How to enable crossfire in windowed mode?

[dfg555]

I have a 4870X2 and my Catalyst Version is 13.9 according to AMD's website they do not support the 4000 series in the latest drivers so 13.9 is the "latest" version for my 4870X2. Whenever I play a DirectX game GPU 2 is lazy and stays at 0% GPU Usage, but when I turn on fullscreen both GPU 1 and 2 work.

Does this also happen if you have 2 of the same cards physically? Eg. x2 290X

 

[moproblems99]

To my knowlegde, CF only works in fullscreen.

 

[manofthem]

Does this also happen if you have 2 of the same cards physically? Eg. x2 290X

I have 2x 290s and it's the same thing. Crossfire only works in full-screen.

 

[dinmaster]

This is something ive known about since doing eyefinity. i personally like my games windowed max so i can easily go between apps and back to the game. might have something to do with how the cards each render portions of the screen. maybe they can't do it or amd is just too lazy to put some man hours into fixing this. either way an official reason would be cool as to why we can't do it.

 

[Mussels]

multi GPU has always required fullscreen.

 

[Cybrnook2002]

This is not only AMD, Nvidia is the same. Always has been this way.

 

[Kanan]

No, Nvidia SLI works in windowed or fullscreen windowed too. It's just Crossfire having problems with windowed mode.

 

[Mussels]

googling shows that nvidia cards can work with SLI in windowed mode, but its entirely dependant on driver support - not all titles support it, and many take a performance hit.

 

[Aquinus]

The only GPUs that can do CFX in a window in AMD's lineup at FireGL cards iirc.

 

[thesmokingman]

No, Nvidia SLI works in windowed or fullscreen windowed too. It's just Crossfire having problems with windowed mode.

Not exactly accurate. SLI works if the driver was written to support it however it has much greater support for it. Cfx does not support it at all in the driver with the exception being Mantle. Under Mantle windowed cfx is an option. I suspect moving forward under dx12, it won't be a hindrance to either camp.

 

[Kanan]

Not exactly accurate. SLI works if the driver was written to support it however it has much greater support for it. Cfx does not support it at all in the driver with the exception being Mantle. Under Mantle windowed cfx is an option. I suspect moving forward under dx12, it won't be a hindrance to either camp.

Yep, probably right. DX12 it depends on the game makers if they support it with DX12 Multi Adapter, EMA, IMA.

 

[erocker]

googling shows that nvidia cards can work with SLI in windowed mode, but its entirely dependant on driver support - not all titles support it, and many take a performance hit.

I can't recall a single game that works with SLI in windowed mode.

 

[Toothless]

I know of a DX9 game that uses both of my GPUs while in windowed.

 

[Mussels]

I can't recall a single game that works with SLI in windowed mode.

world of warcraft does, but its hit and miss according to google. might only work in specific modes (DX9 vs DX11?) or with certain GPU setups.