*REVISED* NVIDIA 180.84 SLI Drivers

[Rokz0r]

When the SLI visual indicator actually shows up that means SLI is enabled...Also thie leads me to believe possibly it only added SLI support to newer cards? maybe older cards already had SLI support with the previous driver?

[smokeringhalo]

 

Ok after actually jumping in single player instead of just running the benchmark, there IS a difference between the 2 180.84 drivers.

I now have no nighttime shadows (which would be fine) but also ALL particles have been replaced with black boxes.

F**K!

[eagle016]

why would my video memory not increase? In dxdiag settings it shows I have 2289mb of video memory, yet in gta it's only 492?

 

Here are the screenshots with the new drivers, for some reason fraps did not capture my sli indicator, but it was a single green bar that fluctuated a bit, does that mean SLI is working?:

 

http://img392.imageshack.us/my.php?image=game1fh4.jpg

http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=settingsjp8.jpg

 

With these settings the game runs at around 22-25 fps on my q6700 with 2x8800GT, and I still get a bit of texture popup when exceeding my vram limits like that. I thought Rockstar said SLI support is something THEY must implement

Yea I don't understand this. If using 2 512MB cards in SLI gives you only 512MB... then WHY even have those other cards?

 

It seems to only be this game that doesn't use both cards (IF SLI is actually working in it) because other games I have more than what it shows for GTA.

 

Until SLI actually WORKS in this game like it does other games... I'm saying it DOESN'T actually support SLI.

[antimonitor]

I see a lot of nice rigs with a lot of morons owning them. Sheesh.

 

SLi doesn't enable double memory, if you have a 1gb card and have 2 of those cards in SLi, you're still only getting 1GB of memory to be put to use, the only card that has used both sets of memory is the latest Ati offering, the 4870x2.

 

As for SLi being enabled or not, again, oye. People, understand, if the game is cpu limited, SLi isn't gonna help you gain any frames. Go throw Quad (that would be 4 kiddies) cards in a rig, if the game needs more cpu power, those cards aren't doing a damn bit of good.

 

Learn the hardware mommy and daddy buy you, seriously people.

[smokeringhalo]

Ok after actually jumping in single player instead of just running the benchmark, there IS a difference between the 2 180.84 drivers.

I now have no nighttime shadows (which would be fine) but also ALL particles have been replaced with black boxes.

F**K!

Series 7 Card Owners BEWARE of this latest 180.84 version!

After uninstalling the driver, running driver sweeper in safe mode, & reinstalling the old 180.84 driver - it still did not get rid of the missing particle effects. I was able to get shadows back by lowering my resolution briefly and the raising it back up. This seemed to have helped cut down on the missing particles as some started showing again after doing this, but not all. I still leave a black box trail behind cars, exhale black boxes from Nikos mouth, etc.

If you have series 7 cards & SLI, consider yourself warned.

 

P.S.

I really needed GTAIV to be sh*ttier than it already was.

Great F**king Job Nvidia! How about testing the drivers on the actual cards you say they support next time.

[Rokz0r]

why would my video memory not increase? In dxdiag settings it shows I have 2289mb of video memory, yet in gta it's only 492?

 

Here are the screenshots with the new drivers, for some reason fraps did not capture my sli indicator, but it was a single green bar that fluctuated a bit, does that mean SLI is working?:

 

http://img392.imageshack.us/my.php?image=game1fh4.jpg

http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=settingsjp8.jpg

 

With these settings the game runs at around 22-25 fps on my q6700 with 2x8800GT, and I still get a bit of texture popup when exceeding my vram limits like that. I thought Rockstar said SLI support is something THEY must implement

Yea I don't understand this. If using 2 512MB cards in SLI gives you only 512MB... then WHY even have those other cards?

 

It seems to only be this game that doesn't use both cards (IF SLI is actually working in it) because other games I have more than what it shows for GTA.

 

Until SLI actually WORKS in this game like it does other games... I'm saying it DOESN'T actually support SLI.

