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Started by solomyn | | 11 answers
Skyrim + SLI + 3D = Artifacts?
Hey there,
I have two GTX 970's in SLI currently. One is a Zotac, the other an EVGA SC. I had two EVGAs, but sent one back and replaced it because of the coil whine that it was emitting. I am going to wind up replacing the second EVGA due to the same problem. I purchased and received the Zotac, installed the card, set up SLI and 3D, and all is well. Or so I thought...

Tonight I was playing some Skyrim, and noticed what I assume to be artifacting on the side of the screen. Never in the the center where my character is... only on the sides. It's like the game isn't fully rendering the environment. I Googled the hell out of it, and couldn't find the solution. I am assuming it is a form of artifacts. It only happens when in third person, though!

I loaded up Crysis 3, and played for some time, but didn't have problems. Same with Borderland 2. I did run Valley Benchmarking, and in some areas, the same thing happened!

My temperatures are around 80 degrees in SLI. When I disable SLI, I don't get it at all (although of course the 3D is much more choppy!).

Is this normal? Should I be concerned about the Zotac (which is the primary card for now?).

Thoughts? Comments? It's all appreciated!
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October 15, 2014 5:26:33 PM

And now it's my turn to be an idiot in a forum on the Internet. This thread will go down in history...

These are not artifacts that I'm seeing. I'm seeing a distortion that's common with 3D rendering. It's a bi-product of the way the image is being drawn, and it's relevance to your point of view in the game/benchmark. It's handled by changing the Frustum Settings within the video driver itself.

The distorted polygons can be reduced or eliminated altogether by enabling the extra keyboard shortcuts in the NVidia control panel. By default, it's Ctrl + F11. There are three settings to cycle through.

I just thought I would post this explanation in case some other newb spends all night trying to figure it out...

Thank you to the people that did respond and helped out. It's greatly appreciated.
October 15, 2014 1:58:36 PM

cowboydude99 said:
I would think it is either a OC set too high, bad GPU, or something going on with the PSU supplying too much power to the GPU.

I'd change the GPU first.


And there lies the confusing point... I am trying the two GPUs in single formation, with no OC on either and I still have the artifacts.

Is this just my limited knowledge of a distortion that occurs when Depth is set to an amount too high? Why don't I see these things in other games... why just Skyrim and Valley. Regardless of GPU, GPU temp or Overclock.
October 15, 2014 1:45:06 PM

I would think it is either a OC set too high, bad GPU, or something going on with the PSU supplying too much power to the GPU.

I'd change the GPU first.
October 15, 2014 1:38:56 PM

I have tried each card in single formation, and the artifacts appear only in Valley Benchmark when not in SLI. And it only appears with the depth amount set to over 50%.

I don't believe heat is the issue, simply because the artifacts appear when the card is at about 60 degrees (which I know is certainly not too hot).

Could it be a setting in the bios? I have everything set to default settings (I have a ASUS Maximus VI hero running the latest BIOS.

Ugh.
October 15, 2014 7:06:30 AM

ccampy said:
What power supply do you have


I have a Corsair RM850
October 15, 2014 6:38:57 AM

What power supply do you have
October 15, 2014 6:32:27 AM

cowboydude99 said:
80 for gtx 970 is very high.

Are you over locking both cards? Over voltjng them?


cowboydude99 said:
Artifacts is most likely a bad GPU... Can you RMA?


The EVGA will be going back today. My concern is that it's an issue with the Zotac. Since this problem only rears it's head when in SLI I'm not sure which GPU is the culprit.
October 15, 2014 6:20:20 AM

Artifacts is most likely a bad GPU... Can you RMA?
October 15, 2014 3:26:06 AM

cowboydude99 said:
80 for gtx 970 is very high.

Are you over locking both cards? Over voltjng them?

No, I'm not overclocking or over-volting at all. The EVGA is a SC edition. I have tried running all fans at maximum speed, which drops the temps to about mid-60s, but with SLI the artifacts still appears.

I've tried to take screenshots, but it doesn't show up in the screen captures!

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