BP=0 plus SLI works great !

[Kosta 122]

It's not the 90mb, it's wondering if Java runs background processes all the time, puts an notification icon with pop up messages about updates etc.?

I don't care about Java. I'm interested into numbers connected to SLI performance. I have the GTX285 and have been playing with the idea of getting the 2nd card... but really don't know if it makes sense. Or if my PSU is powerful enough (750W).

[Steve1969 8]

Just a follow up after a couple days of trying 2 gtx280's in SLI, with bp=0 and unlimited frames in FSX with very high settings.It's starts off great but after continuous flying for a hour or longer in complex PNW areasaround Vancouver and into the mountains at Hope BCthe glitches started appearing again. Spikes, etc.An hour of continuous flight is better than the immediate glitches seen with a single card and Bojote's settings.Most of the time my flights are shorter than an hour but its not a perfect solution.Other solutions as many post are to lock framerate in FSX, or not use BP=0, or lower FSX settings.Of course all those work with a single GPU as well.Locking the framerate in FSX solves the glitches.It also appears to lower the overall frame rate and most importantly lower the minimum frame rate seen. When it starts dropping in the low and mid teens I'm motivated to make changes.I fly mostly in PNW complex areas would like to keep the minimum frame rate over 20.Vancouver can tax the frame rate pretty hard when settings are high, AI is up and airports are in the view.One way to counter that is BP=0, unlimited frames and SLI,but as flight time increases issues arise as well, it's not the holy grail, at least not in my setup :(

Can you double check its an hour or are you flying into more complex areas and thus overloading your setup? What settings are you using and whats your rig?

It's not the 90mb, it's wondering if Java runs background processes all the time, puts an notification icon with pop up messages about updates etc.?

You only need java to create the batch file. Once you have it, you can remove java completely. I run my SLI setup with the external frame rate limiter. Using FSX to lock your frames will reduce your frame rates in complex scenery.

[Steve1969 8]

This site man! I had my IFR setup all finalized, then I read this thread and tore apart one of my PCs and stuck a second card into it and a bigger power supply.Can you guys share your enhancer settings for SLI and BP=0?I have SLI running fine, but I see only one card being used when I run GPU-Z and FSX. Furmark runs both cards so I know the setup is working.

Make sure you have SLI enabled in the Nvidia control panel, then in nHancer ensure that SLI Mode is set to Alternative Frame Rendering and the compatibility flags are ticked for 3,9,22,25. Prerender limit is set to 3, the rest is your preference re Nicks guide.

[Steve1969 8]

I don't care about Java. I'm interested into numbers connected to SLI performance. I have the GTX285 and have been playing with the idea of getting the 2nd card... but really don't know if it makes sense. Or if my PSU is powerful enough (750W).

BP=0 gave me the boost to increase my FSX settings. SLI has provided a few extra frames in some situations, however the real benefit is that it gets rid of spikes and glitches etc. However, if you are still using settings that overload your system, even SLI won't help. For me it allowed the smoothness of BP=0 with a few settings increase in my FSX settings and eliminated any glitches and texture flashing once I had found my sweet spot.The key is to set your FSX settings with BP=0 and unlimited frames with an external limiter so that flight is smooth and ignore the glitches and flashes. Once those settings have been found, enable SLI and the glitches, spikes and texture flashes should disappear. I prefer this since 2x High water kills my setup and I don't really like the look of it.

[Kosta 122]

You only need java to create the batch file. Once you have it, you can remove java completely. I run my SLI setup with the external frame rate limiter. Using FSX to lock your frames will reduce your frame rates in complex scenery.

Errm, wrong. You don't *need* java to create the batch file. You can type it yourself. Or even don't need batch file, a shortcut is enough, then just change it to (for example):"F:\FSX\FPS Limiter\FPS_Limiter.exe" /r:D3D9 /f:30 /x:OFF /l:OFF "F:\FSX\fsx.exe"

[PingPong 60]

Hey GuysI implemeted this tweak on Win 7 and keep gettig CTDs with G2D.dll, did you guys have this problem, when it works it's great and both cards are used with no texture problems, but when I fly over PacNW, then the sim loads to about 27% and crashes to desktop.Any Ideas?

[davew_uk 1]

If any one knows of a way to get FSX to use Crossfire I'd be keen to know!!

OK - I answered my own question again. I don't know if this is news to the FSX old-timers here, but in case it helps another newbie here's what I found out:-It seems that Vista SP1 added support for multiple GPU configurations in *all* DX10 games. Prior to Vista SP1 you need a hotfix as you can see here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710Windows 7 seems to have this feature built-in....so if you run FSX in DX10 preview mode on Vista SP1 or Windows 7, and have an SLI or Crossfire rig, it'll use both GPU's. The Crossfire status icon doesn't appear however. I checked crossfire was working by looking at GPU-Z's sensor page and both GPUs do indeed seem to be working hard in this configuration. In DX9 mode, only one of my 3870X2's GPU gets used.Now this is the interesting bit - I found a tool that can force Crossfire mode in any DX9 game (look here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=293467) and had some success with it in FSX, but only in Vista. In Windows 7 x64 (my desktop is dual boot) I could not get it to work at all.If you want to give it a try, create an FSX profile by clicking the add button and setting up the path to FSX. The settings I used were:-CrossFire Method: Split-Frame Rendering (SFR)Force Crossfire Support: checkedRendering Method: Direct3DPre-defined profile: fsx.exeI'm not sure there was any performance improvement but it was nice to see the crossfire logo appear and both GPUs seemed to be busy.Kind regardsDave

