First time Xfiring - Need some advice

delita

delita

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
1,897
Hey guys,

Crossfire newb here. Upgrading my Vapor-X 7970 to 2x Vapor-X 290X 8GB editions. Is it recommended to completely uninstall my Radeon drivers and re-install them from doing an upgrade to new cards (and Crossfiring them) or do I just need to plug them both in and just update the drivers? If I do need to uninstall/reinstall, what is the most efficient way to do so, do I need to use a certain program to do the uninstall to make sure everything is wiped driver wise? Thanks.
 
With that out of the way, use DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to remove the old drivers and select the option to turn off the computer once it's finished so that you can install the new cards. Then bootup with the new cards installed and install the latest AMD driver. Good luck.
 
Going to upgrade to 4k over the next few months. With the way Vram usage is out of control with some newer games, I figure I might as well. I have had nothing but good luck with my current Vapor-X card, figured I'd keep going down the same road for now.

PS - thanks for the advice. Will download DDU.
 
jojo69 said:
what ever...few more clicks to set up but generally trouble free
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm only mad because BF4 Mantle Crossfire has a memory leak that makes it unplayable after 10 minutes. It's been broken since July 8th. So I bought that 2nd card for nothing.
 
rdqlus said:
Yeah I'm only mad because BF4 Mantle Crossfire has a memory leak that makes it unplayable after 10 minutes. It's been broken since July 8th. So I bought that 2nd card for nothing.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I'm sure today's patch won't fix it!
 
I use DDU to reboot to safe mode and then run the full cleaner, then I reboot to normal Windows desktop and install the drivers with the executable and reboot again. Works fine for me. Just upgraded my girlfriend to a 290 from a 7870 and used that process and no issues.
 
Under most circumstances, if you're upgrading from one generation of Radeon to the next, then you're probably fine if you follow the basic procedure:

* Use the Catalyst uninstaller to remove the drivers.
* Shut down the PC
* Replace the video card(s)
* Boot with the default display driver
* Install Catalyst
* Reboot

If you've noticed any wonky behavior with your video card, if you had custom profiles with the old setup that you want to make sure get removed, or if you just want to make sure you're starting fresh, then by all means do the uninstall with DDU instead.

In most situations, tools like DDU are overkill these days, then again DDU doesn't really do any harm either. I haven't seen anything indicating it's not safe, and it certainly doesn't take any longer to run than AMD's own uninstaller. I would definitely recommend using it when switching between AMD & Nvidia setups. just to be safe.
 
jojo69 said:
what ever...few more clicks to set up but generally trouble free
Click to expand...


On my 3rd X fire setup. Its anything but trouble free...

When it works its great but most of the time I just run one card as its more stable and no stutter. Why do I keep buying AMD cards then you ask? Well until Nvidia releases something with a decent amount of Vram and the bus speed to support it I will stick with my train wreck crossfire setups. At half the price.
 
rdqlus said:
Yeah I'm only mad because BF4 Mantle Crossfire has a memory leak that makes it unplayable after 10 minutes. It's been broken since July 8th. So I bought that 2nd card for nothing.
Click to expand...

I thought I was the only one suffering from that since no one on the bf4 forum know and thinks I'm running into a vram choke since I was pushing 3600x1920 and now 3440x1440.

Besides that CFX is a double edge sword. So don't expect it to work every single time but when it does. You gonna like your fps.
 
If you have used older CF setups like 5870s, the current 290/290X CF situation is entirely different, at least in terms of performance and fluidity. The XMDA feature that enables CrossFireX over PCI-E is much, much smoother compared with the older CrossFire bridges. I really didn't like my 5870 CF setup because the scaling was notoriously poor but I have had a very good experience with my 290Xs.
 
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