SLI Trouble

[FOGOLD]

I'm really struggling to get AH to run with an SLI configuration. High re textures installed and AA forced in Ntunes/Control panel causes random lockups of the game but not the PC. Greyed out clipboard is common theme. 512 texture setting and no AA seems ok. Trying various settings still experimenting. Most annoying thing is when it locks windows mouse cursor still mobile but only sometimes can Ctrl-alt-del out of game or use windows key. More often need to switch off PC.

Skuzzy has kindly replied to my email and says drivers which is prob true. Drivers are 178. Will try latest drivers. Have reinstalled the game to no effect. No other game giving grief, but most other games control AA within game. By no other game I mean everything from Warhammer to Far Cry 2 to COD4 all steam games WOW Company Of Heroes etc etc.

Anyone else had this?

[FOGOLD]

Hmm I wonder if Physx has anything to do with it.

[Chalenge]

No its not physx but its hard to say without knowing more about your system setup. Can you post a dxdiag report?

[FOGOLD]

Heres the 1st bit. Its too long for all of it. Put the latest NV drivers on tonight. 1 8800GT was fine.

Reinstalled AH too and will start with a new settings file.








System Informatio
------------------
Time of this report: 12/2/2008, 23:01:36
       Machine name: LIAN-LI
   Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.080814-1236)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
       System Model: System name
               BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
          Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+,  MMX,  3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
             Memory: 2560MB RAM
          Page File: 192MB used, 3745MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
  DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
      Display Tab 1: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
          Music Tab: No problems found.
          Input Tab: No problems found.
        Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D:    0/4 (n/a)
DirectDraw:  0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectPlay:  0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow:  0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
     Manufacturer: NVIDIA
        Chip type: GeForce 8800 GT
         DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0611&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A2
   Display Memory: 512.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
          Monitor: NEC MultiSync LCD2070NX
  Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
      Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0011.8048 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 11/12/2008 14:54:00, 6148864 bytes
      WHQL Logo'd: Yes
  WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
              VDD: n/a
         Mini VDD: nv4_mini.sys
    Mini VDD Date: 11/12/2008 14:54:00, 6188320 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-4551-11CF-C07C-0B2003C2CB35}
        Vendor ID: 0x10DE
        Device ID: 0x0611
        SubSys ID: 0x00000000
      Revision ID: 0x00A2
      Revision ID: 0x00A2
      Video Accel:
 Deinterlace Caps: n/a
         Registry: OK
     DDraw Status: Enabled
       D3D Status: Enabled
       AGP Status: Disabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
 D3D7 Test Result: Not run
 D3D8 Test Result: Not run
 D3D9 Test Result: Not run

[Chalenge]

Have you patched up the AMD?

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,199451.0.html

[FOGOLD]

Yes but I did the latest patch just in case. Also the MS hotfix is included in SP3

[Denholm]

You do realize that Anti-Aliasing really bogs down the game? You might consider leaving it off for now, especially considering that the game ran fine with it disabled.

[FOGOLD]

Yes I'll try a few more times. AA shouldn't really bog down the game on todays hardware at least it doesn't seem to knock framerates at all on my system. Some combination of high res, AA and SLi are causing a problem though because single 8800GT was never any trouble.

Thanks for all your input everybody. I'll fiddle away and see if I can fix it. I only posted to see if anyone else had dimilar issues. I once spent months troubleshooting a gaming pc only to find the processor was overheating, so I tend to look at hardware. These problems can be pigs to sort out!

[Chalenge]

You may have driver issues or (hard to believe) an IRQ issue (conflict) with the second PCIe slot in use. Take a close look at that and then you might want to remove your drivers and then clean the drivers off the system before reinstalling fresh.

Who made your video cards? I have to ask too... are they the exact same card? If so go to the manufacturers web site and download their latest drivers for that card (not Nvidia). The latest drivers for eVGA Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT is 178.13 but I dont know about other manufacturers you will have to check.

[TilDeath]

Have you tried running the game with the second card out?  Does your MB support SLI PCI-e x16 on both the slots?  If not have you made the adjustments for this?  Also in your bios you can try upping the pci speeds from 100 to say 105 or 110 max then see what happens.

[Chalenge]

Ouch! It would be awful to find out he has a crossfire MB.

[doleboy]

Power.

[FOGOLD]

No not crossfire. 620w PS. A8n Sli deluxe. It was running fine on 1 card. I have discovered that running in compatability mode (Win 98/ME) fixes it. Bit wierd for a "modern"game though. I think the Asus A8n is only 8x PCI E being an early SLI board.

[Fulmar]

No not crossfire. 620w PS. A8n Sli deluxe. It was running fine on 1 card. I have discovered that running in compatability mode (Win 98/ME) fixes it. Bit wierd for a "modern"game though. I think the Asus A8n is only 8x PCI E being an early SLI board.

If this is the correct board...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131540

PCI Express x16     2 x PCI-Express x16
SLI mode: x8, x8
Default (single VGA): x16, x1

I have an Asus P5N-E SLI board which does the same as your board.  When in SLI my board can only run 8x in each slot (I do not run SLI), otherwise its 16x.  My video card is older than yours but it says in my card's manual that my 8800GTS 640mb will not work in SLI if the speed is not 16x in both slots.  I have no idea if Nvidia changed those specs for the 8800GT, but its something to look into, especially if you have the manual still lying around.

[Chalenge]

I have a P5N-E SLI that has two 8800 GTs in it and it runs SLI at 8x and yes I believe I remember them fixing the problem for the later Asus boards but I think the only A8N that was fixed was the A8N-32 SLI Deluxe and A8N-32 SLI MBs.

It doesnt matter much on the speed of the PCIe as long as SLI will initiate. The 8800s wont use two slots above 8x anyway so even if you have two that run at 16x it wont be any faster then two 8x (on duplicate MBs anyway).