UPDATE 4 (03/12/2013)
>> It seems that nVidia finally fixed the official SLI profile for Shadow Warrior. BMT and (0i0i)5m4rt4l3X[-CH-] pointed out in this thread that the latest beta drivers, starting with version 331.93, don't need the new fix anymore. The official profile is now using the correct SLI compatibility bits, so you'll only need my guide if you're using drivers older than 331.93.

Go here to get the latest drivers: http://www.geforce.com/drivers


For the old updates, see the seperate "Archived updates" section

Shadow Warrior is an amazing game with great visuals, but it needs quite a bit of power to be able to run it maxed out. Due to it being just released, there is no official SLI profile yet for the game, which results in the game not utilising the full potential of gamers with SLI rigs.

When I noticed Shadow Warrior wasn't using my second GPU, I decided to experiment a bit. Enabling SLI isn't difficult at all, mainly because Shadow Warrior uses the same (but improved) Road Hog engine used in Flying Wild Hog's previous game, Hard Reset. So I decided to try adding Shadow Warrior executable to the Hard Reset profile with nvidiaInspector, and see what happened.

And it worked! Before this tweak, I had to run the game on High with SSAO disabled to get an average of 60FPS. This little change enabled me to run the game on Ultra settings with a rock solid 60FPS on my GTX580 SLI setup.


This small guide will help you harness the power of SLI for Shadow Warrior (if you're using drivers older than version 331.93).

We'll need only one tool to help us enable SLI, namely nvidiaInspector. After downloading, simply extract the contents of the archive to a folder of choice, and start "nvidiaInspector.exe".

You can download the latest version here: http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/nvidia_inspector_download.html


To check if the fix worked, you'll need a diagnostics tool. There are several free tools that you can use to display all kinds of data about your GPU onscreen, and I've added some of the more popular ones to the list below:

EVGA Precision X
>> Download: http://www.evga.com/precision/
>> I personally use this one myself. It has a handy OSD (On-Screen Display) option that offers an overlay with whatever info you want about your GPU's during gameplay.
>> You don't need to own a EVGA card to download this, but you will need to register on the site.

MSI Afterburner
>> Download: http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/
>> Offers the same functionality as Precision X.
>> You don't need to own a MSI card to download this. No registration needed as far as I know.

This is the RECOMMENDED way for drivers 331.58 or newer (not needed any more starting with driver version 331.93)

nVidia had added an official SLI profile to their drivers (starting with version 331.58, latest drivers can be found on http://www.geforce.com/drivers), and if you've tried it out you will have noticed that the performance is much lower than with my fix. So it seems the official profile is broken and not working as expected. With my fix, I get a silky smooth framerate that almost never drops below 60FPS (maxed out settings, adaptive vsync forced on). The official profile on the other hand is barely able to keep the framerate above 40-45FPS, even when almost nothing is happening on-screen.

So I decided to compare the official Shadow Warrior profile with the Hard Reset one (the profile used in my "old" fix), and I noticed that for some reason the official profile is not using the Hard Reset SLI compatibility bits. I thought this was a bit weird, since Shadow Warrior uses a newer version of the engine used in Hard Reset. So it would have made more sense to use the Hard Reset SLI compatibility bits in the official profile, and not the ones used now. Also, if you look at the games list mentioned next to the official compatibility bits, you'll see that there's no mention of Hard Reset or Shadow Warrior (or any other games using the Roadhog engine, but at the moment there are no such games anyway), which strikes me as extremely odd.

So after some testing, I've discovered that the official profile can easily be fixed by making one simple change to it. All that's needed to get the same performance with the official profile as with my (old) fix, is to chance the value of the SLI compatibility bits from 0x02400005 to 0x02C00005 (the value used in the Hard Reset profile). After this simple change, the official profile delivers the same performance as my "old" fix.

