AMD CrossFireX Drivers - Opportunity Lost @ [H]

AngelicPenguin said:
That's probably it then. I'll bet most people who are struggling bought two of these at launch to run eyefinity. I recall it took a while for my 5970 to support eyefinity with crossfire. I could do single screen with crossfire fine, or eyefinity with one GPU, but not both.

My second card comes in today, so I'll at least test a few games soon enough with eyefinity. Are you using the OSD from MSI Afterburner to judge GPU usage?
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Yes, i'm using the OSD overlay in MSI afterburner to watch GPU1/GPU2 temps and usage.

Are you using the 1/9 web driver? Just a suggestion, to save you some hassles: Get your system running in single card mode with the 1/9 web AMD driver, and disable any over volting and such in MSI afterburner. Disable unofficial overclocking mode. You can still max it to 1125/1575 (if your cards tolerate that). Over volting while in crossfire tends to be a PITA with more than 1 GPU. I just didn't have the energy to find the sweet spot and oc past 1125 cuz, 1125 in crossfire is ridiculously fast. And I can get 1125 on both of my cards at stock voltage anyway.

For microstutter: download MSI afterburner 2.2 beta 11. Enable the OSD. In your OSD settings (its the riva tuner applet in your system tray) enable the framerate limiter to 60 fps if you're on a regular LCD, or 90/120 if you're on a 120hz screen. If you combine this with ingame vsync you will not get any hint of microstutter in any games. If you have any questions on this lemme know, this is by far my favorite feature of the new MSI afterburner beta. It obliterates any microstutter on either NV or AMD cards from what i've seen.

AFAIK ccc version 12.2 will have this built in.

If you do this, disable any over volting and such you should be able to simply boot into windows and enable crossfire in CCC.

Just some hints for you ;) Let us know how your experience goes!
 
Daggah said:
I have bolded the part of your post where it all breaks down because you're full of shit.

And again, what games out there need more than one 7970 to max out?
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Oh yeah, I've been putting up with poor support since I owned 3800 series GPUs.

By the way, try running Metro 2033 in Eyefinity (6060 x 1200) with one card, or BF3, or Batman, or STALKER, or even Call of Duty......and by that I mean full settings and a single GPU......which sometimes is all you get because of poor crossfire support.

If I'm so full of it, as you say.....insulting me is not really very adult......why are there over 15 pages of people who feel the same way.:rolleyes:

And I am by no means a fan of nvidia or AMD......I just have happened to own AMD products for quite some time based on price/performance.
 
CF is broken in Skyrim, Batman and has problems in BF3. At least in Techpowerup review.

Anyone tried X-Plane 10, single card? My favorite game at the moment..
 
xoleras said:
Yes, i'm using the OSD overlay in MSI afterburner to watch GPU1/GPU2 temps and usage.

Are you using the 1/9 web driver? Just a suggestion, to save you some hassles: Get your system running in single card mode with the 1/9 web AMD driver, and disable any over volting and such in MSI afterburner. Disable unofficial overclocking mode. You can still max it to 1125/1575 (if your cards tolerate that). Over volting while in crossfire tends to be a PITA with more than 1 GPU. I just didn't have the energy to find the sweet spot and oc past 1125 cuz, 1125 in crossfire is ridiculously fast. And I can get 1125 on both of my cards at stock voltage anyway.

For microstutter: download MSI afterburner 2.2 beta 11. Enable the OSD. In your OSD settings (its the riva tuner applet in your system tray) enable the framerate limiter to 60 fps if you're on a regular LCD, or 90/120 if you're on a 120hz screen. If you combine this with ingame vsync you will not get any hint of microstutter in any games. If you have any questions on this lemme know, this is by far my favorite feature of the new MSI afterburner beta. It obliterates any microstutter on either NV or AMD cards from what i've seen.

AFAIK ccc version 12.2 will have this built in.

