4870x2, Terrible performance in... Lego Batman?!

[wrathchild_67]

So I finally got my new rig together: watercooled I7 at 4.2GHz and 4870x2, 12GB RAM. Previously I had a similar system with 2x 8800GTs in SLI. My old nVidia setup ate the game for breakfast, as it should since the game is just a console port from the Xbox 360. Even a single 8800GT could run this game at a constant 60fps without issues. I was hoping to see over 100fps constantly with my setup but the game struggles to run at even 50fps! Apparently this isn't an unknown issue on ATi cards. Does anyone else have this game and have similar performance issues? I've also confirmed that Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga has even worse performance than Lego Batman, but strangely Lego Indiana Jones runs perfectly fine. Pretty much every other game, including Crysis, simply flies. This is extrememly annoying. If I turn off the advanced effects in these games, thus making them look like an upscaled Playstation 2 version version of the game, the speed is fine.

I've gotta say that ATi still has it's share of driver issues. My last ATi card was an X800 XL and I've gone through three generations of NV cards since then and have not had any issues at all with the Forcewares. With the Catalysts, vsync doesn't seem to work properly on half my games, even when forced to "On" in the CCC, yet the Forceware drivers have no issue with this. In the AMD forums, their moderator blames Windows 7 for this...

I'm running the 10.3 WHQL drivers (no previous ATi drivers installed). Also Ive got an nVidia 9600GT card with Physx Mod 1.2 and Forceware 196.12 installed mainly for Batman - AA.

[erocker]

Have you tried without the PhysX card in? Even if half of the 4870x2 was working the framerates should be good in those games. Maybe it is Windows 7, have you tried compatibility mode? Any patches for the games? Have you updated Direct X? When everything else "simply flies", I would chalk it up to a problem with the game usually.

[Wile E]

Hmmm, I have a 4870X2 with an 8800GT. I have Lego Star Wars around here somewhere. I need to find the disc tho. I'll try to dig it up and get back to you.

In the meantime, can you link me Physx Mod 1.2 so I can update to 10.3 and 196.12? I only have 1.02.

[wrathchild_67]

Is there a way to disable one of the GPUs for a specific game? I think it may be that the game just doesn't like Crossfire. I'd rather do that than have to open my case. Although it may work just as well to disable the 9600GT in Device Manager. That's another thing I miss from the NV drivers- the ability to set game specific SLI and performance profiles and have those profiles kick in automatically when the game Exe is detected.

I can see that both GPUs are churning at 99% in the game (thanks to MSI Afterburner), but judging by what I've seen from other games' % utilization, these numbers should be in the 50% range or lower. Even Batman - AA rarely uses 99% on both GPUs at 1920x1080.

[Wile E]

I thought 10.3 had profiles? And if I remember correctly, setting Catalyst AI to off disables Crossfire on our cards.

And even if you figure out your problem, can you still link the 1.2 Physx patch? lol

[erocker]

Originally Posted by wrathchild_67

Is there a way to disable one of the GPUs for a specific game? I think it may be that the game just doesn't like Crossfire. I'd rather do that than have to open my case. Although it may work just as well to disable the 9600GT in Device Manager. That's another thing I miss from the NV drivers- the ability to set game specific SLI and performance profiles and have those profiles kick in automatically when the game Exe is detected.

I can see that both GPUs are churning at 99% in the game (thanks to MSI Afterburner), but judging by what I've seen from other games' % utilization, these numbers should be in the 50% range or lower. Even Batman - AA rarely uses 99% on both GPUs at 1920x1080.

You can set profiles using a single card in CCC under Options-->Profile Manager. Set it to disable Catalyst AI.

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Hmmm, I have a 4870X2 with an 8800GT. I have Lego Star Wars around here somewhere. I need to find the disc tho. I'll try to dig it up and get back to you.

In the meantime, can you link me Physx Mod 1.2 so I can update to 10.3 and 196.12? I only have 1.02.

