Is SLI working yet

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by Ian_M, Feb 6, 2014.

  1. Ian_M

    Hi
    I am looking for a gpu upgrade. I can get another inexpensive GTX 670 to run SLi and will be able to go into & run in my machine without any issues.
    There have been some apparent issues with SLI not working after the OMGF update but are unsure if the problem is resolved or not.
    I cannot really tell as I am using one GPU (for graphics).
    So does SLI work efficiently with planetside 2?

    Thanks
  2. Lancener

    I don't think SLI ever worked properly, they'll probably have it in the 2nd or 3rd O:MFG patch, maybe when they release the 64-bit client. The first patch focused on low-end computers but everyone benefited, I think 2nd is mid-range and then 3rd is high-end unless something has changed.
  3. Dragam

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  4. Octiceps

    So? There's nothing going in that scene. I get that kind of GPU usage as well at the Warp Gate. But in a Bio Lab Zerg or someplace else with a butt ton of action and entities on-screen at once, GPU usage on both cards will drop to around 50%, so you're getting the same FPS as single GPU but with more microstuttering. That's not the definition of working SLI.

    And you said that was taken over a year ago. Well SLI worked a lot better back then. It was PU01 that broke it.
  5. Dragam

    Octiceps : are you being serious with that post?

    1. youre getting low fps in combat due to your slow laptop cpu - not due to sli not working. When your cpu cant keep up, the fps will get lower, which Means your gpu's have to render less frames per second... aka their usage will drop drastically. If you had a faster processor, then their usage would be at or near 100%, if needed to keep up the 60 fps..

    2. i posted that year old Picture, cause people were claiming sli had never worked in planetside 2, which is BS - it Works as good as it ever did.

    3. you may be getting microstutter, as youre playing on a craptop, but if you have a proper sli setup, then you shouldnt experience any microstutter what so ever - Refer to the link below.

    http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_770_sli_review,8.html

    As you can see, the additional frame latency (commonly known as microstutter) added by SLI, is obscure at best. Noticable microstutter is a thing of the past for SLI, but still an issue for amd 7000 series crossfire.
    • Up x 1
  6. Dragam

  7. vulcan78

    Over a year ago. You do know that there is NO SLI optimization post PU01-02 right? Let me relay my experience with "Operation Make Faster Game for Ultra-books and Ipads": the game will say I am GPU necked half the time yet a cursory glance to GPU utilization via Afterburner OSD reflects, no get ready for it, 40-45% PER GPU.

    HOW CAN I BE GPU NECKED, SUFFERING FROM RIDICULOUS STUTTERING YET ONLY BE UTILIZING 40% OF MY GPU'S?

    Last time I checked the SLI and X-Fire still not optimized. No rush really, the PS4 only has a single GPU and it is blatantly obvious that OMFG was the PS4 port with the AUXILIARY benefit going to those with similarly configured PC's, i.e. single AMD CPU and single GPU.

    4.4 Ghz here, also CPU necked! WHAT DO I NEED TO NOT BE CPU NECKED, 6 GHZ?!

    That's right, there is also NO INTEL MULTI-CORE OPTIMIZATION.

    AND. IF you have an Intel mult-core CPU not only are you going to run like crap but you also will experience "desyncing" with a direct impact on hit registration:

    https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...n-please-finally-get-it-under-control.166430/

    And the "craptop" comment is real cute. Care to post your benches? Surely your "manly desktop" will be faster than this "craptop" here, a Clevo P570W equipped with a desktop hex-core 4930! Surely it must, because it is a "craptop"!

    http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7885814

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...18xr1-r2-18-benchmark-thread-part-3-a-80.html

    Sick of this argument really. Today's smart-phone's ARE FASTER THAN THE DESKTOP COMPUTERS OF ONLY A DECADE AGO YET IT STRETCHES THE IMAGINATION AND IN YOUR CASE THE INTELLECT TO INCORPORATE THE POSSIBILITY THAT A LAPTOP CAN RUN WITH AND OUTPERFORM MOST DESKTOPS.

