I'm just now finally getting back to RF2 after my initial installation and trial. I disabled SLI and my framerate went from the 15fps I got at the initial trial to 76+fps. It is by far the biggest improvement since installing RF2. All the choppiness went away as well.
For what it's worth, I'm running Asus EN8800GTXs (2) with 768 MB of DDR3 RAM each; they're four years old. I have tried both SLI enabled and disabled and definitely get better performance with SLI enabled and forcing the PhysX work onto the second graphics card. It's a modest increase, but discernible. You can view my system specs, but I'm basically running 32-bit XP SP3 with 4GB (3GB usable) of DDR2 RAM.
I confirm this, disabling SLI completely (or forcing 2nd card to physix which is basically no sli) gives 3 times more FPS than using it. Forcing single card sli mode for rfactor2.exe is not enough, you have to disable it from the nvcpl. This is obviously program and/or driver related bug and will eventually get sorted out.
I really think this needs to be moved to the Problem Reports Performance Sub-Forum as I never saw this mentioned when looking there yesterday. I'm running 2 slightly overclocked GTX460 1mb cards in SLI. I was ready to gouge my eyes out after a few hours lastnight because my framerate was so HORRIBLE. Single digits at the start with low settings and max 8 cars visable, never getting above 45 when all alone on track. Then thankfully I found this post and turned off SLI and viola! Massive, massive difference. I can enjoy the game now. With high settings and 16 visable cars, everything on full or high settings I'm seeing 50+ at the start and triple digits when out in the open. I tried 4 different nvidia drivers and all kinds of diff. settings in the nvidia control panel but never thought to disable SLI as I never had this problem before with any game I play.
Quite frankly, I've never been able to run my rig in SLI without either performance degradation (low frame rates) or complete system crashes and/or freeze-ups. When I built this box in 2007/2008, I thought SLI was going to be eye-candy heaven--it's not and never will be. I have been running in single-GPU mode for several years now and only with the release of rF2 did I go back to SLI and found the above solution. I don't blame ISI for this, I blame NVidia. Over the years, I've come to suspect their drivers before I look to the application(s). I've even been through episodes of the "current" driver working well with one simulation and being dog-slow with another. Reverting back to older drivers that satisfy most of my needs is usually the solution. Had I the chance to do it over, I'd go with ATI GPUs, but I can't afford to switch now. Perhaps if I hit the lottery, I'll build a new machine and use ATIs in it.
There is a thread about SLI in the graphics forum. SLI is definitely shot at the moment which is a shame for me because disabling SLI on my rig generally causes all sorts of problems and a reboot or two. For the moment I'll have to rely on ISI to work on it before I can enjoy rF2 with AI. On my 570's I almost dip into single digits when there are other cars around me, I at least get ~50fps with SLI when there are no cars around me.
Your post indicates you have "a" GT420 (and if memory serves, that's a notebook GPU), but I'm assuming you realize that you need two graphics cards to use SLI. Anyway, in the event I'm wrong about the notebook, somewhere in your NVidia directory or in the task bar, there should be an NVidia Settings application. Within that application there's a tab or selection for 3D settings and/or setting and managing SLI and PhysX configuration. Once you get there, you can change and set your preference. Hope this helps nc
you state you've experienced crashes with your sli setup. i once had a similiar problem. it turned out to be video driver problem. though the nvidia online driver selection suggested i use the drivers for my aging video card, there were updated drivers for newer cards which i installed. my crashes went away after I installed them.
Hi saloei, Thanks for the suggestion, but according to NVidia Update, I'm running the latest, greatest driver for my card(s)--285.58. I've been down the path of using newer/beta drivers (back when version numbers were ~165.x.x.x or so) and it was painful. In fact, rF1 (as well as GTR2, et. al.) was "broken" on my rig for several months until I slogged through the tedium of trying older drivers and finding one that made all my applications happy. So far, this configuration (running the second GPU for PhysX) seems to be working and I feel like the second GPU isn't being wasted. Time will tell if NVidia ever fix their drivers; it is a daunting task to keep all gamers with their infinitely different hardware configurations happy. Throw in some overclocking and you've just made it orders of magnitude worse... Keep the shiny side up!