If you do this, disable any over volting and such you should be able to simply boot into windows and enable crossfire in CCC.

Just some hints for you ;) Let us know how your experience goes!
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Thanks for the tips! I personally never noticed microstutter, so maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm not sure about turning vsync on, however, because I have noticed the input delay having it on gets you, but I never tried it with a framelimiter. I turned vsync on occasionally when games seemed to tear too much. It always fixed the tearing and the framerate would stay ok, but I definitely noticed a slight delay in all my actions. Not to derail this thead...
 
Daggah said:
I couldn't care less about what AMD (or nVidia) wants to show off. I care about how the games run on MY system. Simple fact is, there isn't anything out right now that will make a 7970 break a sweat.
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So, it's all about you, everyone else be damned.;)

But wait.......there are people who run three screens, the marketing is geared toward the three screen experience, and wow this is a hardware enthusiast website......you think minority, check out widescreengamingforums sometime.

I agree that if you have a single screen and probably not 30", a single card will do just fine, but that simply is not the case for many of us. If Eyefinity or nvidia Surround wasn't popular we wouldn't be having these conversations.

I can easily run my games on a single 24" screen no problem. Heck a 6950 can do that with ease, but add two more and you are simply not going to be able to run high resolution and full on graphics effects. Many times my current set-up will not tolerate AA.
 
Daggah said:
And again, what games out there need more than one 7970 to max out?
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I don't think that's the point. The point is, AMD releases a product with Crossfire capability, but does not provide the software support for it on release. That's the whole point of this article. The actual performance of a single 7970 isn't relevent to the discussion.
 
roki977 said:
CF is broken in Skyrim, Batman and has problems in BF3. At least in Techpowerup review.

Anyone tried X-Plane 10, single card? My favorite game at the moment..
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There are no problems in bf3, they are using an old driver in the techreport review. They are using a 12/16 driver, the AMD driver 1/9 scales fine in bf3 at all resolutions including eyefinity.

I get near 100% gpu usage on both gpu's at 2560x1440 in bf3 when I disable vsync.

The confirmed problems are DX11 Batman: AC, i'm trying to figure out what other games don't work. I have no idea about eyefinity, maybe thats what Kyle is running? Single monitor xfire seems to be fine except for the oddity that is Batman: AC and skyrim.
 
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AngelicPenguin said:
Thanks for the tips! I personally never noticed microstutter, so maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm not sure about turning vsync on, however, because I have noticed the input delay having it on gets you, but I never tried it with a framelimiter. I turned vsync on occasionally when games seemed to tear too much. It always fixed the tearing and the framerate would stay ok, but I definitely noticed a slight delay in all my actions. Not to derail this thead...
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Just another warning: don't try to overclock GPU2 when its in ultra low power state (ULPS), only CCC overdrive works for doing that. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on.
 
Daggah said:
Let's put things in perspective.

Ultra powerful video card. High price point. JUST released. Crossfire doesn't work in "some" games. Affects super-small minority of PC gamers.

White people problems.

Stop whining.
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i agree completely

but look at it from another angle: you just gave a company $1,100 - $2,200 and your rig, in some games, performs the same as if you spent $550

i dunno, i think that person has the right to be pissed. a premium product should have premium support.
 
xoleras said:
I'm well aware. BF3 took like 3 weeks for crossfire support, which is too long. What i'm saying though, is that [H] saying crossfire doesn't work period, while it does *work* with a few games not scaling properly. The only such game I've found is Batman: AC in dx11 mode.

AMD does need quicker support for xfire in new releases, no argument here.
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BF3 Quadfire worked me on day 1, but i dont know how things were for eyefinity.
 
Daggah said:
Let's put things in perspective.

Ultra powerful video card. High price point. JUST released. Crossfire doesn't work in "some" games. Affects super-small minority of PC gamers.

White people problems.

