Guild Wars 2

I currently have a x79 sabertooth with 2 690s installed. When I run quad-sli, and I play the asuran race there is some artifacts and the game runs slightly slow. When I make physx dedicated to 2b on the controll panel, I then have 2 gpu;s running and one dedicated to physx and one not doing anything. This eliminates the artifacts. I also ran the game with physx dedicated to 2a which puts the system into 3way-sli. I also dont have a problem and the game performance increases. I have to assume the quad-sli is causing micr-stutering. I dont see that GW2 is sli certified yet, By Anet or Nvidia, is there anything I could do to help this issue. The game runs fine in 3-way sli with the one gpu dedicated to physx so Its not a big problem, but a problem none the less.

Ok, then its either
1. one of the cards is bad (unlikely)
2. the game does not like Quad sli (Very likely)

nvidia’s quad sli support tends to be iffy, but if you try afr vs afr2 and see if anything changes?

hehe Quad sli, such a beast. But yea SLI has always been “iffy” and I am still never surprised when a game doesn’t work %100 using it

I’ve said it before. four videocards is for benchmarks and peakittening. More often than not, running four video cards will cause more problems than It solves.

Also that being said, I did see one example of GW2 running on quad 7970s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nHKqbNX4fs And that guy seemed to get it to work across 5 monitors. Maybe its an nvidia driver issue.

Sousui.1635:

hehe Quad sli, such a beast. But yea SLI has always been “iffy” and I am still never surprised when a game doesn’t work %100 using it

quad-sli is 2 cards with 4 gpu’s a lot of people keep saying its the same as 4-way sli, but it is not. one example is that you will not have micro stuttering on one card with 2 gpus. so if you have 4 individual cards then there is a higher chance of this than 4 gpu’s on 2 cards.

in time there will be arena net updates and nvidia driver updates that will increase performance with the 690 and GW2, also make it work with sli, which I have not seen stated on any driver updates to this point.

err, no, 2 690’s is still 4 way sli. it still uses the same sli modes, the 2 690 cores appear to windows via a pci-16x to 8x bridge chip. so they appear as seperate video cards.

but multigpu cards often have more sli issues than 4 individual cards >.>

Squall Leonhart.2075:

err, no, 2 690’s is still 4 way sli. it still uses the same sli modes, the 2 690 cores appear to windows via a pci-16x to 8x bridge chip. so they appear as seperate video cards.

but multigpu cards often have more sli issues than 4 individual cards >.>

well look this is something I have been saying for a while now and it appears that a llot of people are mistaken. I spoke to Nvidia and evga and both told me that 4-way sli and quad sli is diffrent. They specified just because a motherboard supports 4 way sli does not mean it will support quad sli.{meaning 2 dual gpu cards}. I did not ask what that reason was because it did not pertain to me, but the graphics cards work dirrectly with the bios{as explained by nvidia tech support} so if the motherboard is not designed to accept 2 dual gpu cards it may not function properly. They even sent me an e-mail with quad certified motherboards. So despite what people may think, and how it may seem obvious 4cards or 2 dual cards are the same end result, they are not.

Nash, it is true that motherboard requirements can be different, because 4 cards require 4 motherboard link ups while 2×2 requires that the mobo only need linkups for 2 cards in sli form. But when the driver has loaded and is looking at your hardware, and the GPU devices want to talk to eachother, it is done in the same way regardless. This is actually the correct way to do GPUs because, and they already do this, it makes it very simple to create video cards with 2,4,6, 8 or more GPUs. all ready to talk to eachother.

Also I do think the 2×2 config would be better because latency and connection issues between the gpu’s on one card are probably much better due to them being on the same board.

SLIs problem isn’t really in the hardware configurations you can achieve, but getting your games to to react nicely to a multi gpu setup. Maybe if 2xgpu cards become more common they will get more testing when games are being released, right now it is still in the realm of the elite power user.

Nashiem.8932:

quad-sli is 2 cards with 4 gpu’s a lot of people keep saying its the same as 4-way sli, but it is not. one example is that you will not have micro stuttering on one card with 2 gpus. so if you have 4 individual cards then there is a higher chance of this than 4 gpu’s on 2 cards.

wrong, you can and do see microstutter with dual gpu cards, I have seen it myself, and fixed it in some cases, others we couldnt get rid of it.

dual gpu cards on both sides(amd/nvidia) have this issue just like using 2-3-4 cards can have the issue, the only reason it tends to happen less and be less noticeable is the motherboard chipset isnt quite as big a factor…

long story short quad sli/quadfire are still hit and miss, be it dual-dual gpu cards or quad-single gpu cards……tho, from my exp, quadfire tends to be less problematic then quadsli no matter if it dual-dual cards or quad-single cards, not that its ever problem free just tends to not has as many headakes…i wouldnt go quad personally….just not worth it…..

