M17x SLi

Is the 9400m card sli'd with your primary graphics card (260/280)?

If it is, is it connected via sli cable?

 

9400M isn't a card...it's a chipset on your motherboard.

The only part of HybridSLI that should be supported is HybridPower though owners are seeing a performance hit with the 9400M enabled so the drivers may be trying to make use of GeForceBoost which shouldn't be happening.

You don't want a 9400M running along side even a single 260M or 280M.

 

It's Hybrid SLI... Basically it only work when GTX2X0 is disabled (no performance boost).

No.

 

The 9400 is a seperate, integrated gpu (IGP and NB combined).

The dedicated cards (260/280's) are each seperate and run off the PCIe bus and are linked via a small SLI ribbon cable.

 

I think that the problem was just the first drivers which got a really low performance and you can't use DOX/normal nvidia drivers without disabling 9400m.

But if i remember with the new beta drivers from dell the performance with 9400m enabled is pretty good.

 

I think there seems to be some confusion about hybrid SLI. The Whole purpose of hybrid SLI is to allow both the integrated (9400) and discrete video cards (two 260/280s) to work together in an effort to increase graphical performance. Hybrid SLI doesn't work unless you have two video cards in an SLI setup. So if you're system only has one 260/280, this feature is disabled (even though it may look like you can enable/disable it).
I know there are a lot of users that seem to think that the 9400 is consuming too much resources and hindering performance. As long as you have hybrid sli enabled (in an SLI configuration) you should be fine. However, if you force hybrid SLI off in your bios, the system will consider the 9400 separate and independent (meaning it will take resources). Now that's not to say that the 9400 using a little of the resources is a bad thing. This computer packs more than enough power to share. Most won't even know the 9400 is there (unless of course you have SLI and hybrid SLI enabled). Then you're performance should be better.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

Gabe

In the M17x, hybrid SLI is a bit different. The 9400 does not mix with the dual dedicated cards.

If you look at the studio xps 1340, that is a better true example of hybrid SLI. The 9400 and the single, dedicated 9200 combine to form the 9500.

The M17x isn't the typical Hybrid SLI that nvidia advertises.

 

Hi Sleey0
Hybrid SLI wasn't really intended to combine video cards to form another one. It's more of a rendering technology in which all video cards support the load (or at least that's what is supposed to happen). Although I'm not particularly familiar with the XPS 1340, I'll definitely look into what you're describing.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

This I know, but you are speaking of traditional SLI, NOT Hybrid SLI

Hybrid SLI was intended to have 1 IGP and 1 Dedicated that can scale together for better performance and scale down to provide much better battery life than was previously possible. Dell/nvidia chose to market the 1340's setup as the 9500.

The M17x uses the MCP79 and 9400 so naturally it is going to need the Hybrid SLI software.

It is not traditional Hybrid SLI in that it is not scaling with the dedicated card (in the case of the M17x card s)

 

this is kinda on the top of sli for this thread...

Is it true that dual gpu's can still run sli via PCIe bus even if the sli cable/ribbon is removed (I'm assuming sli performance would drop a little?)? I read about it on another forum that it fixes issues with users have sli problems such as red shimmering/flicker, or white speckling. What do you guys think?

 

I think I'm going to have to look into it more. Based on my information, Hybrid SLI for this system was supposed to be a little more than a virtual SLI combination. It was supposed to be a complete combination of the GPUs (whether it's 2 or 3... my statement above is a little wrong about needing dual discrete cards). However, it wouldn't suprise me if you're in fact right, and the integrated card isn't helping the discrete video at all (which would mean that we'd need a better driver)

Edit: I wouldn't recommend removing the bridge (SLI cable) on this notebook. SLI would fail to function.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

Well, let's say for a sec that the 9400 was working in tendem with the dual 280's.

What would the 9400 bring to the table? lol Maybe if there was some way to offload the physx stuff but it just isn't possible without some serious drivers from nvidia.

SLI only works with like-cards. If you use a lower specced card with a high-end one then all rendering will be done using the settings of the inferior cards clocks/memory/etc.

You can look into what I was telling you. nvidia has some decent stuff on their site about it and, as always, google will work just fine

 

HybridSLI is made up of two parts HybridPower and GeForce Boost.

GeForceBoost isn't supported on discrete GPUs faster than the 9500M/GT110M/G210M because when combined with a 9400M it results in a performance drop due to the slower speed of the IGP.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/hybridsli_notebook.html

 

Hi Sleey0,
It's true that the 9400 wouldn't be able to bring much at all, and also that SLI has to be like cards (can't fit a square peg in a round hole). It was just my understanding that hybrid sli would in some way use some of the resources, despite how little, from the 9400. But that might just be a misconception on Nvidia's part as to how they went about the technology). If that is in fact the case, the Help section of Hybrid SLI is completely false for this system.

Edit: Thanks for the info Phinagle. That seems to make a little more sense.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

I've been having problems on my G1 m17x with SLi once in a while... when i was using the stock drivers from alienware (174.82) i would get a red shimmering/flickering. This would go away once I reseted the SLi configuration on the nvidia control panel to single card > restart comp > back to SLi, and the problem is gone (but come back after a while). I don't think the cards or the sli bridge is a problem since it does go away. I updated to nvidia's 185.5 drivers and haven't seen the red problem since, but i used the streetfighter iv benchmark tool and i guess i put in too much than my cards could handle and now i got white speckles on the screen. I used the same method as the first to fix it and it worked. Does anyone know what the problem is.... i'd rather not keep switching back and forth SLi config just to fix it.

 

Im having a problem. I turned on my m17x and I was having low performance out of nowhere was running fine the night before. I looked in my device manager and only the 9400M was showing. So I did some reading from this helpful forum and found out that I needed to turn the 260 back on not sure how or if i turned it off by fn-f7ing.. Which I did. Now I seem to still be getting horrible performance.

I have formatted my drives and re-installed all drivers. Now I am showing 9400M and the 260 both running side by side with the Hybrid Boost Performance on. I still seem to be getting subpar performance.

For example I was running Eve-Online with max settings and it was great no fps loss.

Now I in Eve-Online I am getting around 10-15 FPS constant and sometimes dropping. This is on a fresh install with all the updated drivers from the driver's list in this forum.

What do I need to do to start trouble shooting this problem?

 

Did you hit the far right media button by chance and put the computer into stealth mode? This idles all things down and does what you are describing.