7970 BF3 Performance Woes

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crawlgsx

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 12, 2008
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I just want to get some feedback from other 7970 users, I just don't feel like I am getting the performance I should be with this card.

on 1920x1080, Ultra textures, high everything else, with no AA my framerate is anywhere from 70-140.

Turn on 2xaa (post and hbao off) and my framerate is 35-70

I went from 2 x 6950 unlocked back to 1 6950 to a pair of 6770's to this, the 2 6770's almost kept up with the performance I am getting right now. 1 6950 played better :(.

I was hoping to be able to play the game at 1080p ultra with full AA but if I do the framerate is all over the place and dips too low for my liking (I can see visual lag/stutter especially during explosions/smoke/etc)

My benchmark scores seem to be about on par, Heaven gives me about 3200, Vantage p35000, 3dmark11 ~ 10k.

Battlefield 3 on the otherhand... well here are some screen shots to show my annoyance.

ss6.png


ss1.png


ss2.png


ss3.png


ss4.png


ss5.png


1080p on High No AA

ss8.png


ss7.png
 
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Try to overclock some if you havent already. Depending on your particular card you should at least be able to hit CCC limits. Still though BF3 is a very demanding game, no doubt about it and those are pretty decent fps.
 
yea, it seems after this update, my cards take a beating in BF3, they now hit 80deg or so regularly, and I can't enable MSAA @ 3600x1920 ( well I can, but then I'll dip below 60fps)
 
Added pictures, I really feel like something isn't right.

Ultra Textures, high everything else, 2x AA, post off, hbao off, look at those framerates??? :(

I've tried 12.2, 12.3, 12.3 with caps, 12.4 with 12.3 caps, 12.4 without caps. Results only vary slightly.

I've reinstalled windows 3 times and tweaked a billion things since this card came in trying to get to a happy point with BF3, but my unlocked 6950 played better than this :-/. Performance just doesn't seem right to me (at least with BF3, benchmarks again appear to be about normal). I'm really banging my head on a wall here.
 
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Looks fine to me. Just play without deferred AA and max post AA. That's just how it is with BF3 and ATI with AA. Go Nvidia if you want better AA performance
 
iplayCS said:
Looks fine to me. Just play without deferred AA and max post AA. That's just how it is with BF3 and ATI with AA. Go Nvidia if you want better AA performance
Click to expand...

38 and 46 frames per second look fine to you?? Or a $550 top of the line video card that can't play a 5 month old game with any AA looks fine to you?

I am also puzzled that my unlocked 6950 did better than this. Hell I'm not even happy with how this is performing on ultra with no aa :-/

I am pretty sure this is not normal...

If other 7970 owners concur that it is normal then I guess it is time for me to switch.
 
Mine runs a lot faster than that. I usually run about 60-70 FPS on ultra... but, I am also OC'd quite a bit on the card and the i7
 
crawlgsx said:
38 and 46 frames per second look fine to you?? Or a $550 top of the line video card that can't play a 5 month old game with any AA looks fine to you?

I am also puzzled that my unlocked 6950 did better than this. Hell I'm not even happy with how this is performing on ultra with no aa :-/

I am pretty sure this is not normal...

If other 7970 owners concur that it is normal then I guess it is time for me to switch.
Click to expand...

I know it sucks. My buddy uses his 7970 eyefinity and runs better with 3 screens than one. His card struggles to run any AA, one or 3 screens.

I see a lot of nvidia owners, from 560 Ti 448 to 580 cards (single or SLI) getting great frames and that's with everything Ultra with AA.

Maybe it's time to switch to the green side :p. Why not try it out, looks like you've stuck with ATI for awhile
 
Are you using the CCC to control your settings? You need to disable it and make each application take control... thatm ight help?
 
crawlgsx said:
38 and 46 frames per second look fine to you?? Or a $550 top of the line video card that can't play a 5 month old game with any AA looks fine to you?

