Octane SLI Problems. Urgent Help Please

[L_Sprangers]

Hey everyone,

I'm really stuck here and would greatly appreciate any help I can get...

I have installed 2 GTX 1080 graphics cards into my new desktop PC . I am not using an SLI because I've read numerous times that Octane does not work with SLI. However, as a result of that, my computer is only detecting one graphics card. The second graphics card is properly plugged in, the lights are glowing and it's clearly running but is not being detected. I spoke with Nvidia and they told me the only way I would be able to utilize both graphics cards is to use an SLI. But seeing that Octane doesn't use SLI, how am I able to use both cards without it? I'm at a complete loss. I clearly see people here using multiple cards without an SLI. How do I fix this?

Thanks!

[rappet]

Hi,

As first: You can install the bridge physically whether you will or will not enable or disable the sli in the software settings.

Secondly you then can first try with sli enabled to see if you can detect your both cards in system and maybe also in Octane.
You then can even run OctaneRender with sli enabled... Maybe little slower then with sli disabled, but that might be a worry for later.

Maybe you can post again after having your system working with the bridge and let us know if you got two cards recognnized by the system and we can helpmyou from there.

Greetz,

[L_Sprangers]

Hi,

As first: You can install the bridge physically whether you will or will not enable or disable the sli in the software settings.

Secondly you then can first try with sli enabled to see if you can detect your both cards in system and maybe also in Octane.
You then can even run OctaneRender with sli enabled... Maybe little slower then with sli disabled, but that might be a worry for later.

Maybe you can post again after having your system working with the bridge and let us know if you got two cards recognnized by the system and we can helpmyou from there.

Greetz,

Hi there, thank you for the reply.

I'll go ahead and get an SLI. I'm happy to see they're not very expensive anyway, so I really have nothing to lose. Do you personally use one? I'm just trying to get a feel for how many Octane users need one. Obviously there are many people using Octane without one, but Nvidia was telling me that it's impossible otherwise... which is really confusing.

[roeland]

I have installed 2 GTX 1080 graphics cards into my new desktop PC . I am not using an SLI because I've read numerous times that Octane does not work with SLI. However, as a result of that, my computer is only detecting one graphics card.

That's the first time I ever heard of a limitation like that. Normally if you have two cards, both will be detected regardless of your SLI settings. In fact if you have two different cards you're not even able to use SLI. If the second card doesn't show up in the NVIDIA control panel you probably have another problem with your system.

The effects of having SLI enabled are somewhat predictable, but the most common effect is that you have less than half the GPU memory available compared to rendering without SLI enabled. Sometimes the rendering gets extremely slow as well.

--
Roeland

[rappet]

I assumed wrongly that you already had a sli bridge, but not installed.
Anyway, if I were you, I would get one for sure... if you ever play game that needs sli it would beca shame having those cards and have no bridge. On the other hand what game can you not play with one 1080 also depens on res of monitors ofcours.

That aside.... It's almost unbelievable if true what Nvidia says that the second card will only be seen by system with sli bridge only. No other card has been behaving like this. Are you sure Nvidia did not mean relating to gaming with multi cards. Did you explain the setup is for rendering?
Have you tried swapping the cards from slots? Just to be sure it's not something else. Did you try the cards sepetately and do they both work sepetately when alone in the mobo?

I think and hope it is sonething else then you ate told by Nvidia, coz' then it can not be impossible to have a quad, 7- or even 8- gpu rendermachine working... That would be killing.

I had triple 780tinin sli and enabling and disabling sli (in nvidia settings while keeping the hard bridge physically) did not make that much differnce at that time (while ago with older version Octane).
Recently I testes TitanZ with enablimg sli and that gave 9% less performance.

Cheers,

[L_Sprangers]

I assumed wrongly that you already had a sli bridge, but not installed.
Anyway, if I were you, I would get one for sure... if you ever play game that needs sli it would beca shame having those cards and have no bridge. On the other hand what game can you not play with one 1080 also depens on res of monitors ofcours.

That aside.... It's almost unbelievable if true what Nvidia says that the second card will only be seen by system with sli bridge only. No other card has been behaving like this. Are you sure Nvidia did not mean relating to gaming with multi cards. Did you explain the setup is for rendering?
Have you tried swapping the cards from slots? Just to be sure it's not something else. Did you try the cards sepetately and do they both work sepetately when alone in the mobo?

