Any SLI Users?

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]As shown in the pics, I got a 27 FPS increase with my ARMA SLI profile. Just look at your settings. Renaming ARMA.exe  to 3DMark06.exe does nothing but use the SLI profile for 3DMark06, and if the ARMA profile that you make is the same as the 3DMark06 one, it isn't going to make any difference whatsoever.

Hang on a sec, don't take this as a personnel attack I wasn't disputing the fact that you saw an improvement by adding the Arma.exe. Read my previous posts more carefully.

For some of us, adding an arma profile, with Alternate Rendering (or any other form of rendering) made no difference. Read some of the post in the SLI Zone forums, others have similar problems with other games.

At least renaming the exe worked for me. That’s why I posted the suggestion here, as there were others having similar problems.

I am\was fully aware of the advanced control panel. Also the hidden features you can't access from Nvidias interface. As I said before, both my Arma profiles and the 3DMark profiles are almost identical, yet I don't get the increase FPS when using the Arma profile, but I do using the 3DMark profile. I cant tell you why, perhaps it's the combination of hardware I have, who knows.

Just be happy for those people that finally got their SLI systems working, when following the standard (and well documented) procedure for setting up profiles failed.

Edit:

BTW if you haven't already, head over to the SLI Zone and make a request for an offical profile. I have already, but no doubt, the more the better. And yes, I requested the Alternate Rendering Mode.

SLI Request

[super64 0]

I got the same results Jaguax. So I can vouch for your experiment. I probably gained 5 to 8 fps using AFR1. But when I changed my exe to another name and forced it to use another Nvidia profile, wow... SLi lives!! Bring on the action! Either way, thanks to everyone who has posted an SLi tweak or idea. Been a huge help!

Renaming it to 3DMark06 is just going to use the 3DMark06 profile. If it does give you better results, it's because something in it is different than in your ARMA.exe profile that you made. Go and look at it, and see what's different.

I just tested it out myself, I renamed ARMA.exe to 3DMark06.exe and got the same exact result as with my ARMA SLI profile. 59 FPS in the 3rd test scene that I posted.

Then I checked the settings to compare the two profiles and they were exactly the same. The 3DMark06 profile had ONE extra option, something like stereo SLI rendering which has nothing to do with ARMA nor does it have any effect on performance. I think it's for multi monitor rendering or something. Otherwise both profiles are the same so nothing should be different.

So either you are experiencing a placebo effect, or your ARMA profile differs from your 3DMark06 profile. Go check it out.

As shown in the pics, I got a 27 FPS increase with my ARMA SLI profile. Just look at your settings. Renaming ARMA.exe to 3DMark06.exe does nothing but use the SLI profile for 3DMark06, and if the ARMA profile that you make is the same as the 3DMark06 one, it isn't going to make any difference whatsoever.

Oh, and just in case, MAKE SURE you have advanced view enabled in your 3D settings otherwise it is displaying only the most basic 3D settings, so maybe you are not seeing them all.

Jag, I can tell you for sure it was not a placebo effect. There is something in the Nvidia driver profile that is not being made clear to the end user. Because in my testing, I loaded the same map, looked at the same scene, then walked the same path thru the same foliage and buildings to record the frame rate. When I switched to the 3DMark06 name and ran Arma, it was pretty easy to tell the difference between 30fps and 53fps. And yes, Im quite aware of the "advanced" options. So no, i do not have an exact explanation as to why this method is working on my SLi setup, but it does. I even went back and compared each setting to my ArmA.exe profile to see what was different. And nothing was. So that tells me there is a detail in a driver that is making the difference that I have no real control over. But im quite happy with the performance gains Ive achieved.

[jaguax 0]

Didn't intend to sound mean, I just get a little argumentative sometimes, I mean no harm.

If it works, then that's great, I just don't understand how. I'm 99% sure the ONLY thing profiles do is apply those [visible] settings to the application. And I don't understand why it would differ with my computer, since we have such similar setups.

Finally, whopper, we already know that the game is very CPU dependent. Just check the Armamark (benchmarking utility) thread for proof of that.

