Windows 8.1 update kills SLI in Nvidia Surround

[Mike1304]

I have a big problem and I post it in different areas of this forums because I don't know the exact reason for the problem and it concerns both "Multi-Monitor-Gaming" as well as "Nvidia Surround Gaming".

Since I updated from Windows 8 (64 bit) to Windows 8.1 (64 bit) yesterday my 3D-Vision-Surround-System doesn't use my second TITAN-graphics-card although SLI is turned on (SLI-surround over 3 monitors)!

Before updating I had fluid framerates in my games but now I have poor framerates although I have a high-end-system. And the worst thing: it is not possible to roll back to windows 8!

In the nvidia control panel everything seems okay but when I checked SLI with the tool "GPU-Z" I realized that the second GPU has 0% load which seems to be the reason for the poor framerates.

I don't know if there are other/better tools for checking if SLI is working. If I enable the "SLI visual indicator" for example in the nvidia control panel nothing happens when I play a game afterward. Maybe this proves too that SLI is not working, maybe it is normal that the "SLI visual indicator" doesn't work in "SLI-surround-mode"?!

I am using the latest nvidia-driver (331.65), tried clean reinstalls, tried older drivers (327.23) but SLI is not being used when running games. With windows 8 everything was perfect.

Someone told me I should try to turn off SLI but I need SLI for my 3-monitor-surround-setup! Another strange thing is, if I try to turn off SLI a window pops up with a message that I have to close the wwahost.exe (this seems to have something to do with the windows-store?!).

I read in the forums that other people also have problems with SLI and windows 8.1 but the solutions in this forums are only for a specific hardware (notebooks Lenovo Y500/Y400/Y510P/Y410P) or concerning a fourth monitor. But I don't have a notebook but a desktop-pc and I "only" have three monitors.

Is there someone out there who has the same system and can (or can not) use triple-monitor-surround with SLI working on WINDOWS 8.1??

What can I do? Please help me!

[anteronoid]

I run 3-way Sli in surround, with Windows 8.1 and have no problems at all.

But i didn't upgrade from 8 to 8.1, i did a clean install.
Yes, some stuff needs to be closed when changing settings, like wwahost.exe and some other stuff I use, like the Logitech Gaming Software and Chrome if its active.
But I deem that as a normal behaviour since they maybe use the gpu's in some way.

I have learned by the years with Windows that I never should do a inplace upgrade, all kinds of problems every time. So I only do fresh installs when it comes to upgrade to a new version of Windows. And 8.1 isn't just a service pack, its a new OS.

[tepescovir]

I did a clean install of win 8.1 to test with bf4 on surround.
Didnt work too well and performance was not nearly as good as win7. Heaven benchmark went from 2560 on win 7 to 1360 on win 8.1 and i had all the latest drivers, bios etc on both systems. But i didnt check my sli usage at the time

[klepp0906]

any luck with this? I can confirm it is an issue with nvidias drivers, but only with certain games. I get SLI while using surround in windows 8, however not in 8.1 (unless i get rid of surround)

Do you run portrait by chance? Or quad sli by chance? Trying to alleviate those as potential causes. Have been working via PM and email with nvidias QA department for 3 months now trying to fix this and fix ffxiv via surround.

They have reproduced the problem but are having trouble finding the cause/fixing it. IMHO surround is a darn mess atm. If you have an option go with eyefinity.

Anyhow, here's some specifics if your interested and/or play ffxiv and intend to upgrade to surround (as i did specifically for ffixv) Now i have a 10,000 dollar pc that gets 25fps in my game of choice. Its a miserable experience.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topi ... -/#4170354