SLI hack on Intel legacy chipsets (not X58)

[Buckeye]

I get the distinct feeling noone will ever get his hands on that patch it seems... at first all is glorious, so easy to do and finally it will be crushed again by the lawyers of Nvidia... noone will ever get it...

I was just gonna add that... didn't something like this go around before and Nvidia stomped it out ?

[Sly Fox]

I was just gonna add that... didn't something like this go around before and Nvidia stomped it out ?

It did. During the 6800 era I believe.

[BulldogPO]

And no url what so ever.

[TiN_]

Leeghoofd

Why lawyers? Enabling/disabling SLI/CF/whatever tech is not made by them, it's pure technical/software stuff. And if patch/mod available everywhere, nobody can sue, because who will you catch then?

And another thing which differs last screen from photoshops done hundred times ago is that now we have X58 chipsets, and just SLIA certificate and proper chipset ID's are needed to receive by drivers, as far as i understand. So will see.

[TiN_]

Got binaries, will check it now on P965 chipset with 6600's, and post howto if everything works.

WinXP 32bit only ATM.

[TiN_]

Little description for those who know what to do.

Hardcoded X58 chipset driver ForceWare version 190.62 (XP 32bit only ATM)

After driver unpack, put this file to C:\nvidia\displaydriver\190.62\english

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/nv4_mini.rar - 2.1MB

Then install as usual.
DSDT table must have valid SLIC X58 string.

Full detailed installation manual will follow after initial checks.

[TiN_]

I confirm working SLI on illegal chipset Intel P965 with ForceWare 190.62, and injected ASUS Rampage III Extreme SLI Validation string into DSDT table.



ATM I have only pair of 6600LE here, but I think it will work with any cards supported by 190.62.

Will make detailed HOWTO this evening

[RealTelstar]

What about X38/x48?

Should I keep hope?

[TiN_]

Patch fools driver to think that we have X58 valid motherboard, regardless of real hardware. So, it almost 100% will work on any motherboard.

[massman]

This will unleash a lot of performance; kudos man!

[sveetsnelda]

To me it remains pure speculation, anyone can post whatever screenshot in here I never see any real scores nor screenshots ( don't refer to that SLI with 2 different GPU architectures )

I get the distinct feeling noone will ever get his hands on that patch it seems... at first all is glorious, so easy to do and finally it will be crushed again by the lawyers of Nvidia... noone will ever get it...

Huh? How is this "pure speculation?" (I was the one who patched the driver, BTW). It works on my machine (P45) and on TiN's (P965). The driver is posted in the forum (I think TiN hosted it, actually?). Go try it before you call BS on our screenshots.

Ugh. I hate how people are so quick to call others liars.

[sveetsnelda]

What about X38/x48?

Should I keep hope?

Yeah, it'll work.

[Russian]

Where can we find it? perhaps you can link it one more time?

[blindbox]

Good work TiN_EOF. Now just remain anonymous or stay somewhere where nvidia's clutches can't get a hold of you... heheheh

[Leeghoofd]

Leeghoofd

Why lawyers? Enabling/disabling SLI/CF/whatever tech is not made by them, it's pure technical/software stuff. And if patch/mod available everywhere, nobody can sue, because who will you catch then?

And another thing which differs last screen from photoshops done hundred times ago is that now we have X58 chipsets, and just SLIA certificate and proper chipset ID's are needed to receive by drivers, as far as i understand. So will see.

I'm gonna test it on the REX next week, keep you posted. Don't ever put the file up on your own webspace, kill the link asap, the file has been snatched and will spread by itself.... Lawyers invent whatever thye can do get quick access to the cash... and this means the 780i/790i (and the rumoured AM3 chipset) is totally obsolete if this thing works...

Huh? How is this "pure speculation?" (I was the one who patched the driver, BTW). It works on my machine (P45) and on TiN's (P965). The driver is posted in the forum (I think TiN hosted it, actually?). Go try it before you call BS on our screenshots.

Ugh. I hate how people are so quick to call others liars.

I never called you a liar...I just remain subjective, as we have seen this before, but never ever got a file nor link to try it... Also then it was with an older driver version and users with newer cards needed to update their driver... so no go.

