I'm optimizing a directx graphics application to take advantage of nVidia's SLI technology. I'm currently investigating some of the techniques mentioned in their 'Best Practices' web page, but wanted to know what advice/experience any of you have had with this?
Thanks!
This is not really an answer to you question, more of a comment on SLI.
My understanding is that SLI is only really a cost-effective means of gaining performance when you buy two cards right away, which few people actually do. Many people buy an SLI motherboard and card thinking it will give them a better upgrade path down the road, but the reality is that by the time you get to that point, it is going to be cheaper to buy a new, faster card, than it is to duplicate the one you already have just to get SLI going.
Just a thought before you pour too much energy into it. If you have a requirement to support SLI, then that's what you have to do. But personally, I would rather see optimization energy put towards non-SLI implementations.
The one thing SLI can do that having two non-SLIed graphics can't do is Nvidia Surround.
In some games this will allow you to play the game at 1080x(3x1920). So you can play the game on three monitors as if it was one.
The disadvantage that I have found to SLI is
A) It limits the number of monitors you can have running at once. Example: I have two geforce 560 gtx ti's. When not using SLI I can have 4 independent monitors running. With SLI I can only have 2, or 3 monitors running in Surround.
B) Because when you run 3 monitors in Surround, it treats them as one large monitor, if you use the Window Dock left and right, the window will take up 1.5 monitors. Which is not only annoying but also makes the feature almost useless.
Right now what I do is turn on SLI when I am about to run my game, and when I am not gaming have it set to "Activate all Displays" in Nvidia Control Panel. Though you can't change back and forth with applications like Chrome open. So before I launch a game I have to close everything... Working for a better solution.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/309100/nvidia-sli-tricks