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GTX 970 SLI unstable?

Pooherino ツ

Hi guys, so I have a GTX 970, and i am planning to get another one to run in SLI. My friend also have an MSI Gaming 970 ( mine is the G1 gaming). So I borrowed his to try it out. I played Far Cry 4 with both of the cards running in SLI. But I dont understand why it is so unstable, it lags and stutters like crazy, specially in 4k. In 1440p its a little bit better but still unbearable. Im pretty sure I set them up right. Nvidia GeForce says the driver is up to date (347.25). Please help. Thank you.

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Probably because Nvidia lied to everyone that bought the cards and they don't have as much VRAM as Nvidia claims.

 

Don't buy another one from the company that lies to you.

what?

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mine was overclocked at one point, but I reset it.

 

What CPU do you have? Check your GPU usage in MSI afterburner.

blackshades on

 

 

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what?

Nvidia advertised the 970s as having 4GB of VRAM. They really only have 3.5GB of actual useable VRAM. This causes lots of problems in SLI and especially at higher resolutions, to my knowledge.

PCPartPicker link: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/R6GTGX

Привет товарищ ))))

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What CPU do you have? Check your GPU usage in MSI afterburner.

I have the i7 4790k, im pretty sure its not bottlenecking the cards. What do mean checking its usage?

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Probably because Nvidia lied to everyone that bought the cards and they don't have as much VRAM as Nvidia claims.

 

Don't buy another one from the company that lies to you.

 

I don't know if trolling or what...

 

But you realise the 970 HAS 4GB of VRAM, it simply does not use it all - there is some problem that inhibits it from using all of the 4GB, and caps at 3.7GB? I have the 970 and its an awesome card, the performance is incredible.

 

We still don't know if a firmware update will solve this problem.

Planning on trying StarCitizen (Highly recommended)? STAR-NR5P-CJFR is my referal link 

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I have the i7 4790k, im pretty sure its not bottlenecking the cards. What do mean checking its usage?

 

Yeah that CPU  won't bottleneck the cards haha.

Check the GPU usage of your graphics cards in MSI afterburner, you will be able to view the usage of the cards.

Example: Are the cards being used 100%?

Did you also enable SLI in the nvidia control panel and what motherboard do you have?

blackshades on

 

 

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Nvidia advertised the 970s as having 4GB of VRAM. They really only have 3.5GB of actual useable VRAM. This causes lots of problems in SLI and especially at higher resolutions, to my knowledge.

 

 

I don't know if trolling or what...

 

But you realise the 970 HAS 4GB of VRAM, it simply does not use it all - there is some problem that inhibits it from using all of the 4GB, and caps at 3.7GB? I have the 970 and its an awesome card, the performance is incredible.

 

We still don't know if a firmware update will solve this problem.

Thats suck to know... Are they gonna fix the problem?

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I don't know if trolling or what...

 

But you realise the 970 HAS 4GB of VRAM, it simply does not use it all - there is some problem that inhibits it from using all of the 4GB, and caps at 3.7GB? I have the 970 and its an awesome card, the performance is incredible.

 

We still don't know if a firmware update will solve this problem.

You don't know if trolling? I could ask you the same question.

 

Read my next post in this thread. The card shits out after 3.5GB of VRAM, rendering the last .5GB VRAM useless. Especially in SLI.

PCPartPicker link: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/R6GTGX

Привет товарищ ))))

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Yeah that CPU  won't bottleneck the cards haha.

Check the GPU usage of your graphics cards in MSI afterburner, you will be able to view the usage of the cards.

Example: Are the cards being used 100%?

Did you also enable SLI in the nvidia control panel and what motherboard do you have?

Yes I enable SLI in Nvidia Control Panel. As I said, Im pretty sure I got it set up right. I have the Asus z97a

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Yes I enable SLI in Nvidia Control Panel. As I said, Im pretty sure I got it set up right. I have the Asus z97a

 

Just making sure haha.

Do you have any other games to test? Farcry 4 isn't too great.

blackshades on

 

 

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Just making sure haha.

Do you have any other games to test? Farcry 4 isn't too great.

I havent tried Shadow Of Mordor, Arkham Origins and Skyrim. Since we didnt have time. But I think it should work with Far Cry 4 since it is one of Nvidia's game-ish. Cus like Nvidia logo shows up when u start the game.

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I run 970 SLI in Far Cry 4 with max settings including simulated fur etc at 2560x1440. No issues with what could be considered instability. It might just be that two different cards aren't playing nice together. Ideally you want each card in SLI to be the same card.

 

Download MSI afterburner and run it, checking the GPU usage for both cards and see what's going on. Maybe one is getting low usage.

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I run 970 SLI in Far Cry 4 with max settings including simulated fur etc at 2560x1440. No issues with what could be considered instability. It might just be that two different cards aren't playing nice together. Ideally you want each card in SLI to be the same card.

 

Download MSI afterburner and run it, checking the GPU usage for both cards and see what's going on. Maybe one is getting low usage.

