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

[anatolymik]

I can test those tomorrow afternoon CET. What's the biggest risks? Pretty sure I can but I'll ask: can I go back to 0.7a if there's a problem?

"What's the biggest risks?" no at all
"can I go back to 0.7a if there's a problem?" of course you can

 

[anatolymik]

for other systems will be a little later

 

[ken2cky]

Are you a member of xDevs.com? Will this patch be posted on xDevs' "How To"? Just asking

 

[anatolymik]

Are you a member of xDev? Will this patch be posted on xDev's "How To"? Just asking

Of course

Correct name of site is xDevs.com not xDev as said TiN with sad face

 

[ken2cky]

Of course

Correct name of site is xDevs.com not xDev as said TiN with sad face

I can finally thank the right guys for their awesome work!! THANKS!!

 

[anatolymik]

here plan for future:

universal installer, that consists of:
1) patching engine, which patches the kernel or the hal regardless of version OS.
2) autoupdater, which repatches the kernel or the hal if there is a newest version of the kernel or the hal. (for example, if you did update the system)

after it, the project will be frozen until NV think out something else. otherwise it'll not be unfrozen.

 

[ken2cky]

here plan for future:

universal installer, that consists of:
1) patching engine, which patches the kernel or the hal regardless of version OS.
2) autoupdater, which repatches the kernel or the hal if there is a newest version of the kernel or the hal. (for example, if you did update the system)

after it, the project will be frozen until NV think out something else. otherwise it'll not be unfrozen.

Can Microsoft Updates unpatch the kernel? Or only NV drivers can?

 

[anatolymik]

no one

 

[r3b00t3r]

I used the new 0.8 patch for Win7 x64 with no problems whatsoever. Played yesterday some CoD:MW2 and GH:WT, and experienced no issues. Today/tomorrow I'll try other games, like BF:BC2.

Thanks!

 

[anatolymik]

SLIPatch v0.8 for WinXP x64
FULL ACPI COMPLIANT
FIXED SOME BUGS

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/SLIPatch 0.8 WinXP x64 beta.zip

Need Test!

 

[anatolymik]

SLIPatch v0.8 for Win2008 x64
FULL ACPI COMPLIANT
FIXED SOME BUGS

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/SLIPatch 0.8 Win2008 x64 beta.zip

Need Test!

 

[TiN]

ken2cky

Sure, article-howto updated.

HOWTO guide URL address is same.

Activating NVIDIA SLI on all motherboards, updated detailed HOW-TO

anatolymik Keep rockin, Man!

 

[johnspack]

New 0.8 slipatch tested under both xp64 and win7 64 verified as working. SlipatchInstaller.exe for XP64 just adds another boot entry named xp64slienable xp64slienabled entry, bit of a bug there! You must still run InstallSLI.cmd to copy the new files. Under Win7 64, just running the InstallSLI.cmd file gets all 3 files in, and so far is working.
Edit: don't forget to reboot when you update!

 

[TiN]

SLIPatch v0.8 for Win2008 R2 x64

Working, tested

 

[johnspack]

It's very odd, under both my oses, the sli certificate does not show up in everest DSDT properties, yet my performance clearly shows sli is working. No way I could get 21.5k in vantage even with a gtx280, so it's all working. So it looks like you don't need to see that cert in all cases. I got this result with both 0.7 and 0.8.

 

[TiN]

johnspack

I've already described everest DSDT stuff few pages earlier..
OK. LAST repeat
There IS NEED of that cert. But its now only showed to nvidia driver now, not rest of software.

 

[johnspack]

Sorry, must of missed that. Of course the cert is needed for sli, but didn't realize it wouldn't show in everest anymore. It definitely is working however! I honestly don't see the point in the gtx 4xx series, unless they are used, and sli.....

 

[ken2cky]

I've finally installed Battlefield BC2, but...
With one card, all maxed out (16xQ and 16AF) at 1280*1024, I get +-48 fps
With two cards, same settings, I get about the same fps

Ain't I suppose to get at least a little bump? How am I suppose to get 60+ when I'll be at 1080p like johnspack

 

[johnspack]

Hmm, it could be you are a bit cpu bound at lower res. I notice BC2 really strains my cpu even at 1920x1200. I use highest quality in the driver settings as well to make the gpus work harder. Also, I run it under XP64, which definitely gives me higher min fps than win7. But yes, sli cards tend to scale better at higher resolutions, so when you go to a bigger monitor and res, you'll notice the difference!

 

[ken2cky]

I tested Dirt 2 and I got almost 100% performance increase
High Quality in NV Control Panel and all maxed in game (16xQC-whatever), still 1280*1024.
1 card: AVG: 36 - MIN: 30
2 cards: AVG: 64 - MIN: 54

both cards @ stock and E8500 @ 4Ghz

 

[rhem09]

very much enjoying this hack

 

[anatolymik]

x32 coming soon

 

[bacan]

Hi - Здравствуйте,

First I would like to say thanks for this wonderful mod, Большое спасибо.

This fantastic mod gave me an opportunity to run a two GTX 470 cards on my AMD790X board
and it runs great. Still I don't have a SLI bridge but performance gain is great, in CrysisWH about 50%.



So your mod definitely works with the latest nvidia cards.

EDIT: Here's one Vantage P bench run with Physics ON:



The gain here is about 8000 marks more for GPU score versus single GTX 470 mode. That's so nice...
One more notion is that all Fermi cards have a bug related to pci-e specification, so randomly they change their pci-e mode after reboots from 1.0 to 2.0 and vice versa. They say that bug is going to be fixed with a newer motherboard BIOS versions.

 

[ken2cky]

EDIT: Here's one Vantage P bench run with Physics ON:

[url]http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6632/msi470slipvantageforweb.th.jpg[/URL]

The gain here is about 8000 marks more for GPU score versus single GTX 470 mode. That's so nice...
One more notion is that all Fermi cards have a bug related to pci-e specification, so randomly they change their pci-e mode after reboots from 1.0 to 2.0 and vice versa. They say that bug is going to be fixed with a newer motherboard BIOS versions.

Dude, I think U have a poor GPU score ... Look at mine. And it's only GTX 260s OCed.
U mean that U ran Vantage at PCI-e 1.0?? How do you know if you're 1.0 or 2.0?

EDIT: Anyone tested on 257.21 WHQL??

 

[bacan]

I got pci-e 2.0 board but like I wrote before, there's a bug with fermi cards regarding unstable pci-e mode so it switches randomly from 1.0 to 2.0 on every restart.
I also wrote before that I do not have SLI bridge.

Regarding my GPU score, it's in the range of stock GTX 470 SLI scores on AMD platform. You can google it easily to find similar results.

Here's the GTX 470 SLI on a nforce 780a with a P II 940@3.4GHz


Your system is highly overclocked, CPU@4.3GHz, video cards too, so it's not strange to see that high score of yours. Also, till now Vantage has been optimized many times to run well with a GT200 SLI systems.