How To: Enable SLI on pre-i7/i5 hardware

[urbturb]

I found bug. Download 1.5 version again. It's amazing that it never happened before.

The error message is different now. It says "your computer is need to reboot."

I have tried rebooting and still receive the same error message.

 

[urbturb]

I went back into the windows recovery environment and ran the bootrec.exe /fixmbr and /fixboot from the cmd prompt. Then I was able to install and I am now running in SLI mode.

Thank you anatolymik!!!

 

[soundood]

well guys, i think the time has come for me to give up the SLI patch ghost, i have just taken delivery of a Asus M5A99X EVO, to get ready for bulldozer, this board of course is the first AMD chipset board to support SLI, and does not need patching, so far i am really happy with it.

but although i wont be patching, i will still follow the thread to offer any help i can, but i would just like to say it has been a wonderfull couple of years here, the excitment at making this work and being part of the early team of testers was a real honour.

Finaly of course i would like to thank TiN, Sveetsnelda, and of course Anatolymik for all the work that has been put in here, but also for the real feeling of 'team Spirit' from people's from all over the globe, just willing to help, for nothing other than the fact they could.

and i suppose we all forget that TPU forums allowed this thread to survive for so long, without warnings or intervention, truly one of the last forums to be so understanding.

throughout the time here i have managed to enable SLI on around 20 motherboards,(AMD/Intel)(My Own/Friends) so again thanks to everyone for that

take care friends, this is not a goodbye, just a 'till next time'

 

[dlerch]

Bios issue?

maybe this is a total newb question, but does sli patch 1.5 modify my bios? I'm running the p5q pro turbo and i got sli working a few days ago. Though my ram just came in and I upgraded from 4 gigs to 8 gigs.

Now my comp crashes regularly. The RAM matches, same CL timing, etc.

Now the solution to this ram issue is to flash the bios. But f I do that will it affect the SLI patch?

 

[DiogoCDS19]

No the SLIPatch doesn't modify the bios. I think what might have happened is that your ocing your cpu and because you have more ram sticks the oc isn't stable anymore probably need to increase the nb voltage.

 

[dlerch]

Doh! That's right, I will increase nb volt to 1.3. Should I adjust my ram voltage in turbov or in my bios?

 

[DiogoCDS19]

Bios always better.

 

[DeadlyDNA]

Hello, i'm back again. I gave up on fighting with my AMD board and getting 3 way SLI to work with my 470's. However now i am at a new point can i get 3 way SLI to work on a p8p67 pro mobo? I am going to try it out but was wondering if 3 way support is still elusive on this patch.

Thanks!

 

[federicoz45]

Hello, I wish to ask if is possible with a gtx570 sli add a third card for phisyx purposes that is not a 570 but a gt 450 or 430. Anyone never tried such a config like this?
Do the sli patch work in this scenario?
Thanks

 

[DeadlyDNA]

Yes I am sure you can.

I can verify I was able to run 2x470gtx SLI and use 3rd 470gtx as a physx card

On an AMD platform.

I see no reason you cannot do it as long as you get a supported physx capable video card.

 

[soundood]

 

[federicoz45]

Yes right if you use all the same videocards.
My question is about using two cards like 570 in sli and a third that is not like a 460 or even a 9800 gt. For what I know the slipatch doesn't support this.

 

[RiC@RDOC]

Yes right if you use all the same videocards.
My question is about using two cards like 570 in sli and a third that is not like a 460 or even a 9800 gt. For what I know the slipatch doesn't support this.

Physx it's not afected by Sli Patch, so if you have a board that supports 3 cards and are running two way Sli(Sli patched) and put a card to dedicated Physx you should be ok, it's not like three way sli.

Just a side note, i tried to use my old 8800GT as a Phyx card a while back and the performance was worse that with a single GTX460 doing rendering and physx at the same time, so you should get something better for that if you want some kind of performance increase.

 

[federicoz45]

Thanks for your explanation, I'll try with a card better than 9800 or so.

 

[johnspack]

To be honest, with sli gtx570s, you don't need a physx card at all. With gtx2xxx and above cards, they do their own physx just fine. It's really a waste of energy ect to run a 3rd card.

 

[snowmanwithahat]

So I've tried this with the newest WHQL drivers and v1.5 of the patch... I keep getting the error "your computer is need to reboot."