What is your memory usage? As long as you stay below 4 GB, you are fine. Once you go above, the situation can arise when the cards will need to use more than 4 GB of VRAM, since the memory is mirrored. And because cards can only work with either 3.5 or 0.5 segments on the same clock, not both, when one of the cards on its clock cycle works with 4 GB, the second one might not be able to acess the 3.5 GB if it needs to during that clock. Hence, you can get this :

 

 

Nobody says GTX 970 in SLI doesnt work at all. But the chances of performance degradation are orders of magnitude higher than if using conventionally designed GPUs. And even then, the usage of additional 0.5 memory is dependant on software. If software (drivers, API) does not correctly know how to allocate into 0.5, or even worse, its optimisation algorhytms make even 1 slight mistake and allocate into 0.5 something that is very bandwith sensitive, then your performance will drop into single digits. GTX 970 SLI are ok, when nothing is wrong. But the chance of things go wrong is 10x higher than with GTX 980. Or any current AMD GPU for that matter. Thats why so many people are complaining about GTX 970 stuttering in sli. All it takes is for your OS to allocate 1 wrong byte into the 0.5, and it all goes to hell.

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What is your memory usage? As long as you stay below 4 GB, you are fine. Once you go above, the situation can arise when the cards will need to use more than 4 GB of VRAM, since the memory is mirrored. And because cards can only work with either 3.5 or 0.5 segments on the same clock, not both, when one of the cards on its clock cycle works with 4 GB, the second one might not be able to acess the 3.5 GB if it needs to during that clock. Hence, you can get this :

 

 

 

Usually my VRAM usage is about 3.6-3.7GB. Depends on what's happening in the scene at the time. Not close to 4GB, but then I'm not forcing 8x AA and supersampling through the control panel either. Things like that will cause major slide show gameplay.

 

Something else is happening in that video because those textures are corrupting. I never get anything like that and my cards are running 1460/7600

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Usually my VRAM usage is about 3.6-3.7GB. Depends on what's happening in the scene at the time. Not close to 4GB, but then I'm not forcing 8x AA and supersampling through the control panel either. Things like that will cause major slide show gameplay.

 

Something else is happening in that video because those textures are corrupting. I never get anything like that and my cards are running 1460/7600

Then it means that the drivers and OS know what parts of Crysis data they can safely send into the slower memory. But what if you want to play a new game that nVidia didn't optimise their drivers for, and think what can happen when GTX 970 is no logner their newest GPU and priority for optimisation, and they will need to give up on optimisations specifically done for GTX 970 and work on newer GPU drivers.

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Then it means that the drivers and OS know what parts of Crysis data they can safely send into the slower memory. But what if you want to play a new game that nVidia didn't optimise their drivers for, and think what can happen when GTX 970 is no logner their newest GPU and priority for optimisation, and they will need to give up on optimisations specifically done for GTX 970 and work on newer GPU drivers.

 

When that happens the 970 will be too slow anyway and I'll have to upgrade to keep up.

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When that happens the 970 will be too slow anyway and I'll have to upgrade to keep up.

Fair enough. Then for you, there are no issues at you will replace the GTX 970 at the first moment nVidia fails to optimise their drivers. Just to be clear - the moment the next generation comes out, you should start looking into upgrading, since no manufacturer spends more resources than the absolute minimum they have to on their latest gen hardware. GTX 970 is a card that requires specific optimisations, done just for it, and other GPUs in 900 lineup recieve 0 benefits from them. Right now however, the worst you will have is a few days waiting for a new optimised dirver that will fix all the performance issues of GTX 970 quickly. Like it already happened. But that wont happen for too long.

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Fair enough. Then for you, there are no issues at you will replace the GTX 970 at the first moment nVidia fails to optimise their drivers. Just to be clear - the moment the next generation comes out, you should start looking into upgrading, since no manufacturer spends more resources than the absolute minimum they have to on their latest gen hardware. GTX 970 is a card that requires specific optimisations, done just for it, and other GPUs in 900 lineup recieve 0 benefits from them. Right now however, the worst you will have is a few days waiting for a new optimised dirver that will fix all the performance issues of GTX 970 quickly. Like it already happened. But that wont happen for too long.

 

So you assume. We don't know that it requires specific things on a per game basis. Speculation is pretty meaningless.

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You're running two different cards that are running at different clock speeds. That's why you're having issues

For SLI you want matched pairs of cards

Core I7 5960X / Gigabyte X99 SOC Force / Kingston 16GB DDR4 3000 / EVGA GTX 980 Classified's In Quad SLI / EVGA 1600W G2

Core I7 6700K / Asus Z170 Maximus VIII Hero / Corsair 16GB DDR4 3000 / MSI R9 290X Lightning / EVGA 1600W T2

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So you assume. We don't know that it requires specific things on a per game basis. Speculation is pretty meaningless.

They pretty much said it already. Their whole defence of the 3.5+0.5 based around the fact that "if we manage memory in a smart way, the performance difference in negligeble" - and by the way, that is absolute truth. Memory allocation and management is done by the drivers and OS. Memory allocation optimisation is nothing new, its been around forever. However, since Windows was not designed with GTX 970 in mind, its all up to nVidia drivers. Since they already said that the 0.5 is only allocated when they detect an application/function that needs it, it means that the optimisation is done on per-application basis. Of course, they also have general algorhytms that can try to work out something for a game that was not incuded in their drivers specifically. But those are far less efficient. We can speculate when nVidia will stop taking into consideration optimisations for GTX 970 memory. But the fact that it requires specifc things on per-game basis is undeniable, they pretty much told everyone already.

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