Will Crossfire work in Windowed Mode?

Ok, here goes.

1) why does SLI not work in windowed/full screen windowed mode? From research and experience, 9/10 it does not. From further research it appears this isn't a hardware based or technological limitation. If this is truly the case, what on earth is the reasoning behind it not being the norm? What possible drawbacks could this present which stops it from being widely "enabled" or "implemented?" What can we do to rectify this? Is their an ini edit which can be done to trick the game Into thinking it was in full screen? How does it determine it isn't when in full screen windowed as opposed to full screen? A garage programmer would have quite the following If he could/would modify current drivers to enable this. SOMETHINNG has to be stopping this, it just doesn't make sense. With 4 titans, 3 are basically useless should I try to multibox on my main rig.

2) my backup PC consists of 3 displays and 3 290x. I assumed I would be able to use eyefinity and crossfire as long as I was using ISboxer. I figured it would essentially divide my full screen into pre determined windows consisting of each client. Apparently this is not the case. It appears it's largely just an automated way to arrange your windowed windows of course this wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the aforementioned.
Anyways, if I were to run 12 clients on 3 displays ala portrait orientation - What would be the ideal way to configure it? From a gpu/connectivity standpoint? I have an adequate amount of ram as well as an 8 core CPU so I'm trying to ensure the best experience while avoiding having to reconfigure when I change from multi boxing to conventional gaming or other work.

From my vantage point I have only 2 options, neither which are particularly appealing for their own reasons.
A) use eyefinity (prefer to) and essentially try to run all instances off of 1 gpu (due to crossfire limitations in windowed)
or
B) connect each display to each card and use them to independently run the instances located on it's parent display. This would provide me more performance, but I would lose eyefinity capability and should I want to use crossfire for a game would require the changing of wiring etc. not to mention I'm extremely proud of my setup and with 1 rig running surround wallpaper, the other will end up being a clump of seperate displays with 3 different wallpapers.

What do you guys recommend? Is their an option I am unaware of and missing? Anyone multi box in ffxiv? What does your setup consist of?

Thanks for the time and help guys. Any and all replies are appreciated!

[lax]

1) why does SLI not work in windowed/full screen windowed mode? From research and experience, 9/10 it does not. From further research it appears this isn't a hardware based or technological limitation. If this is truly the case, what on earth is the reasoning behind it not being the norm? What possible drawbacks could this present which stops it from being widely "enabled" or "implemented?" What can we do to rectify this? Is their an ini edit which can be done to trick the game Into thinking it was in full screen? How does it determine it isn't when in full screen windowed as opposed to full screen? A garage programmer would have quite the following If he could/would modify current drivers to enable this. SOMETHINNG has to be stopping this, it just doesn't make sense. With 4 titans, 3 are basically useless should I try to multibox on my main rig.

Actually I was all confused as to why you were saying SLI doesn't work in windowed mode because it does. Crossfire does not, which is actually what it sounds like you've got.

Whether SLI or crossfire work in windowed mode or not is 100% up to the drivers. Windowed SLI support was added to the drivers a few years back.

You cannot "edit an ini" or something to "trick the game into thinking it was in full screen" because SLI support has almost nothing to do with the game; the driver knows that the game is not in full screen mode regardless of what the game itself is set to. Additionally, you cannot launch multiple instances of any game in actual full screen mode, because actual full screen mode is exclusive and DirectX will not allow it; this is why ISBoxer forces the game into a window even if the game is set to full screen mode.

2) my backup PC consists of 3 displays and 3 290x. I assumed I would be able to use eyefinity and crossfire as long as I was using ISboxer. I figured it would essentially divide my full screen into pre determined windows consisting of each client. Apparently this is not the case. It appears it's largely just an automated way to arrange your windowed windows of course this wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the aforementioned.
Anyways, if I were to run 12 clients on 3 displays ala portrait orientation - What would be the ideal way to configure it? From a gpu/connectivity standpoint? I have an adequate amount of ram as well as an 8 core CPU so I'm trying to ensure the best experience while avoiding having to reconfigure when I change from multi boxing to conventional gaming or other work.

What Eyefinity does is tell Windows, and therefore ISBoxer, that your multiple screens are actually just one screen. The ISBoxer wizards that let you choose a Window Layout style then see this one screen, and will offer you all of the standard single screen layouts. With Eyefinity, none of those are going to be exactly what you want. Just pick something with a swapping behavior similar to what you want, finish the wizard, and then manually modify the layout. In the top left pane under Window Layouts, select yours; then in the bottom left pane select Regions; and then in the bottom right pane click and drag or enter the numbers for each of your regions.