Stop whining.
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Sure..........:eek:

Change the name to [W]hiny|OCP
 
That's_Corporate said:
i agree completely

but look at it from another angle: you just gave a company $1,100 - $2,200 and your rig, in some games, performs the same as if you spent $550

i dunno, i think that person has the right to be pissed. a premium product should have premium support.
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Just how much resources do you think AMD should devote to a small handful of people with more than one 7970 and eyefinity setups?
 
That's_Corporate said:
i agree completely

but look at it from another angle: you just gave a company $1,100 - $2,200 and your rig, in some games, performs the same as if you spent $550

i dunno, i think that person has the right to be pissed. a premium product should have premium support.
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Yep they have a right be pissed but few are because they knew what thew were getting in to.
 
Daggah said:
Just how much resources do you think AMD should devote to a small handful of people with more than one 7970 and eyefinity setups?
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If you advertise a product, in fact tout it as your trump card, you should put as much into it as is needed to make it work correctly, each and every time.

Why advertise a product that is faulty? It makes no sense what-so-ever, especially now.
Amd is in the third generation of GPUs that are EyeFinity capable, and even further into multi-GPU capabilities........but still have issues.

In some game releases on day one they can't produce a driver that allows a game to function properly with one GPU..........case(s) in point Rage and Skyrim.......this then followed by intermittant problems cropping up in the same game(s) after a driver fixes the original problem.

I understand that software is complex, I sure can't do it.
But, if I pay an ass-load of my hard earned money for a product, I expect it to work correctly, day one. If you can't do that, don't do it.
 
Daggah said:
Just how much resources do you think AMD should devote to a small handful of people with more than one 7970 and eyefinity setups?
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if it's a feature they provide on their cards, it should be properly supported. Should AMD be lazy with their support just because not all customers can afford to use both eyefinity and crossfire?
 
Final8ty said:
Yep they have a right be pissed but few are because they knew what thew were getting in to.
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I think you're overstating things a bit. The only game I can find to not "work" is Batman: AC in DX11 mode. I made a list earlier of games that "work" and scale to 80% gpu usage on both gpu's in my case. This is why i'm confused by Kyle's article. Is it eyefinity he's having problems with? Is it eyefinity crossfire? Because single monitor xfire seems to work. I'm not sure. Or is he referring to a couple of games not having CAPs? Clarification would be great.
 
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Majinhoju said:
if it's a feature they provide on their cards, it should be properly supported. Should AMD be lazy with their support just because not all customers can afford to use both eyefinity and crossfire?
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Exactly.

Ok, get in this line for GPUs that have functional software.......

Now, if you want half-baked products, AND want to pay more, BUT get less..........get on over here and get you some.:eek:

Look, I like AMD GPUs, it's obvious, i keep buying them. I'm just finally about done due to their driver support.......is nvidia better.......I think at least more consistant, but their hardware isn't as stout.......that's the disconnect, right there.:p
 
xoleras said:
I think you're overstating things a bit. The only game I can find to not "work" is Batman: AC in DX11 mode. I made a list earlier of games that "work" and scale to 80% gpu usage on both gpu's in my case. This is why i'm confused by Kyle's article. Is it eyefinity he's having problems with? Is it eyefinity crossfire? Because single monitor xfire seems to work. I'm not sure. Or is he referring to a couple of games not having CAPs? Clarification would be great.
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Re-read the editorial, then.:D

" Apparently not for the 7970 as we still do not have a CFX driver to put together a CrossFireX review."

"While this driver can technically run Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX, it isn't the recommended driver and AMD has told us that specifically. There is supposedly a new driver coming with CFX support and CAP support for 7970 CFX. "

"We've already seen where one game has a major bug under DX11 on the new Radeon HD 7970. Granted DX11 support in the game is new, but our GeForce GTX 580 with December drivers is able to run it just fine with a performance boost under DX11."

