SLI Problem - Pics

[mason72]

Whenever I enable SLI on my screen, I get this green line that dances up and down around the middle of my screen...it is there from the second Civ IV starts up. Disabling SLI makes it go away...but I'd rather not do that every time I want to play.

I've attached a screenshot.

I'm on an AMD 64 3800+ w/2GB RAM and 2 SLI'd 128MB XFX GeForce 6600 GT video cards.

 

[mason72]

So I'm not sure why, but installing this program seemed to fix the problem:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound.

I have to right-click the CIVIV icon and choose Run in VDMS though.

 

[Briareos]

So I'm not sure why, but installing this program seemed to fix the problem:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound.

I have to right-click the CIVIV icon and choose Run in VDMS though.

I wouldn't have the slightest idea how that program could fix anything here, as it's only emulating a soundcard for DOS programs, but that green line is a feature of the nVidia drivers - it shows which parts of the screen were drawn by which of your 2 graphics cards.

Anyhow, there's an option in the nVidia drivers somewhere to turn it off; can't tell you where exactly since I don't even have an nVidia card - but this problem and the solution also came up on several other game forums I read...

 

[mason72]

Do you remember which forum? I'd love to turn it off...yeah I thought it was weird that a sound card emulator would fix it.

Thanks nVidia...I love ALWAYS knowing what the cards are drawing...lol.

 

[mason72]

Ah yes, here it is:

If you see horizontal or vertical green lines on your screen (shown here), it means that you have "Show GPU load balancing" enabled in the NVIDIA Display control panel. When enabled, this option shows how your GPUs are sharing the graphics load. For games that are rendered using AFR (alternate frame rendering), the vertical line will grow up and down, depending on the amount of scaling. For games that are rendered using SFR (split-frame rendering), the horizontal line will move up and down, showing how the load is being balanced between each GPU. If the upper half and the lower half of the screen have a similar level of detail, the horizontal line will stay close to the middle.

To turn SLI load balancing on and off, simply follow these steps to get to the screen you see below:
1) Right click on your desktop and select "Properties."
2) Select the "Settings" tab.
3) Select the "Advanced" button in the lower right corner.
4) Click on the "GeForce 7800 GTX" Tab in the upper right hand corner (or whatever GPU you are using).
5) On the left now appears a menu; select the "SLI Multi GPU" tab
6) Two checkboxes now appear: "Enable SLI Multi GPU" and "Show GPU load balancing"
7) If you want to show the load balancing (green lines) make sure that box is checked; if you don't, make sure it's unchecked.
8) Once you've made up your mind, click "Apply"

 

[Mesix]

Thanks for the advice. The load balancing issue has fixed the problem for me.

I actually did it a little shorter way that might work for some...

1. Click the NVIDIA settings icon on the toolbar (in the lower right on XP).
2. Select NVIDIA display and you should see an option for your monitor.
3. A dialogue box should pop up with the NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU options.
4. Select "Enable SLI" and deselect "Show GPU load balancing" and click "apply"

I think it is strange that CIV IV is the only game that seems to have a problem with this load balancing option. Oh well...at least it works now.