SLi working - i7 GTX295 on V64 & Win7 -my how to

[FraG_AU 10]

Hiyas, I thought I'd share my ways of getting SLi working properly on my system. It has taken me god knows how many hours and how many attempted work arounds but somehow the steps I followed this time worked on both vista and win7 (its funny as I was just trying out SLi Patch). Now I am not going to use my last re-activation to try this a different way to see if you can change a step or 2 but if you're still having issues this is what I did and have replicated it 2 times on 2 diff os's.

Also please note that win7 7232 has given me the best result out of everything. (6500 AM2 vs 6100AM2 in Vista X64)

My system is as follows -

i7 @ 4.2

GTX295 650/1500/1100

6gb PC1600

PS - I have been running this with HT off since doing so I have not had 1 MultiPlayer crash.

Now at 1920x1200 (100% Fill) Texture V High/Ansi V high/Vid Mem Very high /Post Pro Low/Rest normal I get ~6500 Armamark with test 5 only being below 60fps (46.xx fps)

Ok this is what I did step by step. I have done this on 2 os's one a clean install one my main work install.

1) Installed Arma 2 and all patches

2) Installed 168.18WHQL drivers (* Was trying EVGA SLi Patch which did not work)

3) Installed EVGA SLi Patch 13

4) Installed 185.2 WHQL drivers (* Rolled back to 182.5's BUT Straight over top)

5) copied and renamed arma2.exe to crysis64.exe (* This was my previous best result)

6) changed my shortcut to add in my mods and -nosplash & -world=empty **NO -winxp as that sucked the performance out. (* This were my previous best settings)

7) Changed the crysis64.exe in nvidia control panel to turn v-sync off

Ran the crysis64.exe and worked like a charm. (MUCH better then it did when i had 182.5's and same settings only hours before!)

Now as silly as this sounds, I have tried 182.5's and crysis64.exe countless of times (including clean installs), and I had it work for me a couple of times but as soon as I went into MP my game went to shit again.. This way its been perfect.

No I would assume you don't need the EVGA SLi Patch or the 168.18 drivers since you're using 182.5s and using a crysis64.exe to launch but I have had no time to do another clean install so I thought I would provide the step by step I used as it worked 2 times now. Please note using the Arma2.exe and Sli patch (which is what I tried to do before going back to 182.5's) did bugger all for me, as I mentioned earlier using cyrsis64.exe worked best for me.

Anyway it would be interesting whether its just 182.5's and crysis64.exe or something to do with the sli patch? who knows, so if you're having issues still try this and let me know. We can then perhaps cut back steps :) Weird thing with arma2 tho, is some ways work for some but not others..

EDIT: Also I would suggest to see if it works for you by using armamark II or even jumping in the editor and running around the world. I still find SP missions to drag on, but my MP has improved somewhat.. There are still issues to do with i presume world/ai routines that hamper performance in SP.

Edited July 1, 2009 by FraG_AU

[nzjono 10]

Nice to know someone is getting it working, for the moment Im sick and tired of all the workarounds. Im sticking with the EVGA patch in the meantime which at least brings my Framerate up to a rather lame mid 30s early 40s fps. If I go in a city or near buildings it drops down though, just too depressing to even bother complaining about.

By the way you dont tell us what your view distance is set at as that makes a big difference.

I just dont see why we have to spend our time testing out workarounds, isnt that meant to have been done before it is sold to us as a completed product?

Edited July 1, 2009 by nzjono

[cross 1]

168.18 meant to be 186.18 I guess

[FraG_AU 10]

Oops 186.18 yeah.

Just played a decent game of Warefare (17 town), and the lowest FPS i got was in the 50's and thats flying my Ka52 over city.

Runs very very nice, SP however (Say Razor Two/Manhattan etc) still in the 30's.

I'm running it now with V-sync @ Tripple Buffer on and was very very nice.. Finally I am happy and can enjoy the MP experience rather then cursing at the slide show ;)

Like I said I just think its the 182.5 and crysis64.exe (without -winxp) that did it for me, but you never know so I listed all the steps I did on both my partitions :)

[Inc_Cat 0]

Glad to hear you got it working, and I envy you:-)

Personally I haven't had much problems getting it to run SLI... but my problem is it keeps crashing. FPS wise I've been happy all the time with just a single card or in SLI (quad mode) - allthough single card is more stable than Quad. Also tried just all suggestions in just about all forums (expect installing win XP and disabling HT).

Do you have dual 295 with 1,8GB each or 1GB each?

Also wonder how you are able to turn of Hypertreading in the Bios, as my bios (Dell) don't have that option, or it's called something else now? Wonder if that could stop the game from crashing.

My specs are:

Dell XPS

I7 965 Extreme@3,2GHz

6GB ram

Dual 295's (1,8GB each)

SSD dics in non raid

Vista x64 Ultimate and Win 7 x64 Ultimate RC1 build 7100 (dualboot)

[FraG_AU 10]

Do you have dual 295 with 1,8GB each or 1GB each?

Also wonder how you are able to turn of Hypertreading in the Bios, as my bios (Dell) don't have that option, or it's called something else now? Wonder if that could stop the game from crashing.

My specs are:

Dell XPS

I7 965 Extreme@3,2GHz

6GB ram

Dual 295's (1,8GB each)

SSD dics in non raid

Vista x64 Ultimate and Win 7 x64 Ultimate RC1 build 7100 (dualboot)

Not sure on the Dell, but I assume it would be in there, perhaps try dell support forums. I haven't had 1 crash now in about 15+ hrs of MP (Domination/Warefare etc) and this is since turning HT off. COuld be unrelated but since the game does not have negative performance with HT off I'll leave it off as its the only thing I play now (and prob for a long time to come ;))

PS> All GTX295s have 1792mb ram or more precisley 2x 896mb as each gpu has seperate memory.. Its misleading advertising re the 1792

PPS> Well there is the Asus dual GTX285 which they still call a 295 for some reason..

Anyway I'll hang out for next patch and better drivers to see what other performance can be unlocked

[Alienfreak 0]

1. the EVGA SLI Fix only creates a profile for the Arma2.exe which is EXACTLY as the crysis profile. So just using nHancer to add arma2.exe to the crysis profile or renaming it to crysis.exe does exactly the same job.

2. crysis64.exe and crysis.exe use the same Nvidia profile. No difference here.

---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

Rather interesting would be to see your arma2.cfg...

Especially your vram settings with the GTX295

[Inc_Cat 0]

Just found out that my I7 965 Extreme dont have Hypertreading. It's called something else which i can't remember now, and it's hardware based and can't be turned off (not in bios anyways).

[Alienfreak 0]

Its often called Multithreading.

And it can be turned off in the BIOS...

Btw:

I did a fresh install of Windows 7 7264 with first 186.18 and now 182.50. But it isnt really better than before.

Also after a few hours I have random CTDs.

i7 920 @ 3.4 GHz and GTX 295 and RAM on 1700 MHz

Edited July 2, 2009 by Alienfreak

[HaVoK-G2 0]

I can't find a 185.2 WHQL driver for Win7 or Vista x64, did you mean 185.85 WHQL...? Or 182.50?

Edited July 3, 2009 by HaVoK-G2