"As we are getting ready to publish this, AMD's PR company has sent us a new CFX driver, but it is still full of bugs. We have been told though that RC11 is coming later this week, and "that is planned to be released publicly as well." No date was given. If you put down big cash on HD Radeon 7970 CrossFireX you are not being ignored, but you surely are not being attended to either."

:confused:
 
Calling AMD lazy and insulting their dev team isn't going to win any friends, I'm all for calling them out on less than stellar CF support of late but who knows what technical hitch or complexity they have run into if any - I guess some feedback with a rational explanation and preferably from the dev team as opposed to PR bs would go a long way, maybe like most companies they just don't care to much. Also to many Green tinged fans jumping in and amping up the hate doesn't help.
 
Daggah said:
Just how much resources do you think AMD should devote to a small handful of people with more than one 7970 and eyefinity setups?
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As many as required, otherwise they should change their advertising and marketing.
You wouldn't buy a Ferrari if it had similar performance with a cheap Beamer.
And you'd be pissed if you purchased one and it did (otherwise you're a e-peen requiring chump buying something for the brand, but I digress).

Don't advertise what you can't deliver. It's a fucking principle of business. And I would never go CF nor EF, but as a single card user, I won't support a company that feels it's alright to release a product, advertised with a feature-set that doesn't actually work.
 
xoleras said:
I think you're overstating things a bit. The only game I can find to not "work" is Batman: AC in DX11 mode. I made a list earlier of games that "work" and scale to 80% gpu usage on both gpu's in my case. This is why i'm confused by Kyle's article. Is it eyefinity he's having problems with? Is it eyefinity crossfire? Because single monitor xfire seems to work. I'm not sure. Or is he referring to a couple of games not having CAPs? Clarification would be great.
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I agree, I'm having a hard time understanding why they made such a big deal out of it. Guru3D, TechPowerUp, and HardwareHeaven have all done CrossFire evaluations and while some games show no scaling at all most of the games have 80-90%+ scaling.

In TechPowerUp's performance summary at 2560 x 1600, which is comprised of 19 titles,

GTX 590 has: 57% scaling compared to GTX 570
7970 CF has: 54% scaling compared to 7970.
HD 5970 has: 60% scaling compared to 5850 (added a few percent to the baseline 5850 to make up for the 5970 having 1600 shaders)

So what's the problem?
 
Where exactly is this marketing storm you people keep saying AMD is throwing out there?

Because I never have seen this phenomenon people keep mentioning, hell they just fired most of their marketing team, IRC.

Just about every new tech has some games it doesn't play nice with at launch, it always happens. I don't get why AMD gets stomped on by a thread and article like this, when frankly, this is par for the course for just about every new video card release from either side.


I don't run 7xxx but I do run a hybrid crossfire rig, and I run a normal crossfire rig, I haven't had an issue with either one, and consistently the driver releases have improved my gaming experience.

Totally overblown.
 
stealthy123 said:
Just about every new tech has some games it doesn't play nice with at launch, it always happens. I don't get why AMD gets stomped on by a thread and article like this, when frankly, this is par for the course for just about every new video card release from either side.
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This is kind of the last straw I suppose.

AMD has been having trouble getting out ahead of releases and having crossfire working on launch day for gaming titles for some time now. Single cards are always fine.

To be honest, Nvidia has had these problems as well, but less frequently and they usually fix them more quickly.


stealthy123 said:
Totally overblown.
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To a small extent I agree. I usually expect to have early adopter problems that get worked out down the line, and I'm patient enough that a month doesn't bother me much. I'd rather get a better performing card, and have it for a long time even though it has some issues in the beginning, than get a slower card that works out of the gate, cause then I will be stuck with something slower for a long time.

To each their own I guess.

Personally I rarely buy products or games on launch, as I expect there to be problems. Games are almost always buggy on launch, and hardware typically has driver/firmware/bios problems on launch.

I usually buy games and hardware a month or more after launch and I am usually happy, cause most of the issues are worked out.

