Crossfire is broken in Fallout 3

B

B2BigAl

2[H]4U
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Mar 23, 2003
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Just FYI for anyone who wonders why their framerates suck in this game. Here are my benchmarks with and without crossfire:

All settings at ultra high, no AA 15xAF

With Crossfire:
2008-10-30 16:53:58 - Fallout3
Frames: 1738 - Time: 40692ms - Avg: 42.711 - Min: 31 - Max: 48

Without Crossfire:
2008-10-30 16:56:08 - Fallout3
Frames: 2322 - Time: 39110ms - Avg: 59.371 - Min: 50 - Max: 63

-with 4x AA, no crossfire:
2008-10-30 17:08:55 - Fallout3
Frames: 2090 - Time: 40997ms - Avg: 50.979 - Min: 37 - Max: 59

That's right, one card runs better than two. Thanks again ATI. I'm getting real tired of this crap, and I once again find myself wishing I had stuck with nvidia. Oh, I'm sure there will be a patch in a few days, but this is ridiculous. Am I going to have to wait a week every time a new game comes out, so ATI can get their shit together and create a crossfire profile. God forbid they ever go out of business, because without driver updates, you're screwed.
 
must admit i never checked to see if performance improved by disabling the second x2.
 
xdivenx said:
Thanks again ATI?
More like thanks again Bethesda.
Click to expand...

Yeah, ATI, this has nothing to do with Bethesda. The drivers don't support crossfire in this game. The same thing happened in Warhead, Farcry 2, and Stalker:CS (personally never played it, but they released a hotfix). The guys running SLI aren't having any problems, yet here I sit once again with my gimped system with $550 worth of graphics cards.
 
Hrm...

its running really well in ultra settings at 1920x1200 with 2xAF and 16xAF for me, I find it hard to believe that it's running that well with only 1 4870, but might be worth testing anyhow.

Dissapointing if so :/
 
B2BigAl said:
Yeah, ATI, this has nothing to do with Bethesda. The drivers don't support crossfire in this game. The same thing happened in Warhead, Farcry 2, and Stalker:CS (personally never played it, but they released a hotfix). The guys running SLI aren't having any problems, yet here I sit once again with my gimped system with $550 worth of graphics cards.
Click to expand...
haha so you think that only driver is needed for cf to function properly :D
 
hmm, this is the same basic engine as oblivion right?

Oblivion was one of the best games for crossfire compatability easily reaching 2x performance, seeing as it is the same, why not just change the exe to the same as oblivion and the FPS should go through the roof.

Haven't got it to try it at the moment but i would imagine it would work perfect.
 
cf is not broken for me. disabled the feature and loaded up the wasteland save point. frames ran steadily under 40 frames. re-enabled cf and frames were back at 60.
 
eric66 said:
haha so you think that only driver is needed for cf to function properly :D
Click to expand...

Okay smart guy, please do enlighten me as to what the issue is then. Because you're right, games are always being patched to fix crossfire, as opposed to a hotfix or driver update from ATI. :rolleyes:

Of course I realize the game engine must support it, but it's the same engine as oblivion, and we know it works on there. I'm not saying that the only thing required is a driver fix, but that sure does seem to be norm nowadays.
 
Actually CF stops working periodically in FO3, at least on my rig using a 4870X2.

No crashes, all other games run well, but at some point during a play session the framerate dips and never recovers. Either a driver issue or a FO3 issue which hopefully is addressed with a driver update or patch.
 
1erCru said:
Actually CF stops working periodically in FO3, at least on my rig using a 4870X2.

No crashes, all other games run well, but at some point during a play session the framerate dips and never recovers. Either a driver issue or a FO3 issue which hopefully is addressed with a driver update or patch.
Click to expand...

Are you keeping an eye on your GPU usage? I noticed the game only uses 50% of each GPU, which appears to be pretty performance crippling since I'm getting less than stellar performance when I step outdoors.
 
This is going to happen every time a new game comes out. It's just the nature of Crossfire (whether done on one card or with several single-GPU cards). Hopefully a future Catalyst update will provide better scaling.
 
I wonder if renaming your fallout3.exe to oblivion.exe will trick the drivers into working properly for X-fire. Don't know if SecuRom will allow you to mess with the exe like that though.
 