I am also puzzled that my unlocked 6950 did better than this. Hell I'm not even happy with how this is performing on ultra with no aa :-/

I am pretty sure this is not normal...

If other 7970 owners concur that it is normal then I guess it is time for me to switch.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's normal, when I benched BF3 on a 64-player Caspian server on Ultra settings (4xAA, HBAO) it averaged between 50-60. I usually play on Medium/Low settings for 120 FPS anyway, but I'll check again later tonight.
 
dlewis4 said:
Are you using the CCC to control your settings? You need to disable it and make each application take control... thatm ight help?
Click to expand...

As you can see from my screenshots, no. I'm using application control. :(
 
AceCR42 said:
I don't think that's normal, when I benched BF3 on a 64-player Caspian server on Ultra settings (4xAA, HBAO) it averaged between 50-60. I usually play on Medium/Low settings for 120 FPS anyway, but I'll check again later tonight.
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If you could try my exact settings (in game I mean) that would be excellent to see how yours fairs. Ulta textures, high everything else, 2x aa, no post, no hbao.

If you do much appreciated, if you don't well thanks for considering anyway :D
 
Do you have MSI afterburner? You should use the overlay program to verify clock speeds and gpu usage % during game time. Use the rivatuner overlay program, not fraps, it gives you an overlay during all dx11/dx10/dx9 games that tells clock speeds and gpu%. I'm assuing you don't have any flash vids in the background or anything...
 
xoleras said:
Do you have MSI afterburner? You should use the overlay program to verify clock speeds and gpu usage % during game time. Use the rivatuner overlay program, not fraps, it gives you an overlay during all dx11/dx10/dx9 games that tells clock speeds and gpu%. I'm assuing you don't have any flash vids in the background or anything...
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I don't. I also tried using IE,FF, and Chrome to launch Battlelog seeing if one was glitching some flash.

I will give the overlay a try.

Adding 2 new pictures, suck FPS @ 1080p on high no AA :confused:
 
Man, afterburner is the best thing going for any gpu, you should pick it up,. The OSD is outstanding and monitors anything and everything, and you could verify your GPU usage during gampelay.

Something worth trying anyway
 
Try pressing Alt+tab or alt+enter a few times. Try Afterburner increase core voltage a little, and core clock from 1100 to ~1150. Make sure HT is on with your 2600K, whats the speed of your memory? Make sure you dont have a bunch of background nonsense running.

Realize that in 60+MP servers the 6-core large cache 38xx/39xx cpus are faster than the 2600s. Still your 6950 giving faster framerates than your 7970 makes zero sense. I would suggest your dips to 30-40 fps are because of the CPU, and that you should max every setting (Ultra, 4xAA, Post high) and see if you can dip lower than 30-40.

You suggest that that guy run your settings, why dont you try running his settings.

Try some of the new CAPs and beta drivers from Guru3d forums. Somethings messed up with your installation if your 6950 is faster than your 1.1ghz 7970. Also i saw you might have an altered slipstreamed windows instal? Might be suspect

AAmode in CCC: use application settings, try to override application. final suggestion: rc11 driver jan19th (atiman uninstall rebooting between each step of the uninstallation and installation and after final install.)
 
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jaredpace said:
Try pressing Alt+tab or alt+enter a few times. Try Afterburner increase core voltage a little, and core clock from 1100 to ~1150. Make sure HT is on with your 2600K, whats the speed of your memory? Make sure you dont have a bunch of background nonsense running.

Realize that in 60+MP servers the 6-core large cache 38xx/39xx cpus are faster than the 2600s. Still your 6950 giving faster framerates than your 7970 makes zero sense. I would suggest your dips to 30-40 fps are because of the CPU, and that you should max every setting (Ultra, 4xAA, Post high) and see if you can dip lower than 30-40.

You suggest that that guy run your settings, why dont you try running his settings.

