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

[benjounou]

i've got a very little decrease performance with 195 compared at 191.
but i think it's the 195 driver. no crash.

 

[dbphelps]

it's not my mod for sure

Actually, having been a hacker myself, you can't really say that.

That is like cracking a new game, but missing an extra check inside the game that makes part of the game be screwed up. It is all part of the protection scheme they instituted.

You did a great job making the system forgery to allow the driver to install and run, but it is obvious that on at least AMD systems they are doing other things that are preventing them from running like they do on say an Intel chipset.

Could be a section of code that is written to execute poorly on an AMD chipset. It could be code that won't run properly unless it sees a nVidia chipset with an AMD processor. Could be a bunch of stuff.

Key is, the 195 drivers are not functional with your hack on a 790FX chipset motherboard (or at least the Asus Crosshair III Formula). Just because they install and don't BSOD, does not mean they run properly.

Now, that being said, you have made great strides in circumventing nVidias installation and running of the drivers themselves to even allow SLI on these systems. Just saying that it is not complete if the drivers are not fixed to execute properly.

Actually, there may be a real technical reason they don't want these latest drivers running properly on AMD chipsets. Maybe they run better on the AMD chipsets than they ever would on the nVidia chipsets. That little revelation would firmly kill off any current and future sales of nVidia chipsets. Why would you ever want even a hacked setup of your performance GPU technology to run BETTER on your competitors chipset?

I have zero doubt nVidia has crippled thee newer drivers especially in the case of running on an AMD chipset to prevent such a business issue.

Like I said the benchmarks (even with the visual aberrations) are even higher than the 191s, to the tune of 2-6%.

Actually, they could also be worrying about warranty issues with thier video boards being run and stressed under SLI on an AMD chipset motherboard. If the AMD chipset can eek out that much more performance, it could spell doom for "on-the-edge" vendor overclocked setups (such as the FTW GTX280 I have), and if so it could cause heat temps that would compromise the onboard electronics and ultimately cause a major set of warranty issues.

It is already known that the 191-195 series of drivers cause excessive video card temps, and there are more than enough threads on the various boards about people having factory OC'd (or even boards they have manually OC'd) dying after running the 191-195 series drivers.

Personally I underclock my FTW GTX280 to factory shipped GTX280 stock spec's ever since the 191s to make sure nothing dies on me.

For now I will have to stay running with the 191s until a proper hack for the 195s is done, as they are unuseable on my setup.

Thanks again anatolymik, and it is really becoming a 'polished' hack with the completeness and ease of install, especially without having to add in a slicertificate or anything else outside of running the installer. Even the upgrading aspect of it is pretty slick.

 

[dbphelps]

And to clarify, the SLI installation/enabling part of the hack may be compelte, and you are correct that the hack you insitituted wouldn't be the cause of poor/invalid performance.

Just saying the hack is not complete, at least on AMD chipsets, that is all.

 

[Mashuga]

Just saying the hack is not complete, at least on AMD chipsets, that is all.

And before anyone mentions the temps, that's after 5 hours being powered on and in use, I just didn't want to wait for the temp to drop, I idle 26-27c. (No cool'n'quiet either)

 

[dbphelps]

Mashuga, you have a 790FX, and are running 195 drivers, so any problems in games?

Run 3dMark Vantage in Extreme?

Very interested if you are running into the same things I am under that config.

Maybe it is something with the Asus Crosshair III Formula 790FX motherboard.

If oyu have not run any tests to confirm proper operation, then you can't say it was a success. Like I said I can get Win7 to run with the 195s, just that performance is unuseable.

 

[dbphelps]

Ok, a little more feedback after running some games...

Sacred 2 works fine, as does all settings on 3dMark Vantage except for Extreme, as it has the 'tarp' issue I mentioned along with stutters and pauses/jumping (ie it is not smooth)...

I will stress again the scores are a bit higher with 195s vs 191s...

No crashing anywhere, Sacred 2 runs great without issues...

I will be installing the Crysis games along with UT3 and a few others tomorrow and will report back on that as well.

I would really like to know if the 'tarp' issue in 3dMark Vantage is just with the 790FX chipset or if others with other configurations also see the 'flickering of the tarp'. Who knows, maybe it is a 195 driver issue not a SLI hack issue.

I did track some stutter issues in games to the fact that I did not have a pagefile configured under Win7 64 (didn't think I really needed one with 8gb of ddr3 1600)... but, once I configured a 4gb pagefile on another drive it smoothed out some of the game issues, but the 3dMark Vantage "Extreme" setting stuttering and 'tarp' issue still exist.

 

[p_o_s_pc]

i was having the "tarp' issue in 3dMark Vantage" when i was running SLI on the 790GX with 2 8800GTs using 191

 

[anatolymik]

I STRESS IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS 'TARP' OR PERFORMANCE DECREASE IT'S NOT SLIPatch.
SHOULD I EXPLAIN HOW DOES IT WORK?

 

[Mashuga]

Vantage (rebenched approximate scores listed to the left under specs), L4D2, BioShock, Aion, RA3, and about 5 hours worth of RTHDRIBL without error.

 

[dbphelps]

I STRESS IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS 'TARP' OR PERFORMANCE DECREASE IT'S NOT SLIPatch.
SHOULD I EXPLAIN HOW DOES IT WORK?

anatolymik, don't take it wrong when I said there was a problem and the hack was incomplete.

I understand in theory how the hack works. It makes the system appear to be one of the 'authorized' SLI-capable systems out there on a system level so the drivers install and run with the SLI option.

My whole viewpoint is, beyond that, if the hack doesn't allow the driver to operate 100% (which is what it *seemed* like), which may NOT be the case, then the hack is only useable to that which are not hamstrung by a driver that will not 100% on all platforms. In the case of those it does not work on, it is still useless. Thus for those the hack does not work.