Im starting to get tired of explaining to people how SLI actually works - here for future references and so nobody else playing GTA suddenly gets the urge and decides to blurt out randomness like you just did

 

http://www.widowpc.com/2006/02/sli_gaming_101.php

 

and here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

 

 

[Fidayi]

Guys, I have a question. Do I have to uninstall the other 180.84 driver, and then install this one or can I just install and overwerite the older 180.84?

[Sycuss]

peps even with a single GPU GET THIS DRIVer now with a single GTX 280 i can max settings and get well over 55 fps. I am loving this game nOW woot

 

[eagle016]

It just doesn't make sense that my 1GB GX2 only shows up as 491 ONLY on GTA:IV.

 

Why would you give me a link to an article from 2006 talking about the possibilities of SLI from people that aren't even sure if what they're saying is true, but rather theories?

 

 

I may not know much about SLI, but I would think 2 graphics cards in SLI is better than 1... but that website states otherwise. So, why is SLI so popular if it's worse than just one card?

 

Again, why does my 1GB GX2 card only have 491MB available? Even the Wiki page you made a link to said it had 1GB running in an SLI configuration. WHAT!? Wait... that goes against your "SLI doesn't give you twice the memory" claim because it REALLY looks to me like since the 9800GX2 is 2 8800GTS 512 G92's in an SLI configuration... SLI does in fact combine the power (memory) of both cards.

 

I guess that's just my "randomness" again that I get from websites that talk about this technology, which tell me that SLI combines the power of the 2 cards. If you want to prove me wrong (or you right) then link a CURRENT (meaning not 2 years old) article saying that 2 cards in SLI perform the same as one... because I find it really hard to believe (especially since I have evidence of it working) that two 512MB cards in SLI wouldn't have the power of 1GB (such as, 2 512MB 8800GTS' in SLI making 1GB).

[Avean]

Dont install these drivers, they are not compatible with GTAIV as it says. It will cause a severe memory leak resulting in terrible performance. Even my GTX280 began to lag suddenly.

[eagle016]

With these settings the game runs at around 22-25 fps on my q6700 with 2x8800GT, and I still get a bit of texture popup when exceeding my vram limits like that. I thought Rockstar said SLI support is something THEY must implement

Looking at your last line, I do believe that R* said there would be separate patches (from R* and from NVIDIA) that enabled SLI on GTA:IV.

 

This is the line I'm talking about:

 

 

[sLI] Support will be added through a future game patch as well as an updated Nvidia driver.

 

By that I take it that NVIDIA would release a driver that would add support for GTA:IV and that R* would release a GAME patch that enables support for SLI. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's the way I get it.

 

Since people have had their SLI indicators show up before/after this updated driver, could that possibly mean that SLI is just ON and NOT just that the game is using SLI (basically giving a false indication of a game supporting SLI)?

[graz9]

It just doesn't make sense that my 1GB GX2 only shows up as 491 ONLY on GTA:IV.

 

Why would you give me a link to an article from 2006 talking about the possibilities of SLI from people that aren't even sure if what they're saying is true, but rather theories?

 

 

I may not know much about SLI, but I would think 2 graphics cards in SLI is better than 1... but that website states otherwise. So, why is SLI so popular if it's worse than just one card?

 

Again, why does my 1GB GX2 card only have 491MB available? Even the Wiki page you made a link to said it had 1GB running in an SLI configuration. WHAT!? Wait... that goes against your "SLI doesn't give you twice the memory" claim because it REALLY looks to me like since the 9800GX2 is 2 8800GTS 512 G92's in an SLI configuration... SLI does in fact combine the power (memory) of both cards.

 

I guess that's just my "randomness" again that I get from websites that talk about this technology, which tell me that SLI combines the power of the 2 cards. If you want to prove me wrong (or you right) then link a CURRENT (meaning not 2 years old) article saying that 2 cards in SLI perform the same as one... because I find it really hard to believe (especially since I have evidence of it working) that two 512MB cards in SLI wouldn't have the power of 1GB (such as, 2 512MB 8800GTS' in SLI making 1GB).

As a long time user of Sli it makes perfect sense that you are only seeing 492. You only need to look at the different Sli settings, they all relate to alternate, or split frame rendering.

