SLI with different cards

[P!nkpanther]

is there any way to boot without being in test mode?

There is no easy method to bypass that unfortunately.
Some members seem to have found a way, but I haven't tried it.
You might want to read a bit before and after this post:
SLI with different cards

I see in the forums a bunch of hex codes correlating to each release of new drivers, what is that about exactly?

Drivers from 4xx onwards can no longer be patched by the original DifferentSLIauto.exe, so you have to modify a copy of the nvlddmkm.sys using a hex editor by going to the address stated and replacing the left value by the one at the right.

 

[JaZoN_XD]

Thank you Pink, I took a lot of time digging through the forum yesterday and found the bulk of information between page 119 and 123 for anyone that's looking at this now.

Has anyone gotten any issues with BSODs? After installing drivers and getting this running, the computer would usually BSOD after a while with Critical_Structure_Corruption and CI.dll as the failure point. Something that I might be missing here?

EDIT: Scoured through event viewer logs and I think I found the problem: because I used hex editing to change the offsets of the driver file, the hash didn't match up anymore. Windows auditing saw it and it failed system integrity check. is anyone else having this issue? It doesn't sound like a huge issue to re-hash but I'm not familiar with how to do it.

 

[Wristsnap]

DonnerPartyof 1 made an excellent python script for automatically modifying the hex, i havent had any problems with sli on dual 1060s. Give this guy a round of applause.
Now any leads to bypass EAC? dont say dsefix, and im not about to patch UPGDSED.
Once that is out of the way, the kick to nvidias grotesque money hungry balls will be complete.

 

[P!nkpanther]

DonnerPartyof 1 made an excellent python script for automatically modifying the hex, i havent had any problems with sli on dual 1060s. Give this guy a round of applause.

I think it's this one:

SLI with different cards

I did everything according to the instructions, it does not work. MB - Asus Prime B360 Plus GPU GTX1060 6gb + GTX1060 3gb Help me please. The patches for 4xx drivers only work with identical cards. (And BTW, those instructions are incomplete; they lack at least the steps of determining the...

www.techpowerup.com

Since I haven't been using SLI myself for some time now (or DifferentSLIauto for that matter), I haven't tested that though.

Has anyone gotten any issues with BSODs? After installing drivers and getting this running, the computer would usually BSOD after a while with Critical_Structure_Corruption and CI.dll as the failure point. Something that I might be missing here?

...failed system integrity check.

Never heard of such an issue. There has never been the need for manually re-hashing anything.
BSODs have usually been due to hardware incompatibilities.

 

[JaZoN_XD]

The issue I ran into was actually just PatchGuard. I was doing some funky stuff with trying to get it to work without Test Mode, which I did by disabling DSE then re-enabling, but I need to find a way to reliably disable PatchGuard as well otherwise it will trigger bugcheck.

I used @Statelo method to do this, but it seems like shark doesn't doesn't actually properly disable KPP.

 

[SleepySnowCat]

I'd thought should post my setup here to hopefully help others with making this work with anti-cheat programs such as Battleye or Easy Anti-cheat. It's almost seamless.

I used this Python script posted earlier in this thread to patch the NVIDIA kernel driver for unrestricted SLI and Installed it through differentSLI in safe mode. I would test it in testmode to make sure you actually did it properly.

after the modified driver is installed. I boot windows through EfiGuard, which allows for on the fly disabling and re-enabling of Driver Signature enforcement through a command line after windows is booted.

When windows boots through EfiGuard, DSE is still active and needs to be disabled to load the driver. I made a batch file to run the command to disable DSE at start up.

Of course, the graphics drivers are not loaded yet, so to reload them I used the reset tool that comes with Custom resolution utility.
To streamline everything, this is also runs with the batch file also that runs to disable DSE at start up.

After windows boots and drivers load a few seconds after the batch file runs, everything should work correctly and the SLI option should be available, all without windows test mode.

However you need to re-enable DSE through the command line, as anti cheat programs will still complain and refuse to launch because DSE is inactive.