Try some of the new CAPs and beta drivers from Guru3d forums. Somethings messed up with your installation if your 6950 is faster than your 1.1ghz 7970. Also i saw you might have an altered slipstreamed windows instal? Might be suspect
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The server of the screenshtos were both only 32man.

I've tried many settings, if I have to drop below high I am already doing worse than ONE 6950 and this card will go in the garbage.

I've tried most drivers (including 12.4 beta) and caps.

I seriously doubt it is last7 that is the problem since it has worked fine with every other video card/driver since LastXP13 (when I started) through last V through Prophecy, and Last7 V1-V5.
 
You should verify your clockspeeds and GPU usage % during gameplay. Otherwise, get a 680. I can say that I haven't had such issues with the 7970 so it seems something is awry on your end.
 
jaredpace said:
Get a 680 then
Click to expand...

Would love to (and plan to) as soon as they come in stock.

In the mean time I will continue to try to get this card to play nice :D

Just played 3 maps with OSD on, during gameplay it stayed right at 97-100% GPU usage, clocks stayed at 1100 (except during map changes) and the GPU never went above 70c. That all seems normal.

Frames were about the same. During metro I got as high as 200fps inside, outside as low as 50 (on ultra no aa)
 
Your right something can't be right with your setup. My 6970 on a non overclocked i7 950 gets better FPS than that with everything turned up all the way. Took me a while to get the drivers to install correctly though. Using 12.3 now. I quit using afterburner too.. made my system unstable. I keep GPU-Z and CCC open on my other screens to monitor temps and usage.

Having been a hardcore Nvidia guy for so long and coming from 2 470s I couldn't be happier with the card however AMD drivers suck. Absolutely suck.
 
xoleras said:
You should verify your clockspeeds and GPU usage % during gameplay. Otherwise, get a 680. I can say that I haven't had such issues with the 7970 so it seems something is awry on your end.
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Agree. I honestly wish it worked, I've been with the ATI Camp for some time and have mostly had a great run. I've tried everything I can think of with this card and am just not having good luck at all. Granted it is ALL BF3 related :rolleyes:

Maybe I should just uninstall BF3 and find a new game to play instead ;)
 
xoleras said:
Man, afterburner is the best thing going for any gpu, you should pick it up,. The OSD is outstanding and monitors anything and everything, and you could verify your GPU usage during gampelay.

Something worth trying anyway
Click to expand...

Yeah that's why I buy only MSI cards, because of OSD+Afterburner. I thought Riva Tuner and FRAPS were cool! Boy was I wrong lmao!

Something is wrong with this guys FPS. I know in Nvidia panel I make sure to turn off a setting called adaptive performance, so my card won't drop from 925MHz to 400MHz EVER in games. Maybe the AMD cards have a setting like that, a power savings setting you can turn off? Good luck man!
 
i think something is off, my card is overclocked just about the same (1125/1550) and I get higher framerates at those locations iirc. I'll try and get some screenshots here in a bit. I'm running RC11 drivers.
 
bf32012-04-1220-59-12-45.jpg


bf32012-04-1220-57-53-98.jpg


bf32012-04-1220-58-30-31.jpg


bf32012-04-1220-59-34-30.jpg


bf32012-04-1220-59-47-07.jpg


edit: and these are my normal settings i play at to keep it constantly above 60fps (excluding anomalies like looking out from atop tv station on Sharqi, etc.):
bf32012-04-1221-14-13-85.jpg
 
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Still really confused with the insistence on running MSAA (I guess just because it is in the menu?) when blown up screen shots by this site and others showed that FXAA accomplished the same thing without the performance hit.
 
Porter_ said:
i think something is off, my card is overclocked just about the same (1125/1550) and I get higher framerates at those locations iirc. I'll try and get some screenshots here in a bit. I'm running RC11 drivers.
Click to expand...

It's pretty obvious his driver installation is fubard. I recommended RC11 to him and he says he tried everything.
 
jaredpace said:
It's pretty obvious his driver installation is fubard. I recommended RC11 to him and he says he tried everything.
Click to expand...

