Graphics SLI is it needed problem

[Tommy Burns]

Hi all

 

Just had a funny thing happen today in my viewports

I have recently acquired from previous employees a dell precision quad core with dual quadro fx4500 graphics cards (Windows xp 3gb switch, DX9). I had been running this in SLI mode until today when I got an image in my viewports just of the letters SLI and a green line

So I figured this was a problem with SLI (well done sherlock:) and I turned it off.

What I was wondering

1. has anyone ever seen this before?

2. Is there any benefit using SLI in max or mental?

3. If yes is there anything else I should be doing to use it properly?

4. If I don't have SLI turned on does that mean I am only using one card

so I could give the other card to someone else as it is of no benefit?

Any help would be appreciated as I don't understand why two cards where bought in the first place.

Thanks in advance!

[manta]

I think SLI would be useless in MAX and MR at this time, a render engine called Gelato uses Quadro cards to render, I wonder if it would use two at once....

[Hazdaz]

Ya know, I have read countless things stating that SLI is useless in MAX (and every other 3D application - outside of games of course), but I did read ONE thread in which someone put the idea to test and SLI was indeed quite a bit faster than a single videocard.

Not sure if that is true, and I don't have the dual cards to test it myself, but there is doubt in my mind now whether the standard "no speed increase with SLI" is actually valid.

 

Would be interested in seeing true benchmarks.