I got the numbers mixed up in the Forceware version, I'm running 196.21.

Do you have the original Lego Star Wars or the one one that was more recently released- "The Complete Saga?" I'm running the newest Lego Star Wars game.

Physx Mod Homepage: http://physxinfo.com/news/942/hybrid...in-xp-support/
Link to mod: http://files.wyw.ru/4119466

You click on "Cake" in the Physx mod program after installing the NV drivers. You will probably have to do this in Safe Mode to avoid an error, I did.

[Wile E]

No, actually I have Lego Star wars 2. Didn't even realize that the Complete Saga released. The only other one I have is Indiana Jones. Never bought Batman.

And that's the Physx mod I have. Didn't realize it worked with the 196 drivers. I tend to not update drivers if my games aren't broken. lol.

[wrathchild_67]

Well I just created a profile for Lego Batman, confirmed that only 1 GPU was active and it's still slow, in fact the framerate is exactly the same as when both GPUs are active at 99%. Then I also disabled the 9600GT in the Device Manager, and still no dice. The only solution is to turn off the enhanced graphics options... I'm going to bed, but I will try physically removing the 9600GT tomorrow, although I'm pretty sure it's a Catalyst issue. I guess we'll know for sure when Wile E tests it. If I have to reduce the graphics quality to make these games playable, I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

[edit]Oh I see you don't have the newer Star Wars. You could still test it I suppose. It's probably close enough in terms of the game engine.

You could also try the Lego Batman demo: http://www.gamershell.com/download_34278.shtml

[Wile E]

Have you tried a different Catalyst driver?

And thanks. I'm downloading the Batman Demo now. I'll buy the full game if I find on sale for $15 or less.

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Have you tried a different Catalyst driver?

And thanks. I'm downloading the Batman Demo now. I'll buy the full game if I find on sale for $15 or less.

No, and I don't really want to. The 10.3's are supposed to be the cream of the crop. It's the first time I've ever seen a consistent 60fps in Crysis. Everything else on my system is running great. I can't believe Batman - AA with Physx enabled- rock solid 60fps framerate and all the extra effects. I had no idea what I was missing on my old setup. Physx didn't work at all in this particular game on my SLI 8800GTs.

I'll be eagerly awaiting your results. I'm downloading the Lego Batman demo too just to make sure that it has all the same enhanced graphics options that the full version has, otherwise your test will be for nothing. Anyways, I'm off to bed.

[brandonwh64]

WRATH CHILD thanks for the info on the physx! i just installed my 9600GT and did the driver install then the physx mod and it worked like a charm! i have my 5850 as main and the 9600GT as physx!

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

WRATH CHILD thanks for the info on the physx! i just installed my 9600GT and did the driver install then the physx mod and it worked like a charm! i have my 5850 as main and the 9600GT as physx!

You're welcome! As a favor, maybe you could download that Lego Batman demo and see how it runs on your system. I use MSI Afterburner for framerate monitoring in-game, among other things.

When I get home from work later tonight, I'll try the demo and physically removing the card. Wile E, any updates?

[Fourstaff]

Problems with Lego Batman? I shat bricks.

[Wile E]

Not quite yet. Sorry wrathchild, got caught up in life. Need to do a few things before I can test.

[Robert-The-Rambler]

I tried the demo with my Phenom X3 8750 with 3 4850 1 gig in triple crossfire at 2560 * 1600. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit with 4 gigs of DDR 2 800 RAM. There is something wrong with the way depth of field is working and the occlusion effects. I can't confirm why but it seems so similar to trying to run CUDA or Physics effects with ATI hardware. It runs in software and sucks. Try doing that in Arkham Asylum and it is also a slide show. The FPS as tracked by FRAPS in Lego Batman with max detail is only 20 FPS with the enhanced graphics on. The FPS jumps to over 200 when you disable enhanced graphics and max every thing else including 8X FSAA.

