VOGONS


First post, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

So, the rebuild of my XP gaming PC now has an nForce-based SLI board (Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe.) Well, it'd be rude not to!

I don't know all the hitches and land mines associated with Nvidia SLI, so I figured I'd ask for advice from you guys. Also, if there's a specific driver version that hits the sweet spot for compatibility I'd love to know what it is.

Currently I have on my shelf (in singles) : a 9800GTX, an 8500GT, a 6800GT OC, and a 750Ti in another machine I could swap out. Maybe some sensible choices, but I'd prefer to go a bit ridiculous in a "why the fuck would you do that??" way. 😜 Dual Quadros, maybe? I don't care one iota about being "period correct", none of my builds are.

The other caveat is I have to be able to pick the cards up for DIRT CHEAP. No 1080s.

Yeah, yeah, I know, "it depends on what you want to run." Well, figure an average range of games from 2001-2011(+), benchmarks, and demoscene stuff. To be honest, I'm more doing this for the fun of building it & seeing it work, rather than micro-tuning or maximizing performance in anything specific.

Let's hear those opinions! 😀

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 2 of 8, by cyclone3d

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Well, apparently you can get up to 980Ti working in XP.

Not cheap but it is possible. Whether or not it would work on your board is another matter all together.

And you would be super extremely CPU limited.

http://mattpilz.com/windows-xp-drivers-nvidia … 980-ti-titan-x/
https://www.techspot.com/drivers/driver/file/ … ormation/17682/

Quadro cards don't support SLI for gaming as far as I know. The newer ones at least don't.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 3 of 8, by duga3

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

The original Quad SLI Geforce 7900GX2 is pretty fun to mess around with on Windows XP 😎 Forcing SLI32AA mode on older games while maintaining top FPS is a nice bonus.

98/XP multi-boot system with P55 chipset (build log)
Screenshots
10Hz FM

Reply 4 of 8, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
cyclone3d wrote:

Quadro cards don't support SLI for gaming as far as I know. The newer ones at least don't.

Good to know... I looked into it more, didn't realize Quadro & Geforce SLI were two different technologies. I suppose I could softmod two Quadros to into Geforces & run them that way but that's a lot of "IF this works" conditionals.

Was there a crossover point where Quadro SLI was spun off into its own thing?

duga3 wrote:

The original Quad SLI Geforce 7900GX2 is pretty fun to mess around with on Windows XP 😎 Forcing SLI32AA mode on older games while maintaining top FPS is a nice bonus.

Now that's the kind of madness I like! Unfortunately there's no way in hell those will fit into the case I'm using. Just too damn long.

--

On the other end of the spectrum, I'm super tempted to grab two 2GB GT630s that are on my local used site. I think they'd be more than enough horsepower for anything I want to run in this system & I like the idea of putting a pair of tiny little quiet cards in. There are some driver mod tools out there that allow "unsupported" cards to run in SLI but no idea how they work. The tool I linked to says it's for 64-bit machines. Any way to do this on XP(-32)?

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 5 of 8, by dr_st

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

As long as you understand that you are only messing with SLI because your motherboard has a "SLI" in its name, that's fine. 😀

SLI is only useful at the bleeding edge, when you want to get more performance than any single GPU can offer, or just one notch behind the bleeding edge, if you prefer to match a card to your existing card rather than replacing it with something newer, better, more expensive.

Beyond those scenarios, SLI/Crossfire is useless, since a single, more powerful card will almost always do better in terms of performance, price, power and compatibility, and really everything that counts.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/ - Random content on hardware, software, games and toys

Reply 7 of 8, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
dr_st wrote:

As long as you understand that you are only messing with SLI because your motherboard has a "SLI" in its name, that's fine. 😀

SLI is only useful at the bleeding edge, when you want to get more performance than any single GPU can offer, or just one notch behind the bleeding edge, if you prefer to match a card to your existing card rather than replacing it with something newer, better, more expensive.

Beyond those scenarios, SLI/Crossfire is useless, since a single, more powerful card will almost always do better in terms of performance, price, power and compatibility, and really everything that counts.

I'm building this thing (thread coming shortly!) because I've never messed with Nvidia SLI before and want to try it for myself. I'm fully aware that nothing I throw at this system is going to run better on it than my "quiet & sensible" Q9300+GTX750TI Win7 gaming machine, but it'll be fun to get going. Sometimes a balls-out nutso build is its own reward. 😜

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!