460 SLI poor performance

[dava04]

I have been testing out my 460 SLI set up and am getting no where near the tested number presented on this site for an SLI setup with the GTX 460.

OC'ed I7930 3.8Ghz / 6gb Kingston Ram / MSI X58 pro e Mobo / 2xGTX460 1GB

3d ark Vantage 19000 for GPUS and 43000 CPU.

I havent tested the games performance with the CPU over clocked yet.

Using the 930 at stock gave results as follow measuring with fraps.

Crysis have gone from 20FPS in Very high 4xAA to 35FPS, Metro 2033 did something very similar.

However Just Cause 2 Everything on 8xAA has gone from 30fps to 35fps.

ALso GTA4 is actually slower by 5fps in SLI.

Are there some setting in the nivida control panel i need to change?

Thanks.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Did you do those runs with the SLi indicators enabled?

 

[dava04]

When you say SLI indicators what do you mean?

Is it that Nivida control panel reports that SLI is enabled, i see a green bar below my 2 cards with arrows pointing up at both cards.
GPU2 is driving the the card with the monitor plugged in to it, physX is set to CPU.

If so then i answer, yes.

This is the first SLI build I have attemped and to be fair its been a pain in the arse, so excuss me if some things arent immediatly obvious to me.

Also,
I just had a quick run using SLI on GTA 4 OC'ed CPU 3.8ghz (1920x1080, draw distance 60, detail distance 60, traffic 100, all on high the same situation as before, inside its around 50fps, outside around 40fps, is really isnt any different from none OC'ed CPU

Also Crysis was min 25fps max 38fps.

Metro 2033, just did a bench on that one the avg FPS went up to 27fps Oc'ed from 25 none OC'ed CPU.

Farcry 2 using its internal benchmark is running between 70 and 100 fps.

I have also been reading that its possible that the cards can work in SLI without the SLI bridge connector.

My SLI bridge (this is one to make the mods laugh) went through the washing machine recently, I left it in my pocket on the way back from the PC market, and today it turned up washed and smelling of softner

However there is no visable damage on it, no bends tears or breaks, it looks pretty much as good as new, do we think this could be a factor? Most importantly, would the SLI work, if the SLI bridge was plugged into both cards and yet defective?

What else could be contributing to this less than desirable performance?

 

[Mousemonkey]

When you say SLI indicators what do you mean?

Is it that Nivida control panel reports that SLI is enabled, i see a green bar below my 2 cards with arrows pointing up at both cards.
GPU2 is driving the the card with the monitor plugged in to it, physX is set to CPU.

If so then i answer, yes.

This is the first SLI build I have attemped and to be fair its been a pain in the arse, so excuss me if some things arent immediatly obvious to me.

The SLi indicators are enabled via the Nvidia control panel.

And I've always used GPU1 to drive my monitor on an SLi rig as it's the primary card.

 

[dava04]

The image link you have just sent doesnt work from my location.

If i could figure out how to just straight upload a picture onto the forum I would do a print screen so you can see my Nvidia control panel.

But as i say long green bar under the two cards indicating that SLI is active and I have my CPU set to physX

The motherboard that I am using MSI pro E states that the only card that will have working DVI connections in an SLI set up is the one that is connected toPCIE x 16 (PCI_E2) slot. This is the card that the Nivida control panel reads as GPU 2.

However as i am now looking at the mother board lay out, I have my cards in PCI_E2 and PCI_E5, where the instructions state that they should be in PCI_E2 and PCI_E5, however for heat and space related issues, I dont think there is anyway i will get them in E2 and E4 anyway.

Also If E5 is x8 and not x16 there was an artical i read here recently that suggested the difference is only 3% or so anyway


I do however believe that all the slots, the blue ones on the motherboard layout E2, E4 and E5 are meant to be X16 anyway

 

[dava04]

I have found the SLI visual indicators option that you were talking about.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I reckon you need to have the cards in slots E2 and E4 as they are the x16 Gen2 slots.

 

[dava04]

I have just run 3d mark vantage one more time, just through the first 3d test with SLI indicators turned on, the green bar was filling the rectangle at least 80% the whole time.

Do you think that having the cards in the E2 and E4 slots would really make a large difference?

I will try, however the heat and especially space issues come into play, I am not that sure they will fit!!

 

[dava04]

The cards are next to each other in E2 and E4.

That also switched the display card to GPU1 so it doesnt show the monitor connected to GPU2 anymore.

3d mark score is now 22490 for the GPU, which is a fair improvement, and on par with the benchmarks on this site.

Crysis is up to the mid 40s and GTA4 is in the low 40s on my benchmark, however to be fair the GTA bench mark is a little unfair as its a fresh load then going from inside to out, and anyone who has played that game much will know it does stutter going from inside locations to outside locations. During the outside locations its around 50fps all the time.
However i have read that GTA4 isnt optomised/ the game engine doesnt work to well with SLI.

Mousemonkey thanks, seems that did the trick.

Any other ideas on bringing up performance?

The only issue i guess there are, are GPU 1 is now 70+deg C under load, while GPU 2 is 40+deg C.

Also for some strange reason my CPU score has come down from 43000+ to 21642, any ideas?

 

[Mousemonkey]

The cards are next to each other in E2 and E4.

That also switched the display card to GPU1 so it doesnt show the monitor connected to GPU2 anymore.

3d mark score is now 22490 for the GPU, which is a fair improvement, and on par with the benchmarks on this site.

Crysis is up to the mid 40s and GTA4 is in the low 40s on my benchmark, however to be fair the GTA bench mark is a little unfair as its a fresh load then going from inside to out, and anyone who has played that game much will know it does stutter going from inside locations to outside locations. During the outside locations its around 50fps all the time.
However i have read that GTA4 isnt optomised/ the game engine doesnt work to well with SLI.

Mousemonkey thanks, seems that did the trick.

Any other ideas on bringing up performance?

The only issue i guess there are, are GPU 1 is now 70+deg C under load, while GPU 2 is 40+deg C.

Also for some strange reason my CPU score has come down from 43000+ to 21642, any ideas?

Your CPU is not doing as much work now that both cards are running at full speed.

 

[dava04]

Ic.... ok then.

Any ideas about optimum settings for eliminating micro stutter on the cards?

 

[dava04]

Best answer selected by dava04.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Ic.... ok then.

Any ideas about optimum settings for eliminating micro stutter on the cards?

I've never had "microstutter", but then I'm using 8800GT's with an e8400 because they didn't like a 939 3800x2.

 

[dava04]

Ok it wasnt a major issue, just thought i would ask.

Just Cause 2 seems to be fairly comfortable now around 45-55 fps, so i reckon we can call this thread done.

Thanks alot, much appreciated.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey