SLi Bug Confirmed. Attention required

[Paco454 0]

There is another thread on this subject, however I wish to bring to attention a bug dealing with SLI which I have tested and confirmed to be a bug.

Bug.

ArmA.exe not responding to driver call for SLI "CUSTOM" profile.

Test conditions:

Using a known WHQL v93.71 working video driver which retains custom profiles, a profile is set under application profiles with "application" set to "ArmA.exe" and "Active Profile" named "ArmA" using "Alternate Frame Rendering" in the SLI options. This setting is retained after exit of the control panel and then returning to it.

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Situation: Loading a test map using the ArmA.exe profile I get 19 FPS. As mentioned is the other thread, I made a copy of the ArmA.exe and named it to 3dmark06.exe and then set the profile to use 3dmark06, a default nVidia profile. FPS jump to 28

Further testing.

Created another profile and set under application profiles with "application" set to "3damrk06.exe" and "Active Profile" named "ArmA" using "Alternate Frame Rendering" in the SLI options. FPS 19 Same as the first test with the ArmA.exe

Tested custom profiles I made for other games, rFactor, GTR 2 with different SLI settings, each one acting as expected with no problems.

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Conclusion: Creating a custom profile from a known working WHQL driver, which retains CUSTOM profiles, the ArmA.exe or renamed ArmA.exe (3dmark06.exe) fails to use SLI in CUSTOM profile. The ArmA.exe whatever it's named to is not calling the driver SLI portion of the video drivers when used in a "CUSTOM" profile. However if a default driver profile, (3Dmark06) is used and ArmA.exe is renamed to the 3dmark06.exe of the default profile, SLI is enabled in game giving a 32% boost in FPS, indicating SLI is working in game.

It appears making any "custom profile" for ArmA.exe is failing to use SLI when enabled, yet other games are using SLI when enabled in a custom profile. This indicates there is a bug preventing the game from using the SLI portion of a "custom profile".

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A custom profile is required if you wish to use SLI because ArmA is "NOT" included as a default profile. There are also a good number of other video drivers out there which do not retain custom profiles, which their supposed to, which compounds the problem. I made sure to use a known driver with a working profile control panel.

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I hope I have provided enough information to have this issue addressed.

System Specs

DFI Lanparty UT nf4 SLI-D (BIOS) 03/10/05

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego S939 @ 2.8GHZ

OCZ 2GB PC4000 EB Platinum Edition Dual DDR/2 x 1024MB

2x BFG GeForce 7800GTX 256meg (SLI)

SoundBlaster Audigy 2

Maxtor 40+80+120 Gig Drives

Enermax 600W EG701AX-VE SFMA Power supply

Thermalright XP 90c heatsink /w 92mm highflow fan

WinXP Pro SP2

nVidia Driver v93.71 WHQL

PACO454

[suma 8]

I guess you should contact nVidia support instead. Profiles are something which is their proprietary technology, they is no corresponding interface in DirectX, and they are implemented solely in the drivers.

[LT.INSTG8R 0]

Crossfire Users encounter the same issue, but Crossfire does not require a profile to use both cards and in the case of Armed Assault it cannot even use its "compatibilty mode".

We can rename .exe's to know working Crossfire .exe's but even using the generic AFRfriendlyD3D.exe(forces Alternate Frame Rendering) does nothing to increase performance over a single card