SLI image quality problems - anyone else?

G

grit

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2002
Messages
136
System is as follows:

Asus A8N-SLI deluxe, AMD FX-55, Crucial Ballistix 512MBx2, eVGA GF6800GT x2, Creative Audigy, WD and Maxtor SATA HDDs, Toshiba DVD, Plextor DVD+/-RW, Enermax 600 watt PSU, Viewsonic 1600x1200 LCD monitor.

Regardless of drivers or BIOSes, the image quality when in SLI mode of most games (HL2, WoW, SW:KotOR) has tearing. I've seen some people refer to "texture shimmering", and one a thread on another forum with a screenshot of the problem. I have tried v-sync enabled and disabled, both via in-game and via drivers. This includes up to the 71.84 beta drivers. The 75.xx drivers crashed SW:KotOR at the menu, so I didn't continue. When I operate in "single GPU" mode, the problem does not exist. Half-Life 2 and WoW are on the list of supported SLI games, yet the tearing when turning my character's view is dramatic. All of my games are updated to the current patch.

Also, regardless of single or SLI mode, I can not enter S3 standby.

I've also tried an ATI X850XT, and these problems do not exit using the Catalyst 5.2 drivers.

Has anyone else noticed this problem? I have a hard time believing anyone would be excited about SLI when this problem exists, which leaves me hope that the problem can be corrected on my end.
 
Have you tried to overclock your cards in SLI? If so you can only overclock as far as your weakest card.

Do problems occur in any other games?
Maybe one of the 6800 GT's is not good and it should be RMAed.

Maybe try both 6800 GTs in the single card slot and see if one is better or if one is not working right.
 
No overclocking. Both cards work well as single cards, so no problems there.
 
Actually, my LCD is 1600x1200, and when you turn AA & AF on at that resolution, it can make a difference in playability.
 
This is a driver bug. There seems to be an issue with Coordinated-Video-Timing and SLI. It only happens on some regular LCD monitors like the viewsonic you mentioned and my Samsung 213T. It also seems to happen to every widescreen monitor as far as I can tell.

Im not sure Nvidia is fully aware of this problem. Im sure they know about it, but since their owners haven't screamed much on the forums they are probably putting it on the back burner.

Make your mark on their forums and maybe they will fix this issue in the next driver update.

Widescreen DVI Bug
Screen Jitters
 
I've noticed it doesn't occur on OpenGL games (Doom3, Call of Duty), but is a problem in other games (Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft).
 
Are you connected VIA DVI? If your monitor has two input options try the VGA connect... If not, then you are SOL and will have to wait for Nvidia to fix the prob via driver updates (or I am sure you can salvage an older CRT form somewhere if it bugs you that much)
 
It bugs, but I'd rather switch to single card mode than lose crispness.
 
Hello,
Just got my SLI system up and running.
Asus A8N-SLI deluxe, AMD FX-53, 2 BFG's 6800 Geforce Ultras.
Loaded up Half-life 2 and got the screen jitters.
I am running in Widescreen mode 1680 x 1050 on my Dell 2005 FPW Digital monitor.

When I walk around in the game, it is fine. When I stand still, it jitters, mostly in the center of the screen.

Windows XP runs fine in the 1680 x 1050 res.

Help! Anyone have any ideas!!!

thanks,
Grease

www.tattoosfromgrease.com
 
I think some of the games mentioned in the article are supported in the 71.84 beta drivers. I've seen mention of two issues, one is the tearning/no v-sync problem. The other is video corruption on monitors/resolutions that are not 4:3 ratios (eg, widescreen LCDs).

So far, still no word on the nvidia forums from nvidia that I can find.
 
It must be an issue w/widescreen DVI on LCDs as my Sony 24" CRT connected through BNC does not have this problem.
 
You and the forum.
I want to see if anyone else running in Widescreen mode get the jitters. I think the problem is in the widescreen format. (16:9 vers 4:3)
Hope this answered your question.
Are you running in Widescreen??

thanks,
Grease
 
Greasetattoo said:
You and the forum.
I want to see if anyone else running in Widescreen mode get the jitters. I think the problem is in the widescreen format. (16:9 vers 4:3)
Hope this answered your question.
Are you running in Widescreen??

thanks,
Grease
Click to expand...
Yes, but it may not apply as I use a CRT at 1920x1200 which uses either VGA or BNC (currently on BNC) and it does not have any problems. So I do not think it is the widescreen format but the DVI connection of an LCD using in a widescreen resolution.
 
I'm just using 1600x1200, but the problem is tearing, as in no vsync under directx games. OpenGL seems to be fine.
 
I can definitely confirm the Widescreen DVI problem.

I am running 2x eVGA 6800 Ultras, FW 76.10 betas (though it hasn't mattered which version), on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, bios version 1006, with 2gb Corsair XMS3200XL memory, on a Sony 23" SDM-P234 widescreen monitor.

In every game I've tested it on (including HL2, Doom 3, and World of Warcraft (now supported in 76.10)) has an annoying jitter when running at the native 1920x1200 resolution. Two solutions I have heard and confirm "work" are to either
run the game in a window (dropping performance mightily and putting the window bar at the top)​
or​
change to a 4:3 resolution (I can confirm 1600x1200 works for the games I've tested)​

While both of these are workable solutions, I'd do much better for myself to just disable SLI and run off one video card -- it'll look better than a stretched 4:3 res and higher fps than in a window. nVidia should really at least let their customers know what the status of this problem is. If the problem will NEVER be addressed, we deserve to know.
 
I don't know if this is possible as I don't own an LCD but those that do can you hook up both a DVI and analog connection and then simply switch between the two. That is, only if analog works in lue of DVI.
 