My question is : Does that SLI -hack work with different GPU architectures ? do you get better numbers then ?

If this works many people will kiss ya feet. We will gain more game performance and new records will be broken (thinking especially of 3D01)
If you can keep the driver updated for newer Nvidia releases as they will try some sort of way of blocking it that would be fab... I'll try to collect some numbers by the end of this week...

For the Nvidia part : Consider yourself as a warned man, this thing will spread like wild fire and be very carefull to whom you talk or speak ! almost anything can be traced on the web...

Where can we find it? perhaps you can link it one more time?

Post 131

[sveetsnelda]

My question is : Does that SLI -hack work with different GPU architectures ? do you get better numbers then ?

It'll work with any video card that 190.62 supports. Since this is the current driver, it should support all Nvidia cards. The only thing that was patched in the driver was the call that checks the motherboard chipset ID. I hardcoded it to be 8086/3400 (the X58 chipset). So long as you have a valid X58 SLIC in your ACPI DSDT tables, it'll work. Tomorrow I'm going to work on making the driver so no DSDT tables have to be modified. Gotta simplify things a bit.

If this works many people will kiss ya feet.

It's working on the machine right next to me. I've ran 3dmark03, 3dmark06, and COD5 so far. Works like a champ. Check the techpowerup forums post for results of the 3dmark benches. It scales just like SLI should.

If you can keep the driver updated for newer Nvidia releases as they will try some sort of way of blocking it that would be fab... I'll try to collect some numbers by the end of this week...

Yeah, I'm sure it will be a cat-and-mouse game. I was hoping for a more permanant fix, but the X58 SLIC string that the driver checks against is hard-coded and encrypted in nv4_mini.sys. The driver has to be modified for it to work.

[BulldogPO]

So we need some kind of bios patch?
Any info how to insert that X58 string into AMI bios?

[oily_17]

So we need some kind of bios patch?
Any info how to insert that X58 string into AMI bios?

Take a look at this thread here -about post #400 -ignore the first lot of pages

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=60844

[sveetsnelda]

So we need some kind of bios patch?
Any info how to insert that X58 string into AMI bios?

oily_17 is leading you in the right direction.

You dont need to actually patch or flash the BIOS, you just need to dump the ACPI DSDT, modify it, and then have windows use the modified DSDT.

I'm working on something that will allow this to work without modifying the DSDT. This should make things easier. Modifying the DSDT is annoying also, because some hardware changes will cause the OS to not boot (unless you clear the DSDT first).

[TiN_]

Just finished testing own 6600LE's on P5B Deluxe motherboard (intel 965 chipset)



3D'01: single card, QX9650 @ 4210MHz, 6600LE DDR3 640/640 : 33298
3D'01: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 23650
3D'03: single card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 660/670 : 10044
3D'03: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 11087
3D'05: single card, QX9650 @ 4213MHz, 6600LE DDR3 646/660 : 3729
3D'05: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 4975
3D'06: single card, Q6700 @ 3600MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/585 : 1510
3D'06: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 1808
Aqua: single card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 670/670 : 71435
Aqua: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 88185

01 result is poor because of lowclock CPU and low GPU clock, but others just nice for such CPU/GPU clock difference, as for me.

Will continue tests, when I can get more powerful cards, now only have single 9800GX2 and 8800GS

So, It WORKS

So far we got SLI working NON-dependent of real motherboard chipset.
But I think GPU limitations, like unability of two different (for example 6600 + 8800 card, or GTX 285 + GTX 295) cards on SLI remain.

[BulldogPO]

I´m going to put 2 GF 8800GTS G92 card on my HTPC with Asus P5E3 WS PRO, OS is Windows Vista X86.

[oily_17]

OS is Windows Vista X86.

The modded driver is only for XP 32-bit ATM.Hopefully we will have other drivers soon.

[rado992]

Please tell me this can be done with Windows Vista/7 drivers. If so,' I'd be glad to test them with a pair of 8800GT's on my X48 running Win7 x64.

[Kal-EL]

[slim142]

BRAVO!!!

This are amazing new man. Bring the P965,P35, P45, X38, X48 chipsets back to life