Crossfire not enabling, BF3 only

[BrownEye02]

Crossfire not enabling, BF3 only (solved)

Ok so I recently upgraded my system to accommodate two 5770's as well as any game I throw at it. I've had nothing but good news on every game I run. Each game has increased by 25 fps easily. The only one that is stopping me is BF3. No matter what I try I can not get crossfire to enable. I've tried running the stock profile that comes with AMD's 12.7 CAP3 profiles. As well as making my own profile and forcing crossfire to run. I've also tried the alt-enter twice and disabling crossfire and eyefinity tricks. This is all done on the latest drivers and a fresh install of windows. Any other game I run works like a charm like I stated above. Even games that don't come pre-defined in AMD's profiles use both GPUs. Ive done extensive googleing and have even searched the forms with no luck. Yes windows is set to High Performance and PCI power management is disabled. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

p.s.: My last system could not handle the two 5770's so I never really tried to get BF3 to work so I don't know if crossfire worked before with BF3.

Computer Spec:
CPU: Intel i5 3570K (stock clock)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4
RAM: 2 x 4GB Corsair Vengance Series 1866MHz
Video: Sapphire Vapor-X 5770 1GB + Sapphire 5770 1GB
Hard Drive: 2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black (RAID 0)
OS: Windows 7 Professional (x64)
Monitors: 3 Acer = 5040x1050 (eyefinity)
If you need more let me know.

 

[FierceRed]

Let me be sure I have this straight:

You're convinced BF3 is not running in Crossfire mode. Are you convinced of this because it hasn't increased by ~25 fps, or because you're truly unsure if Crossfire is actually kicking in?

If the former, fps increases of that magnitude aren't guaranteed by Crossfire, especially if you're playing at 5040x1050, blah blah et cetera et cetera. This is me assuming you're using Render.DrawFps 1 in BF3 console, and that VSync is turned Off.

If the latter, then you can tell if CFX is working or not by right-click the Tray icon for CCC, hovering over your display adapter with the "1." to the left of it (if it's reflective of what I have, it might look like "1. ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series") until the sub-menu opens, hovering over "AMD CrossFireX Settings" and clicking the option to "Show AMD CrossFireX Status Icon" in order to check it. Looking at the option afterward should show a checkmark beside it to show you've enabled it.

Now enter an empty "1p" multiplayer server. When you spawn into the level, you should have a Black and Gray "AMD CrossFireX Technology" logo in the top-right corner of your display. This is proof that CFX is enabled and active.

As you can see from my specs, I have two 5850s in CFX and I play BF3 regularly. I personally attest that BF3 uses CFX without any problems, including having run the Logo test above and it showing me the logo, as well as Afterburner GPU usage statistics + before/after fps benchmarking.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

 

[BrownEye02]

The entire time I ran through my tests I had the crossfire logo turned on so I could tell if crossfire was working. Not once was it displayed. After several tests I ran two instances of GPUz and made sure one was monitoring one GPU and the other was monitoring the other GPU. I went through almost all the tricks again but not once did my second GPU act like it was in use.

 

[FierceRed]

And the logo displays with all your other games?

And for the future, just use MSI Afterburner; it will show the GPU usage of both cards on the same line graph.

 

[BrownEye02]

Bingo.
Later today Ill re-test it while after burner is up. But im not expecting anything different from GPUz. Doesn't hurt to try though.

 

[FierceRed]

Do either/both of your GPU-z instances show "ATI Crossfire" as 'Enabled (2 GPUs)' near the bottom?

 

[BrownEye02]

Yes both do.

 

[FierceRed]

Disable Eyefinity. Run the game on one monitor only, fullscreen. If necessary, run a desktop icon position saving and restoring program to make this as stress-free as possible. Take a screenshot of your 3 monitor desktop as an added precaution in case the saving/restore fails. I've been there.

