Best SLI Rendering mode for Medieval 2 Total War?

[TheRyuu]

The Nvidia drivers don't have one so has anyone tried anything out?

Right now I have it on AFR and it seems to play really smooth except when in battle I click and you see the green arrows (not the one on the men, the one that appears when you click for movement) and the game just slow down for as long as the arrows are there.

Anyone else had this problem? Is it just not SLI?
I'll try out a few other kinds of rendering (there's only like 4 anyway) so what has anyone else found to be the best?

Update:
Anyway, I've found a SLI profile for it in the new 96.98 WHQL drivers from Nvidia. They are designed for the 8800's series card but you can copy out the nvapps.xml file which has all the SLI profiles in it.

nvapps
(rapidshare link)
Just if anyone wants it. It's the biggest nvapps file that I've seen to date.
And if anyone doubt that the copy and paste works, I put a nvapps file from 93.71 into the 84.37 driver, and SLI worked just fine.
It seems that the nvapps file doesn't really matter which driver version that you have since they are all in the same "format" on the inside.

Just install your normal drivers as usual and then when your done, copy and paste the new nvapps file into the windows/system32 folder and overwrite the old one. Then reboot just in case.

 

[TheRyuu]

Anybody try it out?
AFR seems to be the best option.

 

[josh6079]

IIRC, AFR and AFRII are the best for SLI. If AFR is doing okay except for a few spots I'd try out AFRII and see if there is a difference.

 

[nitromullet]

Get FRAPS, display the FPS, and try them all to see which one is the best... It's a pain, but it's the easiest way to determine which mode is the best. In my experience, one will generally be vastly superior to the rest or there will be almost no difference between any of them. If you aren't happy with SLI performance or are experiencing something that seems kind of weird, don't forget to try disabling SLI to see how that works. Sometimes there is a reason NV didn't give you an SLI profile.

 

[TheRyuu]

Alright, seems regular AFR is the best for the game.
SPR is the worst out of all of them.
Then Single GPU is tied with AFR2 at second place.

And then there's regular AFR which seems the best. I tried to make all the benchmarks even. Same kind of men (i did a custom battle then saved the battle so it's the same each time).

AFR=30fps
AFR2 and single gpu=20-25fps
SFR=17fps

Weird that single gpu scored higher then sfr. Hmm.
Now to see what settings give me better fps. Any ideas there? (like texture settings?)

This is with exact rig in sig.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Alright, seems regular AFR is the best for the game.
SPR is the worst out of all of them.
Then Single GPU is tied with AFR2 at second place.

And then there's regular AFR which seems the best. I tried to make all the benchmarks even. Same kind of men (i did a custom battle then saved the battle so it's the same each time).

AFR=30fps
AFR2 and single gpu=20-25fps
SFR=17fps

Weird that single gpu scored higher then sfr. Hmm.
Now to see what settings give me better fps. Any ideas there? (like texture settings?)

This is with exact rig in sig.

IIRC, isn't it Split-Screen Rendering (SSR)? One GPU gets one half of the screen and one gets the other. Unless there is a Split-Frame Rendering (SFR) mode now. I'm just curious.

Also, does anyone know if G80 SLI allows SuperSampling AA?

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Alright, seems regular AFR is the best for the game.
SPR is the worst out of all of them.
Then Single GPU is tied with AFR2 at second place.

And then there's regular AFR which seems the best. I tried to make all the benchmarks even. Same kind of men (i did a custom battle then saved the battle so it's the same each time).

AFR=30fps
AFR2 and single gpu=20-25fps
SFR=17fps

Weird that single gpu scored higher then sfr. Hmm.
Now to see what settings give me better fps. Any ideas there? (like texture settings?)

This is with exact rig in sig.

IIRC, isn't it Split-Screen Rendering (SSR)? One GPU gets one half of the screen and one gets the other. Unless there is a Split-Frame Rendering (SFR) mode now. I'm just curious.

Also, does anyone know if G80 SLI allows SuperSampling AA?

Under the SLI Rendering modes it says, and I quote, "Split-frame rendering", thus "SFR"
I've never heard it called SSR. And the "SPR" is a typo. And Nvidia uses some calculation to split the screen so that it's the most balanced (like one card may get 2/3 of the screen if those 2/3 are not that demanding while the more demanding 1/3 of the screen gets the other card (like 2/3 might be the sky...etc..)

Anyway, I've found a SLI profile for it in the new 96.98 WHQL drivers from Nvidia. They are designed for the 8800's series card but you can copy out the nvapps.xml file which has all the SLI profiles in it.

nvapps
(rapidshare link)
Just if anyone wants it. It's the biggest nvapps file that I've seen to date.
And if anyone doubt that the copy and paste works, I put a nvapps file from 93.71 into the 84.37 driver, and SLI worked just fine.
It seems that the nvapps file doesn't really matter which driver version that you have since they are all in the same "format" on the inside.

Just install your normal drivers as usual and then when your done, copy and paste the new nvapps file into the windows/system32 folder and overwrite the old one. Then reboot just in case.

 

[josh6079]

Under the SLI Rendering modes it says, and I quote, "Split-frame rendering", thus "SFR"
I've never heard it called SSR. And the "SPR" is a typo. And Nvidia uses some calculation to split the screen so that it's the most balanced (like one card may get 2/3 of the screen if those 2/3 are not that demanding while the more demanding 1/3 of the screen gets the other card (like 2/3 might be the sky...etc..)

Doh! I'm such an idiot. Yeah, after thinking about it for just a second I remembered that the screen is a frame (i.e. Split-Frame Rendering means to split one of the frames the graphic cards project between the two of them. Thus, one frame is also one of the frames that gets displayed to the screen, making the Split-Frame also a Split-Screen, so it is essentially the same thing. Nvidia simply calls it Split-Frame Rendering (SFR))

Sorry for the stupid post....