Jazhara Knightmage.4389:

Nashiem.8932:

quad-sli is 2 cards with 4 gpu’s a lot of people keep saying its the same as 4-way sli, but it is not. one example is that you will not have micro stuttering on one card with 2 gpus. so if you have 4 individual cards then there is a higher chance of this than 4 gpu’s on 2 cards.

wrong, you can and do see microstutter with dual gpu cards, I have seen it myself, and fixed it in some cases, others we couldnt get rid of it.

dual gpu cards on both sides(amd/nvidia) have this issue just like using 2-3-4 cards can have the issue, the only reason it tends to happen less and be less noticeable is the motherboard chipset isnt quite as big a factor…

long story short quad sli/quadfire are still hit and miss, be it dual-dual gpu cards or quad-single gpu cards……tho, from my exp, quadfire tends to be less problematic then quadsli no matter if it dual-dual cards or quad-single cards, not that its ever problem free just tends to not has as many headakes…i wouldnt go quad personally….just not worth it…..

The microstuttering was something I read, but if you have any proof that 4-waysli is diffrent than quad-sli I would like it because than Id like to call nvidia and evga and ask why I was told this on 2 seperate occasions. And I see a big differance on GW2 with just the one 690 and 2 690’s even in 3-way sli it has better fps, but I do agree for the money it may be better for some to wait until the game has been out a little longer and they can make performance enhancements with the drivers. But 2 690’s looks kick kitten

nvidia and evga people you talked to are most likely marketing people, the same ones who told me and H that there where no problems with the 8800gt’s when they came out, despite it later coming out that there was a bad batch and that nv knew about it…

that said, it may be better for you, but, your still cpu limited as are all gw2 players…..your not getting the most out of your system even with quadsli.

microstutter is really an issue that has a few causes, to much for me to type here but, you can get it on any multi gpu setup be it on a single card or multi cards….

long story short glad your enjoying it, but every time i have messed with it, the laws of diminishing returns kicked in and the gain from 2 cards to 3 where less then 1 to 2 cards…..and the move from 3-4 gpu’s was less then 2 to 3…..

but hey, its a great boost to you kitten to have quadsli….hope you have an extreme edition chip as well….even quad sli cant help if you dont got the best kitten cpu to do with it :P

Jazhara Knightmage.4389:

nvidia and evga people you talked to are most likely marketing people, the same ones who told me and H that there where no problems with the 8800gt’s when they came out, despite it later coming out that there was a bad batch and that nv knew about it…

that said, it may be better for you, but, your still cpu limited as are all gw2 players…..your not getting the most out of your system even with quadsli.

microstutter is really an issue that has a few causes, to much for me to type here but, you can get it on any multi gpu setup be it on a single card or multi cards….

long story short glad your enjoying it, but every time i have messed with it, the laws of diminishing returns kicked in and the gain from 2 cards to 3 where less then 1 to 2 cards…..and the move from 3-4 gpu’s was less then 2 to 3…..

but hey, its a great boost to you kitten to have quadsli….hope you have an extreme edition chip as well….even quad sli cant help if you dont got the best kitten cpu to do with it :P

No reason to get the 3960, got the 3930k overclocked to 4.4, that should eliminate any bottleneck. I could clock higher but dont want to, I have great temps and great bandwidth on memory. According to sisoftware sandra in quad-sli I am ranked 4 for memory bandwidth.

Nashiem.8932:

Squall Leonhart.2075:

err, no, 2 690’s is still 4 way sli. it still uses the same sli modes, the 2 690 cores appear to windows via a pci-16x to 8x bridge chip. so they appear as seperate video cards.

but multigpu cards often have more sli issues than 4 individual cards >.>

well look this is something I have been saying for a while now and it appears that a llot of people are mistaken. I spoke to Nvidia and evga and both told me that 4-way sli and quad sli is diffrent. They specified just because a motherboard supports 4 way sli does not mean it will support quad sli.{meaning 2 dual gpu cards}. I did not ask what that reason was because it did not pertain to me, but the graphics cards work dirrectly with the bios{as explained by nvidia tech support} so if the motherboard is not designed to accept 2 dual gpu cards it may not function properly. They even sent me an e-mail with quad certified motherboards. So despite what people may think, and how it may seem obvious 4cards or 2 dual cards are the same end result, they are not.

