ENABLE SLI. Including more then 20FPS. (Temp Fix)

jpsgamingb14_ESO · April 2014

Thanks goes to rcfsguy on the Nvidia forums for this workaround.

Dont change this unless you know what your doing or you at least know how to do a simple file edit.

There is no official SLI support yet for ESO from Nvidia. The Nvidia forums have been abuzz about it as well and Nvidia has announced they are working on the SLI profile.

This may not work for everyone but give it a try.

Sorry AMD owners no idea for you.

This has worked for many of us testing it and it gets about a 60/40 GPU usage on SLI (not half half but its better then nothing. AKA 1 GPU has 90% utilization the other has 80%.

Test were performed with EVGA precision and MSI afterburner.

Here is what you do.

NOTE - you must follow the below instructions cause if you only enable the alternate frame rendering and not the rest you will BE LOCKED at 20 (or for some 40 I think) FPS no matter what cards you have. Its just the way it works (Nvidia thing with alterante frame rendering). So you need to do the below to get more.

1. Go to your Nvidia control Panel > manage 3d Settings > Program settings >Add a profile for ESO (So you dont force this under global and change it for all your games)

2. Scroll down and find Multi GPU rendering mode > change it to Force alternate frame rendering 2.

Normally most people stop here but then they are stuck on 20 FPS.

To bypass that do the following.

Go to - C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live)
Username - Your profile name on the PC.

Under this folder open the Usersettings file. (use notepad if it isnt set by default.)

Find the following line - SET GPUSmoothingFrames "10"

Change it to - SET GPUSmoothingFrames "0" (Change the ten to a zero)

Find the following line - SET VSYNC "1"

Change it to - SET VSYNC "0"

(or you can change vsync to off in game if you dont want to permantantly disable it here)

Load your game and presto (for most cant guarantee all) it will run in SLI with not full 50/50 GPU split but closer to 60/40 split GPU. Thats still better then one GPU at 95% and the other at 5%.

My GTX 590 now runs at 90% GPU1 and 83% GPU2. Ive increased performance by about 20 - 30 FPS depending on the area.

I hope what I said makes sense and this will help a lot of people until Nvidia launches a real SLI profile.

Relyk04 · April 2014

Wow... worked for me... doubled my FPS from 40 to 80... That's a nice work around until the sli profiles are released. Very pleased. Thank you!

nlwlol · April 2014

Thank you very much, I've been looking for a temporary solution, you made my day!

Valethar · April 2014

Nice catch. Kicked me up to over 40fps at the bank in Daggerfall. I'm no longer walking through congealed mud when I go in there now. LOL

jpsgamingb14_ESO · April 2014

yeh a lot of people (myself included) were only doing the frame rendering part and not the actual file change.

Im glad its helping.

LuckyHermit · April 2014

Thanks for this.
I'm gonna try this when I get home.

kevin.nylundnrb19_ESO · April 2014

I did all this, but for some reason ESO rewrite the setupfile everytime I start it. So the values just resets and I'm stuck at 19.6 fps solid. I tried to make the setupfile "read only" but when I do that ESO gives me a "manifest" error as a slap in the face. Any tips as how to fix this?

Darzil · April 2014

Manifest error is probably caused by 5 of the 10 patchers being borked. You could try :

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/80209/found-the-root-cause-of-many-login-issues-with-workaround/p1

kevin.nylundnrb19_ESO · April 2014

I appreciate the lighting fast reply, but I might have explained my problem in a poor manner. I don't have any problems login in, that just happened because I made the
setupfile "read only". As soon as I unchecked the "read only" box I got in right a way. So there's no loginproblem. Just the fact that ESO rewrites the setupfile everytime I start it. Although, for some reason now It desided NOT to rewrite the file, so it's working just fine now

Thnx for the guide, btw

Yankee · April 2014

Nice, I will try this on my GTX 690 tonight. Thanks

psufan5 · April 2014

Ive done this with no real world performance gain. In fact the game crashes quite a bit doing so. I was better off making a profile for ESO.exe that would be single GPU only.

psufan5 · April 2014

jpsgamingb14_ESO wrote: »

Thanks goes to rcfsguy on the Nvidia forums for this workaround.

Dont change this unless you know what your doing or you at least know how to do a simple file edit.

There is no official SLI support yet for ESO from Nvidia. The Nvidia forums have been abuzz about it as well and Nvidia has announced they are working on the SLI profile.

This may not work for everyone but give it a try.

Sorry AMD owners no idea for you.

This has worked for many of us testing it and it gets about a 60/40 GPU usage on SLI (not half half but its better then nothing. AKA 1 GPU has 90% utilization the other has 80%.

Test were performed with EVGA precision and MSI afterburner.

Here is what you do.

NOTE - you must follow the below instructions cause if you only enable the alternate frame rendering and not the rest you will BE LOCKED at 20 (or for some 40 I think) FPS no matter what cards you have. Its just the way it works (Nvidia thing with alterante frame rendering). So you need to do the below to get more.

