Is there a way to boost my GPU performance?

[YawJr]

I run GTX 260's (2 in SLI). I have small performance on certain games. Is there a little tweak

program or something techy I could do to boost performance on these cards?

I don't mean to OC them. I just want to see an increase in performance percentage, if that

makes sense.

The current game is Dead Space 3 - in EVGA Precision's window, I see the top card utilized

only 45% and bottom card used around merely 12%,.... tops. That's quite low.

I remember seeing upwards of 75% performance on both cards while playing some other SLI-

supported games.


Sys Spec in case relevant is :

AMD Phenom II (x4 unlock, 3.3ghz)
ASRock 880G Pro3 with 8GB DDR3
Nvidia Driver 306.97

- I do have the SLI connector connected.

I use the SLI hack, since these motherboards do not support native SLI. SLI seems to work

fine however.

 

[cadaveca]

Your chosen base platform is what is holding your cards back. Change that, and your cards will be better utilized.


You may also want to try just using a single card on those titles that get poor usage on the GPUs. 45% + 12% doesn't even = a full card!

 

[anoobarak]

Could it be that your current PSU is too weak for the job?

 

[YawJr]

cadaveca, Thanks for the hints. Perhaps Intel would be a better route? Besides gaming, I also do a little CG. And you're right, 12% + 45% is hardly the performance of 1 card! The cards should be utilized more during games i would think.

anoobarak, My PSU is a 750W Thermaltake that supports SLI. I'm not sure if it could be that but it's worth a look.

Do applications like Rivatuner give the opportunity to increase performance (utilization) without overclocking the GPU? That would be cool. Cause even if I OC, as long as the cards are being only half-used I would see little to no performance gains.

 

[brandonwh64]

I do not believe rivatuner would help. You could try slight OCing?

 

[GamerGuy]

There is a new nV driver, 314.07 WHQL, you can try this and check to see your GPU usage after install.

 

[Animalpak]

is this means a bottleneck coming from CPU and Motherboard ?

 

[Nordic]

There is no magic program that makes your cards perform better. You could tweak the individual game settings, disable sli for games that don't like it, and overclock. Those are the only ways I can think of for you to increase performance without spending money.

 

[kn00tcn]

well for SLI's case, you could force different SLI profiles that might end up scaling better in a particular game (or eventually nvidia makes a better profile for the game)

 

[Widjaja]

Some titles may support dual card configurations but do not utilize the cards to the potential we would like to see.
In worst case scenarios the performance does the total opposite.

 

[YawJr]

brandonwh64, thanks for the hint on Rivatuner. Now I'm curious to what it actually does, though.

GamerGuy, thanks for the heads up. I'll be sure to shoot over to Nvidia to grab that right away. I thought updating the drivers would not matter since my cards are older generation cards but to think of it, new updates often optimize game performance for specific new titles, so it may certainly help.

Animalpak, back in 2009 I started playing Mass Effect 1 on my PC. The game was awesome, but unfortunately had very choppy frame-rates on my machine, especially at "The Citadel". I thought I might need a better Graphics Card but I instead decided to upgrade my processor - from the good ol' Athlon 64 X2 to a Phenom II X3..... I could not believe the increase in game performance that happened just from that step up. That was the day I discovered that it wasn't just all about the graphics cards, & the term "bottlenecking" began to make sense. So, with newer, more technically demanding games at hand, that very well may be the culprit!

james888, kn00tcn, I've heard about the nVidia ntune profiler. Is it still relevant/current and would that be a good way to make SLI profiles for games?

Widjaja, I see. I'll try the single card config to see if I get desirable results

 

[brandonwh64]

Also another issue could be the SLI hack is not working properly. Since the board is not really SLI ready then it could have performance issues. It maybe time for a newer single card even if you get a used one. 660TI would be nice.

 

[YawJr]

Also another issue could be the SLI hack is not working properly. Since the board is not really SLI ready then it could have performance issues. It maybe time for a newer single card even if you get a used one. 660TI would be nice.

I agree that could also be the problem. I'll definitely be checking out card reviews and consider switching to a single card setup.

I wonder if Newegg ships to Ghana (which is where I live).

Thanks for the help and suggestions.

 

[tokyoduong]

I run GTX 260's (2 in SLI). I have small performance on certain games. Is there a little tweak

program or something techy I could do to boost performance on these cards?

I don't mean to OC them. I just want to see an increase in performance percentage, if that

makes sense.

The current game is Dead Space 3 - in EVGA Precision's window, I see the top card utilized

only 45% and bottom card used around merely 12%,.... tops. That's quite low.

I remember seeing upwards of 75% performance on both cards while playing some other SLI-

supported games.


Sys Spec in case relevant is :

AMD Phenom II (x4 unlock, 3.3ghz)
ASRock 880G Pro3 with 8GB DDR3
Nvidia Driver 306.97

- I do have the SLI connector connected.

I use the SLI hack, since these motherboards do not support native SLI. SLI seems to work

fine however.

Update your drivers. Newer drivers may not offer more features or performance but it may fix certain bugs/glitches for older cards.
Try running one card first. OC and turn off any power savings feature because it may be downclocking your card thinking you're not in a game.

I honestly don't think a Phenom II X4 at 3.3ghz is going to hold back a 260 gtx.

It doesn't sound like your PSU but the SLI thing is a possibility so test both cards in a single set up to see if they are both in perfect working order.

In my experience with NVIDIA cards, when it is underultiized running a game then it didn't recognize it as a game. You can do that manually in the control panel.

 

[YawJr]

tokyoduong, thanks a lot for the tips.

It was the driver indeed. I just went over to Nvidia's website, downloaded and installed the newest version 314.07 driver and the game (Dead Space 3) is running much smoother & faster than before. I'm now seeing 80% utilization on the bottom card and around 60% utilization for the top card, give or take, for the 1st chapter in the game. That is a great improvement. Y'all were right.

Thanks you guys

(I also installed the latest HyperSLI patch, the PC was blue screening until I did following the driver update)

 

[tokyoduong]

Cool but why only 80 and 60%?
I don't do SLI or Crossfire so I don't know. Since both cards have to work equally, shouldn't it be identical?
But hey, if it works and you're satisfied then don't worry about it