    Surely your benches will be higher than mine but by how much remains to be seen. Mine can be found in my signature and are about on par with a single desktop GTX 780 and/or a Titan. I see 60 FPS nearly everywhere in Crysis 3 at 1920x1080 all settings maxed except MSAA in case youre tempted to employ the common "benches are only synthetic" response. THIS GAME RUNS LIKE GARBAGE.

    "Thanks for paying to playtest the PS4 Beta!"
  8. Octiceps

    What does my laptop have anything to do with whether SLI works as intended or not? So this is a dick-measuring contest now? Insecure much? Hate to break it to ya, but nobody cares about your ePeen.

    The fact that you're still taking screenshots at an empty Warp Gate is basically proving my point...
  9. Dragam

    Vulcan78 : Fact is, that the screenshot youre qouting, was taken over a year ago.

    Let me guess, when you have 40-45% gpu usage, you are either in heavy combat, suffering from cpu bottleneck, OR have v-sync enabled and 60 fps, so the gpu's doesnt need to Work more than 40-45%.

    Its funny you say stuttering aswell... i havent heard anything about sli stuttering for years (it was more or less gone with the 400 series, and completely gone with the 600 series), except from craptop users... so I guess thats the lesson to be learned here - dont buy a laptop with sli.
  10. Dragam

    Octiceps : epeen has nothing to do with this - laptops have considerably slower CPU's than stationary computers, especially due to their lack of overclocking potential, which will **** SLI utilization severely. Lack of cpu power = lower gpu usage.

    And no, youre entirely missing the point. Im saying that gpu usage will only be high, if it needs to use that power, in order to keep up the fixed framerate. Also, if your cpu doesnt have enough juice to constantly keep up 60 fps while in combat, then your gpu usage will drop.
    As my cpu DOES have enough juice to constantly keep up 60 fps (at which i have it frame capped), meaning that my gpu usage is at a pretty stabile 60%, except for when alot of shizzle explode infront of me, in which case my gpu usage gets closer to 100%... or if i remove v-sync, as i did in the screenshots.

    Bottomline = your issue is your cpu, not SLI.


    Edit: Im not sure wether you simply dont understand what is being explained, or wether youre not willing to see the truth.
    Regardless, if you look at the 2 last screenies, you will see that the one with sli enabled has 122 fps, 97% gpu usage on both gpu's. and 41% cpu usage - the one without sli has 63 fps, 99% gpu usage and 21% cpu usage... notice the correlation between fps and cpu usage?
    In battles its ALOT more cpu intensive, meaning it wont have enough juice to feed to gpu's to max them out... at least in your case.
  11. Octiceps

    I understand CPU overhead in multi-GPU setups, CPU/GPU bottlenecks, etc. But why does this game say I'm GPU-bound in heavy fighting when I have abysmal FPS and <50% GPU usage? Isn't it CPU-bound then? If it's CPU-bound, then why is overall CPU usage <30% and no core/thread even close to being maxed out according to the OSD?

    So you're saying that because your CPU is overclocked, you get no FPS drops and constant 90+% GPU usage at all times even in heavy fighting (assuming unlocked frame rate)? I find that hard to believe. That's why I asked for a screenshot of your hardware utilization during a Bio Lab Zerg. Even my "craptop" gets over 100 FPS and 99% GPU usage at the Warp Gate.

    P.S. Your OSD is lacking in the CPU metrics. You should at least have % load and clock speed of every single core and thread. Overall CPU usage is a fairly meaningless number by itself when diagnosing a CPU bottleneck, especially if Hyper-Threading is thrown in the mix since it can significantly alter the overall % usage that is reported.
  12. Dragam

    That does sound strange - it must simply be giving you incorrect information, in regards to what component is causing the bottleneck. Whats your cpu usage like?

    Anyways, SLI does work, but you need the cpu power to drive it... few have that in this game. As previously stated, i play with my fps capped at 60 (unlike on the screenshots, where i have v-sync turned off), which is just about what my cpu can pull in the huge zergs... but because i have a constant 60 fps, it Means that i dont really have a rollercoaster graph for my gpu usage - in really deserted areas, it can go Down to 50%, and something like 80% in big fights.

