth, that bandwidth is being shared between 2 gpu's so is essentially similar to your one card set up. When you subtract the overhead on the bandwidth that sli will impose you will have less bandwdth per gpu than you originally had, and as that was already the limiting factor you will see a decrease in your per gpu performance.
When you factor in that sli will only give 70% - 80% increase with the second card in a full bandwidth system then its debatable on how much more you will get....dependant on how much of a negative effect the sli overhead has on your bandwidth.

Still its always good to see your projects through.....you always find someone with a negative view point on the web ;-)....so good luck with that. If anyone could help you get that up and running I'm sure people here could.

[timohour]

Originally Posted by technogiant

You always find someone with a negative view point on the web ;-)....so good luck with that. If anyone could help you get that up and running I'm sure people here could.

Thanks for your help man! They say that: There are no bad ideas, just different perspectives.

That's what I hope...

pls somebody help me

[technogiant]

So Timohour I take it you've installed the HyperSli patch but still aren't getting any option to enable sli in the NV control panel?

You also have to enable virtualisation on the cpu through the bios....the correct term evades me if someone else can help out here?

If your still not getting the option and its down to the driver not allowing it because you are using X1 lanes as you suspected then other more knowlegable people will have to help you.

[timohour]

Originally Posted by technogiant

So Timohour I take it you've installed the HyperSli patch but still aren't getting any option to enable sli in the NV control panel?

You also have to enable virtualisation on the cpu through the bios....the correct term evades me if someone else can help out here?

If your still not getting the option and its down to the driver not allowing it because you are using X1 lanes as you suspected then other more knowlegable people will have to help you.

Yeap, exactly...
I followed everything, enabled virtualization, install hypersli, hypersli reported working but Nvidia Control Panel didn't include SLl configuration.

So I figured it is a driver configuration, as faced by previous p67 users where anatoly told them that they have to enable a x16-x4 configuration instead of the x16-x1 they had. That gave me the tip that hypersli may was working but the driver needed more manipulation.

[technogiant]

The only other thing I can suggest is you should try it using the sli 1.5 beta patch rather than the hypersli....don't know if that works differently...but worth a try....other than that...I'm spent...and your looking at much more complex solutions......keep trying dude...lol

[SuperTuck]

I am having a similar problem as technogiant. The last drivers work great for me but the new beta ones do not. Whenever I enable SLI it makes the two beeps for a disconnected video source and a reconnected source and the desktop never comes back. It stays blanks and then after about 15 seconds it says no video source. Once it gave me a blue screen with a b3 code. I've tried clean reinstalls of the hypersli and the beta drivers and multiple reboots. I did get it to go SLI once, but when I tried to enable 3d vision it crashed out teh same way as it does when I normally try SLI.

I have two GTX 580s on an m4a89td pro/usb. I'm ignorant technically but if you need more info you can probably walk me through teh steps.

Edit: I just noticed the reduce resolution fix. I am going to try that. So just drop resolution low until SLI is working then up it? Giving that a shot.

Second Edit: I tried to drop my resolution and it worked. I was able to get SLI working, then I enabled 3d vision. However, when I changed the resolution back to native at 1080p the screen went blank again and reported lost signal. I had to hard reset and when it came back Windows said I wasn't connected to an Nvidia graphics device so I couldn't open the nvidia panel.

I really want that ambient occlusion from the new patch for SKyrim but I would rather keep my sli and 3d vision for it. Any suggestions? I am only using one monitor at 1080p.

[technogiant]

Supertruck....I changed the resolution via the window 7 interface rather than the NV control panel.....don't know if that makes a difference. Just dropped it as low as possible, enabled sli and then increased the resolution again via the win 7 interface rather than NV control panel.