At my wits end.... (380 question)

horrorshow

horrorshow

Lakewood Original
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
9,453
Ok, so in general, great card.

Now, I was familiar with powerplay/powertune back in the day but apparently since GCN 1.0, it's gotten a lot more involved.

I understand if my card isn't under full load, it underclocks etc.

Now, based on my reading, it appears that these cards vary clock rate based on game load as well? (I can appreciate that I suppose....)

BUT, when I'm in 3d mode, I want to be at the full 985 at ALL TIMES.

Here's an example, I have GTA V fairly maxed out but obviously it won't stay at a constant 60 fps. So, I set the Vsync to half, which SHOULD give me a constant 30 no matter what.

Now, here's the rub. If I launch the game with it set to half-vysnc upon the first, initial game load (when 3d clocks kick it), it kicks up to 770-ish and STOPS.

But, if I launch the game with vsync set to 60 for the first actual game load and THEN mid-game change it to half-vsync, it stays at 985 solid. (Easily granting me my steady 30 fps)

So apparently the card bases it's clocks upon the initial game load but it sticks if I switch it to 30 fps while in game.... If you follow ;)

Ok. It's really early but I hope that was fairly clear.

Before you even mention it, I've already tried Sapphire TRIXX to set manual clocks. Then I tried MSI Afterburner and set manual clocks (along with unofficial OC mode, without powerplay).

Still, nothing. What I've been able to gather based on 3 nights of research (I prefer to solve these kind of problems myself :D ) , is that I somehow need to force the card into "High performance mode". It used to be in the CCC and it IS in radeonpro (which does NOT support my 380 of course). The green team has this option in their control center.... But AMD, not anymore....

It should be fairly obvious at this point what I'm looking for: "How in the hell do I force high performance mode/clocks on my R9 380??!?"

Sorry if I'm rambling a bit. Again, it's early.

I really hope someone has a solution to what you would think is such a glaring/obvious issue.

As always, thanks [H]!
- Horrorshow

P.S. Before anyone even asks, no it is not a power supply issue or any other piece of my hardware. I've already gone through all that. The clocks max out in new games / firestrike etc. I just need to figure out how to FORCE high performance clocks at will etc etc.

P.P.S. If a solution cannot be found, I may return the card to Microcenter and switch to a 960 4GB :eek:

EDIT: Before hopping in the shower, I was mulling it over some more and decided to try VSR 1440p with Vsync set to 60 on GTA V. Looks and runs GREAT (full 985 clock, 35-50 fps at all times). I can live with that :) But, I still would really like to know if there is a way to force High Performance clocks at ALL times. - Thanks again.
 
Last edited:
Edit the card's bios to force the settings by using the radeon bios editor and changing the clock speeds.
https://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/
Use the program to extract the bios file from the card.. make a backup of the bios, and then change the settings you want before saving the bios file and reflashing the card with the altered bios.
Although i'm not sure why you want to force the speeds to high performance all the time, as when under load the card already does this.
 
Last edited:
Seithennin said:
Edit the card's bios to force the settings by using the radeon bios editor and changing the clock speeds.
https://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/
Use the program to extract the bios file from the card.. make a backup of the bios, and then change the settings you want before saving the bios file and reflashing the card with the altered bios.
Although i'm not sure why you want to force the speeds to high performance all the time, as when under load the card already does this.
Click to expand...

"Due to a digital signature requirement on latest AMD cards, RBE is no longer in active development and will not support the latest graphics cards."

Yeah, already looked into that. Thanks though
 
Seithennin said:
Try this one..
http://sourceforge.net/projects/radedit/

Or this one is supposed to work with the newer radeon cards
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/vbe7-0-0-7b-exe.52628/

Page from where the last link was taken:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1538314/need-a-fully-working-ati-bios-editor-for-my-msi-r9-280x
Click to expand...

Radedit hasn't been updated since '03.

And the developer of VBE7 hasn't posted/updated in over 18 months....

I really do appreciate you looking though, for real!

Ah, the perils of the early adopter :eek:
 
I'd just let it run at 60 and turn the view distance or grass down a notch. Just get the game to bench at 65 or so then use CCC Frame Limiter to keep it at 60. Also did you try and Force Constant Voltage in MSI Afterburner? DIsable ULPS?
 
cageymaru said:
I'd just let it run at 60 and turn the view distance or grass down a notch. Just get the game to bench at 65 or so then use CCC Frame Limiter to keep it at 60. Also did you try and Force Constant Voltage in MSI Afterburner? DIsable ULPS?
Click to expand...