Oh, i see what you’re getting at, but thats different to what i was getting at.

the 690’s are able to work where quad sli does not because of the built in pci-e bridge chip that divides a single 16 lane slot into 2 8 lane interfaces for each GPU and its logic on the board.

This is all handled at the hardware level. From the driver perspective, the gpu’s still operate in 4 way sli.

I get what you are saying, but nvidia tech support and evga tech support told me quad sli is diffrent than 4-way sli, I assume they mean the way they are seen by the bios since some boards are 4way capable and others are quad capable. thats what nvidia said if the board is not quad capable the bios may not see it properly and that the interaction between the bios the card and the drivers all tie together.

Got nothing to do with the bios. Its all a trick using special PCI-E Coprocessor that redistributes the lanes on a PCI-E bus.

this was often used on the mainboard itself to extend pci-e lanes for tri sli.

the PCI-E 2 version was usually an NF200, the 690 uses a PCI-E 3.0 compliant chip (which fixes a bunch of issues the nf200 had)

Heres a picture of the nf200 on the GTX 295
http://www.overclock.net/t/600896/what-is-a-nvidia-nf200#post_7535685

The tech guy at nvidia specifically told me that the motherboard bios ties directly to sli, I dont know if he was just talking to try to make me feel like he may have given me an answere, or if he does not know what he is talking about. Basically for me, its trial and error. Ive been building pc’s for 12 years now, and never had this many problems happen. The quad-sli, the raid0 issues. I herd it may be an x79 issue with asus boards. But Ive been using asus since I started building systems and never had anything like. I have only been experimenting with sli in general for less than a year now so not only am I new to it, I have to take in everything I read and decifer statements from reality.

I will say this though. I have played guild wars 2 with one 690 card and can say without a doubt that having 2 cards is a huge diffrence in fps and playability. I noticed the best setup was in the controll panel dedicating gpu2a to physx which puts the other 3 gpus in 3-way-sli. I get the best performance from that. The only time I see slight drop in fps is when I have been downed and either die or rally.

Nashiem.8932:

The tech guy at nvidia specifically told me that the motherboard bios ties directly to sli, I dont know if he was just talking to try to make me feel like he may have given me an answere, or if he does not know what he is talking about. Basically for me, its trial and error. Ive been building pc’s for 12 years now, and never had this many problems happen. The quad-sli, the raid0 issues. I herd it may be an x79 issue with asus boards. But Ive been using asus since I started building systems and never had anything like. I have only been experimenting with sli in general for less than a year now so not only am I new to it, I have to take in everything I read and decifer statements from reality.

this is true and untrue at the same time, the bios must have a sli cert to allow SLI, the cards you have would work(1 at a time) in boards without, but you couldnt use both and get quadsli, You can inject an sli cert into a bios using mod tools but, its hit and miss if it will work….(i have done it, sli worked better on older amd chipsets then on nvidia chipsets funny enough)

Asus have an uneven rep, their bios support dept sucks, i have dealt with them many times over the years, they are worse then msi, and thats pretty bad….

Asus also has a bad rep of cleaning up bugged boards, post testing them and sending them back still borked….(happened to me os many times i now fully kill asus boards i rma just to avoid getting the same borked board back)

the best board maker I have dealt with in recent years has to be gigabyte, I found a bios bug, their bios guys contacted me, worked with me to fix it, even buying the exect hardware I was running(was a problem with a common sata add-in chipset) they got a test bios out, sent it to me, it worked, they then tweaked it 5 or so times and had me update and test each time, they managed to get the perf up by almost 50% and fixed the inability to boot with the card in the system.

worst has to be MSI in my exp, getting them to fix very basic bios issues is like trying to convenes the risen in orr to not attack you as you run around……

biostar gets an honourable mention because they have worked with me and others on bios issues and have even hooked me up a couple times with an extra bios chip for shipping cost….

that said, i really love my sabertooth 990fx, I just wish asus would have paid for the onboard audio to have the features my 790x board from gigabyte had……considering this board was like 80bucks more expensive at retail then the gigabyte, you would think it would have dts encoding and the like……oh well, i got a killer deal on my xonar

