Widescreen Gaming Forum

Just got my 5870 CF going today and so far not so good. I am pretty sure every game I have tried has worse performance than a single card does, so I hope there is some obvious flaw that somebody can point me at that I can fix.

Specs
Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Intel 2600K @4.5ghz
16GB RAM
PC P&C 750W PSU

GPU-Z shows both cards @ 8x PCI-E 2.0 speed so no x4 or x2 slot issues.
GPU-Z shows temps to be fine for both cards during benchmark/use
750W PSU Should be enough to power them fine

I have the CF bridge on.

CF works as say in Hard Reset I get almost double the MAX FPS with CF enabled but I also get HALF the minimum FPS and lag/stuttering that is not present with a single card.
Skyrim is much worse, and BF3 I can tell is worse.

I am not so sure its "microstudder" it seems much more prominent and worse than what people are traditionally calling microstudder, this is game braking lag/pause/break in gameplay.

Drivers are the 12.1 preview drivers.


Right now my only ideas are I need to try older drivers just incase the 12.1 are messed up.
That 8x Lanes are not fast enough enough though they should be.
That the 1GB Cards have issues w/ Eyefinity more than a single card does.
Bad CF Bridge

So I will have to test older drivers or something later on but anybody have any ideas/hints?

_________________
ViciousXUSMC on the Web - YouTube :: FaceBook :: Website

Just got my 5870 CF going today and so far not so good. I am pretty sure every game I have tried has worse performance than a single card does, so I hope there is some obvious flaw that somebody can point me at that I can fix.

Specs
Asus P8P67 Deluxe
Intel 2600K @4.5ghz
16GB RAM
PC P&C 750W PSU

GPU-Z shows both cards @ 8x PCI-E 2.0 speed so no x4 or x2 slot issues.
GPU-Z shows temps to be fine for both cards during benchmark/use
750W PSU Should be enough to power them fine

I have the CF bridge on.

CF works as say in Hard Reset I get almost double the MAX FPS with CF enabled but I also get HALF the minimum FPS and lag/stuttering that is not present with a single card.
Skyrim is much worse, and BF3 I can tell is worse.

I am not so sure its "microstudder" it seems much more prominent and worse than what people are traditionally calling microstudder, this is game braking lag/pause/break in gameplay.

Drivers are the 12.1 preview drivers.


Right now my only ideas are I need to try older drivers just incase the 12.1 are messed up.
That 8x Lanes are not fast enough enough though they should be.
That the 1GB Cards have issues w/ Eyefinity more than a single card does.
Bad CF Bridge

So I will have to test older drivers or something later on but anybody have any ideas/hints?

Running exact same settings apart from the new card?

This sounds like drivers to me, with the minimum rate being lower.

_________________
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DC3217IYE | 1x4GB Vengeance | 64GB M4 | TX-42VT20E

Found some interesting stuff: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=355720

Using that tool posted in that thread I can see with the OSD options that crossfire is on during gaming and both cards are being equally utilized.

Still have not found any fix for the lag/studder though. Seems its easy to upset the beast like in BF3 just going into the menu and trying to change video options causes the game to go into a crawl until I change back to the settings that were present when I launched the game.

12.1 seems to be doing fine for other people though.

_________________
ViciousXUSMC on the Web - YouTube :: FaceBook :: Website

Hey Vicious,

I've been running 2x 5870s in Crossfire on Eyefinity at 6048x1080 for a little over a year now. Our systems are somewhat similar. Here are my specs:

Asus P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Motherboard
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.6 GHz @ 3.8 GHz
6 GB RAM
1000W PSU

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit.

I had incredibly poor performance on both Battlefield and Skyrim originally. Battlefield specifically gave me the same problem you are having with any changes made to Video Settings slowing my system to a crawl, under the old 11.10 drivers but haven't had any issues with the 11.11c and 12.1 previews. What version of the Catalyst Application Profiles are you using? 11.11 CAP 3 is what I'm on.

What settings are you using in both Battlefield 3 and Skyrim? I haven't done a comparison of Crossfire VS 1 card. But, having used Crossfire exclusively, here are the settings I've found to keep a steady framerate (I haven't measured in FRAPS or anything, I just crank up and adjust down til I'm happy with fidelity VS performance)

Skyrim:

Antialiasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 8x
Texture Quality: High
Radial Blur Quality: Medium
Shadow Detail: High
Decal Quality: High
FXAA: Off
Water: Reflect Land, Reflect Objects, Reflect Trees
Object Fade: 7
Light Fade: 25
Actor Fade: 6
Item Fade: 4
Grass Fade: 5
Specularity Fade: 10
Distant Object Detail: High
Object Detail Fade: Off

Battlefield 3:

Texture Quality: Medium
Shadow Quality: Medium
Effects Quality: Medium
Mesh Quality: Medium
Terrain Quality: Medium
Terrain Decoration: Medium
Antialising Deferred: Off
Antialising Post: Off
Motion Blur: Off
Anisotropic Filter: 16x
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO

<*Edit> Ran FRAPS and found I'm getting a min FPS = 32, max FPS = 74 and average FPS = 45 on Sharqi Peninsula in 32 player multiplayer on Battlefield 3. In the Lost Knife Cave in Skyrim I'm getting min FPS = 31, max FPS = 1105, and average FPS = 73.

I'll try to change the cap profile and see if that helps.

ill try 11.12 cap1

those settings you listed i usually could run on just one card pretty good, (example BF3 all medium was pretty playable with one card) I was hoping the 2nd card to get me into high or atleast higher frame rates.

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ViciousXUSMC on the Web - YouTube :: FaceBook :: Website

you have GPU-Z right? So you can see VRAM usage. IF its over 1000mb you might have to less, but there are some games which manage to run with full vram an no lags....

Oh, and can you do me a favour and do some benchmarks with Fraps (like explained here ) I need more Data :)

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We gonna send it to outa space!

I think BF3 is better now with the cap update.

Skyrim about the same, I think maybe the 4GB LLA.exe may tell it not to use the proper profile so if I use that radeon tool I think its better as I force it.

Once all textures load lag goes away, I did have 2x AA set I just turned that off that may help a ton. But yeah where my current save is its outside at night with lots around and I load into the game @ 2 or 3fps with a npc attacking me because I accidentally stole a book.

If I keep running for about 30 seconds my fps goes up to mid 20's once everything has loaded in.

I'll keep working with it.

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ViciousXUSMC on the Web - YouTube :: FaceBook :: Website

Ok wow update: with no AA Skyrim instead of 2-3fps is 30fps and goes up to 40/50ish way better and way playable.

What bothers me though is testing with crossfire on/off nets me the same frame rate regardless so its not like I see a boost with CF. Unless the game is using CF even when I have it off, but I recall the game being just as playable with one card before I had the 2nd.

Going to test the Hard Reset bench and report back that one had some hard numbers and clear differences with CF on/off.

_________________
ViciousXUSMC on the Web - YouTube :: FaceBook :: Website

i think i read something (in changelog) about CF working only for HD6000 atm, in Skyrim, and then again i read something about CF deactivated cuz of problems....

Use Rivatuner / MSI Afterburner, activate OSD and watch if both GPU's have over 90% GPU load!

_________________
We gonna send it to outa space!

How does the new card run on its' own? Have you tried another bridge? How does the single