Geforce 9800 Gx2 possible problem

I just bought a Geforece 9800 GX2. I am not sure if It is running at its full potential. I have windows vista ultimate edition and it scored a 5.9 on the performance section in Vista. Also, it doesnt seem like it runs Crysis like how it should be. My friend has a 8800 GT and it seems like they both run about the same, and my system specs are better than my friends are. My card is plugged in right, im using an 8 pin and the 6 pin connector and it has the green LED lights on the card. Maybe it is just a Crysis issue, but the rest of my games, BF2, WoW and HL2 all run fine, but like I said, I dont know if they should be running better with this card.

I wouldn't put any faith in Vista's performance index. 5.9 is the highest you can get... that's their scale... 0 to 5.9! Idiots. Anyway, make sure SLI is enabled in the nvidia control panel.

could you post the sys specs, drivers, and res?

at that res i wouldn't be surprised by your performance.
8 gigs DDR2 1066, a Q9450, and a 9800GX2 for 1280x1024?
seems like an overkill.

nah, not overkill, my last comp died, so no point in getting stuff ill need to upgrade very soon. Im not getting 50 fps, i know that. If I put it at very high settings, it lags like crazy, not even at all playable. One weird thing also, if I connect my moniter to the top vga connector, nothing will show up on my screen, it only works on the other VGA connector, since this is a dual GPU card, could that mean one of the gpu's isnt workng correctly?

If you are getting the same results as your friend's single 8800 GT - this could be caused by using an unpatched Crysis, update to the latest version.

The stock version of Crysis doesn't correctly support dual gpus - patching has addressed this to a greater degree. Given that the 9800 GX2 counts as a dual gpu, it should see a roughly 50-60% performance increase over an 8800 GT using the latest version of Crysis

If you are using the latest version of Crysis, and you still find that your performance seems "mediocre" at 1280*1024, compared to the 8800 GT - then turn on 2xAA or 4xAA as this should give you a distinct advantage over a single 8800 GT at that resolution by all rights.

I am suprise none of you guys dont know whats happening with csflame4. I am sure that his motherboard is not detecting the PCI xpress switch for his Geforce 9800gx2. This same mechanism was applied in Geforce 7950gx2. Problem is that if your motherboard doesn't detect the switch the card doesnt work to it's full potential, only around it's half, the data flow between the card is reduced to half the speed. Dont know the full details of it, thats all I can tell you.

I suggest you do a motherboad bios update and it could fix this issue. If doesn't then contact the manufacturers to update the bios so it makes your Geforce 9800gx2 compatible. If they dont then I can suggest for you to buy a new motherboard and make sure the card works properly. This happened to me with my Geforce 7950gx2 until I got a new motherboard which made my card work to it's potential.

We're not technical support advisors for Nvidia, so unless we owned the card there is no way we'd run into that issue.

"Google"-ing 7950gx2 motherboard compatibility turns up quite a bit of information, but googling 9800gx2 motherboard compatibility turns up very little pertinent information - so if you are convinced this card suffers from this issue, then could you please link the knowledge base article which refers to the 9800gx2 specifically for the OP so that he can check compatibility.

OP; So, what motherboard then?

That seems about right do you have results on current Gen games?

let us know

yea, try it at 2xAA or 4xAA

8xAA works on a principle of 4xAA*2 - its hard to explain but 8xAA is a pretty big performance hit compared to 4xAA vs 2xAA

You should be able to do 1280*1024*4xAA I would think with a 9800 GX2 - I used to run 8800 GT SLI at 1680*1050*2xAA, which is a comparable graphics array to the 9800 GX2, although the GX2 is a little better

yup, thats kinda low for a 9800 GX2 - but your 2.66 ghz processor will effect your vantage total score quite a bit.

Overclocking your processor is going to give your dual gpu more headroom; SLI, Crossfire, and dual-gpu cards tend to demand more processing power in order to shine.

Regardless, I can't imagine what the problem in your configuration is that is holding back Crysis so much, as i've played the game on a lesser gpu config than you at higher res with 2xAA same details and gotten very decent frame rates.

I'm out of ideas really, good luck.