Does Modern Warfare 2 support Dual Video Cards?

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riggs58

Limp Gawd
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Mar 8, 2003
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I am running the game at 1920x1200 (4x AA, max settings) on a GTX 295 and performance doesn't seem like it should be...or least I expected more from basically the same engine from COD4. It averages right around 65-70fps in FRAPS (Min in the low 30's). I don't see any game option anymore for Dual Video. Is it still supported? Just seems like only half of the GTX 295 is being used.

E8400 @ 3.7 GHz
4GB DDR
GTX 295
 
riggs58 said:
I am running the game at 1920x1200 (4x AA, max settings) on a GTX 295 and performance doesn't seem like it should be...or least I expected more from basically the same engine from COD4. It averages right around 65-70fps in FRAPS (Min in the low 30's). I don't see any game option anymore for Dual Video. Is it still supported? Just seems like only half of the GTX 295 is being used.

E8400 @ 3.7 GHz
4GB DDR
GTX 295
Click to expand...

console port with mouse support.....

what do you expect it to be?
 
Yes, just re-name the exe to i3sp instead of i4 and then go into the config ini and manually enable dual-GPU rendering.
 
Techspot has a new article covering graphic card performance in Modern Warfare 2. The author states that the game is not CPU limited with hardly any difference between dual and quad cores. So that being the case, according to the article I should be seeing somewhere in the low 100's.
 
Riftsaw said:
Do you use nHancer? If so a savvy poster at Guru 3D threw together an SLI profile for the game.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the link. I don't use nHancer but i'll try it out. I'm using 191.07 drivers btw, which I gather doesn't have a sli profile for the game.
 
Nope, it's not locked at 85. Or Fraps is borked. I played the Arctic mission and fps was around 120 at times.
 
In nv control panal / manage 3D settings / Global / set SLI mode to "Force alt. frame rendering 2." This worked for me. Average FPS approx. 140.
 
I had good frame rates for the most part at 2560x1600 2xAA 16xAF peaking to the capped max of 85 (so it would seem) some occasional areas would drop to 30fps.

I suffered some major pauses though, the game would dip in frame rate violently then straight back up for short periods of time, I figured it was the cooling on my (not currently overclocked) 4870s, so changed it from auto to about 50% each and that mostly went away, boy that was irritating though.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
I had good frame rates for the most part at 2560x1600 2xAA 16xAF peaking to the capped max of 85 (so it would seem) some occasional areas would drop to 30fps.

I suffered some major pauses though, the game would dip in frame rate violently then straight back up for short periods of time, I figured it was the cooling on my (not currently overclocked) 4870s, so changed it from auto to about 50% each and that mostly went away, boy that was irritating though.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this is another TWIMTBP situation. I just did a quick little test to satisfy my curiosity about how good the SLI scaling is in this game. It seems to be just ok, not great.

Disclaimers:
1. No claims are made that this is a scientific test.
2. No civilians were massacred in an airport during this test.

Started the "Loose Ends" mission and played only until time to do the first breach which was about 5 min's. of game play. (I chose this mission because it begins outside with a lot of foliage, smoke, etc.) Looking to challenge the frame rates a bit. Played through this twice - once in SLI and once with one card only.

My settings were:
1. Res in sig.
2. Every in game setting cranked as high as it can go except AA.
3. AA in game @ 2x

NV control panel settings were:
1. AF @ 16x
2. AA Gamma correction = On
3. AA mode = Enhance the Application Setting
4. AA Setting = 16x
5. AA Transparency = Multi sampling
6. Max pre-rendered frames = 5 (this stops freeze-ups for me)
7. SLI performance mode = Force alt. frame rendering 2 for first test and, of course, Single GPU for second test.
8. Texture Filtering = High Quality
9. Threaded optimization = On
10. No V sync - No Triple Buffering.

RESULTS:

1. SLI Min FPS = 72 Max FPS = 311 Avg FPS = 130
2. Single GPU Min FPS = 46 Max FPS = 188 Avg FPS = 86

For me, the key is Min FPS. If I can keep the dips over 85, (that's what my monitor runs), I am a happy camper. SLI is giving me 151% on the average and 156% on the minimum. Not great but gets my min. close to my goal. If I were getting dips to 30 FPS in SLI as you were with your rig I would be crying in my beer big time.
 
How about during the storm scene in the Whikey Hotel mission, with the lightning lighting up everything in the downpour, that was the only time I noticed a slowdown, but Fraps dipped down to about 15 lol. Otherwise my average was 81 on the rig in sig but only @ 1680x1050 maxed settings but only through the ingame video settings. Isn't there a dual video card option in that menu??
 
When the game decides to stream in new textures (a new feature in the engine), it will tank your FPS for a few seconds.

It happened at a couple parts in singleplayer. The levels are huge though and the load times are ridiculously fast, so I can't really complain.
 
socK said:
When the game decides to stream in new textures (a new feature in the engine), it will tank your FPS for a few seconds.

It happened at a couple parts in singleplayer. The levels are huge though and the load times are ridiculously fast, so I can't really complain.
Click to expand...

That's probably what it was, it was literally for less than a second, but it hurt.
 
MW2 seems to be a real memory hog. My memory gets 98% loaded after every load screen and stays there. Crysis maxed out runs substantially less than that - (around 75%).

On the other hand, CPU loading seems light. I wonder if all this is due to the new engine.
 
I tried various settings in this thread but muti-GPU scaling just seems fairly minimal to me. At least for my GTX 295. Force AFR 2-Way seemed like the best setting. while i cant say it increased my max framrate that much it did seem to raise the minimum.

But still, performance just seems all over the place with this game. I'll be looking at a scene and my framerate will be near 200fps but turn my viewpoint 10-20 degrees and it will go down to the mid to low 30's (fps). It could be from texture streaming, I dont know. Alpha textures (smoke) is what seems to bring it down the most. This game really needs an internal canned benchmark. there's just no way to test it consistently without it.
 
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