Each card draws a frame, or half a frame, they don't combine to draw a single frame and in doing that, it only uses the vram and sp's allocated to that card, it doesn't share it from the other card. Sli is not doubling the power of 1 card, it is like a dual core processor. The GX2 is 2 8800GTS cards each having 512MB VRAM not 1 card with 1gb ram. In certain circumstances, Sli can give you 100% gain over a single card, you need a hell of an overclock on your processor, mine is a quad @ 3.6GHZ and the game needs to be optimized for Sli but you should always see a 30-50% increase.

 

This game, btw, has crappy sli scaling. My 260 GTX's in sli are barely being used as the visual indicator is barely registering. This is a CPU heavy game which is definitely not taking advantage of todays gfx cards.

 

Future proofing my arse, you aint telling me that this game has better shaders, more polys or better post processing than Crysis or Far Cry 2. The 200 series cards should be eating this game for breakfast, as it is and esp in Sli, they are barely having to do anything.

[noid449]

it used the sli whilst loading the engine the character screens then sat at min whilst playing its there but not actually using it .. or properly tried with quad and just normal sli just have to wait i guess thats with all different drivers currently running 180.48

 

[graz9]

it used the sli whilst loading the engine the character screens then sat at min whilst playing its there but not actually using it .. or properly tried with quad and just normal sli just have to wait i guess thats with all different drivers currently running 180.48

 

That scene is exactly why Sli is not working in this game. For a start it ain't that pretty, and do we really believe a 200 series card, hell even a 8800 should struggle with that scene, never mind sli.

[noid449]

too many drivers too many setting too much f*cking asbout just to play a game :|

[eagle016]

I don't know, I guess it's just my knowledge (or lack of it) of SLI is showing.

 

It just confuses the hell out of me why in GTA it only shows 491MB but it's advertised as 1GB (so should that be false advertisement?) and that it shows up as 1GB in dxdiag.

 

I haven't ran a benchmark after this last driver update to see where I'm at on fps (have been around 35-45) but I'll test tomorrow with SLI disabled and then with it enabled and see if I can tell a difference. I'm just gonna be glad once all these issues are gone because the whole SLI thing is just messing with me, I don't think I'll ever really understand it.

[apoc_reg]

And im guessing just because its showing indicators doesn't mean the game is taking advantage of it. As R* said THEY need to add that via a patch.

 

With regards to CPU limited I have a decent quad and on benchmarks get about 60% CPU usage 70% memory and 98% GPU which suggests that i AM GPU limited if anything so SLi should help me when they have it properly implemented.

[Sycuss]

its only seeing part of ur mem because ur mem is split with ur Gx2 cards thats why u add this to ur target line on ur shortcut

–availablevidmem 2048

[noid449]

its showing means its working with drivers its not really moving meaning its pants and dont utilize it :| i doubt ill upgrade to a quad cpu quite yet just cos its christmas soon and have bills etc

[graz9]

And im guessing just because its showing indicators doesn't mean the game is taking advantage of it. As R* said THEY need to add that via a patch.

 

With regards to CPU limited I have a decent quad and on benchmarks get about 60% CPU usage 70% memory and 98% GPU which suggests that i AM GPU limited if anything so SLi should help me when they have it properly implemented.

98% GPU is probably the VRAM, I bet the card is actually barely breaking a sweat.

[rwoodburn]

These Drivers are the same drivers that are posted on nzone.There is absolutely no difference .I repeat not a re-release same driver .These drivers do support Sli but not on GTA 4 .Rockstar has to implement Sli in game patch before it will work.

[eagle016]

And im guessing just because its showing indicators doesn't mean the game is taking advantage of it. As R* said THEY need to add that via a patch.

 

With regards to CPU limited I have a decent quad and on benchmarks get about 60% CPU usage 70% memory and 98% GPU which suggests that i AM GPU limited if anything so SLi should help me when they have it properly implemented.

That's how my benchmarks usually go... 75% CPU and 100/99% GPU.

