Making Crossfire Work and Optimization

[trog100]

my second go at proving something here.. my other thread produced zilch...

does crossfire work in XP with later games.. does it give a performance increase or a performance loss..

i need some examples from other people who use XP...

no later game works for me with crossfire.. every single one shows a degrade..

a list of games that show a degrade for me..

world in conflict..

witcher..

conflict denied opps..

vegas 2..

all the 3marks work as they should and scale okay with crossfire.. no later games work..

can anybody post some examples of later XP games.. frame rates from one card or two please.. i need to know if its just my system or not.. have ati given up on dx9 XP... ????

please no "it works for me".. some actual examples XP are needed.. three year old games dont count..

trog

 

[grunt_408]

I still get crossfire working with A.I disabled its very strange I gain 10 marks in 3d mark 06 with it on standard but can only play games with it off. I think its time to get VIsta. lol I will re install drivers the Spankenstien way and see how it goes.

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

@ trog100,

Soon I will download demos of some of the games you mentioned and try some things.

@ craigleberry,

Care to mention which Cats you're using? I notice a major performance drop when A.I. is disabled.

 

[CrackerJack]

my second go at proving something here.. my other thread produced zilch...

does crossfire work in XP with later games.. does it give a performance increase or a performance loss..

i need some examples from other people who use XP...

no later game works for me with crossfire.. every single one shows a degrade..

a list of games that show a degrade for me..

world in conflict..

witcher..

conflict denied opps..

vegas 2..

all the 3marks work as they should and scale okay with crossfire.. no later games work..

can anybody post some examples of later XP games.. frame rates from one card or two please.. i need to know if its just my system or not.. have ati given up on dx9 XP... ????

please no "it works for me".. some actual examples XP are needed.. three year old games dont count..

trog

i couldn't even get vegas 2 to work with crossfire. the first time it work then after that, it crash or restart

 

[erocker]

I haven't had any problems that I notice. I always have crossfire enabled. I will deffinitely get some FPS numbers for you.

 

[grunt_408]

I did post that I am using 8.4 Cats. mmmmmrrrrgff I think it may be worth flogging the two cards off in egay and buying one 3870 hhhhmmmm I might give it a go.

 

[CY:G]

So if A.I. Setting are off, Vista wont use my crossfireX setup, that explains why i didn't gain any FPS on games with Crossfire enabled, cant wait to get home and try it

 

[trog100]

So if A.I. Setting are off, Vista wont use my crossfireX setup, that explains why i didn't gain any FPS on games with Crossfire enabled, cant wait to get home and try it

seems that way... its the ai that tell extra cards to come in.. it also disables any single game specific tweaks the driver might have.. renaming some of the executables plays odd tricks as well..

take these three examples..

just one card CF dissabled

two cards CF enabled

CF enabled but ai off.. only one card runs..

notice 1 and 3 are similar but not the same.. its a world in conflict in game benchmark..

trog

 

[grunt_408]

Ah Crossfire enabled with A.I works to run 3d mark 06 but cant run games with A.I on standard or advanced has to set to off for games to run.
I used the method posted in here to install the drivers Heck I even swapped the cards around to make sur. Still the same problem. Although I can now play UT3 with A.I on standard.
Cannot play COD4 demo with A.I enabled. I cant play BF2 with A.I enabled either. This blows

 

[trog100]

Ah Crossfire enabled with A.I works to run 3d mark 06 but cant run games with A.I on standard or advanced has to set to off for games to run.
I used the method posted in here to install the drivers Heck I even swapped the cards around to make sur. Still the same problem. Although I can now play UT3 with A.I on standard.
Cannot play COD4 demo with A.I enabled. I cant play BF2 with A.I enabled either. This blows

to me if the 3dmarks work it shows the drivers are installed okay.. it seem C/F dosnt do much for u thow..

most of the games i have tried run but not as good with two cards as with one card.. i also get a screen full of hash or a screenshot of the last game i ran when the game first tries to load.. for me the 8.2 cats work the best but still dont work properly..

some more XP CF results are needed from other guys.. so far anything that shows CF working in XP hasnt shown up.. apart from the 3dmarks..

trog

 

[grunt_408]

The splash screen in bf2 is all crappy but once loaded into a map it works fine wtf. Looks good too It must be working I guess its just drivers or my chipset?

 

[piebobs71]

i havnt tried with one card yet but im playing rainbow 6 vegas 2,rfactor and pes8 just now all run really good with crossfire enabled and ai on standard

using 8.4 cats installed with both cards in and bridges on

 

[trog100]

can u do some runs with CF enabled and disabled use fraps to compare frame rates.. ???

trog

ps.. edit.. i just did a vagas 2 test useing fraps on the game save i am now on.. with CF disabled i get between 80 and 120 fps... with it enabled i get between 40 and 60 fps.. pretty much a halving of frame rates.. he he he

the game still seems playable cos its not exactly stressing anything but CF aint supposed to be a frame rate halving device is it.. aint it sposed to increase em.. he he he

witcher shows a slight performance loss with CF enabled..