I'm running a fairly complicated system as far as the bootloader goes.. I think this might have something to do with it. I have grub2 loading up which points to the windows bootloader, ubuntu 10.04 and a grub1 bootloader which points to backtrack and back to the windows bootloader again (a mistake on my part) ... I'm trying to not screw up my linux partitions with this patch... but I might just have to to get it working.

Any advice is very much appreciated

 

[DeadlyDNA]

Yes right if you use all the same videocards.
My question is about using two cards like 570 in sli and a third that is not like a 460 or even a 9800 gt. For what I know the slipatch doesn't support this.

Sorry i did not break it down more for you.

Physx it's not afected by Sli Patch, so if you have a board that supports 3 cards and are running two way Sli(Sli patched) and put a card to dedicated Physx you should be ok, it's not like three way sli.

Just a side note, i tried to use my old 8800GT as a Phyx card a while back and the performance was worse that with a single GTX460 doing rendering and physx at the same time, so you should get something better for that if you want some kind of performance increase.

He explained it better so no need to repeat.

To be honest, with sli gtx570s, you don't need a physx card at all. With gtx2xxx and above cards, they do their own physx just fine. It's really a waste of energy ect to run a 3rd card.

I want to add my personal experience here. I am not trying to say anyone is wrong about this physx card comments, but my own testing proved other wise(at least with the 400 series).

On my x58 classified i ran 3x470gtx in sli and added 295gtx for dedicated physx(all i had at the time) and in metro 2033 benchmark i found a gain in FPS vs using my 3x470gtx only. No it was not alot of FPS but it was a gain. if i recall about 3 or 4 fps on my average.

The 3 way result with dedicated physx i did not expect any gains because of people saying the same thing. Is it worth having a dedicated physx for a very tiny gain? Thats up to you, but i am always trying to squeeze extra when i am benching.

One thing i also noticed and did not investigate to heavily was i ran a 470gtx for dedicated physx and found about 50% GPU usage in i believe Mafia II demo benchmark. i think i turned physx up to max.

Hope this helps in some way. I suspect the comment about using an 8800gt for physx and a 460 resulting in worse performance might be because 8800GT not having enough horsepower to perform physx at a 460GTX level.

Anyways I wonder how the new 990FX supporting SLI will affect the SLI patch, Although myself i am still debating on trying it on this P8P67 PRO that doesn't support 3 way but only 2 way SLI. Given the fact it's less desirable to run 3x or 4x SLI and CF with all the hindrances like reduced scaling, cpu bottlenecks and the like. I don't expect i will get very far as not many people wish to subject themselves to the aggravation or costs. Maybe i need to get a cheaper hobby or just be happy with 1 or 2 cards......

 

[snowmanwithahat]

DeadlyDNA,

I just wanted to say that I've done similar testing and come to the same conclusions. While playing Cryostasis with physx enabled I actually experienced a game-breaking fps drop when using an 8600gt (definitely on the low end) for physx and a 285 for graphics. Using the 285 for both resulted in higher fps because of how poor the 8600 performance was.

On a similar note anything over an 8800GTX had negligible increases in performance. i tested with a 9800 GTX, GTS 250, and a GTX 260, all had the exact same performance when paired with a 285 for graphics.

I've recently been running a GTX 470 with a GTS 250 (1gb) for physx. It's been a great setup until just last night when I got this sli-patch to work. Now I'm running 2 gtx 470s. Metro 2033 performance seems to be better, but I haven't benchmarked it to know for sure. I think it's mainly because Metro2033 was way too much for a single GTX 470 at 2560x1600 no matter what so the physx card had hardly any effect.

Anyway, just wanted to share my experience testing physx cards. I definitely think a strong pair of SLI'd cards is way better for almost everything (only like 5% of the games I own have physx anyway)

Also... in regards to my post just above this one. I fixed the problem by reloading the windows bootloader with "bootrec.exe /fixmbr" and "/fixboot" like what was mentioned earlier. I haven't reinstalled grub yet to gain access to my linux systems but I think it should be a fairly easy process.

