Hey everyone, this is gonna be an odd thread, but here goes:

I've recently bought a new machine (got it assembled in the shop) consisting of:
Intel C2Q Q6600 (2.4ghz)
Dual SLI 8800 GT 512mb
Abit nforce Fatality SLI mobo
2 GB Kingston DDR2-800 Ram
850W Gigabyte power supply
Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)

Updated every single windows and Nvidia drivers (169.25) I could find, and downloaded the patch for Crysis

Now when I started Crysis, I put on a mix of medium-high settings thinking wow, even with SLI this game is a monster. I benchmarked the GPUs and got around 26-33fps
Then I wanted to see how much SLI really did for Crysis, so I disabled SLI
And Voiala, 40-60 fps, thinking this couldn't be, i tried enabling and disableing, restarting my pc, but no change.
Then I upped the settings to a mix of medium - high - very high (texture quality, water, physics)
Benchmarking 1 card got an average of 36fps
Benchmarking SLI got an average of 10fps

I was desperate so I swapped the cards, then took 1 out to see if it was a faulty card, but on their own, each performed perfectly. Pc could see SLI, and whatever config of the cards I tried, no improvement.....
meaning the system wasn't faulty.

I have searched the net for any other cases like this, but couldn't find any, and everywhere I went, SLI always rendered better results.... I'm lost for ideas so if anyone has a suggestion, pls post or mail me
Thx, Gellert

Given the fact that your cards function correctly on their own, perhaps you should consider the possibility that there is a specific hardware defect regarding SLI. However then you should also have this problem with other games playing SLI mode. Is it just Crysis that is giving you a headache?

If it's something wrong with SLI, then it could be either card's SLI port (or whatever its called where you plug in the cable directly connecting the two cards) or it may even be the cable itself. It can also be a mobo problem, and it could even be a faulty bios setting instead of a hardware failure.

Btw if you find it's a hardware issue then visit our hardware section because there's lots of knowledgeable people there (I'm not a hardware guy).

Hey, I just got the 28' ViewSonic so I desperately need help fixing this. It might be hardware issue so i'll post there aswell

what is the power supply on your rig? I know it might be a stupid question but If they assembled it , in the shop might have thrown in some random power supply that wont cut it?

I noted the same problem with my system/config.

Not sure where the problem is but not sure it came from the PSU.

I have recently tried to SLI Crysis like you guys did. I had less fps in SLI then with a single card, and still wondering why. I have a Evga 8800GTS 512 running at an average of 18-20 fps at very high on DX9, XP-32 (the very-high was obtain in DX9 by a little tweak but still) When I try to SLI with another exactly same card (another Evga 8800GTS 512) I have less fps???. And I try with the high and med setting and each time the SLI rig was slower. (ie. at high I running around 26-27 fps in single and 20-21 in SLI) All of this with Crysis patched at 1.1 and latest driver 169.28 whql. All Nvidia shows that my SLI is working (and enable) even the SLI bar is up and running in Crysis (once this option was activated). All of this at 1900X1200 on a Dell 24’ screen (2407WFP-HC).
So what is the problem?
I have a mobo Asus A8N32SLi-Deluxe, running an AMD FX-60(at 2.8ghz) and 2 gig of DDR-400 (time at 2-3-2-5) and have pretty descend system (PSU Thermaltake Tough Power 850W). If you wants to tell me it’s my CPU the bottleneck (and memory not been DDR2), please explain why.
I am playing without SLI now…Viva SLI !!! $$$???

By the way, help line at Evga asked me to check (and test) both card one at the time. This is something I did and saw the same result so both card are correct. I am very disappointed by SLI
despite the fact my 3DMarks improvement was really impressive from single to SLI. Is this only the problem from Crysis (even patched) or Nvidia driver?

Any idea?

Make sure you guys are running the latest beta forceware drivers. If you are not you can't take advantage of the crysis 1.1 optimizations for SLI.

My frame rates doubled when I used the beta drivers and the 1.1 patch.

I used the latest WHQL version of 169.28 driver which date of early January (2008). I used it also with the latest patch of Crysis, latest Bios available but still SLI framerate are less than single card?

Are you suggesting me to use the latest Nvidia driver 171.16 that went out on February 3?

Oooo, new drivers, I actually meant the 169.28 beta drivers, but now I mane 171.16!

I just checked the nvidia website and I didn't see any 171.16 so I searched and it doesnt look like those are being distributed by nvidia yet so I am going to hold off on them.

I had really good luck with the 169.28 drivers that came out right after the 1.1 crysis patch.

You may be CPU limited. The FX-60 may not be able to drive two G92 cards like that. Crysis has a lot of physics and if the CPU does not keep the cards supplied with data they will slow down.

I have a Q6600 overclocked to 3.2GHz and I am CPU limited in Crysis. I also run 1920x1200 on a samsung 24".

We've run some additional 3-way SLI tests for Crysis with the 1.1 patch and the Nvidia 169.28 beta driver. The results shoul be published soon, and to be perfectly honest, they're not encouraging at all.

Has anyone had any system issues after installing the 169.28 driver?

Mine has run pretty good, but its a dedicated gaming system. I dont spend that much time on it. No crashes in crysis or video glitches.


Rob, are you guys finding Crysis to be CPU or GPU limited? If three way SLI isnt helping and these other peeps are saying even regular two way is not better than one card doesn't stand to reason that it's the CPU dragging everything down?

What about an ageia (spelling?) physics board?

right im the same
i just got an
XFX 780i mobo
Two 9800 gx2
Intel Q9450 quad 2.8ghz
4gb ddr2 ram 1033mhz
corsair 1000watt psu
on windows vista 64bit
non sli mode 15-17 fps
SLi mode looking in the same spots 13-16 fps
pluss that is quite low fps any way from vid on the net
all my drivers are bang uptodate
every thing is plugged in

I've got it solved since quite a while, i took it into the shop where I got it, left it there for 2 days, its worked gr8 ever since. SLI gives me a boost, but not too much...

I have no idea what they did in the shop, suposedly they re-instaled Nvidia drivers..lol i did that aswell...