But this is no problem as the graphics driver has already been loaded in and DSE can be re-enabled without affecting the driver; Battleye and Easy Anti-cheat will then allow you to run the game with your modded graphics drivers. I have another batch file on my desktop that will re-enable DSE.

I did this with two EVGA GTX 970's that refuse to SLI with each other because EVGA 970s are like that for some stupid reason.
I see no reason why this wouldn't work with two different GPUs of similar architecture. But i'm not responsible if you break your computer with this.

 

[JaZoN_XD]

I'd thought should post my setup here to hopefully help others with making this work with anti-cheat programs such as Battleye or Easy Anti-cheat. It's almost seamless.

I used this Python script posted earlier in this thread to patch the NVIDIA kernel driver for unrestricted SLI and Installed it through differentSLI in safe mode. I would test it in testmode to make sure you actually did it properly.

after the modified driver is installed. I boot windows through EfiGuard, which allows for on the fly disabling and re-enabling of Driver Signature enforcement through a command line after windows is booted.

When windows boots through EfiGuard, DSE is still active and needs to be disabled to load the driver. I made a batch file to run the command to disable DSE at start up.

Of course, the graphics drivers are not loaded yet, so to reload them I used the reset tool that comes with Custom resolution utility.
To streamline everything, this is also runs with the batch file also that runs to disable DSE at start up.

After windows boots and drivers load a few seconds after the batch file runs, everything should work correctly and the SLI option should be available, all without windows test mode.

However you need to re-enable DSE through the command line, as anti cheat programs will still complain and refuse to launch because DSE is inactive.

But this is no problem as the graphics driver has already been loaded in and DSE can be re-enabled without affecting the driver; Battleye and Easy Anti-cheat will then allow you to run the game with your modded graphics drivers. I have another batch file on my desktop that will re-enable DSE.

I did this with two EVGA GTX 970's that refuse to SLI with each other because EVGA 970s are like that for some stupid reason.
I see no reason why this wouldn't work with two different GPUs of similar architecture. But i'm not responsible if you break your computer with this.

Hey Sleepy, I am essentially doing the exact same thing (and also have same GPUs which is why I am using DifferentSLI). I am using DSEfix to disable DSE on-the-fly after booting into windows to load modified drivers, and then re-enabling after loading the drivers. However as described in my post above, the issue I run into is BSOD due to PatchGuard doing system integrity check and seeing the unsigned driver. Are you running into any issues like this? How have you gone around it?

Thanks!

 

[SleepySnowCat]

Hey Sleepy, I am essentially doing the exact same thing (and also have same GPUs which is why I am using DifferentSLI). I am using DSEfix to disable DSE on-the-fly after booting into windows to load modified drivers, and then re-enabling after loading the drivers. However as described in my post above, the issue I run into is BSOD due to PatchGuard doing system integrity check and seeing the unsigned driver. Are you running into any issues like this? How have you gone around it?

Thanks!

I have yet to run into any issues at all using my setup, it all seems very stable.

EfiGuard also disables PatchGuard during boot so you do not need to worry about it doing integrity checks on your system and causing BSOD. DSEfix will only disable DSE.

 

[JaZoN_XD]

I have yet to run into any issues at all using my setup, it all seems very stable.

EfiGuard also disables PatchGuard during boot so you do not need to worry about it doing integrity checks on your system and causing BSOD. DSEfix will only disable DSE.

Ah, that's where you're able to disable PatchGuard. Do you know if Steam games detect this? I was worried VAC will know that PG is disabled and VACban hammer will drop.

 

[SleepySnowCat]

Ah, that's where you're able to disable PatchGuard. Do you know if Steam games detect this? I was worried VAC will know that PG is disabled and VACban hammer will drop.

I'm not sure about VAC, people have been banned for using cheats that disable PatchGuard, not sure about modded graphics drivers.

But i'd tread carefully. Maybe probe VAC with an alt steam account on a free game that uses VAC to see what happens.

 

[JaZoN_XD]

I'm not sure about VAC, people have been banned for using cheats that disable PatchGuard, not sure about modded graphics drivers.

