Please help with low FPS on 7800GTs SLI

[Truefaith]

Howdy,

I am having some performance issues on my new upgrades and I am hoping someone here that knows more about this stuff than I do can help me out.

I mainly play World of Warcraft, and get some pretty serious lag during some of the encounters. I had an AGP ATI Radeon X800XT that I was running, so I decided to upgrade to an Asus A8N-SLI mobo and 2 gigabyte 7800GTs in SLI. I was hoping this was way overkill and would solve my FPS lag issues (I can get into the low 20’s even with the 7800GTs, and have seen 12 FPS). Unfortunately it has helped a bit, but I still lag. I also enjoy FP shooters.

My 3dMark05 score on the demo is 9121 which seems low to me for SLI 7800 GTs.

I downloaded the FEAR MP demo and when everything is set to max (and running 1600), and I use their test I get:

Min 24 fps 30% below 25 fps
Avg 37 fps 64% between 25 and 40 fps
Max 78 fps 33% above 40 fps

The only thing I have not upgraded is the RAM and CPU. I was thinking maybe my CPU is the cause of my issues, but I am not sure. I might upgrade to an AMD 3700+ SanDiego soon, but I will be pretty disheartened if that didn’t solve my performance issues.

System Specs:
Asus A8N-SLI
AMD 64 3200+ Winchester (bought March of ‘05)
2 - Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GT in SLI
2 gigs of Corsair Valueselect unbufered DDR 400 dual channel RAM (4 512 meg sticks)
2 - 72 gig Raptor HDs in RAID 0

I have not overclocked anything. Any help you guys could give me would be much appreciated!

 

[YoshiDark]

Did you:

Update your video drivers to version 81.95?

Install the nVidia IDE drivers? I have heard that the nVidia drivers as compared to Microsoft defaults have problems; the most noticeable is a very long boot time. Use add/remove programs to get rid of those.

Getting a better CPU will not help you, a 3000+ works just fine with 7800 GTX SLi. You have plenty of RAM.

Your score is decent. A standard 7800 GTX setup gets about 11,000 marks.

 

[Truefaith]

I have had had the 8.1.95 drivers and the IDE drivers installed.

I am disappointed if my system is working as intended. I appreciate your feedback. Just seems like something is wrong, I will keep poking around.

Any other ideas as to anything else I can check that might help performance?

Thanks again!

 

[Admiral_Cecil]

Hello,

Remove the Nvidia IDE drivers.

Not all Nvidia 7800 GT's built the same. Some fall closer to their stock speed while others are factory clocked/ overclocked higher).

SLI scores can sometimes be lower than let say the original GT/ GTX while other times it is faster. See the massive video card chart.

 

[RichPLS]

LMAO, remove nVidia in place of ATI for quality and performace + features!

 

[Truefaith]

Cecil,

I got the same cards that are in http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/09/seven_of_nvidia/
so they should be good ones. I actually ordered them after reading that article.

Why remove the IDE drivers? Do they conflict with the video drivers somehow?

Rich,
My ATI card (x800xt) had worse performance than the GTs. Granted its not apples to apples, but for the money I am not sure I could have done better with ATI. I got both 7800 GTs for $600 from newegg.

 

[DRAGoNX]

Remove Nvidia IDE drivers for a start.
Second, try reinstalling the Graphics Drivers AFTER you uninstalled your current ones.
Third, make sure the proper bandwith is going to each card (like 8x and 8x).
Fourth, make sure SLI actually enabled.
Fifth, Dual GT's in SLI are suppose to get at least 11000 in 3dmark05 so something is wrong (at 1024x768 noAA or AF).

Its most likely a driver issue thats all. Your dual GTs should perform MUCH better than they are. But let me remind you FEAR is a very taxing game, and the ingame test thing doesnt really work that great.

Try all of the above, if it still doesn't work i'd be surprised, but tell us how it goes.

EDIT: Also try these.
Maby the beta driver migh also help. (81.87, just choose the right one on the page).

 

[Truefaith]

I have removed the Nvidia IDE drivers.

I have tried the Gigabyte drivers from their website, the beta drivers suggested above, the NVO beta drivers, and the latest from Nvidia.

I cannot find where to check the bandwidth of the second card, but the first shows 8x, so I assume the secondary is as well.

There is a check in the Enable SLI Multi-GPU.