Also, as far as performance gains and limitations go it seems like my system is in pretty good shape. I only have it in an 8x/8x configuration and the Q6600 (3.4ghz) I'm running this on is relatively slow, but the performance still is great. Here's a quick benchmark

3dmark without 4212: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1439971?show_ads=true&page=/3dm11/1439971?key=PvfX6Wx7vM2qd436EydnM9zFaZbZXV
3dmark with sli 6523: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1439939;jse...11/1439939?key=dNQXt8EYwWLzzA0Z5xxZZ3bzvv53ej

The score didn't go up a ton, but the graphics performance nearly doubled (gpu score and actual fps). Thanks a ton for getting this sli-patch working. Huge value being able to get this performance by throwing in another gtx 470 for $170

 

[DroneHive]

Supermicro finally ok

Just to report SLI finally works on my Supermicro server board. Couldn't until now but the 1.5 patch finally did it!

Great work!

 

[TheWolf]

well guys, i think the time has come for me to give up the SLI patch ghost, i have just taken delivery of a Asus M5A99X EVO, to get ready for bulldozer, this board of course is the first AMD chipset board to support SLI, and does not need patching, so far i am really happy with it.

but although i wont be patching, i will still follow the thread to offer any help i can, but i would just like to say it has been a wonderfull couple of years here, the excitment at making this work and being part of the early team of testers was a real honour.

Finaly of course i would like to thank TiN, Sveetsnelda, and of course Anatolymik for all the work that has been put in here, but also for the real feeling of 'team Spirit' from people's from all over the globe, just willing to help, for nothing other than the fact they could.

and i suppose we all forget that TPU forums allowed this thread to survive for so long, without warnings or intervention, truly one of the last forums to be so understanding.

throughout the time here i have managed to enable SLI on around 20 motherboards,(AMD/Intel)(My Own/Friends) so again thanks to everyone for that

take care friends, this is not a goodbye, just a 'till next time'

I second that! I still follow the thread even tho I have X58 & now P67 motherboards.
I still use the patch in benching for my older systems & for Forum Wars this year.
Has some pretty awesome scores at that for such a older rig. Ran a X48DQ6 paired with a couple GTX480's.
http://3dmark.com/3dm06/15463656
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/2938486
http://theraptorpit.com/Upload/images/10263.png

Anyways thanks so much Sveetsnelda TiN & Anatolymik for letting me be apart of the beta
team & to anyone else that leaned a hand back in the beginning of all this.

Top notch thread & forum!

 

[Velvet Wafer]

I second that! I still follow the thread even tho I have X58 & now P67 motherboards.
I still use the patch in benching for my older systems & for Forum Wars this year.
Has some pretty awesome scores at that for such a older rig. Ran a X48DQ6 paired with a couple GTX480's.
http://3dmark.com/3dm06/15463656
http://3dmark.com/3dmv/2938486
http://theraptorpit.com/Upload/images/10263.png

Anyways thanks so much Sveetsnelda TiN & Anatolymik for letting me be apart of the beta
team & to anyone else that leaned a hand back in the beginning of all this.

Top notch thread & forum!

See, it was not a bad thing, that i once whined about, how complicated the patching process was!

I also would like to thank the Team,for beeing one of the early and nowadays beta tester, and for years of flawless work, which saved a myriad of people thousands of dollars!
You guys just rock!

 

[Aspar]

Hello there,
i am new to the forum and registered only to thank the guys for the awesome work they have done with the SLI patch.
Also to report success with it on my Asus Rampage Formula X48 mobo with 2x Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC cards with latest nVidia drivers and patch 1.5.
I would like to ask someone who have tried this to confirm it or deny it, but as one of those cards was not mine i will make SLI with a Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti OC and Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC, which are essentially one and the same with 50 Mhz difference in factory OC. In officially supported SLI mobo setup this is completely ok to work and i suppose it would be with the SLI patch, but can you confirm this please? That you can run SLI patch enabled SLI setup with 2xVGA in different stock speeds (same GPU).
Thank you.

 

[Maban]

There aren't any limitations on differing stock clocks. I myself have one 607MHz card and one 656MHz card.

 

[Aspar]

There aren't any limitations on differing stock clocks. I myself have one 607MHz card and one 656MHz card.

Great, thank you for the reply

 

[psilonaut]

sli problem

would appreciate if someone could help.
so, Ive got asus pq5 deluxe mobo with two gtx 8800 on sli mode.
I installed a patch and the latest nvidia(275.33) drivers.
Every time I access nvidia control panel and press enable sli mode drivers got deleted and pc needs to be restarded and drivers installed again.
Ive got win 7 64.
What's the problem?
Thanks in advance.