Confirm that BF3 is aware of the game needing to be run fullscreen on only 1 monitor by setting the appropriate settings under:

Esc > Options > Video > Fullscreen Monitor 1/2/3 + Fullscreen Off/On > Apply Fullscreen Resolution (and then possibly another Esc + Save Settings OK).

May also require an exiting and re-launching of the BF3 application and render engine by leaving and rejoining the server, kicking in the CFX usage for the single monitor settings.


If the logo doesn't show up, I would attempt:

CAP uninstall > Driver uninstall > reboot into Safe Mode > Driver Sweeper (does anyone have a Setup.exe backup of this before it became Driver Fusion??) > reboot into Normal Mode > reinstall Drivers + reboot > reinstall CAP + reboot.

I get you might've done this already but the point is of course to ensure yet another clean slate install for testing.

Do this and if the logo still doesn't show up, then you have some more homework to do regarding Eyefinity + CFX combined usage. Erocker or W1zzard might also be able to contribute something I can't.

Good luck.

 

[Dent1]

BrownEye02,

It's the game. I have the same issue with BF3. Performance does increase but only slightly unlike other games where I get a huge improvement. Friend has a i5 CPU and he reports only a slight CF improvement in BF3 too. The game just isnt coded well. Luckily enough BF3 still plays extremely well overall so I am not too fussed about the mediocre CF boost I was getting or not getting in BF3.

 

[BrownEye02]

Disable Eyefinity. Run the game on one monitor only, fullscreen. If necessary, run a desktop icon position saving and restoring program to make this as stress-free as possible. Take a screenshot of your 3 monitor desktop as an added precaution in case the saving/restore fails. I've been there...............

Yeah Ill give this another whirl. Like I said before, cant hurt. I've been at work all day which is why I went AFK for a bit there. Ill post back hopefully around noon tomorrow with the results. As for driver sweeper, is it cool if I use ATImans Uninstaller? I've had nothing but good luck with it on my old system.

BrownEye02,

It's the game. I have the same issue with BF3. Performance does increase but only slightly unlike other games where I get a huge improvement. Friend has a i5 CPU and he reports only a slight CF improvement in BF3 too. The game just isnt coded well. Luckily enough BF3 still plays extremely well overall so I am not too fussed about the mediocre CF boost I was getting or not getting in BF3.

The only issue I have with this is like I said crossfire is and wont work. Hell I could care less if my system could only handle BF3 on low to off settings in crossfire. But the issue is I cant even get to the point to test crossfire in BF3. I know how one card does and at a 5040x1050 resolution on a single 5770 I don't need to tell you the results. My goal is to see either both GPU's CPU usage to be running at 50% and above constantly while in game or to see the Crossfire icon in the top right corner. If both worked that would be a bonus.

 

[BrownEye02]

The test was in conclusive. Tried single monitor before and after a fresh install of ATI Drivers. Not once did I see the happy Crossfire icon or my GPU's usage to resealable that it was being used.

 

[Dent1]

The test was in conclusive. Tried single monitor before and after a fresh install of ATI Drivers. Not once did I see the happy Crossfire icon or my GPU's usage to resealable that it was being used.

Think your issue is different from mine. In BF3, I always get the Crossfire icon and the GPU usage is shared. Just the performance doesnt improve significantly. But it does work.

I'm guessing that you have the ATI game profile drivers installed too? (in addition to the regular driver)

 

[BrownEye02]

Before I bought my second card I did extensive reading on how to set up crossfire and the issues that come with it. There were a plethora of threads on, "crossfire wont engage." Have you installed the ATI profiles on top of the regular drivers?" "Oh, yeah, right." So yes they were installed on day one. (And have been changed when the drivers were changed.)