1. Go to your Nvidia control Panel > manage 3d Settings > Program settings >Add a profile for ESO (So you dont force this under global and change it for all your games)

2. Scroll down and find Multi GPU rendering mode > change it to Force alternate frame rendering 2.

Normally most people stop here but then they are stuck on 20 FPS.

To bypass that do the following.

Go to - C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live)
Username - Your profile name on the PC.

Under this folder open the Usersettings file. (use notepad if it isnt set by default.)

Find the following line - SET GPUSmoothingFrames "10"

Change it to - SET GPUSmoothingFrames "0" (Change the ten to a zero)

Find the following line - SET VSYNC "1"

Change it to - SET VSYNC "0"

(or you can change vsync to off in game if you dont want to permantantly disable it here)

Load your game and presto (for most cant guarantee all) it will run in SLI with not full 50/50 GPU split but closer to 60/40 split GPU. Thats still better then one GPU at 95% and the other at 5%.

My GTX 590 now runs at 90% GPU1 and 83% GPU2. Ive increased performance by about 20 - 30 FPS depending on the area.

I hope what I said makes sense and this will help a lot of people until Nvidia launches a real SLI profile.

Can't expect them to launch a real SLI profile, when this game doesn't even have a exclusive fullscreen mode. Thats on ESO, not NVidia.

rophez_ESO · April 2014

psufan5 wrote: »

Can't expect them to launch a real SLI profile, when this game doesn't even have a exclusive fullscreen mode. Thats on ESO, not NVidia.

SLI doesn't require full screen exclusive. Crossfire does, though.

Yankee · April 2014

This worked. Brought my GPU loads and temps very close to each other.

I have not measure FPS, but had no problem before. Definitely not worse.

jpsgamingb14_ESO · April 2014

rophez_ESO wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

Can't expect them to launch a real SLI profile, when this game doesn't even have a exclusive fullscreen mode. Thats on ESO, not NVidia.

SLI doesn't require full screen exclusive. Crossfire does, though.

Yup that is indeed true. SLI does NOT require full screen mode. I play every game that supports it in window full screen so I can still access my other monitors without minimizing the game and SLI works perfectly (for the games that have an SLI profile).

jpsgamingb14_ESO · April 2014

Also as said in the OP...this may not work for everyone.

Valethar · April 2014

The last patch apparently broke this. It was working fine for me up until then, and now I'm right back to the craptastic frame rates in Daggerfall, despite the changes.

It'll be nice when the game comes out of Beta and gets optimized. We'll just have to wait for the release client for that though.

RinaldoGandolphi · April 2014

Just an FYI, but doing this is not optimal.

AFR 1 and AFR 2 are old legacy methods of multi-gpu rendering. (AMD calls them AFR and AFR 1x1)

The reason this is not optimal is because AFR is very prone to "Micro-Stuttering" and this goes for both AMD and Nvidia. Its the reason both companies moved away from legacy AFR.

AMD Crossfire with supported games uses a "checkerboard" type of rendering.

Nvidia SLI uses SLI "Scan Line Interleave"

Both of these methods are much less prone to "Micro Stuttering" and is the reason you never see any official Nvidia or AMD multi-gpu game profiles using legacy AFR anymore.

Not all people even notice micro-stuttering, because every person and their eyes are different. Some folks like myself notice it right away, others may get headaches, their eyes feeling really tired, and other such symptoms from playing with micro-stuttering they may not even realize they are getting.

Its possible to get higher FPS such as 100FPS and still have micro stuttering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_frame_rendering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

I just want folks to be aware of this for health and other issues. Its the reason Nvidia isn't making a SLI profile for this game yet, because of the effects of micro stuttering with traditional AFR.

I still mail aMD every month (and used to when I had Nvidia SLI" telling them they really need to remove those old legacy AFR rendering modes from their drivers....in 9 out of 10 cases, all AFR does is cause micro stuttering even with higher frame rates. Not everyone notices it or is effected by it, but those who are may not actually see the micro stuttering, yet experience the symptoms listed above such as fatigued eyes, feeling tired, watery eyes, headaches, nausea, etc.

if your not being bothered by any of these issues, then game on, but if anyone out there has started to expereince any of these symptoms, then turn off AFR because some form of micro-stuttering is going on and its very hard on your eyes.

Good luck guys, Hopefully Nvidia, AMD , and Zenimax gets us a real fix soon!

Yankee · April 2014

Valethar wrote: »

The last patch apparently broke this. It was working fine for me up until then, and now I'm right back to the craptastic frame rates in Daggerfall, despite the changes.

It'll be nice when the game comes out of Beta and gets optimized. We'll just have to wait for the release client for that though.

Did you check to make sure the patch did not overwrite the changes to your ESO user configuration?

psufan5 · April 2014

UPDATE:

I trashed my user.txt file last night and started these steps from scratch. Everything works perfectly and I am now getting 80-100fps at 2560x1440 in SLI

FINALLY!

mantrius · April 2014

woodsro wrote: »

Just an FYI, but doing this is not optimal.

