SLi Guide (Installing, Troubleshooting + Increasing Performance)

NEW GUIDE (SLI and NON-SLI)​

This guide is written for people who are getting poor performance from their computer, or for people who want to try some new drivers to get a few extra 3dmarks. This guide used to be written for SLI users primarily but this new updated guide will be written for both so people with older Alienwares (or any other computer for that matter) or the M15x can install drivers with ease. For the record this guide was written on a Vista system so while most steps will similar, there might be one or two errors.

Before you start​

1) What kind of bad performance are you having? Is it *A* because you cannot enable SLi without the computer crashing? Or is it *B* because your performance in games is just not what they should be / Single GPU runs faster than SLi setup?

-If your problem is *A*, follow **Guide A**
-If your problem is *B*, follow **Guide B**

**Guide A**​

1) Check your drivers. To do this, right click on your desktop. Look on the bottom left of the window for "System Information", and click that. In the white text area, it will say "Forceware Version: 1xx.xx" (In my case this would say "Forceware Version: 169.25")

2) Now that we know what drivers you have, we can proceed to select a new set of drivers. I used to recommend drivers but now that the school year has started I cannot recommend drivers week to week. Here is how to get the newest drivers possible though. First, go to www.laptopvideo2go.com and you will be on the home page of course. Next, change the drop down menu from version to date to get the newest ones possible. Check off the system that you have (XP 32 or 64bit, Vista 32 or 64bit). If you own a M15x, M9750, or M17x, (or any older Aw laptop) you will know if you have 64 bit as AW did not ever sell a 64 bit operating system on any of the laptops listed.

3) There are two files that you must download for the driver you choose. First, you must download the driver. Second, you must download the modded INF file.

4) Once these files are done downloading, you can extract the driver. I would make a folder with the driver name on it and extract it to that folder, because some drivers from this site extract in the folder you currently have open. This has bugged me a few times when I extract something and my desktop fills up with files

5) Now that the driver is extracted, DON'T install it yet, we have to prepare our notebook.

6) First, we should download driver sweeper, which will delete any remaining driver information that the uninstall misses, very handy tool. To download this, go to --> Driver Sweeper Setup

7) We have to uninstall our current drivers. (( Start : Control Panel : Click Classic View on the left : Device Manager : Display Adapters : Right Click the top 7950GTX : Click uninstall driver : Check in "Delete the software software for this device". )) After this is done, restart your computer, then we want to run driver sweeper.

8) (( Go to Start : All Programs : Driver Sweeper. Click Nvidia chipset, and hit the single arrow ">" to move it to the other side. )) Do the same thing with the Nvidia Display as well. Now that those are both over on the right side, click the broom, and wait for it to finish (should be very quick). Now that this is done, restart your computer.

9) We are going to install the new drivers now. Remember that INF file we downloaded? We need to drag and drop that INF file into the driver folder so it overwrites the older INF file. This will let you install the driver without any problems. If you are using Vista, just click the Setup.exe file in the driver folder, and do a regular install, clicking continue anyway and restarting the computer when the drivers are installed (it may take awhile to restart). If you are using XP with SLi, follow these steps of this SLi guide written by Grey728 + Chaz. HERE or read the text below
Quote:
7. Install 1 card only. When the driver asked you to install and you click 'Continue Anyway' Do this only once!
8. Cancel install for second card. This cancels out install process
9. Reboot
10. GO to Devicde Manager, and select 2nd card that didn't install. (Most likely called 3D Hardware and not recognized as a video card, I can't remember exact name)
11. Update driver and select folder you unpacked in step 4.
12. When the driver installs, click "Continue Anyway"
13. Reboot and done!
10) Thats it, you have installed new drivers for your system. You can use laptopvideo2go.com to find/install other drivers if you do not like these.

11) If errors such as: Flickering on non native resolutions / Screen turning black when SLi is enabled are gone, and you are still experiencing game slowdowns, follow part B to optimize your SLi drivers.

**Guide B**​

This is a continuation of "Guide A" if you still don't have good performance, but the main issues such as flickering/black screen/blue screen are gone.

