M17x SLI question

Sorry, this is a noob question I just downloaded Empire: Total war off steam and tried it out. For those of you that don't have it yet, I highly recommend it. It runs really well. However, I noticed about halfway through my first session that only one of my cards was heating up.. The other was very cool. I don't have temps, but just using my hand on the back vents, the one on the left was very hot to the touch. The card on the right was actually pretty chilly.

Another game I run off steam, Grid, heats up both my cards and runs flawlessly, so I guess that works with SLI. (correct me if i'm wrong)

Does this just mean that Empre: total war is not built for SLI?

 

You should turn on SLi indicators while you are play Empire TW and see if you can see them while you play on steam. You do this by going into the Nvidia control panel > 3D setting tab > turn vis indicators on. If they don't show(you were running on one card), go back to the Nvidia control panel and under Manage 3D settings make sure that EmpireTotalWar.exe has a profile (you may have to add by searching through steam folders for it). Then you can select and SLi setting (AF2) and then they should show.

I remember doing this for L4D. the program was in my 3d settings list but the L4D.exe needed to be added by looking for in my steam folder. Then i was able to see the SLi indicators showing both cards are doing work.

 

Also download HWMonitor to make sure about the temps

 

thanks guys, will try that now.

 

What is the max temp that GPU should run at for normal gaming operations?

How about the CPU?

I am talking about core temps.

 

Depends how good the cooling of the notebook actually is. For eg, m17 cards hover around 85c at full load and cpu around 65-68c.

M17x is supposed to have better cooling so my guess would be that the temps should be lower that the m17. Im sure someone with the M17x can verify that.

As for the max, id say anything above 90c for GPUs and 80-85~ for CPU's is starting to get dangerous. But of course, the lower the better.

 

Make sure SLI is actually enabled on your system. You can check that in the Nvidia control panel.

You may want to try nHancer and create a custom SLI profile for the game if there isn't one. It's a very handy utility for managing custom game profiles (you can set various SLI modes, FSAA, etc. globally or individually for each game and it's much easier to handle than the Nvidia Control panel), I have been using it for years and highly recommend it.

Note that you will need ForceWare 182.xx drivers or later for the latest version (2.5.1 as of this writing) of nHancer to work. If you are using older drivers, you will have to use version 2.4.5 of nHancer instead.

 

Where is the NVIDIA control panel on the M17X anyway? I cannot find it.
Thanks.

 

you can use Riva tuner to show temps in game

This is a tutorial for using RivaTuner to display pertinent on screen statistics while gaming. Most useful for most of us will be FPS and temperature, but core MHz may be of use for some who suffer from downclocking and/or stuttering issues.

First, download RivaTuner from Guru3D's website. Install as normal. It may ask you on initial start if you want to activate the monitoring plugins, say yes.

After installation and opening, you should see a screen like this. Click the little triangle by Customize.



Next you will want to set up the plugins to display the fields you want. The initial Hardware Monitoring screen will likely display some different fields, since this is mine after I've configured it to show what I want.



You will want to click the large Setup button on the bottom right. The next screenshot shows what the screen will look like, I've scrolled down to Core Temperature as an example.



Highlight Core Temperature and click "Setup", this takes you to the individual setup for this monitoring field. Any time later on you can access this directly from the monitoring graphs by right clicking a graph and selecting Setup.



Under "On-screen display settings", select "Show core temperature in on screen display." I personally check "Show temperature in tray icon" also since I like to know what I'm idling at during general usage. You will also configure the FPS field the same way, but I don't show this in a tray icon. If you want to know what MHz your card is running at during a game, do the same for Core clock, or memory clock, or both. When done hit OK to get back to the hardware monitoring graphs.

After this is configured, you should a little orange RivaTuner icon next to the items you configured.



Click on the icon. If all goes well after starting the server, you should see the orange icon disappear from the hardware graph, and show up in your system tray. Right click on the system tray icon and select "Show". It will bring up a screen that looks like this: (It may have opened directly right away for some of you)



Things I changed were were to turn 'Show On-Screen Display' to "ON" (If not already), set Application detection level to 'High', played around with the zoom (This changes the size of the on screen display in-game), and changed the default color of the display to the bright green dot you see in the bottom right. Using the plus sign on the bottom left I also added all my game executables just in case it didn't detect them. This should be considered optional and done as needed. When finished, hit the down arrow to minimize to tray.

Final step is to test it out in game. Here is a sample of what it looks like on my system playing Mirror's Edge:



If you have any questions, suggestions, etc, feel free to post. Hopefully this will be as useful to you all as it is to me.


from http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=351114

 

Wow Moo, I never knew that! Good bit of information, I'll definitely have to spend some time playing with that.

I'd +rep you but I need to spread the love first.

 

I may be mistaken in this, but, it is my impression that the SLI indicators will also show up when you are in hybrid mode, that is, when you are SLI with one GPU and the onboard 9800, as well as being in SLI with both GPU.

I've also been wondering about this too. Most games, I feel a very distinct temp difference between the two GPUs, the left side is much, much warmer than the right side. No, I don't need a thermometer to tell me this, yes, I am aware the CPU is also slightly shifted to the left which contributes additional heat.

Yet, some games, like Far Cry 2, definitely seem to use both GPUs. I feel blasts of hot air coming out on both sides. Far Cry 2 is the most demanding game I have, yet, it is one of the better performing ones, and I think this is no coincidence. Clearly some apps are using both GPUs in SLI, while others are merely in Hybrid SLI, with a noticeable decrease in performance.

 

the left GPU will ALWAYS be hotter as it is the master/primary GPU and is the one the data is mirrored onto

 

yeah I figured that out a while ago, my question is how to force both to be used all the time in SLI, instead of hybrid. Even better would be both plus the integrated 9800 used in some sort of "tri-SLI" mode....

 

that is what hybrid SLI is all 3 GPU's working together ....

ALso you could try renameing the .exe for the program to trick it ..

 

Oh, but I thought I read in the manual that hybrid was only the left GPU and the integrated.

How would I change the "exe"?