AFR 1 and AFR 2 are old legacy methods of multi-gpu rendering. (AMD calls them AFR and AFR 1x1)

The reason this is not optimal is because AFR is very prone to "Micro-Stuttering" and this goes for both AMD and Nvidia. Its the reason both companies moved away from legacy AFR.

AMD Crossfire with supported games uses a "checkerboard" type of rendering.

Nvidia SLI uses SLI "Scan Line Interleave"

Both of these methods are much less prone to "Micro Stuttering" and is the reason you never see any official Nvidia or AMD multi-gpu game profiles using legacy AFR anymore.

Not all people even notice micro-stuttering, because every person and their eyes are different. Some folks like myself notice it right away, others may get headaches, their eyes feeling really tired, and other such symptoms from playing with micro-stuttering they may not even realize they are getting.

Its possible to get higher FPS such as 100FPS and still have micro stuttering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_frame_rendering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

I just want folks to be aware of this for health and other issues. Its the reason Nvidia isn't making a SLI profile for this game yet, because of the effects of micro stuttering with traditional AFR.

I still mail aMD every month (and used to when I had Nvidia SLI" telling them they really need to remove those old legacy AFR rendering modes from their drivers....in 9 out of 10 cases, all AFR does is cause micro stuttering even with higher frame rates. Not everyone notices it or is effected by it, but those who are may not actually see the micro stuttering, yet experience the symptoms listed above such as fatigued eyes, feeling tired, watery eyes, headaches, nausea, etc.

if your not being bothered by any of these issues, then game on, but if anyone out there has started to expereince any of these symptoms, then turn off AFR because some form of micro-stuttering is going on and its very hard on your eyes.

Good luck guys, Hopefully Nvidia, AMD , and Zenimax gets us a real fix soon!

While there can be microstutter with AFR, that is the method that nvidia uses for SLI rendering no matter what you do, though there are some games that could use the older SFR but not many. SLI as used by Nvidia has nothing to do with Scan Line Interleave rendering other than the fact that Nvidia bought the rights to use the name from 3dfx when they went bankrupt. SLI currently means Scalable Link Interface when talking about Nvidia SLI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scan-Line_Interleave

snobaste · April 2014

Followed these exact steps, and while my GPUs (2 GTX 580s) are now at about equal usage, I'm not seeing anything above 30% on either card. My framerates are actually slightly worse.

Valethar · April 2014

Yankee wrote: »

Valethar wrote: »

The last patch apparently broke this. It was working fine for me up until then, and now I'm right back to the craptastic frame rates in Daggerfall, despite the changes.

It'll be nice when the game comes out of Beta and gets optimized. We'll just have to wait for the release client for that though.

Did you check to make sure the patch did not overwrite the changes to your ESO user configuration?

Yup. All of the settings were where they should be. Nothing had changed.

Maybe I'll trash the file like psufan5 mentioned, and see if that changes anything.

Viper_Infinity · April 2014

Worked magic on my game! Only one problem though.... Micro-stuttering is an issue i cannot live with

even at constant 60-70fps on dual nvidia 450's in SLI. had to revert to get constant 29-35 fps

Kahlar · April 2014

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
works GREAT! i have vsync (in game) and triple buffering to lock 60fps...
(this eliminated my micro-stutter)
both GPU working 50/50 on my 690GTX... a beautiful thing!

Viper_Infinity · April 2014

Kahlar wrote: »

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
works GREAT! i have vsync (in game) and triple buffering to lock 60fps...
(this eliminated my micro-stutter)
both GPU working 50/50 on my 690GTX... a beautiful thing!

OMG! that worked and got rid of my micro-stutters

My hero!

nirax · April 2014

confirming working 2x GTX 780TI on asus rampager extreme iv with ivy 4930k @ 4.7ghz. checked load distribution with nvidia inspector. resolution 2580x1440. all as high as possible. AA on
load on both cards is 50-90%
scaling is not perfect, but it gives some additional fps indeed. (i was rarely below 60 fps even with one card, but for crowded areas thats already an usable boost)

Cauthorn · April 2014

Thanks mate. Has worked a treat on my SLI GTX 590's. Not fantastic scaling but still better than running on one GPU in one board.

Cauthorn · April 2014

snobaste wrote: »

Followed these exact steps, and while my GPUs (2 GTX 580s) are now at about equal usage, I'm not seeing anything above 30% on either card. My framerates are actually slightly worse.

Sounds like they're doing it too easy. Have you tried adjusting Power Management Mode from "Adaptive" to "Prefer Maximum Performance"?

Zooce · April 2014

Have we still not had any news of the 'real' SLI fix? Any news from either Nvidia or Zenimax?

jpsgamingb14_ESO · April 2014

Sadly no....use been checking in at the nvidia forums and the developers area and nothing. ..just rumors.