That's what happens when a company develops and tests on NVIDIA hardware alone. There's a nice little blurb about it from Bethesda on the next to last page of the manual. It's a lousy practice. You really can't consider your software fully tested by running on a single platform.

There are posts on Bethesda's forums about HDR problems specific to ATI cards. I would point out that it could cost more to fix the ATI specific issues, than it would have cost to give the testing team some ATI cards. However, I'm sure they were paid a pretty penny to be able to type that little paragraph, so that's probably not true.

It's kinda sad, really.
 
An Important Note Regarding Graphics
and Having the Best Possible Experience
Fallout 3 used some of the most advanced graphics effects available today aimed at achieving real-time
performance for a great game playing experience. The game was developed and tested using NVIDIA®
GeForce™ 8, 9 and GTX 200 Series graphics cards and the intended experience can be more fully realized
on GeForce 8, 9 and GTX 200 Series graphics hardware. On a GeForce 8600 or better you will be able to
turn on all of the NVIDIA special effect features at higher resolutions of the game.
Click to expand...

Wonderful, isn't it? What "NVIDIA special effect features"? DX 10.1? :p
 
There's another new Hotfix out right now. Pehaps it supports FO3.

*edit* just looked, FO3 is not listed.
 
***** sloppy of bethseda. It's not like Crossfire is a new concept. Just bought it from Steam
 
Guys, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH BETHESDA. Don't believe me, just rename your executable to "oblivion.exe" and the game runs crossfire perfectly fine. It's fucked up because ATI doesn't have a crossfire profile for FO3, that's it, end of story.
 
Ok, so renaming fallout to oblivion I get 60 fps, not renaming it I get 60 fps, cat AI off in ccc is 60 fps, cat ai on in ccc is 60 fps...everything is maxed...so how do I get rid of the artificial fps limit so I can tell if there is any performance gain by renaming the exe...(Vsync in game and ccc is off)...I don't suppose it really matters gameplay wise...just curious though.
 
B2BigAl said:
Just FYI for anyone who wonders why their framerates suck in this game. Here are my benchmarks with and without crossfire:

All settings at ultra high, no AA 15xAF

With Crossfire:
2008-10-30 16:53:58 - Fallout3
Frames: 1738 - Time: 40692ms - Avg: 42.711 - Min: 31 - Max: 48

Without Crossfire:
2008-10-30 16:56:08 - Fallout3
Frames: 2322 - Time: 39110ms - Avg: 59.371 - Min: 50 - Max: 63

-with 4x AA, no crossfire:
2008-10-30 17:08:55 - Fallout3
Frames: 2090 - Time: 40997ms - Avg: 50.979 - Min: 37 - Max: 59

That's right, one card runs better than two. Thanks again ATI. I'm getting real tired of this crap, and I once again find myself wishing I had stuck with nvidia. Oh, I'm sure there will be a patch in a few days, but this is ridiculous. Am I going to have to wait a wek every time a new game comes out, so ATI can get their shit together and create a crossfire profile. God forbid they ever go out of business, because without driver updates, you're screwed.
Click to expand...

That's weird, from what I have seen, even the CF is not working the worst it can get is same as a single card. As some posters pointed out, theirs are just working fine, maybe you fucked up your computer.
 
"Thanks again Nvidia for essentially bribing the devs to do f'all effort to make it work properly on ATI cards", he meant to say, because that's what it is.

I write angry letters to all game developers who run that shit and I include a copy of my game receipt and I ask for my money back, it's not going anywhere as a one-man campaign so I invite all of you ATI gamers to join in. Show them we want competition in the graphics industry and good prices and games that perform correctly on both card vendors.
 
It's amazing what a few hookers and some cocaine can get done. (Nvidia PR department)

Well seriously I am having no issues whatsoever with fallout 3 and the 4870x2...but I suspect that is because one core maxes the game at 60 fps in my rig...there just seems to be no difference with AI on or off in CCC.

bangmal..what are your specs?
 