1) Make sure SLi is enabled

This may sound dumb, but after installing new drivers, I sometimes forget to turn SLi on. (( Right click on your desktop : Nvidia Control Panel : Set SLi Config. tab : Enable SLi technology : Hit apply. ))

After you have enabled SLi, it will ask you if you want to close the needed applications. Hit "yes" and then don't click anything for 30 seconds. Some programs will close, the screen will go black. After it goes black, it will come back on again, and you will see a black screen with the "-" in the upper left hand corner. After that your desktop should come back, and it will ask you "do you want to keep these settings" click yes.

2) Make sure SLi performance mode is on the right setting.

By default, my card was set to "Single-GPU" I believe this means that only 1 GPU does the rendering, which I didn't want. This is something that I didn't notice until Brks pointed it out to me. (( Nvidia Control Panel : Manage 3D settings : Global Settings tab : SLi Performance Mode --> "Force alternate frame rendering 2" )). This will make it so that every other frame will be rendered by one card, and the other frame will be rendered by your other card. I have tried multiple modes, and I find this mode to be the best for stability/performance.

For high end games like Crysis, brks did a test. If you are experiencing poor performance with games like crysis, change "Force alternate frame rendering 2" to "Split Frame Rendering"

3) Make sure that your vitrual memory is working correctly (eightd wrote about this).
Quote:
1. Control Panel => System and Maintenance => System => Advanced System Settings (Left side or just the System Properties Dialog)

2. Advanced Tab = > Performance (Settings Btn) => Advanced Tab => Change...

3. Uncheck "Automatically Manage...." and Select Custom Size. Mine is set to Init. = 200, Max = 10000
4) Will add when more things come up

**Goodies Guide**​

This section is to let you guys in on goodies that are pretty helpful in some cases. I do not know many as of now, but I can always add more.

1) Change Flat Panel Scaling

I found this and I am very happy with it. Usually when I run 3dmark06, the screen stretches across my whole display, which makes everyone "fat". This setting will make it so that it will put it in 4:3 aspect ratio which will leave black boxes on either side of the screen. This is also helpful if a game is not compatible with a certain resolution and you don't want to stretch the screen.

Go to (( Nvidia Control Panel : Change Flat Panel Scaling tab : Click "Use Nvidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio" : Click apply ))

2) Set the desktop to its native resolution

Maybe you were playing with your resolution for your desktop, and accidentally set it to a lower resolution and didn't realize it. This would make things a little less quality, and would waste that real estate you paid for This is easy to fix though with Nvidia control panel.

Go to (( Nvidia Control Panel : Change Flat Panel Scaling tab : Click "Change to native resolution" : Click apply ))


Special Thanks To:
Chaz
Grey728
eightd
brks

***Complete (may add new content at any time)***

Update History:
01/01/08 - Added brks' suggestion for Split Frame Rendering (SFR) *#2 in Guide B*
01/01/08 - Added more drivers (169.09 for XP32/64, 167.43 Vista/XP) *#2 in Guide A*
03/08/08 - Quoted EightD's drivers.
05/26/08 - Removed EightD's drivers and submitted the new 174.74 drivers.
06/03/08 - Added the 175.63 Tweakforce Drivers.
11/19/08 – Re-wrote and added to guide

 

Great Guide! Worked for me. Got 8200 for 3dMark06.

 

Just updated to the 169.21 for XP and my performance from stock to these has jumped like 50%. Its unreal how well Crysis runs now. I am running on most high settings and a few medium, and I have no lag.

 

!!Sticky that!!

great guide Stone825!

 

Thanks everyone. I'm writing another section "Part B" soon which will give a few hints to people that are still not getting the performance that they are looking for. It will be done soon.

 

Finished the guide. May add more

Oh Chaz would you mind if I posted this in the guides section of this forum. Please don't move it though, as I wrote it primarily for M9750 users, but I'm sure anyone can use this info.

 

Part B Rocks! Thanks Stone! May I asking what virtual memory does?

 

Fantastic guide Stone, sticky granted. I changed the title for you, let me know if you need anything else.

If you don't mind I would like to link this into the Driver Update Guide in the Gaming forum.

 

Great guide stone825 and thanks for the mentions. I advise everyone new to SLI setups to have a good read of this guide - it's an excellent start point to getting your rig rough and ready for todays games.