[jaguax 0]

Thing i was playing around with yesterday must have been the anisotropic. Turned it off and the game flew. FRAPs reported same frame rates but its lying - it was amazingly fast. Pity the roads looked rubbish with no anisotrophy on.

Now this I cannot believe. Anistropic filtering, in my experience, has never lowered the frame rate by more than 1-3 fps, in every single modern game I have played, even going from no anisotropic filtering to 16x anisotropic filtering. Every single game I get I always force 16x AF, because it barely has an impact on the frame rate, if any.

The real frame rate killer is antialiasing, in this game I have it disabled altogether.

[whopper_with_cheese 0]

hey i dunno, i'm no graphics expert, i can only report what ive discovered so it might help someone in the same boat willing to experiment.

It felt like the weapon was a direct extension of the mouse when aniso was off, rather than the ever so slightly 'not smooth' turning around, aiming weapon.

I cant prove it without you sitting right here... so unless you're going to bring some beers around...lets agree to disagree!

I have put it back on as im not willing to live with the visual sacrifice anyway. The roads really did look rubbish at say 100m. I've got AA on too since i like my smoooooooth edges....so that might be where i am getting a FPS hit too compared to you...i will play around with that later tonight, cause in all fairness i havent tried ARMA without AA yet.

Finally, cause i'm willing to try anything once, i did take one of my vid cards out (as per some SLI users on some other forum who said it gave FPS increase for them) and the game did drop in FPS noticably. Bugger.

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]I'm 99% sure the ONLY thing profiles do is apply those [visible] settings to the application.

The only thing I can think of, is it's not recognizing the exe name. Two things lead me to believe that, if you add the Arma.exe to the 3DMark profile using nHancer, it won't improve anything. Also, if you turn on the load graph local to the Arma profile, rather than globally. It does not show up.

But to be honest, I'm past caring. I've spent so much time fiddling with the damn thing, I've had no time to experiment with the game

I've still  yet to try over clocking the GPU's. So if it works, then I don't care how

[van Nistelrooy 0]

Hi guys,

I'm not a SLI user... but almost: I've got a 7950GX. It's very special, because this system is not considered like a real SLI system, but I've got 2 GPU.

I really don't know how to configure my Nvidia driver. I'm almost sure that only one GPU is used by ArmA, because my performances in this game are not wonderfull.

Is there someone who's got the same graphic card and who makes ArmA running like it should be ?

[LT.INSTG8R 0]

LOL you guys make me chuckle as your all starting to sound like us ATI Crossfire users.

The renaming of the .exe is the easiest trick with us Crossfire users as it then automatically uses "working" optimizations" not to mention using a 3Dmark exe will be an excellent choice as they always seem to tweaking those ones to keep ahead of the other team(be it Green OR Red)

But I digress from poking any fun as I went thru all the same issues here trying to get it up to usable FPS. thankfully I found my issue JUST before I was gonna rename the .exe

The Catalysts have the AI feature which basically applies those optimiztions automatically when it detects a supported .exe. I would normally just keep it on Advanced but in the case of ArmA its not in the list and would basically optimize it to the point of making it crawl(the same 20fps you SLI users were getting on as low a settings I could put on )After setting back to Standard the game just started to fly and I could start turning up ingame settings until I hit a "low" I could live with.

Im sure both the teams will have proper optimizations in the next set of drivers. We ALL keep forgetting this game has only been out for less than month and not in huge release so we need to be patient until the GFX drivers catch up and BIS keep up their end by continuing to optimize it thru patches

[Baker65 0]

3) My settings(for the ARMA.exe profile):

Anisotropic filtering: Application-controlled

Anisotropic mip filter optimization: Off

Anisotropic sample optimization: On

Antialiasing settings: Application-controlled

Conformant texture clap: Use hardware

Error reporting: Off

Extension limit: Off

Force mipmaps: None

Gamme correct antialiasing: Off

Hardware acceleration: Single display performance mode

Negative LOD bias: Clamp

SLI performance mode: Force alternate frame rendering 1

Texture Filtering: High quality

Threaded optimization: On

Transparency antialiasing: Off

Trileaner optimization: On

Triple buffering: Off

Vertical sync: Force off

I tried the rename of the .exe to 3Dmark06.exe with no difference. I created an ArmA profile and set it to the above settings and finally SLI came to life with some improvement.