From my vantage point I have only 2 options, neither which are particularly appealing for their own reasons.
A) use eyefinity (prefer to) and essentially try to run all instances off of 1 gpu (due to crossfire limitations in windowed)
or
B) connect each display to each card and use them to independently run the instances located on it's parent display. This would provide me more performance, but I would lose eyefinity capability and should I want to use crossfire for a game would require the changing of wiring etc. not to mention I'm extremely proud of my setup and with 1 rig running surround wallpaper, the other will end up being a clump of seperate displays with 3 different wallpapers.

What do you guys recommend? Is their an option I am unaware of and missing?

You summed it up fairly well. Those are pretty much the two choices described in http://isboxer.com/wiki/GPU_Management, which covers .. well everything specifically in this thread. If you want your 3 GPUs to be used, then you're going to have to give up your Crossfire dreams because the drivers don't support it in windowed mode; the only way for you to utililize all 3 is going to be to split it up. Or to play one single game instance in full screen mode instead of playing more than one game instance or in windowed mode.

Anyone multi box in ffxiv? What does your setup consist of?

This is kind of a weird piggy back to your Crossfire question. Here's the FFXIV section http://isboxer.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=52

Thank you for the very detailed reply (most of which I can't read ATM but will on lunch lol). The tidbit I did catch was regarding SLI working in windowed. Your reply strikes me as odd considering the people that frequent nvidias own forums seem to agre it does not in 99% of situations. Never mind the fact I've been gaming for 20 years and can't recall one time that it worked. On my PC in front of me it certainly isn't.

I don't want to condescend but you are aware that just because the card shows load doesn't mean SLI is working right? Can you give me a few examples of games it works in windowed? Now I'm interested as nvidias own mods don't argue in it's behalf when I raised this point there and should something be "lost in translation" persay, id love to fix this as it would fix a plethora of my problems.

Perhaps it doesn't work in SLI unless you use only one display? I know I can fire up wow for example and the minute I go windowed my frame rate dips out and my primary card loads to 100 and that's that. I use an accessory monitor and being able to transition while raiding between the game and a browser for example would rock. Not at the performance cost nor at the cost of heat which goes thru the roof due to the max load on one card as opposes to ~75ish when in SLI/fullscreen.

If it doesn't work in Xfire either way, that still leaves me borked for ffxiv but if not a hardware limitation id like to think that at some point it would be standard in all drivers. Then again you would think it would already be the case!

Eager to read your entire post but I'm on my phone and my boss is already giving me the stink eye! BBL!

[lax]

The tidbit I did catch was regarding SLI working in windowed. Your reply strikes me as odd considering the people that frequent nvidias own forums seem to agre it does not in 99% of situations. Never mind the fact I've been gaming for 20 years and can't recall one time that it worked. On my PC in front of me it certainly isn't.

Well, again, if you have Eyefinity (or 3 290x's) we're talking Crossfire not SLI. Crossfire does not have windowed mode driver support.

Secondly, SLI in windowed was always sketchy. Several years ago, enabling SLI in windowed mode caused serious stability issues, as documented by many people on the lavishsoft.com forums. These days we always recommend testing for yourself as described in the GPU Management page. We do expect SLI to work for most people, and Crossfire to not work for anyone.

an you give me a few examples of games it works in windowed?

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4132 - "so SLI does work. Does boost performance for Diablo 3 with ISBOXER + INNERSPACE. and it is more than 50% comparing to 1 card."
viewtopic.php?p=4373 - "Today, I enabled SLI to see if there was a difference, and there is. Now, both gpus are at around 50% util, and both see temp increases (but lower than when they are in non-SLI mode). Also, I seem to be getting MUCH improved performance this way (although, it IS rift, so the improved performance can just be a result of the planets being in alignment). I remember reading several posts saying that SLI wouldn't be used since IS is forcing the game into a window, and this seems to contradict that."
viewtopic.php?p=9643 - "I read that I should use one gpu per monitor instead of sli, but sli is working great for me. I guess recent drivers improved sli for multi-process windowed mode. My gpu usage is low enough that I think I could easily enough quad box Diablo 3 with only one gtx 560 ti with low graphics settings and fps 30 or lower."
http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3592 - "Nvidia has introduced SLI support for Windowed games with their latest drivers (266.58) - so there might be hope for multiboxing under SLI setups yet. I don't have Nvidia cards currently so I can't test the drivers myself, however I will be following the development with interest. Initial reports have been mixed - some are saying it offers improvements, others say it causes crashes, but this is to be expected with a new driver release IMO."
http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=25894 - MiRai, with his 3-way SLI, showing Diablo 3 in Windowed mode (http://i1.minus.com/iOd1ybfhTmNuj.png)
I've also personally tested windowed SLI with WoW.