Xtreme G's 71.84 drivers available here seem to actually offer an improvement to the problem (and I've tried a bunch of different ones). It's not perfect, and your mileage will almost certainly vary, but it's made World of Warcraft playable in SLI for me (Half-Life 2 still jitters quite a lot, though).
 
AMD Athlon FX-53 (939 pin) Retail
Vaporchill LS
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Kingston HyperX (Dual Pack) 184 Pin 2GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
2 BFG 6800 Ultra OC Retail
Plextor 12X DVDRW Drive, Model PX-712A Black, Retail
Lite-On 52x/32x/52x CDRW Drive (Black)
WD 200gb 8mb
Raptor 74gb
PC Cooling 510 SLI power supply
Windows XP Home

Well this is how I fixed my jitters in Half-life 2 with SLI using a Dell 2005FPW. (Thanks to Glimmerman)
I changed my video cable to the D-sub and not the Digital cable. (DVI).
I can run Half-life 2 in 1600 X 1024 (widescreen 16:10)
Doe'snt Jitter and looks pretty damn good.
But, my desktop type is kinda fuzzy.
I increased the size of the type and still a little fuzzy.
Not as sharp as with my DVI connector.
Can I hook up both the DVI and D-sub connector? Is there a way to switch between the two....
Hope this helps everyone.

Grease
 
grit said:
I'm just using 1600x1200, but the problem is tearing, as in no vsync under directx games. OpenGL seems to be fine.
Click to expand...

Well what I've done to minimize this is to setup really high AF and AA at 1600x1200 which clears the problem up for me in everything so far. The reason I think that it clears things up is that it slows the FPS down so much that the tearing doesn't occur.

It seems to me that this tearing is no different than what you experience when you've got a CRT set to a really low refresh rate, and when your actual FPS far exceeds that of the refresh rate, the tearing effect occurs.

Last night I got this on Doom 3, enabling AA and AF @ 1600x1200 seems to have corrected the issues I was having with this.

For Direct X games, I have enabled V-Sync in the SLi profiles for the game. That seems to have solved the issue for me. I am currently using the 71.84 WHQL certified drivers.

Greasetattoo said:
AMD Athlon FX-53 (939 pin) Retail
Vaporchill LS
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Kingston HyperX (Dual Pack) 184 Pin 2GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
2 BFG 6800 Ultra OC Retail
Plextor 12X DVDRW Drive, Model PX-712A Black, Retail
Lite-On 52x/32x/52x CDRW Drive (Black)
WD 200gb 8mb
Raptor 74gb
PC Cooling 510 SLI power supply
Windows XP Home

Well this is how I fixed my jitters in Half-life 2 with SLI using a Dell 2005FPW. (Thanks to Glimmerman)
I changed my video cable to the D-sub and not the Digital cable. (DVI).
I can run Half-life 2 in 1600 X 1024 (widescreen 16:10)
Doe'snt Jitter and looks pretty damn good.
But, my desktop type is kinda fuzzy.
I increased the size of the type and still a little fuzzy.
Not as sharp as with my DVI connector.
Can I hook up both the DVI and D-sub connector? Is there a way to switch between the two....
Hope this helps everyone.

Grease
Click to expand...

Yes you can use both inputs, but it is a pain in the ass. If your monitor has two inputs, hook up both cables to the card and to the monitor. Then you can go into the Nview settings and force the display to (clone mode) This will activate both, ports on the card.

Now I haven't done that myself, but my tearing issues have been solved. I am using a 1600x1200 LCD. So no widescreen for me. The only thing that concerns me about display cloning, is that I've heard theres a massive performance hit when you enabling dual monitors on the 6800 series cards. I do not know if there is truth in that.
 
Just as an update. Everytime I use any driver for SLi other than the 71.84's I get the dreaded DVI-Bug. Which blows goats.

And 71.84 doesn't let me overclock my cards. My solutions all suck.

Use 71.84's with no OC'ing. (Sucks ass)
Use 71.84's and modify the cards BIOS'es for higher core clock speeds (Risky and possibly an issue should I need warranty replacement)

Use another driver and cable my LCD up as analog (This sucks hardcore ass as it looks really bad when viewing the desktop. )
Use another driver and connect my CRT monitor and use it instead. (While this sounds good, the LCD is much prefferable to the CRT due to it being much easier on my eyes and because I prefer the more vivid colors of the LCD.)

I spent $400 per card for the video cards and $800 for a high resolution LCD monitor. Not being able to do everything I want to with my setup completely sucks ass. I wish Nvidia would get this fixed.

Really the thing to do here is to go back to 71.84 and wait it out. If I really feel the need to overclock I will have to modify the video card BIOS'es.

****EDIT: 76.10 seems to have fixed the DVI bug and allowed me to do some overclocking on my cards. I need to do some longer term stability testing, but so far it has allowed me to play games for a bit and to run two 3D Mark 05 tests with zero artifacts. I think this might work.

Now since I don't have a widescreen monitor I can't test for the widscreen DVI problem. So I can't comment on that being fixed, but the issues with regular LCD's seems to be solved in this new release. So in the next set of official drivers we should see an improvement here.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
And 71.84 doesn't let me overclock my cards. My solutions all suck.

Use 71.84's with no OC'ing. (Sucks ass)
Use 71.84's and modify the cards BIOS'es for higher core clock speeds (Risky and possibly an issue should I need warranty replacement)
.
Click to expand...

Even with 71.84's u could use riva tuner to overclock...
 
Mine was doing it, but it was the resolution. Seems that sli and widescreen dont like each other. I was running 1680x1050 and the issue was there, when i changed it to 1280x1024, the screen was ugly but the other issue was gone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top