WOW lacks SLI support

Community General Discussion
21

Yeah been there for years. No issues

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22

WoW is not gonna “cook” anything unless there is something seriously wrong with your cooling or you have the fans on the GPU turned off. I run it at 10 with SSAA fully on at 1440p on my 2080 ti and it never breaks 60C.

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23

SLi worked just fine back during WoLK when I was running x2 9800GTX. Then again during MoP/WoD/Legion (until NH) with x2 560Ti. I would always buy 1 card first, run it until the gpu would start to show its age a bit, add the second card for roughly half the price, then go until I needed to overhaul the entire GPU system.

I went with the GTX 970 mainly for my 2k g-sync monitor. Eventually purchased a pre-built system with a 1080Ti. I am planning to buy another 1080Ti, but probably not until 2020, if it even makes sense to.

24

imagine
mining bitcoin on a GPU :smiley:
what year is this? haha

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25

So the latest graphix cards cook themselves on old gaming engines. yeah not a blizzard issue.

26

Haha. Blame Blizzard for launching Classic this summer. It’s 2004, right? :wink:

Man, if I could go back to 2004 and tell myself to mine bitcoin, and more importantly when to sell it, that would be something. I could afford a really good GPU now.

27

Until recently wow was not even heavily reliant on a single video card, it was for the most part actually CPU, and single core, intensive. It was with 8.0 that wow finally starting using multiple cpu cores, and I believe 8.1 when more was moved to the GPU, but wow has never really been GPU intensive, and having more power never really made the game run better to be hones.

I hate to say it, but not new news.

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28

Or simply the proper amount ventilation and cooling in the computer case


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29

I have one. I get 40fps in Boralus with the graphics set at 8. Ultra would be below 30. This game runs like sticky butt.

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30

Some people in this thread should do a little googling, as far as I’m aware multiGPU gaming is dying.

Check out this video

www.youtube. com/watch?v=cGjhlVUzoBY

And just generally google things like “SLI/Crossfire dead” and “Why is NVIDIA getting rid of SLI” anything along those lines and you’ll see the time of multiGPU gaming is going away. There’s still SOME but it’s not like it used to be

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32

That video I linked can answer a lot of those questions. It’s only 6 minutes long.

33

Just to update this thread: It turns out the NVLink wasn’t pushed all the way in and to get it all the way on the cards required a lot of force. Now both cards are working. Problem solved. Thanks all for your participation and thought on this thread.

34

This is down to WoW’s base engine. Nothing to fix that except rip it all out and start over. Not gonna happen. For another thing, WoW is more CPU than GPU intensive compared to a LOT (almost all) of other, newer, games. Again, the engine is responsible for this and won’t be something that will change for the foreseeable future. So, nice on the SLI, etc, and will treat you right on most other games, but
 overkill for WoW.

Edit: Glad you got it fixed, but your performance will not change appreciably. WoW is just too old.

35

If you have a GPU with a decent cooler on it, it won’t fry itself. Most GPUs have fan profiles that will keep the card from getting overly hot, and most manufacturers provide software to alter the fan profile to accomodate either overclocking or higher usage situations. You would do well to make use of such software for your GPU, especially in summer months so it keeps the card cooler under any load scenario.

WoW has never supported SLI (none of Blizzard’s games do in fact). It is possible that you won’t get any performance boost from SLI in modern WoW because of the removal of exclusive fullscreen, which SLI depended upon to properly function. Some people have gotten SLI to work with borderless windowed mode, or so the claim, but the reports are so sporadic as are their findings that it isn’t something to rely on. And with EFS removed from WoW (which prevents me from playing outright as software I need for disabilities doesn’t work properly without it), SLI isn’t likely to work properly, if at all.

You’re actually better with a single 2080 Ti with a very good cooling solution coupled with a decent multicore CPU using DX12 mode under Windows, or if under OS X, just for overkill purposes to even the scales there.

If your GPUs are getting that hot, you may also wish to take a close look at your intake/exhaust ratios in your computer case. You should have slightly above neutral pressure (a small amount of positive pressure) to force airflow to go where it needs to go. That means just a hair more intake than exhaust so you don’t end up with negative pressure causing air to stagnate and rapidly increase in temperature. This is more of an issue in liquid cooled systems as placement of radiators usually necessitates fans on the radiators being externally mounted, which naturally decreases exhaust significantly. Watch your ratios and use a more aggressive fan profile for your GPU/CPU and heat won’t be an issue.

