Two video cards....

VenomX · #1 10-11-2010, 02:17 PM

My PC came with 2 NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTs.

I will sometime soon buy two new monitors but until then I was wondering if I should do as windows(?) keeps suggesting and set it so both cards run at the same time with NVIDIA SLi?

I asked a guy I know that works on computers and he told me not to bother with it.

I bought this PC with the thought of duel boxing WoW but even with 12GB DDR3-1333 ram and a Intel Core i7 920 it seems to hang when I first start WoW and if I have too many liveleak or youtube pages open. I am thinking I got ripped off...

technical.angel · #2 10-11-2010, 03:27 PM

If it's hanging when you first open WoW, have you checked your addons?

lordlundar · #3 10-11-2010, 04:18 PM

If you have an SLi connector, you might as well, it certainly won't do any harm to do so and the other card is just sitting there collecting dust otherwise. All it takes is attaching the connector between the cards and then adjusting your settings to run SLi. Quick, simple, and gives an improvement. I can't imagine why he would say no, when the next sensible alternative is to take out the unused card, which is just plain pointless.

As for WoW hanging, that would have to be a problem with the game/any addons installed. My system is no where near as potent as yours and It doesn't hang (well, not frequently at any rate) Remove any addons to see if that's the issue (and I mean from the addons folder, not just disabled in game), if not, run the repair program.

Alternatively, it could also be your antivirus. Blizzard programs have been having issues with Avast lately.

VenomX · #4 10-11-2010, 11:44 PM

I can see inside and there is a wire going from one VC to the other. I am guessing the SLi connector is already connected?

VenomX · #5 10-11-2010, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Quoth technical.angel

If it's hanging when you first open WoW, have you checked your addons?

I will check them but if I Alt/Tab over to Resource Monitor when its slow or hanging it doesnt seem to be using that much of the ram.

Daskinor · #6 10-12-2010, 02:02 AM

WOW does not support SLi so if thats the only game you play you don't need to configure SLi. WoW is a very processor intensive game, a good GPU helps but wow will hog a processor. This is the reason why WoW will run on almost any computer made in the last 10 years. But things like flash that can also take up an entire processor causes issues.

Ehh.... Thinking about it. SLi the graphic cards anyway and put both graphic outputs on a single GPU. I bet the GPUs are on different PCI channels. And that may be the source of your issues. A dirextX Diag would be helpful to see for sure.

Most Multi-box users actuality use multiple computers. That way they can use an output splitter to easily control everyone.

lordlundar · #7 10-12-2010, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Quoth VenomX

I can see inside and there is a wire going from one VC to the other. I am guessing the SLi connector is already connected?

This is generally what an SLI link looks like (it varies actually, some use solid connectors like in the picture, some use a flexible variant) but the connection point is the same. If it looks similar to that, then the hardware is already taken care of.

VenomX · #8 10-12-2010, 12:20 PM

Mine are connected like the ones in this image...
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/fullimage.php?image=15868

I did a directX Diag and it seems to be real long. What part would you need to see?

Yeah I know they use to PCs but I cant really afford to buy 2 PCs for just WoW :P
Plus when I bought this PC I had looked into duel boxing and found a great discussion on using one PC and they even had the addons/macros/etc for it on that site. I would have to search for that info again if I decide to try.

I am not into PvP so dont really need anything to fancy... (Only PvP when defending a city)..

Was thinking it would be nice to have my own healer if I needed one when out questing etc...

lordlundar · #9 10-12-2010, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Quoth VenomX

Mine are connected like the ones in this image...
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/fullimage.php?image=15868

Yup, that flexible strap at the top is the SLi link connector. it's most likely why you're getting pestered to enable SLi mode. You can either enable it or remove the link connector and second card until you get the new monitor.

roothorick · #10 10-14-2010, 09:06 PM

I'll tell you right now, dual monitors and gaming isn't a good combination. The vast majority of games will grab the mouse and you won't be able to interact with anything on the other monitor without minimizing or closing your game; worse, some games will blank both screens even when only running on one, and some older games will just flat-out crash if more than one monitor is connected. Triple monitors is nice if you set up TwinView/Eyefinity so the game runs across all three, but you'll still run into compatibility problems, particularly getting games to use the oddball combined resolution.

Go SLI, or remove and sell the other card. Even if the drivers don't support SLI with WoW itself, it can still help performance and stability when you have multiple things open, in that Flash (YouTube et al) and WoW are then using separate GPUs.

Oh, and very important! Get the latest drivers from nvidia.com. It always helps system stability. Also, they may have added a WoW profile, and if so, you'll see a substantial performance boost.