The Witcher 3 Patch 1.07-1.10 GTX 980 TI SLI With Videos

[Gliger07]

The Witcher 3 Patch 1.07-1.10 GTX 980 TI SLI With Videos

I have been having an issue with SLI ever since the 1.07 patch. The 1.06 patch worked flawlessly and i have been waiting since 1.07 for a fix. My fps seems to improve around 10 fps when SLI is disabled and I can't seem to figure out why. This time i have videos showing fps with gpu loads so people can see that even though both cards are maxed in the exact same scene, I continue to get 10 fps more with SLI disabled. All drivers are up to date, no background programs are running and i have tried doing a full uninstall after the 1.10 patch today and even went in and manually deleted the residual files. I have also used programs to delete old video drivers and do i full manual install of the latest video drivers and still nothing works. People have suggested using other SLI compatability bits and although that makes for slightly better fps it causes insane flickering. Also in every other game I get almost perfect scaling with SLI. I will be posting this in both witcher 3 forums and nvidia forums because I dont know whether or not it is nvidia's fault for poor SLI or cdprojects fault for braking the SLI with patch 1.07. Any help would be much appreciated.

No SLI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nfDBWqXPo

SLI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48d3XauNMxA

Specs:
MSI GTX 980 TI SLI
I7 3770k @ 4.7 ghz HT on
16gb ram @ 2666mhz
Asus Maximus V Extreme mobo
1200W Power Supply

 

[prince_of_nothing]

Well SLI certainly works in this game I know, because I see it in action every time I play it. With SLI, I can pretty much maintain 60 FPS at 1440p max settings including hairworks. Also, multiple reviews and benchmarks have reflected that as well.

And SLI IS WORKING in your video. The problem seems to be that the GPUs are throttling, likely due to overheating. If you look at the core speeds, they never exceed 595 MHz. I don't know what models of the MSI GTX 980 Ti that you have, but I do know that no GTX 980 Ti plays advanced 3D games at those speeds unless something is terribly wrong.

Your temps are almost 70c, when at 595 MHz they should be much lower. So I personally think it's your temps that are preventing your GPUs from ramping up to their normal clock speeds in 3D..

 

[Gliger07]

Sorry about that the core clock monitor seemed to have failed there i tried it again and the core clock for both cards was at 1316.5 mhz with temps running in the high 70's which is normal for MSI GTX 980 TI's. Also I understand that for some people it is working which is why it is so frustrating that mine is not and it is only having trouble working in the witcher 3 and no other game.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

But SLI was working in your video. There was GPU activity on both GPUs, so that means it was working.

The question is, why aren't you getting the performance increase you're supposed to. You say the card's clock speeds are ramping properly, but what is the GPU usage on both?

Also, make absolutely certain you're running in full screen mode. SLI does not work in anything but full screen mode..

 

[Gliger07]

That is what is confusing the shit out of me. Both cards run at 1300 mhz at 99% usage and i am 100% sure it is on full screen, I even put it to windowed and back to double check and still no fps increase. And just to reiterate, this is the only game to date that i am having this issue, all other games see almost perfect scaling.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

That is what is confusing the shit out of me. Both cards run at 1300 mhz at 99% usage and i am 100% sure it is on full screen, I even put it to windowed and back to double check and still no fps increase. And just to reiterate, this is the only game to date that i am having this issue, all other games see almost perfect scaling.

Yeah I know what you mean believe me. The Witcher 3 is the most temperamental game I've ever played when it comes to stability, especially if you are using SLI like us.. Since updating to patch 1.10, I started spontaneously crashing in Velen in NG+ mode, but not in normal game mode. I fixed this by putting maximum pre-rendered frames to 1. Now it's stable.

I don't have any more ideas though. If the GPUs are at 99% usage and their clock speed is ramped up, then the performance should be there......unless you are using some kind of frame rate limiter or something.. Are you using any software that might limit the frame rate?

 

[Gliger07]

All of my setting in nvidia control panel are set to default and vsync is disabled and i have closed all background apps and nothing helps. I was hoping to get a response from cdproject with them at least acknowledging the problem but its been months and nothing. I was really looking forward to the expansions however with the lack of support i dont see myself purchasing another game from them, not that they will notice 1 customer leaving. I just cant justify waiting months for patches and responses just to play a game no matter the rating. Thanks for all the responses prince, i really do appreciate the help.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

I only have one more suggestion that could explain this. Open up your driver control panel, click on help and then system information.