Here's a source completely unrelated to ISBoxer which agrees with us:
http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/21erzr/nvidia_sli_graphics_and_elder_scrolls_online/cgcbsov


However, SLI performance specifically with FFXIV may be poor: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/594639/issues-with-ffxiv-on-2x-780-in-sli-anyone-else-advice-/ http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1pc87c/sli_in_ffxiv/. This is probably the main issue here; the game is not well optimized for SLI and so it cannot take full advantage.

[MiRai]

Thank you for the very detailed reply (most of which I can't read ATM but will on lunch lol). The tidbit I did catch was regarding SLI working in windowed. Your reply strikes me as odd considering the people that frequent nvidias own forums seem to agre it does not in 99% of situations. Never mind the fact I've been gaming for 20 years and can't recall one time that it worked. On my PC in front of me it certainly isn't.

I've been gaming on SLI for literally years and have only encountered one game where SLI was a performance hit which was the Korean version of Blade & Soul (and this was well over a year ago).

I don't want to condescend but you are aware that just because the card shows load doesn't mean SLI is working right?

Right, but it's usually pretty easy to tell when SLI is working because you get better performance. As someone who monitors their hardware pretty much every time they play a game, I can tell you that SLI is works just fine in Windowed mode.

Can you give me a few examples of games it works in windowed?

World of Warcraft, Diablo III, RIFT, Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XI, Aion, TERA Online, Civilization V... I'm going to say every game I've played in the last three years minus the aforementioned Blade & Soul has supported SLI in Windowed mode. If there was another that didn't it'd probably stick out in my mind like Blade & Soul does.

Perhaps it doesn't work in SLI unless you use only one display?

I have multiple displays and it works fine (without Surround).

I know I can fire up wow for example and the minute I go windowed my frame rate dips out and my primary card loads to 100 and that's that.

World of Warcraft is the game that I primarily play and I've never seen the behavior your describe. I've been using SLI with either SGSSAA or SSAA in order to get the best image quality that my setup can handle, and SLI definitely allows me to get to that point.

Again, at no point where I mention SLI do I mean Surround, because Surround is a complete waste of GPU horsepower and adds a lot of unnecessary overhead when playing in any sort of Windowed mode.

[redomegared]

the 290x cards use crossfire and that doesnt work in windowed mode

the 290x cards use crossfire and that doesnt work in windowed mode

Correct. Neither does nvidias offerings. Atleast my 3x290x do not nor does my 4xtitan rig. Was just trying to find a work around.

Some people must be confused as I see people posting about "I've only seen one game not offer a performance boost with sli" well that's great, I've seen 0 but it's not really relevant. I'm only concerned with multi card gaming functioning in windowed or full screen windowed, namely in wow.

[bob]

Correct. Neither does nvidias offerings.

Did you read any of the earlier posts?

[MiRai]

the 290x cards use crossfire and that doesnt work in windowed mode

Correct. Neither does nvidias offerings. Atleast my 3x290x do not nor does my 4xtitan rig. Was just trying to find a work around.

I see you're still fighting this 8 months later, so I've gone ahead and grabbed some screenshots since I'd rather not have anyone mislead by your misinformation.

-------------

WoW x 5 No SLI
http://i.imgur.com/B6Oo5EF.jpg

As per the information overlay, one single GPU is pegged at 100% while the other two sit idle, and the main screen can barely maintain 47 FPS. Also, when moving around the FPS drops into the 30s.

WoW x 5 SLI
http://i.imgur.com/tdtsAXb.jpg

As per the information overlay, all three GPUs are running at a nice ~55% with plenty of load to spare, and the main client is easily able to maintain 60 FPS as shown.

All game clients are using the exact same video settings, and they're all set to 60/20 fore/background FPS.

-------------

It doesn't matter which API you use (DX9/DX11), and it doesn't matter which display mode the game clients are set to (Windowed/Windowed(Fullscreen)), nVidia's SLI clearly works, and it also gives a boost in performance. If SLI isn't working for you in windowed mode then obviously your setup is to blame, and not the technology itself.

Mirai,

what are you using to display those gpu stats?