Horrible performance on 8800GT SLI

[nevermore]

Hello everyone...I had been following these forums before the release of Live 08. In the beginning I had the crashes after 1st quarter and whenever a timeout was called. Dont even remember how I fixed it. Then applied alot of the amazing patches posted here. After that when I didnt feel like playing Live 08 anymore i backed up "sgsm" folder.

Now I have upgraded my PC with a new motherboard, EVGA 680i SLI and XFX 8800GT SLI. Processor is core 2 duo E6550

I must say NBA Live 08 performs POORLY! I am running it on 1920x1080 using the Custom Resolution Guide. I get average of 20fps on MAX settings which is unplayable. Changing the settings to LOW or even lowering the resolution does not work. The frame rate remains the same. I have tried disconnecting the second card and using a single card, still it does not work. Live 08 performs poorly. I have updated my drivers to the latest ones. Tried several other drivers still i get poor frame rates. And now I have the frequent crashes problems again.

What could be causing this?

[droptopflopmop]

protip: get the legal version next time

[nevermore]

It didn't make a difference. Ive tried both. any more pro tips?

[Patr1ck]

It's very likely that the game was not optimized for dual core cpu's or sli configurations, not to mention if your running it on Vista, because you haven't specified.

After starting the game, ALT+TAB back to windows and bring up the Task Manager(CTRL+ALT+DEL). Click on the processes tab and right click nbalive08.exe. A menu will popup, look for "Set Affinity" and make sure only CPU 0 or CPU 1 is checked. It may look different, but in a dual core setup you should have two options to choose from, or both. Just choose one.

That is just a shot in the dark, I'm not saying that it will fix the problem, but it's worth a try.

[droptopflopmop]

really? never heard a legit copy crashing on a timeout or end of first quarter...
in which case, Pdub's idea is worth a try.

[nevermore]

I think alot of people here have legit copies, if not all, and everyone encountered the crashing and tons of other bugs in this game.

Thank you Pdub I will give it a shot and post back. But previously I was running it perfectly on the same CPU...and like I said, even after physically removing the other card to disable SLI, it did not make any difference. Yes I am running it on Vista. I need someone to confirm that it works on 8800gt..sli or not. Because that, and besides the motherboard, is the only thing I have changed in my PC. RAM and CPU are still the same.

[Andrew]

I have a legal copy and I've never experienced a crash during a timeout or at the end of the first quarter; I'd say about 99% of people with a legal copy can say the same thing, though the other 1% could very well be experiencing some hardware conflicts. Generally speaking however the problem comes back to an illegal copy or trying to use a No CD patch with a legal copy, which is why that question comes up whenever the issue is mentioned.