 

With everyone saying the game is CPU intensive I'm just finding it hard to believe that the game is actually supporting SLI, since I believe my CPU would be at 100% before my GPU would. Could be wrong though.

 

And also as you said, R* said SLI would be supported through a "future game patch" as well as an NVIDIA driver update. I think we're only halfway there on supporting SLI.

[blackforce]

Why would they re-release the same drivers and call them "180.84" again?

cause the 1st ones was leaked from nzone and they was crap, get the ones from nvida and wow what set they are

[pinky]

And im guessing just because its showing indicators doesn't mean the game is taking advantage of it. As R* said THEY need to add that via a patch.

 

With regards to CPU limited I have a decent quad and on benchmarks get about 60% CPU usage 70% memory and 98% GPU which suggests that i AM GPU limited if anything so SLi should help me when they have it properly implemented.

The benchmark isn't reallya good demo of in game usage though, my overclocked 4GHz CPU can show up to at least 90-95% usage in the game but only shows 77% in the benchmark.

This is the origonal 180.84 drivers and still have to try the new one and see if it deos make a difference.

 

The benchmark is no true comparison to in game playability at all. They really need to make a more balanced one with veiws outside of the built up skyscrapers to really show the true usage of your harware.

[Rokz0r]

It just doesn't make sense that my 1GB GX2 only shows up as 491 ONLY on GTA:IV.

 

Why would you give me a link to an article from 2006 talking about the possibilities of SLI from people that aren't even sure if what they're saying is true, but rather theories?

 

 

I may not know much about SLI, but I would think 2 graphics cards in SLI is better than 1... but that website states otherwise. So, why is SLI so popular if it's worse than just one card?

 

Again, why does my 1GB GX2 card only have 491MB available? Even the Wiki page you made a link to said it had 1GB running in an SLI configuration. WHAT!? Wait... that goes against your "SLI doesn't give you twice the memory" claim because it REALLY looks to me like since the 9800GX2 is 2 8800GTS 512 G92's in an SLI configuration... SLI does in fact combine the power (memory) of both cards.

 

I guess that's just my "randomness" again that I get from websites that talk about this technology, which tell me that SLI combines the power of the 2 cards. If you want to prove me wrong (or you right) then link a CURRENT (meaning not 2 years old) article saying that 2 cards in SLI perform the same as one... because I find it really hard to believe (especially since I have evidence of it working) that two 512MB cards in SLI wouldn't have the power of 1GB (such as, 2 512MB 8800GTS' in SLI making 1GB).

Yes 1 gb in total but actualy 512 usable in SLI. Also i find it hard to believe your other games detect 1gb of video memory with a gx2.

 

The first card's ram gets filled up with information and in SLI mode it's actually mirrored to the second car hence why you have 512+512...they need to be even otherwise if you had 512 and 256 it will use the 256 address space and have a spare 256 sitting there doing nothing.

 

Do you get it?

 

So essentially what we have is a bandwidth limit on the gx2's which is 512mb going through a 256 bit bus - hence why that card isn't fast with higher res/aa added in game and that brings us to the GT200 series which is why Nvidia released these so soon to removed that memory bottleneck and add the same grunt under the hood...

 

Ok another explanation to make sure you get it 100% 2 cards need to have same amount ram, same specs pretty much if anything is less or slower clocked SLI will fall back on the lowest common denominator, this is why it is best to have everything matching to get the most benefit from an SLI setup...

 

Now onto CPU and what limitation that provides, The more graphics horsepower you have in your system or the more cpu intensive a game is (like GTA IV) the more cpu power you will need, it wont matter If you have the fastest card on the planet or 10 cards in your system - the reason is because your video cards/ram/mb/hdd/dvd etc etc rely on your cpu to actually give them something to do and the slower the cpu the more the other devices in your system have to wait for it to finish it's last request..i really do hope you get this now.

[Peca]

I've been using the first installment of the 180.84 drivers and since then I had always seen the Nvidia SLI Indicator in my game, this means SLI is working (?) but on benchmarks it shows one card.... so which one is it, SLI or NOT

[Rokz0r]

I've been using the first installment of the 180.84 drivers and since then I had always seen the Nvidia SLI Indicator in my game, this means SLI is working (?) but on benchmarks it shows one card.... so which one is it, SLI or NOT

Read...SLI mode is classified as 1 card.