Under the global driver settings I even tried changing the image settings to high performance. I also changed the SLI rendering mode to SLI multi-GPU rendering.

The highest I am able to get is still 9237, all 3 drivers are within 100 of each other on the score.

Gigabyte does not appear to have a support line that I can call, at least not that I can seem to find.

I have an Asus MB, and there is nothing in the BIOS that makes a different. I read about the PEG link mode, and it does not appear to change performance much at all regardless what it is set to.

My CPU takes a huge hit on the 3dmark scores, but I assume that is normal. I am not sure if I would get any benefit out of a faster CPU or not.

I honestly do not know what else to try, and I regret spending the money on the PCI-E motherboard and dual 7800GT's when I am not seeing much of a performance increase (in games) over my AGP X800XT.

Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks very much to all that have offered suggestions.

 

[Finneus]

Hmmm...maybe check to make sure your installation of the cards is correct. reseat the cards in your motherboard maybe, recheck to make sure if the switch on the motherboard is flipped over (if that is the type of board you have) and your SLI adapter bridge is in place with the bracket to help hold it in.

 

[DRAGoNX]

Hmmm...maybe check to make sure your installation of the cards is correct. reseat the cards in your motherboard maybe, recheck to make sure if the switch on the motherboard is flipped over (if that is the type of board you have) and your SLI adapter bridge is in place with the bracket to help hold it in.

That would be the next best thing to do. Reseat BOTH cards and then reseat the SLI bridge again, and makesure it's in place correctly.

Other than that, it pretty much comes to try reinstalling windows if everything else fails.

 

[ffmadcow]

His mobo requires you to make several switches for SLI mode - it does not really have very good software enabling. I would bet that is the problem.

 

[Finneus]

I am curious what type of power supply he has?. is everything getting enough juice.

 

[ChipDeath]

I assume you've done a proper re-install. If you've swapped several components around without one then this is exactly the sort of problem you get.

It's less effort than you think to re-install everything you use. Just do a proper reformat/reinstall, but remember (of course) to backup important docs and stuff beforehand.

If you have done a proper re-install (not a repair, or an 'upgrade') then ignore me

 

[Reeper]

Finneus may have a very good point there - are the cards getting enough juice? What PSU are you running????

 

[ChipDeath]

I've yet to see or hear of a single verified case of insufficient power causing reduced performance. I've seen it suggested as a solution countless times for problems like this.

If your system demands too much from your power supply it'll either overheat/blow up or will trip itself off, depending on the quality of it. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong here

No PC components are designed to reduce their power consumption if they detect the power dropouts characteristic of an insufficient PSU. It's like saying having a driveshaft that's too thin and flimsy in a car will reduce the power - it won't, it'll just break.

He'd get crashes and reboots if it was a power issue. As to whether his PSU is good enough to last for more than a few months at those loads before wearing out, that's a separate issue (he does have fairly meaty power demands with that rig after all)

 

[Reeper]

Fair enough comment ChipDeath... though, on my old 250W Power Supply (Pathetic, I know) I had the 6600GT throttling like mad - and very verbally letting my know about it!

Though, that may have just been the lack of a spare Molex connector to plug into the card.

I'd probably go with a Windows re-installation if I were in his position...

 

[Bogomil]

I'd probably go with a Windows re-installation if I were in his position...

Hi im curious to know how (if you did) you solved your problem. I aslo have ost of trouble witj SLI and im looking everywhere for a solution:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=posting&p=923042

Thanks

 

[Flakes]

ok Chipdeath, when i first booted my pc i didnt plug in the extra connecter into the GFX and i get a message saying, "There is not enough power for your GFX, it will be underclocked to compensate" or something along those lines, my comp worked fine. i just took it back apart and plugged it back in.

 

[Vic]

Same as me....I've got Asus Sli delux - AMD Dual 3800 - but only using 6600 GTs in SLI..... performance bench marks are good about 3dMArk05 7000 .... but game play is just bad..... Im trying to run Total War Rome - and its frame laging on default settings. I've got all the patches. I've reinstalled several times... and updated Home XP with every thing I can lay my hands on.....Still not good enough. My P4 with an ATI 9800 Pro is nicer to play.. anyone... help! I have a Targan 480 PSU, Geil 512 x PC 4000, and Seagate Sata II x 2 in Raid array.