 

[Earnhardt]

try"open hardware monitor"it shows both cards in it

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

playing BF3 with 2 6950's i'm getting great scaling(both cards at close to 100% usage)

 

[BrownEye02]

We have crossfire!!!!!
Turns out overwolf was the issue. Exited the program and crossfire turned on right away.
I figured it out by running Afterburner's hardware monitor in the background since I tried open hardware monitor. Overwolf came up saying there are issues with it and afterburner and that it needs to close for things to work properly. Closed it and the first thing I noticed was the crossfire icon in the top right corner. Here is a picture of my graph while playing. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[Dent1]

Now that crossfire is working are you seeing any frame rate improvement?

 

[BrownEye02]

I would say yes. Coming from around 30 ish FPS with everything as low as possible or off and my resolution set to 3840x800 to low profile setting 5040x1050 resolution with 50 ish FPS. Nothing compared to everything turned all the way up. But I think I should be able to beat a guy sneaking up on my left or right even though his settings are higher then mine.

 

[Dent1]

I would say yes. Coming from around 30 ish FPS with everything as low as possible or off and my resolution set to 3840x800 to low profile setting 5040x1050 resolution with 50 ish FPS. Nothing compared to everything turned all the way up. But I think I should be able to beat a guy sneaking up on my left or right even though his settings are higher then mine.

Why impair the visuals for a few extra kills.

You can find a better compromise, lower the resolution to 1920x1080p and run it at full detail and you'll still get 50 ish FPS. EA intended for the game look beautiful.

 

[BrownEye02]

The problem I have with that is the highest resolution my monitors support is 1680x1050. Which isnt bad but 5040x1050 is just soooooo awesome compared to it.

 

[balcazrvam]

Precisely why I'm having a hard time convincing myself to enter.

 

[BrownEye02]

The eyefinity zone?

 

[OneMoar]

you are a idiot if you think two 5770s are gonna drive battlefield 3 @ 5040x1050 they won't PERIOD your cpu is also a bit to weak for running battlefield 3 at eyefinity resolutions that said 1680x1050 should not be a problem
lawl
battfield 3 wants at least 1500MB of vram JUST for 1080p its gonna want at least 4GB at 5040x1050
tl:dr no eyefinity for you

 

[BrownEye02]

you are a idiot if you think two 5770s are gonna drive battlefield 3 @ 5040x1050 they won't PERIOD your cpu is also a bit to weak for running battlefield 3 at eyefinity resolutions that said 1680x1050 should not be a problem
lawl
battfield 3 wants at least 1500MB of vram JUST for 1080p its gonna want at least 4GB at 5040x1050
tl:dr no eyefinity for you

A, thanks for the input. Never did I ask why BF3 was running so badly with my crossfire/eyefinity setup (once it was working). That was never a question here or an issue. I know my system, I built it. I know how it should perform. You sir are an idiot for assuming this. This thread is not for you. Go start something somewhere else. :shadedshu

 

[Dent1]

A, thanks for the input. Never did I ask why BF3 was running so badly with my crossfire/eyefinity setup (once it was working). That was never a question here or an issue. I know my system, I built it. I know how it should perform. You sir are an idiot for assuming this. This thread is not for you. Go start something somewhere else. :shadedshu

He shouldnt have called you an idiot. But there is a lot of truth in what he said. The 5770 CF wasnt designed for 5040x1050 , thus the reason you have to settle for low detail to maintain 50FPS. 5770 CF will probably handle BF3 @ 1680x1050 at high detail 2x AA and it'll probably look better than 5040x1050 low and maintain a better frame rate.

 

[BrownEye02]

Yeah I know I personally would rather have a three screen setup with low settings over a single screen with close to high settings. The only time ill drop down to a single screen on a game is if it wasn't built for it and is almost unplayable due to fov issues or I cant maintain a frame rate above 35 fps. Like I posted above I know my system and how it should perform. But thanks for a non threatening reply.

Edit: To be honest this game doesn't look half bad when you have the resolution bumped up as high as it can go on low settings. Ive tried 1680x1050 and yes it looks amazing but there really isn't a huge enough difference to me between low and high settings to cause me to drop two screens.