[apoc_reg]

And im guessing just because its showing indicators doesn't mean the game is taking advantage of it. As R* said THEY need to add that via a patch.

 

With regards to CPU limited I have a decent quad and on benchmarks get about 60% CPU usage 70% memory and 98% GPU which suggests that i AM GPU limited if  anything so SLi should help me when they have it properly implemented.

98% GPU is probably the VRAM, I bet the card is actually barely breaking a sweat.

Yeah that could be true I suppose. For referenece my cards are both 8800 GTS 512mbs

 

The settings i used said 432/487mb VRAM used i think.

[eagle016]

It just doesn't make sense that my 1GB GX2 only shows up as 491 ONLY on GTA:IV.

 

Why would you give me a link to an article from 2006 talking about the possibilities of SLI from people that aren't even sure if what they're saying is true, but rather theories?

 

 

I may not know much about SLI, but I would think 2 graphics cards in SLI is better than 1... but that website states otherwise. So, why is SLI so popular if it's worse than just one card?

 

Again, why does my 1GB GX2 card only have 491MB available? Even the Wiki page you made a link to said it had 1GB running in an SLI configuration. WHAT!? Wait... that goes against your "SLI doesn't give you twice the memory" claim because it REALLY looks to me like since the 9800GX2 is 2 8800GTS 512 G92's in an SLI configuration... SLI does in fact combine the power (memory) of both cards.

 

I guess that's just my "randomness" again that I get from websites that talk about this technology, which tell me that SLI combines the power of the 2 cards. If you want to prove me wrong (or you right) then link a CURRENT (meaning not 2 years old) article saying that 2 cards in SLI perform the same as one... because I find it really hard to believe (especially since I have evidence of it working) that two 512MB cards in SLI wouldn't have the power of 1GB (such as, 2 512MB 8800GTS' in SLI making 1GB).

Yes 1 gb in total but actualy 512 usable in SLI. Also i find it hard to believe your other games detect 1gb of video memory with a gx2.

 

The first card's ram gets filled up with information and in SLI mode it's actually mirrored to the second car hence why you have 512+512...they need to be even otherwise if you had 512 and 256 it will use the 256 address space and have a spare 256 sitting there doing nothing.

 

Do you get it?

 

So essentially what we have is a bandwidth limit on the gx2's which is 512mb going through a 256 bit bus - hence why that card isn't fast with higher res/aa added in game and that brings us to the GT200 series which is why Nvidia released these so soon to removed that memory bottleneck and add the same grunt under the hood...

 

Ok another explanation to make sure you get it 100% 2 cards need to have same amount ram, same specs pretty much if anything is less or slower clocked SLI will fall back on the lowest common denominator, this is why it is best to have everything matching to get the most benefit from an SLI setup...

 

Now onto CPU and what limitation that provides, The more graphics horsepower you have in your system or the more cpu intensive a game is (like GTA IV) the more cpu power you will need, it wont matter If you have the fastest card on the planet or 10 cards in your system - the reason is because your video cards/ram/mb/hdd/dvd etc etc rely on your cpu to actually give them something to do and the slower the cpu the more the other devices in your system have to wait for it to finish it's last request..i really do hope you get this now.

I still don't entirely get it, but I don't think I ever will.

 

I guess it's like... both cards have 512MB to work with and they each work to produce 1/2 frame separately and then output those as 1 frame? I don't know, that's what I got from yours and graz9's posts.

 

This is just WAY too much thinking involved for me at this time of night. It's 4:30 AM here and me and some friends have been celebrating the end of finals, so maybe after I sleep and wake up it'll make more sense to me.

[Peca]

I've been using the first installment of the 180.84 drivers and since then I had always seen the Nvidia SLI Indicator in my game, this means SLI is working (?) but on benchmarks it shows one card.... so which one is it, SLI or NOT 

Read...SLI mode is classified as 1 card.

Either way, no perfomance increase, waste of bandwidth