Ok..using 2 instances of GPU-Z to record GPU % utilization on both cores of 4870x2 during identical run through outside radio station with lots of super mutants and brotherhood of steel NPC's: (driver 8.10 with hotfix 1&2, windows VISTA 64, rig in sig)

With exe named fallout3:
Core 1:
2008-11-02 06:35:15 , 52 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:16 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:17 , 54 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:18 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:19 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:20 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:21 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:22 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:23 , 58 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:24 , 59 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:25 , 59 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:26 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:27 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:28 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:29 , 51 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:30 , 43 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:31 , 40 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:32 , 51 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:33 , 63 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:34 , 58 ,

Core 2:
2008-11-02 06:35:15 , 52 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:16 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:18 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:19 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:20 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:21 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:22 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:23 , 58 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:24 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:25 , 60 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:26 , 59 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:27 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:28 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:29 , 54 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:30 , 49 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:31 , 41 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:32 , 46 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:33 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:34 , 65 ,

2008-11-02 06:35:35 , 51 ,





With exe named oblivion:
Core 1:
2008-11-02 06:27:33 , 46 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:34 , 41 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:35 , 44 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:36 , 48 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:37 , 50 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:38 , 49 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:39 , 43 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:40 , 36 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:41 , 36 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:42 , 41 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:43 , 46 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:44 , 47 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:45 , 50 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:46 , 55 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:47 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:48 , 54 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:49 , 51 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:50 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:51 , 55 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:52 , 43 ,

Core 2:
2008-11-02 06:27:32 , 49 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:33 , 45 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:34 , 41 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:35 , 47 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:36 , 49 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:37 , 49 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:38 , 47 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:39 , 40 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:40 , 37 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:41 , 37 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:42 , 44 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:43 , 46 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:44 , 47 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:45 , 51 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:46 , 57 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:47 , 56 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:48 , 51 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:49 , 52 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:50 , 53 ,

2008-11-02 06:27:51 , 53 ,

Sorry about the cut and paste format...in any case...to me looks a little better with original exe name, huh?

Does this put to rest the myth that fallout does not natively utilize both cores on a 4870x2??? (Naturally I have no idea about a dual card setup.)
 
I'm getting similar results, except I'm at a higher resolution where the issue is much more apparent. :(

Going into VATS sometimes brings the system to a crawl.
 
I'm having no issues with my 4870x2 running Fallout 3. I always use Vsync, but my framerates stay pegged at 60fps all the time. Whether this is only using one core of the 4870x2 or not doesn't matter to me as long as the framerates stay at 60fps, I have no complaints. Not sure what the OP's problem is here.
 
I'm not sure why some people are having problems and others aren't, but I'm not alone. Judging from this thread on rage 3D, quite a few other people have the exact same problem, and ATI is aware of it and know that they need to create a profile for this game:

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33934950

You guys can keep getting pissed at the devs all you want, but this isn't the first game or developer that has had this problem and I can guarantee it won't be the last. If nvidia is spending money on the devs to make sure games run better on their hardware, then ATI needs to do the same thing. It's called competition and if you can't keep up, then you lose. I personally don't give two shits how it gets resolved, it just needs to get resolved. We could argue all day about who's fault it is, but the bottom line is my product does not work like it's supposed to and the other guys product doesn't have this issue. Who do you think I'm going to go with on my next purchase. It's that simple.
 
Ok doing the V-Sync fix with ATI Driver Tools I get 80-100 FPS most of the time and it dips to 40s at parts of the map walking around. Keeping everything at default its constant 60fps with the occasional loading hitch. Unfortunately there aren't any tech site review sites with FO3 benchmarks yet to compare with all current cards. I suggest trying out ATI Driver Tool and make a FO3 profile and force V-sync off for now and see if gameplay improves. I would like to see how SLI is doing with this game with the vsync forced off. 1 major improvement doing this = retarded mouse lag (definitely Bethseda on this one) is completely gone and everything is faster ie moving, looking around, combat.
 
Ok, I cannot seem to get ATI Driver Tool to work...What version? Could you walk me through this v-sync fix please.
 
You expect ATI to take the time to especially make sure crossfire works on a game of which the makers wont shut up about how it is designed for just Nvidia cards?
 
Thanks kadozer...the tool wont run on my rig...some s**t about not being able to load and try the manual low level instal tool, but that doesn't work either...some VISTA security bulls**t no doubt. I tried installing it and running it as admin but this doesn't work either...oh well...
 
B2BigAl said:
Am I going to have to wait a week every time a new game comes out, so ATI can get their shit together and create a crossfire profile. God forbid they ever go out of business, because without driver updates, you're screwed.
Click to expand...

No, You just have to wait for Your long-awaited game to be released, then wait until there's a patch for it so Your cf/sli could works once again.
 
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