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

^^I'm DLing Witcher (Demo), WiC (Demo) and Conflic DO (Demo) right now. Will do some quick tests and post up.

 

[asb2106]

WOW, FRAPs has some cool stuff there, I wish I would have had that when I was testing my 3870vs9600GT. Ahh well, I can use it for my xfire now

 

[trog100]

the other thing i am noticing is the "stutter" this kinda makes the frame rates seem lower than what fraps says they are.. when fraps tells me i am getting 25 fps in dirt for example it looks to me more like 15.. dirt being a real example of CF killing performance.. is fraps reading a higher frame rate then what i am getting with CF enabled i wonder or is the "stutter" something different..

trog

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Could anyone (but trog100, expecially) give me some framerates you are getting with a single card for The Witcher, World in Conflict and Conflict: Denied Ops. Please include: res you are running and clock speed on card.

Thanks!

 

[trog100]

Could anyone (but trog100, expecially) give me some framerates you are getting with a single card for The Witcher, World in Conflict and Conflict: Denied Ops. Please include: res you are running and clock speed on card.

Thanks!

my world in conflict is up above.. witcher varies depending on the scene.. outside big distance scenes about 50 fps up tp 120 for a city scene..

conflict denied ops.. around 60 or 70 again depending on the scene..

dirt gives around 40 fps with one card.. very smooth..

i run 1680 x 1050 with the settings pretty high..

all the above games play nicely with one card.. my 3870 is running at 837/1250.. all suffer when CF is enabled..

its hard to give exact fps without a fixed benchmark..

one thing to note.. the settings in all these later games make a far greater difference than the resolution used.. i dont see much difference between 1400 x 900 or 1680 x 1050 with the same settings.. for example i get 128 fps in crysis at 1680 x 1050 at low settings..

crysys isnt the machine killer its made out to be.. it just has some "settings" that are machine killers.. turn them down and it will play on a very low end machine.. even my laptop.. as did world in conflict..

trog

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Guys, believe it or not...I may have this issure sorted out!

The only proof I have so far is these screens for WiC and The Witcher:

*Witcher screenie not uploading*


Now grated, my WiC score is'nt much better, but consider that my card is clocked @ 863 each and CPU @ 3.6GHz. So there world be more performance in there. Plus ther has NEVER been a situation where CF has increased MIN FPS, in fact is usually gets worse. But AVERAGE will generally show a marked improvement along with MAX.

I noticed a marked improvement in framerates with Coflict: DO as well, I just don't know how to show you.

Here's the deal... you HAVE to rename your .exe to something with a known CF profile. Some common ones are Oblivion, CoD2SP, FEAR, AFRFriendlyD3D. Then you must set CAT A.I. to Advanced. This lets the driver know that you want to override the default rendering mode and will force AFR (based on the above mentioned profiles).

But I want some more confirmation from people.

So if ANYONE is having issues with a game not giving you the expected increase from CF and you are sure that you CF setup is working (via 3DM06 or another game), try this technique.

I am in total agreement that all this should "just work", but we are painfully aware that it does not. This simple work-around has been around for ages and still works.

 

[FR@NK]

Here's the deal... you HAVE to rename your .exe to something with a known CF profile. Some common ones are Oblivion, CoD2SP, FEAR, AFRFriendlyD3D. Then you must set CAT A.I. to Advanced. This lets the driver know that you want to override the default rendering mode and will force AFR (based on the above mentioned profiles).

But I want some more confirmation from people.

I'll test this as soon as i find my wic disk and get it installed.

 

[erocker]

Totally trying this out when I get home man!

 

[asb2106]

Oh thats sweet!

Good idea Dr., I have to ask, what made you think of doing this??

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

Besides listening to trog100 bag on Crossfire constantly...

No reason whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I also just discovered the other part of the equation. In an attempt to run the same card clocks as trog100 (and try to bump my CPU to 3.7) I had to Unlock my Overdrive tab in CCC. Big mistake!

See I have my cards flashed to run at 875 by default, so I didn't need to unlock Overdrive. I was OCing my single card with Riva. Crossfire needed to be OCed via CCC.

So....you'll have to do a fresh install of CCC AND run at the "default" 3D speeds for your card. So either flash to a higher speed or run whatever "stock" is for your particular card. Usually in the range of 777 to 850.

Sorry.

 

[t_ski]

Here's the deal... you HAVE to rename your .exe to something with a known CF profile. Some common ones are Oblivion, CoD2SP, FEAR, AFRFriendlyD3D. Then you must set CAT A.I. to Advanced. This lets the driver know that you want to override the default rendering mode and will force AFR (based on the above mentioned profiles).

Any profile at all, or should this be a profile for a game based on the same or similar engine?

 

[Dr. Spankenstein]

The only ones that need to be specific are OpenGL based games. Otherwise we are just using D3D based games, so any of the above will work.

Each one will give slightly differing performance, so if you interested in maximizing your framerate you'll want to experiment with many.

I'll compile a list of known CF profiled games soon.