Before SLI enabled - 1835

After SLI enabled - 2434

I have a P4 3.06 Gig processor

2.5 Gigs RAM

ASUS P5ND2-SLI motherboard with Nvida chipset

2 x Nvidia 6600 PCIe cards

The performance of ArmA on my system is very bad.

[Ghad 0]

So what you are saying is that it doesnt really make any difference if I choose Nvidia or ATI for my next pc?

[LT.INSTG8R 0]

So what you are saying is that it doesnt really make any difference if I choose Nvidia or ATI for my next pc?

Well not to poke fun again but I am now up to High on everything but Post(low), AA(normal) and Shadows are disabled(THEE biggest fps killer I can find then Post being next)

I will grab ArmA Mark and give it a few runs tomorrow and post some results. but I running more than reasonable 25-30 minimums with those settings.

Im sorry but it nice to see SLI getting the same treatment Crossfire gets with most other games(meaning buggering about with profiles and renaming .exe's which I am very used to doing to get things working)

Edit:

I settled on all High/Normal and get a decent 38-40 using Convoy Ambush as my testbed

[Casandra 0]

My Specs:

SHUTTLE XPC SN26P SLI

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 939

2048 MB DDR 400 MHz Kingston

SATA HDD 250 GB 7200 rpm Seagate

PCI-E 16X GeForce 7800GT 256DDR3 SLI CLUB3D x 2

WINDOWS XP x32

...and don't work well.

SLI don't run ok in ArmA for me.

I have latest drivers from NVIDIA (93.81 beta)

But i tried other drivers also.

I tried to config drivers many forms....

Nothing!!

Also tried with lnHancer's latest version (good software for config Nvidia drivers)...and NOTHING!

I hope BIS fix this on the next PATCH.

...I need more framesssss!!!!

Thanks!.

[UNN 0]

@Casandra

Is your SLI setup working ok with other games? I ran 3DMark06, with and without SLI enabled, just to confirm it was working.

[Casandra 0]

Let's try men.

I'll try with 3DMark06....and post here again.

Thanks.

[UNN 0]

This is what I got, using 3DMark06 v1.02 Pro:

             SLI On       SLI Off

3DMarks    5614         3224

SM2          2478         1286

SM3          2201         1166

CPU          1820         1824

SM2 & SM3 relate to the GPU's. I'm using a couple of 7600, so I would expect you to get a better score than I did.

[1nsane 0]

asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe (chipset nforce4 SLI X16)

cpu AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+

2048 MB DDR 400 MHz Kingston

asus 7900GTX (x2)

sound on board

WINDOWS XP x32 SP2

nforce driver 6.86: july 7

forceware driver 93.71: november 2

3dmark06 arround 8500 total point.

This forceware version dont have ArmA profile for SLI, right:

The game start working on compatibility mode, SLI simule only one GPU and game work decent framerate on normal grafic configuration.

I tried force SLI mode making SLI profile for arma.exe in forceware panel driver, alternate frame render 1 offcorse.

But ArmA shut off SLI mode, SLI visual indicator dont appears and game work on compatibility mode, this problem is becouse SLI dont support vertical syncro, arma set on by default and havent option to configure that.

I force to deactivate vertical syn by forceware profile, and SLI WORK !!, SLI visual indicator appears !!.

But ArmA steel using vertical syn and dont use SLI power, SLI visual indicator dont move, the game continue using only one gpu .

Definitively ArmA dont support SLI on this version, i hope patch this problem soon, shut down vertical syn option or some think.

Sry my poor english, thanks.

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]I force to deactivate vertical syn by forceware profile, and SLI WORK !!, SLI visual indicator appears !!.