[as355f 0]

OK - I answered my own question again. I don't know if this is news to the FSX old-timers here, but in case it helps another newbie here's what I found out:-It seems that Vista SP1 added support for multiple GPU configurations in *all* DX10 games. Prior to Vista SP1 you need a hotfix as you can see here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710Windows 7 seems to have this feature built-in....so if you run FSX in DX10 preview mode on Vista SP1 or Windows 7, and have an SLI or Crossfire rig, it'll use both GPU's. The Crossfire status icon doesn't appear however. I checked crossfire was working by looking at GPU-Z's sensor page and both GPUs do indeed seem to be working hard in this configuration. In DX9 mode, only one of my 3870X2's GPU gets used.Now this is the interesting bit - I found a tool that can force Crossfire mode in any DX9 game (look here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=293467) and had some success with it in FSX, but only in Vista. In Windows 7 x64 (my desktop is dual boot) I could not get it to work at all.If you want to give it a try, create an FSX profile by clicking the add button and setting up the path to FSX. The settings I used were:-CrossFire Method: Split-Frame Rendering (SFR)Force Crossfire Support: checkedRendering Method: Direct3DPre-defined profile: fsx.exeI'm not sure there was any performance improvement but it was nice to see the crossfire logo appear and both GPUs seemed to be busy.Kind regardsDave

Yup.When I was running 2 4870's a while back Crossfire worked for me once I had SP1 installed.Not the performance increase I saw with my Voodoo cards and probably FS3 or 4 back in the day when SLI first hit the scene. :( Now I'm reminiscing... :(

[Steve1969 8]

Hey GuysI implemeted this tweak on Win 7 and keep gettig CTDs with G2D.dll, did you guys have this problem, when it works it's great and both cards are used with no texture problems, but when I fly over PacNW, then the sim loads to about 27% and crashes to desktop.Any Ideas?

G2D.dll (or was it G3D.dll?) errors are normally linked to corrupt or missing textures. If it works with a single card OK, I would try some different drivers. I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers under XP64 with no problem using PacNW.Use nhancer and change anti aliasing and filtering to application. Also if you are using the ENBSeries bloom mod, disable that since it has its own direct x dll located in the FSX directory called d3d9.dll. You can do this by renaming the dll. I'm not saying any of this is the problem, we just need to reduce the number of variables.

[PingPong 60]

G2D.dll (or was it G3D.dll?) errors are normally linked to corrupt or missing textures. If it works with a single card OK, I would try some different drivers. I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers under XP64 with no problem using PacNW.Use nhancer and change anti aliasing and filtering to application. Also if you are using the ENBSeries bloom mod, disable that since it has its own direct x dll located in the FSX directory called d3d9.dll. You can do this by renaming the dll. I'm not saying any of this is the problem, we just need to reduce the number of variables.

Yeah I was reading some more about this, I think I am going to do an uninstal/reinstall of PacNW and see how that does.Thanks.

[davew_uk 1]

Now this is the interesting bit - I found a tool that can force Crossfire mode in any DX9 game (look here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=293467) and had some success with it in FSX, but only in Vista. In Windows 7 x64 (my desktop is dual boot) I could not get it to work at all.

After a little more experimentation, I strongly recommend a backup first if you decide to try this utility. I haven't found out how to roll back the changes it makes :( Kind regardsDave

[davew_uk 1]

I haven't found out how to roll back the changes it makes :(

I have found a way to roll back the changes. Set the Crossfire mode to "Auto - Determine best by driver" and it will go back to normal.For me, AFR (alternate frame rendering) gives the lowest GPU load but I get an odd problem with the loading dialog and menus not appearing. In SFR (split frame rendering) I get odd black flashes on water (with or without the shader mod). Supertiling is the only mode that worked without any artefacts for me.Was anyone else brave enough to try it?Dave

[PingPong 60]

Was anyone else brave enough to try it?Dave

I am working on it now, it looks promising, but I am having weather problems, namely that there are not enough clouds loading...just getting this up and running tonight so more testing is in order.

[davew_uk 1]

I ended up settling on Supertiling as my chosen Crossfire mode. It doesn't give the lowest GPU load (AFR is by far the winner there) but I don't get any odd glitches with the loading progress bar or menus, and I don't see any odd black flashes or other artefacts.Also, in the end I found a way to make it work in Windows 7 x64 (basically by using one of the other profiles to create a renamed copy of the FSX.exe and FSX.cfg to fool the driver into thinking I was loading some other program) but I couldn't see progress bars or menus in any of the Crossfire modes and gave up. Not being able to even see the "end flight" dialog was a real PIA.Anyway, all said and done what I found really interesting is that DX10 games will automatically use multiple GPUs if they are there without any prompting. Maybe that explains why some people get such great results with DX10 Preview and others don't. I'm definately inclined to take a good hard look at DX10 Preview and see if I can live with it. I'm also going to stick my neck out and recommend the Catalyst 10.4 drivers, my FSX performance has never been better even without tweaks.Kind regardsDave