Crossfire Microstutter - Afterburner vs Radeon Pro

Fooshnik

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I've been using Afterburner for years, and it works well, but I was still getting some stutter so wanted to see if Radeon Pro worked any better. It takes a couple minutes to install but making a profile to strictly address stutter only takes a few seconds.

Here's what a single 7870XT looks like, Borderlands 2, 2560x1600, all settings on high, vsync off.

borderlands2singlecardn.png


This is a scene with a lot of enemies in it so it taxes the CPU as well, that may explain the longer frames. As you can see it can't maintain 60fps (16.7ms frame time). It's honestly hard to tell how smooth the gameplay is with all the shearing.


With vsync on it's not very smooth with a lot of doubled frames. If you told me I was playing on a crossfire setup with a lot of microstutter I wouldn't argue with you.

borderlands2singlecardv.png



Turning down most of the settings until the frame rate was 60fps min helped quite a bit.

borderlands2singlecardv.png


This was fairly smooth, still some 32ms frames but nothing to complain about. What you would expect of single card gameplay.


Here's two 7870XTs, max game settings, vsync off.

borderlands2novsync.png


It's a mess. It honestly doesn't feel as bad as it looks since it's a 60Hz monitor and none of the frames are over 16ms, but with all the shearing I wouldn't want to play like this.


Here's two cards with Afterburner running.

borderlands2afterburner.png


It's not too bad. There's the occasional 30ms frame, but if you gave somebody the computer and told them they were playing on a single card they wouldn't dispute it. If you're playing the game solely for the purpose of detecting stutter, you'd notice the double frames every few seconds, but you can do that on the single card too. There's nothing here to make the experience poor.


Two cards with Radeon Pro running:

borderlands2radeonpro.png


It feels like it looks, perfect. Reminds me of the old days playing on a CRT. I wasn't able to actually notice the the 32ms frames every 12 seconds or so, it plays smooth as glass. If you're looking for a way to play completely free of any stutter at all, this is how to do it.


At this point, even if I were only using a single card I'd still use RP. Here's a single card:

borderlands2singlecardr.png


It allows you to do other things like enable SMAA/HBAO and most everything else even if the game doesn't support it.


To set it up, disable vsync and triple buffering in the application, locate the executable with RP and under the tweaks tab set Vsync Control to "Always On", Display Refresh 60 or 120, Dynamic Framerate Control 60 or 120. If your game can't reach 60fps on any settings you want to play at set the DFC to something lower. For Unreal engine games that don't allow you to turn off their own triple buffering, leave RP's turned off or you'll get stuttering (note: when using Crossfire don't enable triple buffering at all).

Alternately the newer version has the ability to set Vsync Control to "Dynamic", which will automatically turn off Vsync when the framerate falls below the refresh rate. This automatically turns on triple buffering so the latter method works better when you can't turn it off in game. None of the Radeon Pro settings introduced any mouse lag.


I imagine the guy who wrote this is plenty brilliant, but I can't believe the people writing assembler at AMD are incapable of figuring this out. Hopefully all the whining about "runt frames" will finally get AMD off their ass to fix this.


If you're brave you can get a work in progress release here that enables SMAA customization. I noticed it conflicts with Office 13 so you have to kill the RP process before you run Office.
 
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Thanks for posting this. I upgraded to crossfire for the first time this weekend and this helped me resolved some stuttering issues is was seeing. Everything now feels very smooth with these tweaks.
 
Thanks for posting this. I upgraded to crossfire for the first time this weekend and this helped me resolved some stuttering issues is was seeing. Everything now feels very smooth with these tweaks.

Just curious, did you only apply it the way he stated above?
 
John, the RP delveloper is actually being helped by AMD. I assume theve seen his code.
 
Yeah, if it wasn't for a framerate cap I would have never stuck with crossfire.

Borderlands 2 was awful unless I used a cap. It wasn't an issue untill I picked up a 120hz display.
 
Has anyone had any success getting radeonpro to cooperate with Far Cry 3? Game crashes on launch for me with radeonpro active, even without a far cry 3 profile.
 
I am very interested in this.
I am extremely sensitive to fps changes in first-person shooter games, but once I got my cards rolling with the correct bios I don't notice too many hiccups in my games. Maybe the occasional split second pause, but I had that with single card setups too.
So with RadeonPro there are a ton of options. What in particular should I be changing?
 
vsync always on
DFC enabled, and set to you monitors refresh rate
and trpple buffering enabled.
 
If you still get stuttering with Radeon Pro, try disabling it. Sometimes is messes with the game's triple buffering (if the game doesn't have an option to disable it).

disable uplay
Yes, the overlay screws with RP, among other things. You can find some info on Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider by searching this thread.

Pretty much. I made a few tweaks here and there for triple buffering or adding SMAA to games which don't support it (I don't like FXAA).
It is a lot better where I've tried it. Not just in static images, but far less motion artifacts on high contrast edges and thin elements. Nice feature.
 
To set it up, disable vsync and triple buffering in the application, locate the executable with RP and under the tweaks tab set Vsync Control to "Always On", Display Refresh 60 or 120, Dynamic Framerate Control 60 or 120. If your game can't reach 60fps on any settings you want to play at set the DFC to something lower. For Unreal engine games that don't allow you to turn off their own triple buffering, leave RP's turned off or you'll get stuttering.

Alternately the newer version has the ability to set Vsync Control to "Dynamic", which will automatically turn off Vsync when the framerate falls below the refresh rate. This automatically turns on triple buffering so the latter method works better when you can't turn it off in game. None of the Radeon Pro settings introduced any mouse lag.

Just want to make sure, if a game has a triple-buffering option then the first option is best and if not the second option may be better? Also should I enable triple-buffering in RadeonPro after disabling it in-game? Thanks.
 
I am wondering is this micro-studdering may have anything to do with a 116 blue screen that a friend of mine is getting with his crossfired 4850s. Any ideas?
 
No. That sounds like a driver issue. Take the cards out and try them one at a time. Is this a recent phenomenon?

Just want to make sure, if a game has a triple-buffering option then the first option is best and if not the second option may be better? Also should I enable triple-buffering in RadeonPro after disabling it in-game? Thanks.

Try to avoid a situation where both the game and Radeon Pro have triple buffering on. If you can turn it off in game try Dynamic Framerate Control, if you can't use the second option. With the second option it's best if you configure the game so the framerate doesn't drop below 60fps.
 
Its better to disable tripple buffering in game and use RP to force whenever possible.
 
I asked for some clarification on that and here's what the author said:

Me said:
Can't use RP's triple buffering though, have to use DFC with Vsync Control on. DVC causes a lot of stuttering.

japamd said:
You don't need triple-buffering if CF is working.

Me said:
CF meaning Crossfire? Under what circumstances do you not need triple buffering when using crossfire?

japamd said:
Yes. You need triple-buffering only when CF isn't supported by the game/driver.

So when using Crossfire don't use Triple Buffering at all.
 
well, you dont NEED it, but you can still turn it on if you wish..

Basically with xfire you get the extra buffer already by the nature of the 2nd card..
 
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