I'm going to also confirm this with my 4890 crossfire I7 920 rig to further solidify this reality. At 1080p we'll see how I do. I want to know why this is really happening from somebody in the know because I find it insane that 3 teraflops of GPU power can't run such a silly and fun yet seemingly less than power hungry graphics engine.

Okay. I tried it on the I7 rig and got a consistent 55 FPS at 1920 * 1080 with enhanced graphics. Anyhow, I will google away to see if their is a real answer as to why.

[wrathchild_67]

I did some more testing in Lego Batman and confirmed it's just the ambient occlusion setting that causes the slowdown. In Lego Star Wars, it's the shadows being enabled that causes it, which I guess it related to ambient occlusion as well. I can live without the setting in Lego Batman since the game is dark already, but turning off shadows in Lego Star Wars looks horrible. I doubt ATi will do anything to fix it.

[DRDNA]

wrathchild_67 try renaming the Lego executable to something different like GRID.exe for example and test...you never know! I have very good luck with doing this with no other options to try!~

[Robert-The-Rambler]

Originally Posted by wrathchild_67

I did some more testing in Lego Batman and confirmed it's just the ambient occlusion setting that causes the slowdown. In Lego Star Wars, it's the shadows being enabled that causes it, which I guess it related to ambient occlusion as well. I can live without the setting in Lego Batman since the game is dark already, but turning off shadows in Lego Star Wars looks horrible. I doubt ATi will do anything to fix it.

I'll stick with that. Seems to be the best bet. I'll have to fiddle with Stars Wars later.

[t_ski]

I had a GTX295 or two in the system and still had issues with the settings cranked up all the way on a Core i7 running at 4.0GHz. Lego friggin' Batman???!?!?! I never would have guessed this game would be so hard on a GPU...

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by DRDNA

wrathchild_67 try renaming the Lego executable to something different like GRID.exe for example and test...you never know! I have very good luck with doing this with no other options to try!~

Didn't work. I started playing around with CPU affinity and thought I fixed it. I only ended up speeding up the intro screen a little. I've also noticed that if I have catalyst AI enabled and my desktop extended to my second monitor, vsync sets the fps ceiling at 120fps instead of 60, almost like it's combining the refresh rates of both monitors.

Originally Posted by t_ski

I had a GTX295 or two in the system and still had issues with the settings cranked up all the way on a Core i7 running at 4.0GHz. Lego friggin' Batman???!?!?! I never would have guessed this game would be so hard on a GPU...

Well my 8800GTs in SLI handled it fine. Maybe the Lego game engine is just buggy. Although I'm pretty sure these issues could be fixed with a driver update. If an Xbox 360 can handle the game at 60fps constantly, then a computer 2x more powerful should too.

[t_ski]

I mean I had everything cranked. AA, AF, details, the whole 9 yards.

[Wile E]

Ok, I just tested on my older drivers (10.1 and 195.xx) and I get about 45-50fps with everything enabled in Batman. If I turn off Ambient Occlusion, I get a steady 130-150fps.

Iirc, isn't Ambient Occlusion an nVidia effect?

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Ok, I just tested on my older drivers (10.1 and 195.xx) and I get about 45-50fps with everything enabled in Batman. If I turn off Ambient Occlusion, I get a steady 130-150fps.

Iirc, isn't Ambient Occlusion an nVidia effect?

I don't think so. Although I know you can force it in any game in the NV control panel.

[wrathchild_67]

Originally Posted by DRDNA

wrathchild_67 try renaming the Lego executable to something different like GRID.exe for example and test...you never know! I have very good luck with doing this with no other options to try!~

I didn't try your specific example at first. I renamed the exe to crap.exe, saw that it made no difference then went back to the default exe name. Today, when I found out that renaming SHIFT.exe to GRID.exe fixed my performance issues in NFS Shift, I decided to try it on Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars. It worked! No more slowdowns! The only downside is flickering textures in some menus.