Was hoping you'd comment heh.

Disable ULPS, yes. Both in TRIXX and Afterburner. No effect.

I ALMOST tried "force constant voltage" but a lot of randomly googled forum threads were like "DO NOT check this!!".... So yeah, was a little wary of that.

If someone could reassure me with proven facts, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
 
I don't personally use Force Constant voltage or Disable ULPS. I used to on my 7950, but the 290 seems to stay at max clocks all the time. I do a couple of things that increase my visual quality, which in turn presents more of a load on my card. Maybe that's why I never have your problem.

CCC Frame Limiter might be your best bet. You can set to as low as 55. It is not perfect. So I have mine set to 61 fps to maintain 60fps at all times. Even when I'm running easy games, my card never downclocks.

In my CCC I have VSR enabled on both of my monitors even though I run them at 1080p on the desktop and may or may not VSR games to 1440p. Under Gaming tab and then System Settings, I have Anti-Aliasing Method set to Supersampling. Texture Quality is set to High Quality. I'm no fan of VSYNC; but I hate screen tearing. So under Frame Rate Control I have VSYNC off.

To keep from experiencing tearing, I use settings that maintain @65 fps. Then I run the games in Full Screen mode and use the Frame Rate limiter @61. Very rarely do I experience dips in frame rate. I rarely have bad screen tearing, unless the game is known to screen tear due to bad programming, and my gaming experience is pure nirvana. If the game screen tears then I enable VSYNC. That's usually reserved for games like Dead Space and PayDay 2.

If I try and run a game at such a load that I'm going to be gaming at sub 45 fps then I'm going to have a TON of screen tearing. It's not worth it to me to have cuter corners on buildings but my screen looks like a mosaic tile is being laid over and over.


Don't take this the wrong way please. But if you're trying to maintain 30 fps then you're working backwards. ;)
 
Last edited:
Another trick I use is to only use 2x MSAA. I think that all of the 380s are 4GB right? So I use max textures to fill the VRAM buffer to at least 3GB. Your card should never downclock if presented with a 3GB load. If 2x MSAA is too much for your card, disable it. Then VSR the image to 1440p. This will give you great visuals and a nice load on the VRAM without taxing the card. No downclocking due to load and it's an easy load to the card.

I use the AMD optimized tessellation settings in CCC. But I run the max tessellation settings in games. Once again I get a nice boost, and the card figures out what's best which creates a workload for it. Since your card is Tonga maybe try disabling the AMD optimized tessellation settings in CCC if the above doesn't present enough of a load to keep it from downclocking.
 
I want to add that I found that enabling things like AMD Steady Video and other settings under the Video tab seems to keep my card running at max clocks even on the desktop. I even enabled the option for internet video. My Samsung S27A950D monitor has a tendency to black screen when the video card downclocks. This helps with that. And watching Youtube is so damn smooth even for the crappiest videos.

Some of the settings are a bit much for critical viewing like movies. You have to figure out which are over exaggerated on your own. :)

If you still need help you can send Robert Hallock a tweet. He's really nice and tries his best to respond to meaningful questions. Then there is @AMDRadeon, @amdcare, @amdgaming, and @AMD.
 
cageymaru said:
Then VSR the image to 1440p. This will give you great visuals and a nice load on the VRAM without taxing the card. No downclocking due to load and it's an easy load to the card.
Click to expand...

That's what I've decided to go with for now.

Only thing is, when I first boot up a game, GTA V is capped at 30 fps. So, I set the resolution to 1080p, apply, then back up to 1440p and apply. Only then, will it uncap the framerate.

Weird....

I attribute this to drivers or a GTA V glitch....

Pity I can't use 15.10 cuz of the GTA V "Failed to Init" glitch but the resolution switch work-around will do for now.
 
My GTA V runs fine with the 15.10 drivers. Try checking the GTA V files to see if you have some bad ones.
 
cageymaru said:
My GTA V runs fine with the 15.10 drivers. Try checking the GTA V files to see if you have some bad ones.
Click to expand...

I verified already. No problems.

The "Failed to init" crash is reproduceable at the exact same moment in the Prologue.

I chock this up to Tonga/380 not being as mature as Hawaii.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top