But i'd tread carefully. Maybe probe VAC with an alt steam account on a free game that uses VAC to see what happens.

Yup that was my plan. Thanks for your inputs. Do you play EAC and Battleeye games currently? Wondering if they got updated or anything that might flag that potential setup.

 

[SleepySnowCat]

Yup that was my plan. Thanks for your inputs. Do you play EAC and Battleeye games currently? Wondering if they got updated or anything that might flag that potential setup.

I have so far have not been banned from playing on ARK official servers and 7 Days to Die servers, as of April 2020.

I feel like it's safe to assume Easy anti-cheat and Battleye do not care about PatchGuard being disabled, and instead ban people based on what is being run in memory or suspicious activity.

 

[Derbyshire_Jim]

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone that posts here. Without this forum I would have had no chance. Just got 391.35 working with these offsets posted before.

00000000002AF0B3: 75 C7
00000000002AF0B4: 05 43
00000000002AF0B5: 0F 24
00000000002AF0B6: BA 1
00000000002AF0B7: 6B 00
00000000002AF0B8: 24 00
00000000002AF0B9: 0E 00

My 2 GTX 580s are now fully functional. Old kit I know but great for it's intended purpose.

It's taken me a day, had my head scratching for many hours but ultimately so rewarding to see the Nvidea sli option..

Learnt a lot as a nube to this too.

Yey.. Thanks again guys and gals.

 

[Bloop]

Hi guys, I am having trouble enabling sli in a M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard with nForce 570 SLI and two GeForce 7100GS in Windows 10 x64 using nvidia 309.08 drivers (latest for 7100GS).
The problem is that the 309.08 do not support SLI in PCIE mode (without physical bridge). Try to patch 309.08 with DifferentSLIAuto 1.7.1 but I don't show SLI options in Nvidia control panel.
The two 7100GS are recognized by Windows and nvidia drivers, the first in x16 mode and the second in x8 (for SLI the two have to be in x8).
I know that the system is very old and that the performance would not improve much but if someone could help me I would be very grateful.

Sorry for my bad English.

 

[P!nkpanther]

...Windows 10 x64 using nvidia 309.08 drivers (latest for 7100GS)...

I don't know what could help with your specific problem, but for that configuration no DifferentSLIauto patch exists.

 

[Iunio92]

Hey guys,

I got SLI working on my old motherboard (H97M-D3H) with two GTX960s thanks to this guide. I learned a lot, and it was fun to get it all working... but my frames were atrocious with SLI enabled. I went from about 100fps (custom but very low settings) in Dirt Rally 2 to 35 with SLI, with it slightly recovering to 40fps once the sli bridge I ordered arrived. I'd heard Dirt Rally 2 didn't scale well, so I tried the Witcher 3, and again the frames were far worse than just the single card (with low settings it was locked on 60, whereas i could barely get 45-50 with SLI enabled). I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to whether this could be improved, or is the bottleneck of using one PCIE 3.0 16x slot in conjunction with a PCIE 2.0 4x slot (which is what I'd assume is leading to these problems) simply unavoidable?

As an aside, this was with driver 442.59.

 

[Bloop]

Hey P!nkpanther thanks for taking the time to read thru this. I have done a ton of googling and have come up with nothing new.
Any help on this would be appriciated.

 

[P!nkpanther]

...or is the bottleneck of using one PCIE 3.0 16x slot in conjunction with a PCIE 2.0 4x slot (which is what I'd assume is leading to these problems) simply unavoidable?

The lower PCIe bandwidth of the second card is not a problem with the vast majority of games.
It's more that newer games are no longer made with SLI in mind. Temporal AA techniques for example kill SLI on the spot.
You should however get good results when running older games or benchmarks, like Unigine Heaven or Valley.
If those do not scale well, then there's really something wrong with your SLI setup.

Hey P!nkpanther thanks for taking the time to read thru this. I have done a ton of googling and have come up with nothing new.
Any help on this would be appriciated.

