Nvidia dropping the ball with SLI lately?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by Sethos, Nov 25, 2014.

  1. Sethos

    Sethos Guest

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    Figured I'd start a discussion thread, as I've seen loads of SLI users mention this lately. However the SLI support for new games just seems woeful these days? I've had SLI for a long time now and always praise it whenever possible but I'm just getting fed up right now.

    Dragon Age: Inquisition SLI profile? broken, flickering.

    Far Cry 4? I heard of texture flicker, stutter (though not only SLI related) and most of all crushed blacks.

    Unity? Also non-existent on release

    Call of Duty AW? STILL no decent profile! Someone in the SLI profile found one that eliminate the stutter in Nvidia's profile, however that messed up motion blur.

    These were some of the blockbusters for the month and they all had issues. I recently purchased DA: I and wanted to enjoy it but alas, flickering textures ohoy everywhere. I even held off purchasing it to get all the initial bugs sorted but to no avail this time.

    I mean, SLI was never perfect but Nvidia always seemed on top of things and had profiles ready weeks or even months in advance it seems. Now it just reached a point where it's detrimental to my gaming experience.

    Anyone else noticing a trend or?
     
  2. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    What startled me the most was the problems some seemed to have with Gsync and SLI. Gameprofiles always are something to behold, that hasn't been that different in the past, has it?
     
  3. k3vst3r

    k3vst3r Ancient Guru

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    Don't think problem is NV or AMD, but actual people making these games. NV/AMD having patch their crap basically, so it works an user doesn't suffer.
     
  4. CalculuS

    CalculuS Ancient Guru

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    Yeah what ^ said, developers are getting really lazy with the technical side of their games lately.
     

  5. nanogenesis

    nanogenesis Guest

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    Only reason I'm upping from 2x760s to 1 970. Sick of SLI, even though I sometimes tolerate different bits which have game breaking bugs, most common flickering.

    But as of late, CoD:AW, ACU, DR3, etc, even custom bits just don't scale well, no bits/profiles do. Its just the game at fault now. GTX970/80 SLI and some 780 SLI users do report good scaling and framerates in ACU, so that may be an exception.
     
  6. Martigen

    Martigen Master Guru

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    Agreed 100%. SLI seems to be an afterthought, almost as if Nvidia has forgotten that every person who buys an extra card -- or more -- underlines their profit margins by a considerable extent. Where once it was a key selling point, now it's nothing but trouble -- and this coming from someone who has been buying SLI since it meant Scan Line Interleve from 3DFX. Which means a) I've been there since the start and b) I've spent thousands and thousands over the years.

    No more. Nvidia is no longer getting an extra GPU purchase from me at the next upgrade. Until such a time it can prove itself by actually spending money ensuring SLI works seamlessly at release with major titles, let alone lesser known ones, my wallet remains closed. Yes, heavens forbid, this means working with developers prior to release -- something it used to do in times gone by. Whomever is responsible at Nvidia for SLI support at the moment needs to be a) fired or b) fired. Sorry, that's just what's it's come to. Time and time again being let down, this is where it leads us.

    Which is kinda sad, since this era of 4k monitors and DSR all but requires SLI to get the most benefit, but here's Nvidia coasting on its -- now very old -- past performance. That time has clearly come and gone.

    To all reading this: if you currently buy SLI cards at upgrade time, consider no longer doing so. For those considering going SLI for the first time, don't.

    As with everything else in business, the only message that gets heard is the one that impacts the bottom line.

    And pet peeve -- for the love of all that's quality control: for the Nth driver release in a row (having pointed this out in previous driver threads), the executable for Divinity Original Sins is 'eocapp.exe' not 'aocapp.exe'. That someone at Nvidia didn't even test this for the profile speaks volumes about Nvidia's distinct lack of care.

    Which, I guess, is a microcosm of just how out of touch Nvidia has become.
     
  7. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    I was sick of CF not working, so almost went for 2 x 970 SLI, but my gut told me to drop multi-GPU for good and go with the 980, pleased I did
     
  8. MewCore

    MewCore Guest

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    Well I'm totally new to the SLI and amazed how great it works with some games - like BF4 that scales up to 90%, slightly disappointed with Far Cry 4 that has flickering textures and stuttering, and just baffled with Evil Within that has NO SLI SUPPORT WHATSOEVER on engine level.