It sucks for those who spent $1,100 on video cards and now can't use them to their full potential while they wait for a driver release, but I had to LOL when I read that someone bought them, and then RMA'd (in one case) or sold (in another) them. That is kind of ridiculous. Just wait a week. How childishly impatient can some people get... :confused:


Personally I don't nerdrage about it
 
magoo said:
Re-read the editorial, then.:D

" Apparently not for the 7970 as we still do not have a CFX driver to put together a CrossFireX review."

"While this driver can technically run Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX, it isn't the recommended driver and AMD has told us that specifically. There is supposedly a new driver coming with CFX support and CAP support for 7970 CFX. "

"We've already seen where one game has a major bug under DX11 on the new Radeon HD 7970. Granted DX11 support in the game is new, but our GeForce GTX 580 with December drivers is able to run it just fine with a performance boost under DX11."

"As we are getting ready to publish this, AMD's PR company has sent us a new CFX driver, but it is still full of bugs. We have been told though that RC11 is coming later this week, and "that is planned to be released publicly as well." No date was given. If you put down big cash on HD Radeon 7970 CrossFireX you are not being ignored, but you surely are not being attended to either."

:confused:
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edit:

So crossfire works but AMD doesn't want them to use the driver in the review? Why? Shrug. I'm seeing good scaling in most games so far, with the exception being Batman: AC. I'm not sure about power usage and such.

Well my lesson is learned. The reasoning is there in black and white, thanks for pointing that out :) I guess I skim over web articles too much. Note to self: read things completely. Thanks.
 
stealthy123 said:
Where exactly is this marketing storm you people keep saying AMD is throwing out there?

Because I never have seen this phenomenon people keep mentioning, hell they just fired most of their marketing team, IRC.

Just about every new tech has some games it doesn't play nice with at launch, it always happens. I don't get why AMD gets stomped on by a thread and article like this, when frankly, this is par for the course for just about every new video card release from either side.


I don't run 7xxx but I do run a hybrid crossfire rig, and I run a normal crossfire rig, I haven't had an issue with either one, and consistently the driver releases have improved my gaming experience.

Totally overblown.
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www.AMD.com.......look for HD 7970, or maybe CrossfireX....:D

The dead horse is almost beat, but it's not just the 7970, there have been numerous game releases and problems with the driver side at AMD since I can remember, as I said before, going back to my 4870 X2........it's just become tiring to put up with.

The hardware is awesome, but the support is almost non-existant.
 
fps4ever said:
Yeah, I thought that was kind of a douchy thing to say. Maybe he meant 1st world problems, although that would be just as generally stupid. I guess only he knows the exact importance of everyone's problems?
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It's a meme...
 
This thread is fun lol. AMD needs to do better for sure. I have used many ATI/AMD gpu's and haven't been crippled by drivers luckily. Hell aside from waiting for crossfire in Skyrim (which one 6870 handle perfectly) I've had driver troubles on the other side most recently. It really does suck though that they could fall behind the launch of these beast cards. The last few years I've been an early adopter, but I always wait a while on purchases over $250. It tends to be a good idea in the end.
 
KaptainKhaos said:
Calling AMD lazy and insulting their dev team isn't going to win any friends, I'm all for calling them out on less than stellar CF support of late but who knows what technical hitch or complexity they have run into if any - I guess some feedback with a rational explanation and preferably from the dev team as opposed to PR bs would go a long way, maybe like most companies they just don't care to much.
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Of late? This has been going on for years, constant cfx problems and especially cfx+eyefinitiy.. And it's even more frustrating when it is their business model and marketing that is based on multi GPU gaming. Small die strategy and multiple ones for high end is what they are all about since the R700.


There is one thing that I don't quite understand: how much are game developers responsible for this problems (regardless of GPU manufacturer)? If there is a standard graphics API, and there are existing drivers available to test and develop with, how come that new games require new drivers?