I'm afraid there's no solution to your problem. Those two cards cannot be SLIed, since no patch has ever been made for that driver.

 

[Iunio92]

The lower PCIe bandwidth of the second card is not a problem with the vast majority of games.
It's more that newer games are no longer made with SLI in mind. Temporal AA techniques for example kill SLI on the spot.
You should however get good results when running older games or benchmarks, like Unigine Heaven or Valley.
If those do not scale well, then there's really something wrong with your SLI setup.

It certainly was unexpected, I assumed the witcher 3 would scale well as anecdotally it seems to for most people. Full disclosure, I received the second 960 for free and didn't even attempt to verify the condition of the card before plugging it in, so that is a potential source of fault. Beyond that, I'm running an i7-4770, and 16GB of 1600mHz DDR3 RAM, so I'm really not sure what else could lead to such poor results aside from undiagnosed hardware faults. I've taken the card out for now (as it is more practical to use that second PCIE slot for a bluetooth adapter) but if I do install it again I'll attempt some of the benchmarks to get a clearer idea. As always any input is super appreciated, this thread is the epitome of what makes online communities fantastic.

 

[P!nkpanther]

Yeah, I think establishing whether your system has the capability to scale SLI well would be the next step.
Finding just one application which scales well would prove that the hardware setup basically is OK for SLI.

 

[Matti]

Hi, author of EfiGuard here.

Ah, that's where you're able to disable PatchGuard. Do you know if Steam games detect this? I was worried VAC will know that PG is disabled and VACban hammer will drop.

VAC can not detect whether PatchGuard is enabled because VAC runs in user mode. Kernel mode anti-cheats like EAC or BattlEye could theoretically detect the presence of PatchGuard, but to do so would be extremely complex and error-prone due to the obfuscated nature of PatchGuard routines. This in contrast to determining whether driver signature enforcement is enabled, which is relatively trivial to do, depending on the method used to disable DSE:

• If test signing is used, the lack of DSE can simply be queried from the OS, even from user mode.
• If DSE is disabled at boot time, this is permanent (until the next reboot) and this can be detected by kernel mode drivers through various artifacts such as the absence of certain pool tags. I know EAC does this and will not allow you to start a game if DSE was disabled this way.
• If DSE is disabled at runtime (by setting g_CiOptions to 0), this can in principle not be detected, of course assuming you re-enable DSE again after loading the driver. There is a minor caveat here in that anti-cheat drivers could perform their own integrity checks on other loaded kernel modules to validate that they are signed with a valid certificate. No software I'm aware of currently does this, but that could change in the future. Note also that this method will trigger PatchGuard and result in a blue screen after a random time interval (as you saw with DSEFix). This is one of the reasons why EfiGuard disables PatchGuard.

There is one exception to what I said about PatchGuard and anti-cheat software: Vanguard (Riot's anti-cheat for Valorant) will trigger a blue screen at boot if PatchGuard was not initialized. This has already been fixed in EfiGuard and the next release will include this fix.

 

[kemp]

Yeah, I think establishing whether your system has the capability to scale SLI well would be the next step.
Finding just one application which scales well would prove that the hardware setup basically is OK for SLI.

1060+p106 sli install fail
install p106 417.22 driver and enable directX (success)
Copy nvlddmkm.sys from System32 to DifferentSLIAuto patch folder (success)
Go to Nvidia Control Panel and turn on SLI. Blue screen nvlddmkm.sys error (fail)

 

[TUFOM]

Any kind soul could give me step by step instructions for 445.87 driver? I didn't manage to get anything working myself. Thank you very much in advance!

I got it working so Ill make guide here:
- Download and install driver: 445.75
In techpowerup site: Click show more versions and you will see 445.75, for some reason this isn't available from nvidia anymore.