    Gaming and computers have been my hobby for 20 years and I played every major game release and things are getting worse and worse simply because EVERYTHING is made for consoles. I can understand lazy ports but limiting games to 30 FPS in this day and age, with MAJOR stuttering on ultra high end cards like 980gtx illustrates that no amount of negligence in the QC will putt users off from buying :( What kind of people gave Unity a go that can be barely run smooth on fastest hardware available? Did the guys at Ubi Kiev just go "well let's ignore SLI whatsoever, we are getting our paychecks for optimizing games on PC and....SLI sure is a PC exclusive technology that would run the game twice as fast but...let's just ignore that, maybe we will fix that later, maybe we will not. I'm pissed and tired because the industry keeps lying to everybody and thinking they will get away with it. I'll pirate EVERY GAME before I buy it.
     
  9. lucidus

    lucidus Ancient Guru

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    I had SLI until last year. It worked very well but I'm glad it's gone after reading all the issues with new games.
     
  10. Syranetic

    Syranetic Master Guru

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    I don't use SLi for the reasons you describe. It just takes one incomplete or broken game profile, and suddenly you're at 50% performance? And some people are investing in $1500 or more SLi setups, thats a lot of cash going towards something that is essentially not being used.

    Sure the SLi profiles get fixed... most of the time... eventually... But who the hell owns that kind of GPU hardware but is willing to wait months after a new release comes out to play it?

    I've always been a supporter of getting the most powerful single GPU I can, and when its no longer fast enough, it's time to get a faster one.
     

  11. GoldenTiger

    GoldenTiger Master Guru

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    Been running sli Gtx 970 oc'd since their launch, love it. I have used sli in the past and it is better than ever before honestly. Yeah there are, as always, some hiccups but by and large they have been resolved quickly or have easy workarounds. The rare games I have heard of with no profile at all usually are very undemanding and niche.

    With running 4k sli has been a godsend.
     
  12. Yecnot

    Yecnot Guest

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    They seem to be unaware of what hardware their games will be running on, which is stupid. Forget every PC being different. 90% of the time a AAA game is going to be run on either Nvidia/AMD/Intel, all which have single drivers that support all of their current hardware.

    Both Crossfire and SLI have been out for roughly a decade, so whats the problem devs?
     
  13. Spets

    Spets Guest

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    Few friends of mine have said the same thing, they seem pleased with SLI.
     
  14. Dorlor

    Dorlor Guest

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    Yeah, im having the same thought as you... only issue is, that if you play high res, and you like to have all eye candy enabled, one gpu is simply not sufficient... :/

    But if either nvidia or amd came with a single Card that has the same power as my current Cards in sli AND didnt cost absurd amounts of Money, then id jump at it asap... cause yeah, proper sli support is becoming rare.

    Anyone else remember total war rome 2? What was it, 1 year after release, that the sli profile came?
     
  15. Dorlor

    Dorlor Guest

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    Evil within = id tech 5 engine = worst engine being used right now by a wide margin. All games based on it have texture loading issues AND ugly textures, runs like crap, and doesnt support multi gpu.
     

  16. nizzen

    nizzen Ancient Guru

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    Farcry 4 scales very well with 3x gtx 980 and x99/5960x here. No "flickering" or bad textures. I am using latest betadriver 344.80. Maybe luck :p

    Using Asus Swift and g-sync.

    A few days old test from me with 344.75 driver:

    Exact same place in FC4:

    980 sli 89 fps (standing still after loading a savegame)
    3-way 980 sli 127fps (Same place standing still)

    1440p nvidia settings.
     
  17. PhazeDelta1

    PhazeDelta1 Guest

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    I have no issues with SLI. If a game doesn't support it, switching between AFR modes usually fixes the problem.
     
  18. Dorlor

    Dorlor Guest

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    Why are you responding to me about far cry 4 ? I didnt mention that game.
     
  19. nizzen

    nizzen Ancient Guru

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    Sorry, only an answer to OP.
     
  20. Sethos

    Sethos Guest

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    I didn't mention anything about performance for the Far Cry 4 profile, I mentioned SLI related issues and glitches. The crushed blacks being a very common one among a lot of SLI users. There's more to SLI than sheer performance, game also has to look like it was intended. My performance in DA: I is also fantastic but when the textures flicker like crazy because of SLI, that doesn't mean SLi is working as intended.
     

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