 

Thanks Stone. I've had the best success with the 94.23 stock Alienware drivers so far - but when I get home from work I'll try this guide out. Hopefully I get an increase in performance

 

Good guide, but I am still not getting game performance improvement with SLI even after following the recommendations in your guide (Vista 32 Home Premium). That includes trying all the recent drivers from LaptopVideo2Go. The single most helpful post that improved game performance for me was the Virtual Memory option (allocating the amount of HDD space reserved for virtual memory).

Also, I wish people would post game fraps instead of 3dMark06 scores when comparing performance with SLI for different settings. 3DMark06 is meaningless.

 

@Chaz - I don't mind if you link it there, sounds good.

 

Hmm Loggie. What games are you looking at for SLi performance increases? UT3 doesn't like SLi too much, but like CS:S loves it.

 

Great guide man ^^

 

I have tested Crysis (Demo), FS X, TombRaider Anniversary, Doom3 to name a few. The Crysis game has two built in benchmarks that I used to compare fraps with and without SLI enabled-no difference. I have tried all three SLI settings-
Split Frame, AF1, and AF2 and I don't see any difference in game performance.
I get good performance with just one 7950 so I can wait until Vista SP1 which will hopefully fix the SLI problem.

 

Hey Stone I followed your guide B and tried out Alternate Frame Rendering 2 instead of Single GPU and had an increase in FPS in games, but a lower 3dMark06 score. I had a 8200 with single gpu and a 7900 with the AF2

 

I just got the 169.09 drivers for Win XP SP2 and my score improved 200 pts on 3dMark06. I think you should link those drivers instead of 169.21 for XP. They seem to be not that great.

 

The .09 drivers are well regarded and widely acknowledged as being the best drivers for SLI in XP.

 

I will concur on this. They also seem to be the best on average with Vista as well for overall performance and compatibility. I've been running them for Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3 and Call of Juarez with excellent performance in both XP and Vista (I've tested all my games in both my OS partitions to see performance differences. The XP/Vista differences still amaze me).

 

I'm playing Bioshock a lot lately, and it seems like EVERY driver beyond 169.01 makes the game stutter like mad.. like caching within the level. I do get better performance with 169.09 with other games but if you're like me and are playing Bioshock at the moment, try 169.01.

 

I tried 169.09 and it made crysis lag and flash like crazy. I tried 169.25, and it seemed to smoothed thing out quite a bit, but still not quite how it should be.

 

great guide

finally had the time to upgrade from stock AW drivers, and whereas usually i get 170ish fps in stress test with everything on full except MSAA x2, and 2x AA. managed to get 173 with every full, MSAA x4, 16x AA

 

Updated with "new" drivers and BRKS suggestion

 

laptops on its way back from the repair facility as of today. ; ; hopefully it will work just right this time.


Edit:.....wow I was wrong they aren't shipping it back to me, they are shipping it to another repair facility.

 

" I have repost here because it seems to be a better place "

Hello ,

First, thanks for this forum it helps me a lot !

I have this configuration:

Alienware M9750 : 2.16Ghz : 4GB : 160GB 5400RPM : 7950GTX SLi and xp sp2

I have updated video drivers to 169.09 using Grey 728 quick guide

Everything ok with drivers but if I enable sli function I still have only one card showing :
7950gtx 512 mb ram on display panel.... when using alienware drivers 1024mb ram ..... I'm a little bit disapointed

Do I need to set up other things to have the video card with 1024 ram available ?

Thanks for your answers

I have done this update because I have some troubles to run old game mmorpg everquest( characters don't move smoothly ) and was thinking that was the video drivers......

 

well they arent official drivers so dont expect things to be perfect

peoplesaying that the mobile cards are weak for somereason, but the 7950GTX can out perform many desktop cards, its just not getting the right driver support.

 

Hey there

I'd like to give a big shout of thanks out to you Stone...fantastic guide! Got me through some frustrating driver times...working like a top now with 169.21.

Keep yer stick on the ice!!!

 

" I have repost here because it seems to be a better place "

Hello ,

First, thanks for this forum it helps me a lot !

I have this configuration:

Alienware M9750 : 2.16Ghz : 4GB : 160GB 5400RPM : 7950GTX SLi and xp sp2

I have updated video drivers to 169.09 using Grey 728 quick guide

Everything ok with drivers but if I enable sli function I still have only one card showing :
7950gtx 512 mb ram on display panel.... when using alienware drivers 1024mb ram ..... I'm a little bit disapointed

Do I need to set up other things to have the video card with 1024 ram available ?