Latest NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Drivers 551.86 WHQL Download

Download the latest driver for NVIDIA graphics cards, to ensure you have the best gaming experience and get the fastest performance. This NVIDIA Ge

www.techpowerup.com

- Find your driver file: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and search nvlddmkm.sys -> right click and click show file location
If two show up like in my case the bigger one is the correct one. Other one is earlier version which windows 10 installs by default.
- Copy nvlddmkm.sys anywhere you can easily find it.
- Download Hex editor: https://mh-nexus.de/en/downloads.php?product=HxD20
- Open hex editor and in hex editor open nvlddmkm.sys
- "Search" -> "Go to" will get your location
Location: 001cea60 original value: 84 change to: C7
Location: 001cea61 original value: C0 change to: 43
Location: 001cea62 original value: 75 change to: 24
Location: 001cea63 original value: 05 change to: 00
Location: 001cea64 original value: 0F change to: 00
Location: 001cea65 original value: BA change to: 00
Location: 001cea66 original value: 6B change to: 00
- Save the file.
- Reboot in safe mode and overwrite the original file you found in location: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository
How to get in safe mode:

- Download and unpack: DifferentSLIAutoLoader_1.1.1.zip
- Turn your antivirus off (at least mine interrupted the process)
- Run DifferentSLIAutoTools.exe
- Click Load driver, it takes few seconds and screen/s will go blank for a moment.
- Go to nvidia control panel and turn on the sli.

Rest of the process didn't work for me so I have to use DifferentSLIAutoTools.exe after each reboot but SLI works so whatever.

Some test results with my GTX 1060 SLI:
3Dmark Vantage: https://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5828236
3Dmark Time Spy: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/12119028
3Dmark Time Spy Extreme: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/12119213
3Dmark Fire Strike: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/22691791
3Dmark Fire Strike Ultra: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/22691850

SLI compatible games:
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Escape From Tarkov
The Outer Worlds
Deliver Us the Moon
Hunt: Showdown
F1 2019
Tropico 6
Anthem
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
GRIP: Combat Racing
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Strange Brigade
Jurassic World Evolution
Far Cry 5
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Star Wars: Battlefront II
Total War: Warhammer 2
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Project Cars 2
Destiny 2
ARK: Survival Evolved
Dirt 4
Mass Effect Andromeda
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands
For Honor
Sniper Elite 4
Watch Dogs 2
Dishonored 2
Ashes of the Singularity
Titanfall 2
Battlefield 1
Shadow Warrior 2
Gears of War 4
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Mirror's Edge Catalyst
Overwatch
Dark Souls 3
Hitman
Fallout 4
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Grand Theft Auto 5
Dying Light
Ryse: Son of Rome
Batman: Arkham Origins
Crysis 3
Borderlands 2
Max Payne 3
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
World of Tanks
Dead Space
Half Life 2
Doom 3
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
League of Legends
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
World of Warcraft
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Diablo III
Warframe
Starcraft II
Borderlands 2
Battlefield 3
Age of Empires III
Beyond Good & Evil
Bioshock
Civilization V
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Dishonored
EVE Online
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy XI
Gears of War
Just Cause
Path of Exile
Rage
Resident Evil 6
Silent Hill 3
Tropico 3
Watch Dogs
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM: Enemy Within

Other games best to turn SLI off.

 

[mhdnajmi97]

Hai everyone. i'm new to this thread. Been trying a couple of days to sli my evga gtx 1070's but no luck. I followed guide from many replies before this but still have no option for sli in nvidia software. The driver im using is 445.75 and i also have an sli bridge. Im using asus p6tse x58 motherboard.

I appreciate if someone can help me. Thank u

 

[Kratos2020]

Can Someone help me with finding the offset for 442.92-quadro?

I have tried FreeSLI and install.cmd from DifferenSLIAuto method and didn't work.
Configuration as following"

OS: Windows 10 1909 Enterprise.
MOBO: Tyan S7050
GPU : Quadro M4000 x 2 (Both are placed in PCIE3 x 16 slots with no other card sharing Bandwidth)

FreeSLI, says it has patched the file successfully, Modified Install.cmd to point to the correct driver directory and process completed successfully when ran in safemode. Up on reboot no message about SLI enabled or Enable SLI is not there in NVIDIA Control Panel.

Regards.