Scroll down a bit and you should see the Bus description. What does it say for both of them? SLI requires a minimum of PCIe x8 to function properly, so if one of your GPUs is running at a slower bus like x4, it won't work right.

Both of mine show PCIe x16 Gen 3.

 

[Gliger07]

Both of mine are PCIe x8 so everything should be working =-(

 

[prince_of_nothing]

OK one last thing. Check to see whether all the power cables are connected properly, and that both cards are also seated properly in their slots. If a power cable isn't connected right, or a card isn't seated properly, then that could explain the performance loss..

 

[Gliger07]

Just tried that and nothing man. I did a 4k 3d mark run just to be sure and i had perfect sli scaling but no affect on witcher.

 

[tinsuke]

Same here.

Have an i7 6700K + 2x 980 Ti SLI and was able to play smoothly at 70-85 fps with everything on Ultra.

After the 1.10 update, my FPS throttles to 45-50, even though the CPU usage is at ~50% with ~55C and both cards at around 60% usage and 70C. I have tested with all the settings on low but the FPS won't move.

Strangely enough, when you pause the game (ESC) the GPU usage goes up to the usual ~94% and the >70 FPS comes back, but unpausing brings the throttled 45 FPS back...

 

[astrallite]

My solution to everything SLI related is to turn Water details to Medium.

Ever since 1.07 patch SLI cannot seem to properly render when there is heavy tessellation in a scene, I believe crossfire is suffering from the same thing. You basically have to turn down anything that requires a lot of tessellation as it appears to be rendering on just one card, causing horrible performance.

I've been playing since launch and have been seeing steady decrease in SLI performance in every patch.

 

[Gliger07]

I would just like a fix by now (month 3) so I can actually utilize the $1,400 worth of graphics cards i spent my money on. That shouldn't be asking too much honestly.

 

[Gliger07]

Well i fixed it. I dont know exactly how but i still needed to upgrade to widnows 10, so i cleared everything from all of my hard drives and started completely fresh and now im in the 110 fps on max settings.

 

[tinsuke]

Well i fixed it. I dont know exactly how but i still needed to upgrade to widnows 10, so i cleared everything from all of my hard drives and started completely fresh and now im in the 110 fps on max settings.

What did you actually do? I had Windows 10 already. What is your driver version?

 

[Prosthetics]

I'm surprised you didn't try a reformat earlier. That is usually the go to thing if you encounter software issues and are clueless on what to do next.

Few things to note for SLI users:
#1: ALWAYS use the top two GPU slots. The one closest to the CPU should ALWAYS have a card in it, and since most bridges are 100mm long, that means the next slot should be used as well.
#2: Make sure you use an SLI bridge. You are gimping yourself if you do not use one.
#3: Connect your monitors to the top card (so your boot actually shows post, etc) and auto select the Physx processor in the SLI settings, which should default to the bottom GPU. With proper airflow, this ensures both cards are similar temp.
#4: When in doubt, reformat and only install the culprit after to test.
#5: If you're using Windows 10, be aware that there is a driver memory leak issue for NVidia (maybe its been fixed since I last looked) where users had performance hits, at least when playing Battlefield 4.
#6: If you're using Windows 10, if you did the "upgrade" option in which it installed Win 10 on top of Win 7/8, reformat now and do a fresh install of Win 10.

 

[Gliger07]

I was running windows 7 so i made a bootable usb of windows 10, went into the windows 10 install and reformatted every drive that i had and installed windows 10 fresh. After installing the latest drivers (358.50) i downloaded witcher 3 and booted it up and now im getting 120+ fps outside of the starting area where i was getting 30-40.

 

[davegl1234]

I was running windows 7 so i made a bootable usb of windows 10, went into the windows 10 install and reformatted every drive that i had and installed windows 10 fresh. After installing the latest drivers (358.50) i downloaded witcher 3 and booted it up and now im getting 120+ fps outside of the starting area where i was getting 30-40.

Is this still working for you? I have 980 SLI and Windows 10, but still getting low gpu usage (driver 359.98, and tried 358.50). There are a couple of compatibility bits that indeed fix the low gpu usage (and give me an extra 30% fps), but they aren't without some graphical glitches.

I hope that 1.11 hasn't broken it again.

Ta