But ArmA steel using vertical syn and dont use SLI power, SLI visual indicator dont move, the game continue using only one gpu

You can turn VSynch of globaly for all profiles or localy for your Arma profile. If your having trouble finding the option, try nHancer.

[M-N-0N 0]

wonder if they are gonna make a patch to allow SLI in the game

its just painfull having to play this with a low res and med-high settings when i know i have the GFX grunt ready to be used

or is there a way to get SLI to work?

i have tried making a profile like said etc

btw i have a laptop .. so the setup is a tad diff but not that much.

[1nsane 0]

asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe (chipset nforce4 SLI X16)

cpu AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+

2048 MB DDR 400 MHz Kingston

asus 7900GTX (x2)

sound on board

WINDOWS XP x32 SP2

nforce driver 6.86: july 7

forceware driver 93.71: november 2

3dmark06 arround 8500 total point.

ok guys, i found a solution to my problem:

nvidia 7 series dont support HDR+AA, if any level of FSAA r activated it will be kill hardware acceleration and SLI configuration.

The way to SLI work:

1-Create a profile to arma.exe using forceware control panel.

2-Select "alternate frame render 1" mode for SLI.

3-Force vsync off

In game deactivate FSAA, after that SLI start working and SLI visual indicators show it, SLI WORK !! .

But visual quality r crapy .

I hope patch HDR+AA or add HDR-off option in next version.

sry my english, thanks.

[4 IN 1 0]

thats really what i think why all those highend system bite the dust in Arma, in the latest ati card they have hdr+aa support so they didnt have as much problem as nV card have

did 8800 support HDR+AA? if it is supported then it shouldnt be the reason of low fps

[Casandra 0]

This is what I got, using 3DMark06 v1.02 Pro:

SLI On SLI Off

3DMarks 5027 3719

SM2 2754 1505

SM3 1569 1478

CPU 1442 1467

Then...i know my SLI works OK...but....don't works in ARMA!!!

I tried all.

New profile ArmA.

Alternate Frame Render 1...

FSAA off...

Vsync off...

Still don't work!!!

Buaaahhh!!!!

P.D.: I need that patch....

[UNN 0]

Did you try copying and renaming the Arma.exe to 3DMark06.exe?

But to be honest, I'm finding the Arma graphics engine to be a little unpredictable. SLI can be working fine, then the next time you start up it's gone again.

Also be carefully about rebooting e.t.c Just changing the Arma Quality Preferences in game, from Normal to high e.t.c For some reason resets my display.

Even though the resolution and refresh rate remain the same. I have to re-adjust my monitor depending on the quality preference I choose. Changing it will normally mean I loose the SLI load graph to. Which appears to imply the loss of SLI as well. It may or may not come back after a reboot.

Edit:

I have exactly the same Motherboard as you, only using the 7600 series. Are you running at least v 1205 of the bios? That adds support for the 7900 series.

[Aftermath 0]

I added a profile for Armed Assault and i have Vertical Sync specified off, running AFR1 for SLi.

I experience no change in fps, usually going @ or below 30 fps in a nearly unplayable state - heres my specs:

AMD 64 X2 3800+ (2.01GHz Dual)

3GB PC3200 Dual Channel

2xGeForce 7800GT's

I CAN'T Change my arma exe name to 3DMark06 because its the sprocket/softwrap version, and there is an error with a different exe name.

Any insight into my specific info, or things to try?

[UNN 0]

I managed to finaly get my dedicated Arma profile working. I cleaned out my old profiles and added the Arma.exe using nHancer. Seems to work ok.

I that fails:

I'm using the latest Beta version of nHancer. But if you want to try importing my Arma profile with nHancer, you can find it here:

Arma SLI Profile

Probably best to make sure you've removed any of the old Arma profiles and reboot after importing it.

[M-N-0N 0]

tried nhancer and nope still not working

I'm getting bored of waiting to see if they are gonna make it work or not with some sort of patch..

hate having to play this game with all options stuck on half way...

so on the shelf it goes for now ... i wanna play this game with all its glory .. not with half assed settings