SWTOR: Load screen corruption fix for SLI users

Since the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, SLI users (mainly Nvidia users) have suffered from the horrid load screen corruptions. When that corrupted screen occurs, nine times out of ten the graphics card drivers reset – and eventually the system locks up completely forcing users to hard-reboot their computers.

Note/Edit: By doing this modification to your drivers this will increase heat on your GPUs (as well GPU usage). Please be advised that it is important to kick the GPU fan speed up, or at least monitor your GPU temperatures. ipKonfig.com is not responsible for any damages to your product(s), please do so at your own risk. EVGA users can download “EVGA Precision” to make adjustments to fan speeds.

So far the only way around this is to completely disable the SLI function within the graphics card drivers – but you spent all that money for a little more performance and settings boosts – why would you do that? At the time of this article neither Nvidia nor BioWare has answered to the load screen corruption problems that plague SLI users. After a long stressful search for the answer, we have found a simple solution (keep in mind, this is temporary until the fix comes from either company — but you may choose to leave this setting enabled even after a fix has been released).

A simple setting can be altered and have little impact on the games performance – unless you spend hours in Ilum, which is another article in itself. Ilum is simply an area that has not been modified/tweaked to handle large group battles, something we have been told “is being looked into”.

Few things to keep in mind: First, the changing of Anti-Aliasing within the drivers does not necessarily affect the games Anti-Aliasing. Second, Anti-Aliasing is now enabled within the game. This setting may reduce some performance within the game for those with lower-end SLI graphics cards.

Note: this article is aimed at Nvidia users

First, right click on Windows desktop and select “NVIDIA Control Panel”

You will need to add a Profile for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This can be done by un-checking “Show only programs found on this computer” and selecting the game from the Program Settings drop-down list. The other alternative is to “Add” the game manually:

The .exe location for SWTOR:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\Star Wars – The Old Republic\swtor\retailclien\swtor.exe

Once the profile is selected choose “Enhance the application setting” from the “Antialiasing – Mode” feature.

Next, choose “Mutli-GPU 8x” from the “Antialiasing – Setting” feature:

While inside the profile it might also be a good idea to turn “Power management mode” to “Prefer maximum performance”. This will prevent the GPU from lowering clock speeds while in the game. (this helps reduce power consumption–but we want ‘more’ power!)

Much to surprise, this will resolve the screen corruptions. After weeks of testing with Multi-GPU setting, SLI users can once again rejoice. Happy hunting!

Editors Note: Nvidia driver version – 285.62 tested on EVGA GTX 590 Classified

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