Never read such a load of crap before in all my life!! I bought an i5 2500k with sli gtx580s last year as my first gaming pc in 15 yrs and my experience has been the total opposite, all of my games benefit from sli, some more so than others but I think your problem is trying to run modern games and drivers on a machine from 5/6 years ago... Time for an upgrade buddy.
I normally run three monitors as well, but not with SLI enabled. Looks like you will have to switch to one monitor until the SLI issues are squared away. Or alternatively run lower resolution on one card but unfortunately this is not very pleasing to the eyes.
Really!?!? No need to attack me personally. I'm not, in any way, disparaging SLI, I'm just stating my plight as I've experienced it. I've never taken anyone (game developer, hardware manufacturer, etc.) to task for what I'm experiencing. I'm just sharing with the group what I've been through. If you're getting great results with SLI, I'm happy for you and I'm also jealous of your capabilities! As I said, if I win the lottery, I'll cut out a portion of it to buy a new machine. However, being retired and on a fixed income, my priorities don't allow me that luxury at this time. I am going to upgrade my OS to Windows 7 as I think some of my issues are related to XP's memory management.
It sounded like you were trying to blame Nvidia when really ISI need to sort an SLI workaround out! The biggest joke is that Rfactor1 works perfectly for me with SLI so considering RF2 is simply using a tweaked engine I can't understand why it doesn't work yet. pCars is still in pre-alpha and when the first public build was released it didn't work with SLI but it only took about 2 days before the Devs came up with a workaround. In my opinion that game doesn't play as well as RF2 yet but considering the Devs admit zero optimisation has taken place to the graphics engine it runs really well and it looks like a 2012 game unlike RF2!! I mean seriously is there nobody on their team at ISI that has at least tested their builds with SLI?? And worst yet is the total lack of updates from the development team. Hello, this is a Beta and plenty of problem reporting from people who have essentially prepaid for RF2 is going on the forums yet we don't even get a weekly Dev Update Thread to tell us what their current objectives are in ironing out these chronic performance issues, I'm not just talking about SLI and triple screen. Rant over, sorry if I offended you mate I'm just fed up with people blindly defending ISI when all they've done is deliver a very shoddy Beta in terms of performance.
Must concede to be a tad dissapointed really, I too thought by now at least the SLI would have at least been spoken about, I actually gave up on the 3 screen going back to the 40" but there are at least 8 ppl running tripples in our club alone. My machine runs RF2 just fine with most turned up now (as long as there aren't to many cars around) and I feel lucky. The sim is just brilliant but plz don't let us down, I think once the SLI is addressed it will at the same time fix many issues. This is not Nvidia's job this is a promised advertised feature that many of us prepared for. I feel you must be working hard on it and perhaps just as frustrated as us, just tell us you are (hugs) and thanks
I'd like to suggest a few things, if I may. Try starting msconfig and shutting down all of your startup items. Enable SLI and run a game...(not RF2 obviously) to see if it's possibly a software conflict. If it still doesn't run properly, try testing the cards individually to see if one may quite possibly be at fault. See if you can get your hands on another SLI bridge. I say this because I'd like you to get it working properly, if only to experience what it has to offer when working properly. Despite hearing guys complain about microstutter and other issues, I've been quite fortunate to not ever had any problems with SLI. I've had SLI for a very long time going all the way back to BFG 7800GT cards. With the millions of possible software/hardware configurations it's impossible to 100% predict what may be causing your issue. I'm not saying you are to blame. It's just a few suggestions. Try it and get back to me. I'll think of a few more things. I'm currently using Nvidia 290.53 drivers on two Palit GTX560Ti cards. SLI is disabled only for RF2. It's enabled for everything else.
