nVidia SLI on Linux?
 

Well, I'm talking about nVidia SLI; is it possible on Linux? Has anyone ever tried such configuration?

How about ATI CrossFire?

if you can get it running you are ahead of me. i have tried and failed, but i am not hardware guy when it comes to linux.

according to the Nvidia HOWTO and FAQ SLI is suppose to be supported for the Linux.sh installer of drivers after you hack the Xorg or X11 conf file.

as far as ATI is concerned, do not waist your time with ATI and Linux.

SLI is supported fine under the Nvidia linux drivers and should work out of the box.

I'm also One the users of NVidia SLI edition and works flawlessly.

Only was a pain on the a$$ to make modifications on SUSE 10.1, but it worth every cent.:twocents:

well as one of you is lising BSD and the other of you is NOT listing their distro, it begs to ask, what distros were you successful with?

the following hardware cr4ped out and could not even get a GUI installed let alone SLI working:

AMD 939 3800+
Asus A8N-SLI Premium board
2G PC3200 ram
2x Nvidia 6800Xtreem 256M SLI configured on MB
Seagate sATA HD

was successful at getting a copied vs of SuSe 10.1 installed, but never could tell if SLI was configured. just my LACK of skill with RPM distros and SuSe specific.

Debian 64bit failed
FC5 64bit failed
Ubuntu failed
Knoppix failed (would run live, but after install would crash)

the crash was so hard that none of my LUG members could figure it out, and the system became so unstable you had to hold down the power button to turn it off. no amount of tweeking would get it to run smooth even in the CLI.

so again, what distro were you using, what hardware are you using to get SLI working in Linux.

The distro is irrelevant, the drivers and X are the same across the board. I never actually used SLI I just know of a few other people who have successfully.

SLI isn't super popular so I wouldn't imagine many automatic tools would pick up and automagically configure dual cards. Check the README on the Nvidia site, it'll tell you how to set up your xorg.conf.

For those who have sucessfully implemented SLI... I have a question if you don't mind: can you run every mode flawlessly (split screen, AFR, etc)? Including SLI AA?

I'm not entirely sure what the significance of SLI is, but I have a KN1 SLI motherboard at home which won't boot either my installed FC4 or the FC4 installer. I get a kernel panic error which appears to be well-documented, but none of the workarounds

[http:]//forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=59051&page=2&pp=15

(can't post urls until 3 posts...)

work for me.

I am burning FC5 install disks right now which I intend to try tonight. I'll let ya'll know how it goes.


MjM

have you tried FC6 or OpenSuSe 10.1?

I just now tried FC5, FC6 and Knoppix 5.0.1. All with the same result.

I just don't get this. It has to be something with the harddrive controller, but you would think there would be tons of complaints out there linking linux + nvidia chipset + amd 64 and I'm not seeing that.

I'm getting near my wits end. My next option is going to be an Intel MB and processor.


MjM

check the knowlegebase under support from the nvidia website

I have made marginal progress.

If I put the FC4 install disk in and then type:

linux root=/dev/hdc

at the boot prompt. I get a "can't find init" error. It was late and I went to bed before I thought to look at the install disk and find out where the initrd.img file was. (I was stupidly confusing the burned CD with the ISO image and thinking I couldn't get a directory listing from it and so wasn't sure what argument to give to init=. Like I said, it was late, 3AM or so.) I'll try that later.

However, I'm traveling for thanksgiving and probably won't get another crack at this until Saturday.

Happy T-Day.


MjM

Same problem still.

tried Ubuntu 64

Tried giving root=/dev/hdc init=/isolinux/initrd.img to fc4 installer.

Just don't know...


MjM

Never tried split screen, but anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing both work my on dual 6800GT setup at all settings, although it should be noted that 16X anti-aliasing is too slow to have any real use.

Asus M2N-SLi deluxe with 2 7600GS cards on a AMD 64 bit. Debian Etch.

One simple addition to xorg.conf and it worked. Doom3 demo1 runs at 65 fps.

It's not perfect but seems stable and I've only just started playing with it.

BTW only the ETCH installer worked on this mobo, all other versions couldn't handle the buses.

nvidia-settings . . . . I know youv'e probably looked here but if not . . .

Nvidia Chipset Problem Solved
 

Sorry for the delay to finish up on this. It took me swapping the original motherboard for a replacement from the manufacturer along with swapping the processor with a replacement from AMD until I finally found the problem.

I had a bad RAM module.

Apparently the motherboard meltdown took the RAM with it. However, none of the motherboards I tried reported the RAM as bad in POST.

I was trying to boot Knoppix and I noticed it had a DOS-based RAM test and so I went ahead and tried that.

All in all, it took me from November to February to finally get this solved.

<type title here>
 

If you want to get SLI running, instead of manually editing the xorg.conf you should copy/paste this command.
That will add the line to your xorg.conf for Alternating Frame Rendering and you're less likely to make a mistake. Both "Yes" and "AFR" have worked for me but I would rather specify AFR because I have no idea what "YES" means to Nvidia. Alternately you can use SFR (Split Frame Rendering) or AA (Hellifino)