In this case, it seems as if the 'tarp' and 3dMark aberration is an issue on other setups as well, so it may well be a *driver* issue, not a hack issue.

The key I am getting at is you CANNOT differentiate and say your hack is not the cause (which is TRUE in all cases, it would NEVER be the cause), without a patch to FIX the driver to work on the platform for which it doesn't (either by design or accident).

In this game it is ALL or NOTHING. It either works for people that want to run it, or it does not, plain and simple.

The hack shoudl not be touted as a "SLI running on platforms it isn't intended for" hack, it should be "SLI running on SOME platforms that are install issues alone"... Yes, splitting hairs, but it is known to all as the "holy grail of SLI on non-nVidia platforms". THAT is a hell of a thing to live up to. Especially if they start putting checks and performance limiters into the drivers. If they start doing that, sure you can't take responsibility for issues that arise out of them cripplign the SLI mode on specific platforms, but it does fall squarely on your plate to deal with as the ones to offer "SLI to the masses on all platforms". If not you, who else?

My point is, with the glory comes responsibility. That is all.

As for now, it looks to be working well. Stable, works excellent with good performance.

Hell, nVidia could really fuck us all with thier next drivers and actually write CPU dependant code sections that only install on the platform for which they are intended. That could really screw up install spoof efforts to get things installed and running properly.

Again, the effort provided has been greatly appreciated. And again, it is understood what you set out to achieve and you have done just that.

 

[Mashuga]

The key I am getting at is you CANNOT differentiate and say your hack is not the cause (which is TRUE in all cases, it would NEVER be the cause)

Fishing and splitting hairs, this guy's spending an insane amount of time on this and fixing for new chipsets the moment he gets the average user screaming "it doesn't work". In my opinion, leave him alone.

This is free and it's not like any of us could've done it without him.

(The hack returns Chipset ID Strings, nothing more. So yes, in this case, it *IS* impossible that the patch has any impact on performance.)

 

[oiluj]

I completely agree with Mashuga.
Anyone who doesn't like work done (and being done right now) by anatolymik, sveetsnelda, TiN, and everyone making this great project, is absolutely free to leave this community and start trying SLI hack by theirselves, with their own means.

If you have something interesting, constructive to say, you're welcome.
If you don't, simply shut up! Believe me, it's better for you and for the rest of the whole universe!!

I'm Spanish, and in Spain we say "Tanta paz lleves como descanso dejas". If someone helps me translating this into English, I appreciate!!

 

[p_o_s_pc]

I STRESS IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS 'TARP' OR PERFORMANCE DECREASE IT'S NOT SLIPatch.
SHOULD I EXPLAIN HOW DOES IT WORK?

if that was to me then F*** you! i was just saying that i had the same problem wasn't saying it was from the patch. If it wasn't to me i take that back and i apologize for the disrespect.

 

[anatolymik]

if that was to me then F*** you! i was just saying that i had the same problem wasn't saying it was from the patch. If it wasn't to me i take that back and i apologize for the disrespect.

let's assume i told it to you. so then? did i offend you by this phrase?

 

[p_o_s_pc]

let's assume i told it to you. so then? did i offend you by this phrase?

To be honest yes i was alittle offended by it (mostly because of the caps) Even if it was to me i take it back been having such a bad day and was fighting with the gf at the time

 

[Mashuga]

Eh, the caps were mostly to get it across to DBPHelps, not you posPC.

 

[TheWolf]

Yall should take a chill pill before they close the thread completely.

No one want to read 3 pages of nothing but BS & pissing & moning.

 

[anatolymik]

To be honest yes i was alittle offended by it (mostly because of the caps) Even if it was to me i take it back been having such a bad day and was fighting with the gf at the time

My apologize posPC. I did not want to offend you.
The Phrase was not to you.

 

[anatolymik]

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/SLIPatch 0.42 WinVista x64 alpha.zip

SLIPatch v0.42 for WinVista x64
NO NEED IN SLI CERT
AMD SUPPORTED

THE SYSTEM MUST BE SP2

 

[anatolymik]

If Anybody Have Downloaded The File That Above Then Download It Once Again. I Fixed Some Bugs

 

[anatolymik]

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/SLIPatch 0.42 WinXP x64 alpha.zip

SLIPatch v0.42 for WinXP x64
NO NEED IN SLI CERT
AMD SUPPORTED

THE SYSTEM MUST BE NOT BELOW THAN SP1

 

[Jstn7477]

Hello everyone,

I have just jumped into this thread, and would kindly like to know where the instructions are to install this patch. I have an ASUS Crosshair III Formula 790FX and 2 mismatched 9800 GT 1GB cards (1 BFG 65nm + 1 PNY 55nm.) Also, will SLi work without a bridge (enabling P2P graphics in BIOS?) I have Win7 x64 and downloaded the SLIPatch 0.3 Win7 x64 zip file. Thanks!

 

[anatolymik]

Hello everyone,

I have just jumped into this thread, and would kindly like to know where the instructions are to install this patch. I have an ASUS Crosshair III Formula 790FX and 2 mismatched 9800 GT 1GB cards (1 BFG 65nm + 1 PNY 55nm.) Also, will SLi work without a bridge (enabling P2P graphics in BIOS?) I have Win7 x64 and downloaded the SLIPatch 0.3 Win7 x64 zip file. Thanks!

use v0.42 patch. 0.3 is unstable

 

[Jstn7477]

Okay, just downloaded 0.42 from the previous page. What do I need to do now?

 

[anatolymik]

Okay, just downloaded 0.42 from the previous page. What do I need to do now?

download. run installsli.cmd from explorer or cmd.exe. then reboot and try