Case in point: My old Mac Pro 1,1 (the original) had slight increases in intake vs. exhaust, but when all fans were set to 1300 RPM (except GPU), the GPU rarely had to ramp up its own fan because the direct airflow kept it cool enough to not do so most of the time. Careful manipulation of your intake and exhaust ratios should greatly assist with that. It helps to ensure that the front intake has no drive bays directly behind it so that the cool incoming air goes directly to the GPU/CPU areas where the GPU’s fans act as an intake for the still cooled air and spread that over the GPU’s heatsink, where it exhausts via the holes in the PCI plate at the rear of the case.

Make your system work smarter, not harder.

Edit: Just saw your update. Glad you got it working. You’re among the minority with borderless windowed modes. Grats! Now get to work on those intake/exhaust ratios to keep your setup cooler in any season.

36

Well, yeah, if you mean cooler GPU temperatures, yeah. Basically, the second card is being used largely for it’s memory, and I can have the settings for graphics to “10” with a FPS that is tolerable before my cards go over fifty degrees. Where I live it gets awfully hot in summer, so I feel confident my system should be fine now. Just as an aside, my two cards are blowers, so they keep the heat out of the case. I’d set up water cooling for the GPUs, but my CPU is water cooled and the radiator is big, so I don’t have much space left in my case for radiators. I’m also nervous about ripping my graphics cards apart. It looks like GPUs with AIO water cooling is gonna be the next step for GPU card makers. Until then I’m set. Thanks for commenting. I enjoyed reading your post. :smiley:

37

The mining craze messed up the price of these cards. Unless you know what to look for and are buying used its cheaper to just go with a 2080ti. You get a 40% increase to performance ( https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-2080-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080-Ti/4027vs3918 ) for about a $100 more (Asus 1080ti vs 2080ti on newegg) and has all of the latest features (if they catch on.)

There are already a ton of AIO coolers for graphics cards such as the Hydro series HG10, Alphacool RTX, another from Gigabyte, and NZXT has a bracket that allows you to use a kraken AIO. The problem you will run into with these is there may not be enough clearance between your cards to cool the second card (as well as possible issues with the hoses not having joints meaning you may find they don’t fit that way as well (crimping issues causing at min a decrease to your flow.)

This leaves you with two options to continue to use the blower style fans or to move to a custom cooling loop. If your unfamiliar with building a loop EK has a tool on their site with recommendations based on your builds specs. I can tell you from experience that it will recommend two very large radiators if you are using dual 2080s and plan to cool the cpu as well. You’ll have to install the first up top and the second in the front of your case. Meaning that you may want to reverse the fan on the back of the case so you have some air flow going into the case. You will also need enough room for a pump and reservoir. I want to say the last time I checked prices on EK it was about 1k to make a loop for the CPU and 2 GPUs.

I would check out JayzTwoCents on youtube if your interested in learning more. He does a lot of testing different fan types as well as an episode (or two?) were he tests an air conditioner blowing directly into the case.

As you are running 50 degrees at ? (well not sure what you find tolerable as far as FPS and were you are in game testing this) so I’m going to say your probably fine as many high end rigs end up running in the high 50s to low 60’s during benchmarks. If you are looking for recommendations in the future, listing your temps and or ratings on some of the common benchmarks might help.

Finally I wouldn’t worry about breaking down your cards. With both the GTX and RTX series its pretty easy, just watch a video on youtube first.

38

I’m running single 2700X + GTX 1080 TI at 1440p. Feels CPU already bottlenecking the game.

You also need speedy CPU for WoW.

39

WoW historically has always been a more CPU heavy game ever since it’s initial launch, and the same is true today.

Only recently were they able to put more load onto the GPU with 8.1, but they can’t do much due to the old base engine. And anyways a single high end GPU can crush WoW on max when paired with a modern CPU, and for warmer months just invest in proper cooling.

And tbh I can’t even think of many other modern games that take advantage of multiple GPU’s these days.

40

I have a 1080 running at 1920 x 1200 and particles absolutely rek my FPS.

The 3rd boss in Grim Batol is horrible for me.

41

Wow is such a CPU limited game. It’s gotten better with the recent update to allow more multi threading but still not great. even across multiple cores now, I’m still nowhere near %100 on any core, and my GPU sits around %50ish. I play at 4k and can hover around 60ish fps through most fights except for the first 3 in Dazar where I’m down the 40s. Just a poorly optimized engine for modern computers. I’m on a I7 3770k and a 980ti. RTX 2080 and SLI is way way overboard for what this game needs when it can’t even tax my older hardware properly.