Thanks for your answers

I have done this update because I have some troubles to run old game mmorpg everquest( characters don't move smoothly ) and was thinking that was the video drivers......

 

have the frame rates also dropped

 

marco820 it says the same thing for me dont worry it has the same performance. have fun with your system you should be able to kill any game on maximum expect for Crysis till it gets a patch atleast

 

I don't play this game sorry ...something like UT2003 ?

But ok... if you sure The performance are ok with these settings I trust you

But my "old" game still not running well..... should be another problem

 

By the way, there's a little program called nHancer that also has pre-defined profiles for games and has been said to work better than those from nvidia. Also includes the latest games as well.

 

I'm not a fan of using pre-set profiles for games - I'd much sooner experiment for myself and set my own best configuration, no matter what driver set I'm using. Lets face it, they haven't tested those settings on your rig, they've tested them on theirs and are best settings for their rigs - not yours

 

Does anyone know which settings I should change in the 'Manage 3D' section of the Nvidia Control Panel for the M1730, for best performance with SLI?

Thanks

 

Okay, so chaz led me to this forum for my graphics driver

BUT i cannot find the driver for my Vid card yet

little did i know, this was for the 9750 vid card

i am running the nvidia dual 512 sli enabled 8700m geforce GO card

on my alienware m9750

and the fact of the matter is, the alienware driver sucks balls

yet i still cant find a driver for my 8700m

any help is appreciated

 

hmm.. I think you should read the first post of this thread on how to install drivers and where to get them.

Anyways, Drivers are in the www.laptopvideo2go.com forums under "160 series" thread.

Once you've read how to install the drivers and THEN have a problem, we'll be here to help.

 

ahh i got it, had to re-download the modded .INF

buts its good now

only thing is, i still cant even play crysis on medium with shadows and shaders on low even

 

Have you tried installing the new 1.1 patch for Crysis? There's a lot of talk on SLIZone forums that Crysis performs poorly with SLi still so you might only be seeing the power of 1 card at the moment.

 

crysis supports multi gpus you just have to set it that way

right click crysis shortcut

properties

and after the "

add a space and copy this in +r_multiGPU 1



but ill try the new patch i guess

 

to increase performance click advanced under manage 3d settings, and set the AA and AF to none (don't worry about jaggies, click texture filtering image quality on high performance, and set your SLI selection to AFR2. also force verticle sync off. also installing the best drivers for your gpu will increase performance. general rule of thumb, use maxed nvidia settings for older games, set it down for new ones. then tweak it from there (in game and in nvidia control panel).

 

Yep. Try setting it to AF2 if possible, that helped me.

 

stone.. the 169.25 doen't really work well on my m9750.. I'm using vista ultimate.. can you recommend another ?

 

the 169.28 improves UT3

 

Musste, honestly, you're going to have to be patient because vista doesn't support the gpu's as efficiently as xp yet. but after vista gets an update, you'll notice major improvements.

 

I agree with Levenly, but for a stable driver stick with Alienware's new Beta driver (167.45).

 

btw for new drivers, if you try split frame rendering on Crysis, it just crashes

 

@Musste - Try the new beta drivers for the AW notebooks. They are the 167 drivers.

 

Ok so I tried posting this in the Alienware tech support forums. LOL what a joke, nobody ever replies to threads in there, let alone posts them since it is a moderated forum. But anyways, I recently bought an M9750 that came equipped with dual NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GTs. I didn't want Vista, so I installed Windows XP. I already flashed the BIOS to the XP version. I installed all the drivers from the alienware website that I needed. Everything installed just fine. Then, when I tried playing 3D games on it like Half Life 2, the game freezes a few minutes into gameplay and crashes my entire computer. When I reboot, I get an error message saying..

"The driver for the display device was unable to complete a drawing operation. Please check with the device manufacturer or a driver update."

There is no "update" on the alienware website for my video drivers. Why? I have the latest version of the video drivers. This is completely retarded.. This happens when I try to play any 3D game of any kind. Some help would be appreciated. Thanks for replies in advance!

 

The first Alienware drivers are terrible, use this guide to see how to install the beta drivers from LaptopVideo2go. Let us know how it goes.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=202449

 

Thank you for answering back. I'll try that out right away.