I think and hope it is sonething else then you ate told by Nvidia, coz' then it can not be impossible to have a quad, 7- or even 8- gpu rendermachine working... That would be killing.

I had triple 780tinin sli and enabling and disabling sli (in nvidia settings while keeping the hard bridge physically) did not make that much differnce at that time (while ago with older version Octane).
Recently I testes TitanZ with enablimg sli and that gave 9% less performance.

Cheers,

I finally got it to work. I did a clean install of my drivers and I had to change the PCI Express settings in my bios and now it seems to be working. I'm thinking perhaps the guy I spoke to at Nvidia misunderstood what I was trying to do and maybe that's why they said it wasn't possible. I explained that I was attempting to use these cards for 3d rendering, and the guy actually told me to return my 1080s and get quadros if I wanted to do 3d rendering because "1080s are meant for gaming." Fortunately I knew otherwise, but I could see how that could have been very confusing had that been told to someone who didn't know the 1080s were being used for Octane. He made it sound as though I wouldn't be able to use them at all unless I was gaming. So glad I knew better.

[rappet]

great you got it working... !
it was kind a strange story and gladly it was only problem of communication.
Happy rendering.

Suppose you liestened and got that quadro instead...

PS
are you still gonna get you that bridge? I would for gaming.. never know what you''ll be up to

[Phantom107]

Could you elaborate more on what exactly you changed in BIOS please? I think I have the same problem...

[Timmaigh!]

I assumed wrongly that you already had a sli bridge, but not installed.
Anyway, if I were you, I would get one for sure... if you ever play game that needs sli it would beca shame having those cards and have no bridge. On the other hand what game can you not play with one 1080 also depens on res of monitors ofcours.

That aside.... It's almost unbelievable if true what Nvidia says that the second card will only be seen by system with sli bridge only. No other card has been behaving like this. Are you sure Nvidia did not mean relating to gaming with multi cards. Did you explain the setup is for rendering?
Have you tried swapping the cards from slots? Just to be sure it's not something else. Did you try the cards sepetately and do they both work sepetately when alone in the mobo?

I think and hope it is sonething else then you ate told by Nvidia, coz' then it can not be impossible to have a quad, 7- or even 8- gpu rendermachine working... That would be killing.

I had triple 780tinin sli and enabling and disabling sli (in nvidia settings while keeping the hard bridge physically) did not make that much differnce at that time (while ago with older version Octane).
Recently I testes TitanZ with enablimg sli and that gave 9% less performance.

Cheers,

I finally got it to work. I did a clean install of my drivers and I had to change the PCI Express settings in my bios and now it seems to be working. I'm thinking perhaps the guy I spoke to at Nvidia misunderstood what I was trying to do and maybe that's why they said it wasn't possible. I explained that I was attempting to use these cards for 3d rendering, and the guy actually told me to return my 1080s and get quadros if I wanted to do 3d rendering because "1080s are meant for gaming." Fortunately I knew otherwise, but I could see how that could have been very confusing had that been told to someone who didn't know the 1080s were being used for Octane. He made it sound as though I wouldn't be able to use them at all unless I was gaming. So glad I knew better.

Good to hear.
I have to wonder, if the person at Nvidia was so uninformed, that you can actually use the cards to different purpose than gaming, or was he deliberately trying to convince you to return those 1080s in favor of probably at least 4x more expensive Quadros of the same performance class.... i dont even know, which option is worse. But thats Nvidia for you, i guess. Honestly, with their politics of upping prices with each passing generation of their gpus, i am really curious at which point they take away CUDA support off the gaming cards to force all the people using them for other purposes than gaming into their Quadros or Teslas. I hope when it happens Octane will be fully OpenCL, so we can all jump to AMD...

[L_Sprangers]

great you got it working... !
it was kind a strange story and gladly it was only problem of communication.
Happy rendering.

Suppose you liestened and got that quadro instead...

PS
are you still gonna get you that bridge? I would for gaming.. never know what you''ll be up to

Thank you! I actually was looking in my motherboard box and found that it came with one, buried under some extra cords. I've connected it but have it disabled temporarily for rendering. Will definitely look forward to doing some gaming if I find the time!