First of all I said I've tried everything I could think of, if I thought I had tried everything I wouldn't be here looking for ideas and help.

Secondly I looked back through your posts and I do not see where you recommended RC11.

3rdly I clearly mentioned that I have tried several drivers and caps. I have reinstalled windows 3 times. I have tried driver sweeper and ATIman. I have not however tried RC11 so I will be doing that.

jaredpace said:
Try pressing Alt+tab or alt+enter a few times. Try Afterburner increase core voltage a little, and core clock from 1100 to ~1150. Make sure HT is on with your 2600K, whats the speed of your memory? Make sure you dont have a bunch of background nonsense running.

Realize that in 60+MP servers the 6-core large cache 38xx/39xx cpus are faster than the 2600s. Still your 6950 giving faster framerates than your 7970 makes zero sense. I would suggest your dips to 30-40 fps are because of the CPU, and that you should max every setting (Ultra, 4xAA, Post high) and see if you can dip lower than 30-40.

You suggest that that guy run your settings, why dont you try running his settings.

Try some of the new CAPs and beta drivers from Guru3d forums. Somethings messed up with your installation if your 6950 is faster than your 1.1ghz 7970. Also i saw you might have an altered slipstreamed windows instal? Might be suspect

AAmode in CCC: use application settings, try to override application. final suggestion: rc11 driver jan19th (atiman uninstall rebooting between each step of the uninstallation and installation and after final install.)
Click to expand...

jaredpace said:
Get a 680 then
Click to expand...
 
Porter_ said:
edit: and these are my normal settings i play at to keep it constantly above 60fps (excluding anomalies like looking out from atop tv station on Sharqi, etc.):
Click to expand...

damn, yeah your first screenshots there have me OWNED.

What Catalyst settings? Thank you so much for the comparison. What (if any) cap are you running with the RC11 drivers?
 
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Are you running afterburner OSD yet? What is your GPU use percentage during gameplay? (and is it full clockspeed)

This is really the first thing to check with a performance anomoly, its not clear if you checked this yet or not.
 
xoleras said:
Are you running afterburner OSD yet? What is your GPU use percentage during gameplay? (and is it full clockspeed)

This is really the first thing to check with a performance anomoly, its not clear if you checked this yet or not.
Click to expand...

crawlgsx said:
Just played 3 maps with OSD on, during gameplay it stayed right at 97-100% GPU usage, clocks stayed at 1100 (except during map changes) and the GPU never went above 70c. That all seems normal.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure I covered that ;)
 
crawlgsx said:
If you could try my exact settings (in game I mean) that would be excellent to see how yours fairs. Ulta textures, high everything else, 2x aa, no post, no hbao.

If you do much appreciated, if you don't well thanks for considering anyway :D
Click to expand...

Here you go, on a fully populated 64-player server:













I'm on a 4.2ghz 2500k and Catalyst 12.3 WHQL, no CAPs. The lowest it ever went was about 55, overlooking the entire map like that last screenshot. My CCC settings are the default settings. So yeah, something is definitely wrong with your setup :\
 
crawlgsx said:
damn, yeah your first screenshots there have me OWNED.

What Catalyst settings? Thank you so much for the comparison. What (if any) cap are you running with the RC11 drivers?
Click to expand...

no problem, the good news is you should be getting more performance from your card so now it's just a matter of figuring out why you're not. no caps, default CCC settings. i'll be curious to see if you have better luck with the RC11 drivers.
 
Now I am really puzzled...

So this morning I used ATIMAN to remove all drivers, rebooted twice, installed RC11 , reboot...

windows won't boot. Tried VGA tried Safemode, nothing. Wouldnt do a repair install. (system restore off)

Ok...