Before (official profile values)


After (fixed values)



Optionally, you can also copy the Antialiasing - Behaviour Flags from the Hard Reset profile, but personally I didn't notice any change in performance after doing this. The official profile has no value for this setting, and you'll want to change this to 0x00000005.

The fastest way to enable SLI is to simply add the executable for Shadow Warrior to the existing Hard Reset profile. This is also the RECOMMENDED way for drivers older than 331.58 (more info on why I recommend this way in Fix 3).


1. Run nvidiaInspector, and click on the Driver profile settings button (little button with the wrench and screwdriver icon next to your current driver info)




2. Select the Hard Reset profile in (top left corner)




3. Click on the "Add application to current profile" button (6th button on the top with the little green plus sign on)




4. Locate the Shadow Warrior executable, and add it. You will need to choose "Application absolute path" option next to the filename box. This is needed because another profile already uses the "SW.exe" filename




5. Save by pressing Apply changes


As you can see this is very easy to do, but there is one small "problem": If nVidia changes the Hard Reset profile in a driver update, you'll lose the changes you manually made to it.

To prevent this, you could export the profile and import it after the driver install, but then you'll lose the "official" changes made by nVidia.

So the best way to handle this problem is to simply re-add the Shadow Warrior executable to the Hard Reset profile after each driver update.

Another solution is to make a completely new custom profile for Shadow Warrior and copy the settings from the Hard Reset profile over to it. This profile can be easily exported and imported when needed without possibly screwing up any changes made to the official profiles.

However, I don't recommend this way because the new profile will miss some of the special compatibility bits that the official Hard Reset profile has. As far as I know, it's not possible to manually add those settings to a custom profile.

I tried exporting the official Hard Reset profile and manually changing the profile name and exe location in the exported file, but importing the changed file didn't seem to copy those settings over (at least not correctly).

The screenshot below shows the settings I'm talking about:


I have no idea how important these special compatibility bits are for SLI, so I recommend sticking to Fix 1 or Fix 2 (depending on your driver version) for the best result.

If someone does know how to add those special settings, or if they are important for SLI or not, please let me know in the comments!

While the above fixes will help you enable SLI, there is one small catch you should be aware of: as I have already mentioned, when you update your GPU drivers there is a big chance that the Hard Reset profile will be reset or that your custom profile gets deleted.

If this happens, you have two options:
1. Simply repeat the steps above to re-enable SLI. (recommended)
2. Before installing the new drivers, export your custom/changed profiles with nvidiaInspector. You can import them again after the driver has been installed.




If nVidia however already added an official profile in the update, then you should be set without having to manually change profile settings. Plus, with an official profile there is always a chance that the game will run even better than with a custom one.

UPDATE 3 (27/11/2013)
>> After some testing, I've discovered that the official profile can easily be fixed by making one simple change to it. All that's needed to get the same performance with the official profile as with my (old) fix, is to chance the value of the SLI compatibility bits to the one used in the Hard Reset profile.

I've added a new section to this guide that explains how to do this. This is also my recommended method now.


UPDATE 2 (21/10/2013)
>> It seems the official profile is broken and not working as expected. I've tried out the profile and I get worse performance than the fix described in my guide. "pnarciso" and "dynamite deluxe!" also came to the same conclusion (see their comments in this thread).

With my fix, I get a silky smooth framerate that never drops below 60FPS (maxed out settings, adaptive vsync), while the official profile is barely able to keep the framerate above 40-45FPS.

YMMV though, and I still suggest you try out the official profile first before trying my fix.


UPDATE (21/10/2013)
>> nVidia finally released an official SLI profile in the latest Geforce drivers (version 331.58). This set of drivers contains an official SLI profile for Shadow Warrior, and is is your best bet to get the best results on an SLI-enabled computer.

You can find more info and download links here: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-331-58-whql-drivers-released

If you can't (or don't want to) install the latest drivers and would still like to get SLI working on an older set of drivers, be sure to read on.