And if there is a reason, how come that they don't work with GPU manufacturers in advance and have compatible drivers available weeks or even months in advance, not late? Especially since game development takes years, how is it possible that everyone is taken off guard when the game ships and suddenly it's all hectic to get it working? As if it hasn't been long before the actual launch date that the engine was coded and tested.
 
One thing I'm going to be tracking this year, that I wish I had tracked last year are SLI/CFX profile support dates in games.

For example, I'm going to start an Excel sheet. I'm going to put NV and AMD side-by-side, and list new game releases. Then I'm going to input the date that each game got SLI or CFX support. Then we look at the excel sheet later in the year and see how support compares between both. Wish I had done this in 2011, but 2012 I'm going to track this.

Just some info for you guys that I'll be working on through the year.
 
Brent_Justice said:
One thing I'm going to be tracking this year, that I wish I had tracked last year are SLI/CFX profile support dates in games.

For example, I'm going to start an Excel sheet. I'm going to put NV and AMD side-by-side, and list new game releases. Then I'm going to input the date that each game got SLI or CFX support. Then we look at the excel sheet later in the year and see how support compares between both. Wish I had done this in 2011, but 2012 I'm going to track this.

Just some info for you guys that I'll be working on through the year.
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Sweet Brent! Thats an awesome idea. Looking forward to seeing the end results:)
 
Meeho said:
There is one thing that I don't quite understand: how much are game developers responsible for this problems (regardless of GPU manufacturer)? If there is a standard graphics API, and there are existing drivers available to test and develop with, how come that new games require new drivers?
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I've wondered this as well myself.

I would have expected that if a game is DX-whatever compatible, and your system has DX-whatever compatible hardware and drivers, it should work, regardless of if you have one GPU or multiple GPU's.

I can see whating to release driver updates to tweak and improve performance, but basic functionality should be assured IMHO.

I guess the DX API's are not as standardized as we have been led to believe.
 
Brent_Justice said:
One thing I'm going to be tracking this year, that I wish I had tracked last year are SLI/CFX profile support dates in games.

For example, I'm going to start an Excel sheet. I'm going to put NV and AMD side-by-side, and list new game releases. Then I'm going to input the date that each game got SLI or CFX support. Then we look at the excel sheet later in the year and see how support compares between both. Wish I had done this in 2011, but 2012 I'm going to track this.

Just some info for you guys that I'll be working on through the year.
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Great idea. Not saying you should do it but I imagine that it wouldn't be a difficult effort to look at last years games and determine that. On the SLI sides I can't actually think of many of the major games that didn't support SLI out of the box. I think Dirt 3 didn't, maybe a couple of others, but all of the big titles from the last fall had SLI at launch.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038284335 said:
I guess the DX API's are not as standardized as we have been led to believe.
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Multi-GPU isn't at the API level, it's implemented in the driver level.
 
lopoetve said:
Nvidia has the same problem. Somehow they cope. :confused:

edit: More appropriately, they fix it after the fact quickly. AMD just pretends it never happened.
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Where did i say that AMD did not cope with the same problem, you completely missed the point of my post of something working and the game coders braking it and nothing more.
Its was nothing to do with the typical arguments of you can fix what how fast as those arguments can be made anywhere at any time.

And seeing as Crysis2 TWIMTBP i would surprised if AMD sorted it before Nvidia.

And when was it that your talked to an official AMD representative with an issue and that representative said it does not exists.
 
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xoleras said:
I think you're overstating things a bit. The only game I can find to not "work" is Batman: AC in DX11 mode. I made a list earlier of games that "work" and scale to 80% gpu usage on both gpu's in my case. This is why i'm confused by Kyle's article. Is it eyefinity he's having problems with? Is it eyefinity crossfire? Because single monitor xfire seems to work. I'm not sure. Or is he referring to a couple of games not having CAPs? Clarification would be great.
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I think you missed my point, that with the drivers on the CD most users would not be very upset because they expect to have issues with CF and Eyefinity on first drivers..
 
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