So I do a clean install of Windows 7 (regular straight up windows 7), download another fresh copy of RC11 from AMD's website. Install (Nothing else installed at this point) reboot.... windows won't boot. 0.o It starts the windows logo then reboots. If I do safemode it gets to disk.sys and fails on whatever is trying to load next and reboots.

My computer/video card very much does not like RC11, and I can't even find a way to recover from it short of reinstalling windows. I have never encountered anything like this before.

Update:

Since it was a stock clean windows install system restore was still on so I was able to revert to before installing the RC11. This time I installed the drivers on the disk (8.921.5 / 11.12) and it worked fine. I have installed 12.2, 12.3, and 12.4 beta which also work fine. I don't understand why RC11 makes my computer unable to boot :(
 
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I don't think he's trolling. I mean why ask for help in the ATI forum if he's doing that? Seems like a legitimate question for help, ease up. He also said he checked his gpu usage....

However, some of the installation methodology seems wrong. Craig, don't use ATIMan or driver sweeper. Do a NEW installation of windows 7 with the newest WHQL.

1) You must, must, MUST install the P67 or Z68 chipset driver. If you do not, windows will not install it for you, and your pci-e performance will be crippled.
2) You must install intel management interface engine.
3) You must install all chipset related drivers from your motherboard cd.
4) If you do not do this your performance and gpu usage will be screwed up guaranteed.
5) Not doing this will also affect SATA throughput.
6) Install SP1 (obviously....)
7) Using driver sweeper will completely screw up system restore. Always use system restore before driver sweeper, I personally stopped using driver sweeper in favor of system restore a long time ago.

Again, do not use driver sweeper or ATI man. I would just do a new windows install, with the newest WHQL driver. Keep in mind that using driver sweeper will remove your uninstallation files so sometimes it will not fix problems, but add more.
 
eclypse said:
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don't see the need for the hostility. read the thread, he's been jumping through all the usual hoops trying to figure this out. he's not trolling, just looking to get this resolved.
 
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eclypse said:
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Wow, you need to learn to read in a bad way. First of all I've been in this for a long time, I am not stupid or a noob. All my drivers (chipset and the likes) were installed before I installed RC11 the first time and it wouldn't boot.

2nd I've now posted TWICE that I DID use afterburner.

3rdly I'm now on 5 windows reinstalls trying to solve this

And lastly, why the hell would I go through all this trouble of taking screen shots and posting updates and thanking people for their input if I was just trolling? Seriously?

Don't come in and waste people's time, you didn't even bother to read the damn thread then accuse me of being a troll.
 
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xoleras said:
1) You must, must, MUST install the P67 or Z68 chipset driver. If you do not, windows will not install it for you, and your pci-e performance will be crippled.
2) You must install intel management interface engine.
3) You must install all chipset related drivers from your motherboard cd.
7) Using driver sweeper will completely screw up system restore. Always use system restore before driver sweeper, I personally stopped using driver sweeper in favor of system restore a long time ago.

Again, do not use driver sweeper or ATI man. I would just do a new windows install, with the newest WHQL driver. Keep in mind that using driver sweeper will remove your uninstallation files so sometimes it will not fix problems, but add more.
Click to expand...

I've done this several times now. Fresh installs with 12.2, fresh install with 12.3 and fresh install with 12.4 beta. All drivers were installed (every driver), directx updated, all windows updates, no driver sweeper/atiman. It wasn't until later that I tried messing around each time with different drivers and may have used driver sweeper on some but again did ANOTHER clean format in between.

On the newest install I was just trying to eliminate Last7 as the issue, so I did a clean plain jane windows 7 install, installed RC11 and it would not boot. The drivers on the CD (in the exact same situation, all I did was restore before the driver install, boot back in and install 8.921.5) and it booted just fine. Likewise with 12.2/12.3/12.4.

I am asking for help because I have TRIED all the obvious and the results are not very good. I don't know why all of a sudden I am being newbized, but OF COURSE I installed the chipset drivers lol.
 
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