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Vista dont like SLi with certain configs?

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Freaky_Llama

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Feb 3, 2007
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In a state, in a country, on a planet
I wanted to search, but I dont know how to classify this efficiently. I also feel this more of a OS issue than vga issues.


For Vista 32 bit, I have everything I mention below.

Vista was doing great with 1 EVGA 8600Gt. System specs stated 3GB and my 3d graphics rating was 5.5.
I added another 8600GT, and now Vista reports 2.75GB, and my graphics rating never changed.

After reading somewhere that Vista counts VGA memory as part of the addressed system memory, I pulled my 2 512MB sticks out so only 2GB were left, and Vista then reports 2GB and my 3d graphics score went to 5.8.

The cards are both 256MB cards, but is the second card causing the 4GB limit to flip out? Anyone encountered this or have any advice?

I am installing updates for XP x64 until I can obtain Vista x64. Also, please don't be typical and tell me to get new cards. Thats not the issue here.
 
Well for memory config at least.

I don't know about lesser configs of memory but if I had 3Gigs of ram in my system it would show 2.5Gigs with a 512Meg card. So maybe just having 3Gigs and 1 card just put it under the limitation of the basic OS to handle. Adding that extra card probably put it over the limit and hence why you saw system memory drop a bit.

As for Vista's rating, don't go by that really it doesn't mean to much. As well while yes you can blame the OS really its nVidia's drivers that cause the issues with performance of the card and surely the test doesn't support SLI or even Crossfire.
 
I'm not sure what you're saying the issue is. For the Vista rating I wouldn't put too much stock into it's results. If you really want to check the performance difference use something like 3dmark, or a time demo from one of your games.

I would leave the 2 512mb sticks in. A 32bit O/S will use some of that for system addressing, but Vista in particular can put what's left to good use(Superfetch). I'm showing 3.07gb of 4gb in Vista32.
 
Well I was only referring to the performance results in Vista as knowing if SLi was running or not and Vista detecting it. As I said, after I installed the 2 cards, the 3d graphic rating stayed at 5.5, and after pulling 1 of 3GB, the rating went to 5.8. I'm not basing anything off of it, other than it appears to be working.

I dont need to benchmark anything either as performance in Vista is garbage except for Lost Planet (ironically) After removing that gig o ram, my FPS in BF2142 did go to 99.9 up from 72.6.

My main concern thats kinda weird to me is the 32bit OS's memory management. The 512MB of added memory from the 2 vga cards seem to affect the full system ram. The only reason I can see this is system ram still needs to address vga ram, correct?
 
Freaky_Llama said:
My main concern thats kinda weird to me is the 32bit OS's memory management. The 512MB of added memory from the 2 vga cards seem to affect the full system ram. The only reason I can see this is system ram still needs to address vga ram, correct?

As I understand it, that's correct. I don't fully comprehend how memory management works in a 32bit O/S though. It's something I've been meaning to read up on, but haven't gotten to it yet.

My gaming performance in Vista isn't bad at all. It's slightly lower than XP, but I'd only be able to tell by looking at the fps counter in game.

Benchmarking is useful to see what kind of results you're getting from tweaks. I like to bench because you can put a value on a particular tweak to see if it's worthwhile. You can also test out different driver versions, and use the one that gives the best performance vs video quality. The latest driver isn't always the best.
 
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