    Tomorrow when im playing, ill take a few screenies during combat, and post them in this thread :)

    Here is another year old screenshot, from when i had my old i7 920 cpu - i was suffering from the exact same thing youre describing, which in my case was a clear cpu bottleneck, which was solved when i bought my new setup (and further helped by OMFG).
    http://imageshack.com/a/img843/9637/planetside2pwnage.jpg

    But if you are struggeling with cpu power, then it might very well be better to turn off sli, as that puts an extra strain on the cpu... which was what i did, until i upgraded.
  13. BlackDove

    Dragam, did you look up what FCAT is yet or why any software level frame rate measurements are essentially meaningless to multi-GPU configurations?

    I think if anyone doesn't understand multi-GPU benchmarking, it's you, because you posted a graph in the CrossFire thread from 2012, which used software level framerate measurement to "prove" that CrossFire gives you better performance than a single GPU, when it actually gives you worse performance.

    Basically, what FRAPS, MSI Afterburner etc. report for FPS is essentially meaningless when you're benchmarking multi-GPU configurations, because it measures the frame rate at the game engine or driver level, and not the hardware output from the DVI port(which is the only way to capture what is actually going to your monitor).

    That means that, unless you do an FCAT benchmark, you could be getting worse performance, and FRAPS or whatever software you're depending on, will not give you an accurate result.
  14. Dragam

    I like the fact that you didnt think that i knew what it was... if you cared to read the my posts, youd know that im linking to a test using it.
  15. BlackDove

    Yes, THAT link uses FCAT analysis, unlike the one that you tried to "prove" CrossFire works in DX9 with last night(despite it not working, even with XDMA on the new GPU's). It shows that DX11 games work with multi-GPU just fine, and I never said that SLI was broken in all DX9 games even. I simply stated that a lot of people have had issues with SLI since PU1 apparently. I didn't even speculate as to why, because I know that SLI uses hardware level frame metering since GK.

    Here's the problem though: you don't link to a post PU1 benchmark of PS2 using FCAT. That'd be the only way to know if SLI is actually working in PS2. Saying you personally get 2x the FPS without telling us the frametimes/drops/runts doesn't help.

    It's like the people who say "your computer sucks, or it's dusty" when plenty of people know that the menus in PS2 behave like a power virus.
  16. Dragam

    Well thats the thing - with my current setup, my gpu usage stays pretty stabile the entire time (due to v-sync), while my cpu usage goes up and Down like a rollercoaster, depending on how heavily crowded the area is.

    And while im aware that in theory, software monitoring isnt as accurate as hardware monitoring, i find that msi afterburner readouts are usually on par with FCAT readouts (when it comes to SLI).

    But ill see what i can do about more detailed hardware info during combat tomorrow - i just know that the only issue ive had in regards to this game, has been cpu performance with my previous cpu, and ive had my 680 sli the entire time.
  17. Dragam

    Vulcan78 : i do appologize about the craptop comment, but it does seem that the microstutter issue related to sli, is some laptop specific issue, as i havent heard of it in relation to stationary computers.

    But sure, i can share a benchie, although its only for fire strike.
    http://imageshack.com/a/img89/6751/3g13.jpg
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  18. dreamcast87

    It's not been working for me for quite awhile so i have SLI disabled when i play, performance is way better on a single GPU and all the stuttering disappeared.
  19. Daikar

    Running 2 x GTX 680 and get around 60-120 FPS and never break 90 with just one card.
    Thing is I run with AA at 32x and AA transparency at 8x for a better visual experience but when I run it in "true" SLI mode for maximum performance I get mirco stutters and lower FPS. All in all I get more FPS then with one card and a better image then I do when running SLI for maximum FPS.
  20. Dragam

    Daiker : just to let you know... adding AA in this game doesnt Work... it cant be forced on through the driver - only AA transparency. Only other way to get additional AA, is by adding super sampling by setting render to 1.41 or 2, or using the "forbidden" sweetfx.