Jazhara Knightmage.4389:

Nashiem.8932:

The tech guy at nvidia specifically told me that the motherboard bios ties directly to sli, I dont know if he was just talking to try to make me feel like he may have given me an answere, or if he does not know what he is talking about. Basically for me, its trial and error. Ive been building pc’s for 12 years now, and never had this many problems happen. The quad-sli, the raid0 issues. I herd it may be an x79 issue with asus boards. But Ive been using asus since I started building systems and never had anything like. I have only been experimenting with sli in general for less than a year now so not only am I new to it, I have to take in everything I read and decifer statements from reality.

let me ask how do you feel about evga motherboards, specifically the x79 classified. Toms hardwars guide compared it to asus rampage 4 extreme and lost by a small amount, but I have read some tasteless reviews about it.
this is true and untrue at the same time, the bios must have a sli cert to allow SLI, the cards you have would work(1 at a time) in boards without, but you couldnt use both and get quadsli, You can inject an sli cert into a bios using mod tools but, its hit and miss if it will work….(i have done it, sli worked better on older amd chipsets then on nvidia chipsets funny enough)

Asus have an uneven rep, their bios support dept sucks, i have dealt with them many times over the years, they are worse then msi, and thats pretty bad….

Asus also has a bad rep of cleaning up bugged boards, post testing them and sending them back still borked….(happened to me os many times i now fully kill asus boards i rma just to avoid getting the same borked board back)

the best board maker I have dealt with in recent years has to be gigabyte, I found a bios bug, their bios guys contacted me, worked with me to fix it, even buying the exect hardware I was running(was a problem with a common sata add-in chipset) they got a test bios out, sent it to me, it worked, they then tweaked it 5 or so times and had me update and test each time, they managed to get the perf up by almost 50% and fixed the inability to boot with the card in the system.

worst has to be MSI in my exp, getting them to fix very basic bios issues is like trying to convenes the risen in orr to not attack you as you run around……

biostar gets an honourable mention because they have worked with me and others on bios issues and have even hooked me up a couple times with an extra bios chip for shipping cost….

that said, i really love my sabertooth 990fx, I just wish asus would have paid for the onboard audio to have the features my 790x board from gigabyte had……considering this board was like 80bucks more expensive at retail then the gigabyte, you would think it would have dts encoding and the like……oh well, i got a killer deal on my xonar

let me ask you how do you feel about the evga x79 classified it compared well on toms hardware guide to rampage 4 extreme and only lost by a little bit.

Nashiem.8932:

let me ask you how do you feel about the evga x79 classified it compared well on toms hardware guide to rampage 4 extreme and only lost by a little bit.

honestly my suggestion is to ask on xtremesystems for advice, I dont tend to deal with much outside basic oc game rigs for people on intel or amd(i dont do extreme systems much anymore, and when i do its just assimbly the user didnt want to do and paid me to do, they do the clocking themselves)

also overclockers.net is a good place to ask for opinions i have found…guru3d is my 3rd choice, tho they are better for videocard info and tools(like radeon pro and amd downsample gui!!!)

the asus you have may be a great board, but it may also have issues…..I would check around and ask on those to sites(xtremesytems and overclockers)

you could also ask for help on the asus ROG forums, somebody from asus may be able to help you(they actually have people on the ROG forums, unlike the ones on their main site….)

I have spoke to asus nvidia and evga extensivly on many occasions regarding the quad sli issues, went through 3 motherboards with the same results. to quote clint eastweood “my assesment of the situation is a Cluster F” thats all I can come up with. But thank you for the sites I will check them out.

yeah, well, nVidia can be….like that, so can amd but, at least i havent seen alot of problems with tri or quadfire, either it works or the game dosnt work with xf….

and i agree its a cluster duck…..total pita……but thats what you get when you build a system thats way beyond what they expect anybody to really bother with…..

I’ve looked at Asus’s p9 mainboards, and haven’t seen any i would risk buying. They’ve all got dodgy power circuitry.

the difference in the quality on the ROG mainboards (Rampage series) is actually surprising, to some extent, but validates the price difference.

I avoid Gigabyte mainboards at all costs.

Biostar’s mid and top end are actually quality stuff now.
Can’t say i have much experience with evga mainboards, but i do prefer them for video cards.