4870x2 users- do you have flicker?

[Chaos_Being]

I've been excited for the 4870x2 for a while (finances kept me from jumping on it immediately,) but as more people have bought them and I've read more user reviews, I've been noticing a disturbing trend. A lot of people seem to be experiencing flickering while gaming, and/or rolling bars of darker and lighter color that look like interference on a TV set with a bad connection.

I actually experienced the same problem with x1900xt crossfire a couple of years ago, and was never able to resolve the issue with my particular setup (it would work fine while using a DVI cable to my wife's LCD, but it would flicker like hell on my 24" CRT.) While I'd love to get the performance that the 4870x2 seems to offer, the possibility that I could have the same flickering problem would be a complete dealbreaker.

So, I'm interested in:

-whether or not you have experienced the flicker/wavy bars
-what drivers you are using
-if you have the flicker, does vsync fix it completely?
-what power supply you are using
-any other details about your system you may think are pertinent

Thanks in advance for any replies. I'm really curious to see how how many people really are experiencing this problem.

 

[Putz]

i don't have any flickering using 8.7., 8.8 beta or 8.8 final anyways.

i do get some tearing in tf2, but im assuming thats because it running at 200+ fps on an lcd, either way vsync does fix it.

I don't get tearing in crysis, cod4, wow, etc without using vsync

 

[necrophile]

yes i have noticed something like it, however only in two games although i haven't tested it with too many.

in an old game, red orchestra it flickers at the start of a map before disappearing although that happened with crossfired x1900's anyway and the only other one is the light and dark bars on screen with oblivion indoors without v-sync.

the v-sync is important as indoors it can reach 100+fps easily whcih can lead to odd fps outdoors.

still, only games i have seen it in, other games i use v-sync it is that powerful a card.

 

[Chaos_Being]

Ah, that reminds me to add a few details. First, I use vsync on all of my games (I can't stand tearing,) so if that is a fix, then it's a good one for me.

Secondly, Oblivion is one of the games that I had a major problem with with my x1900 crossfire. However, in my case, I would also get the flickering/rolling bars on the desktop and in IE (pretty much any 2d app,) whenever an animation of any sort would play (such as a flash ad,) and even from mouse movement sometimes...if I remember correctly.

 

[Xenozx]

No issues here. I play UT2004 on a 21 inch CRT, and have no issues there.

I also have a 24 inch LCD that I game with for every other game. the only thing ive noticed is in COD4 w/ vsync off, gunfire shows up kinda blocky from a distance, if your the onle playing you cant even tell.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Yes, I've had (and still have) this problem with my crossfired 4850s, but only in two games (that I've noticed so far) - those being UT2004 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The frequency of the flickering varies with framerate, and enabling vsync does seem to fix it, but I believe only on the high end of framerates. If I get around 25 fps or so, the problem is still there (though for the most part this isn't an issue, you have to create some pretty extreme artificial circumstances to get down to 25 fps in those games with dual 4800 GPUs). It has to be related to AFR, because disabling Catalyst AI or disabling Crossfire altogether totally fixes the problem.

I have not noticed this issue no matter how hard I try in UT3, COD4, Supreme Commander (orig or Forged Alliance) or Crysis. For what it's worth, I also have not seen it in Jedi Knight II (very old Quake 3 engine-based game)

 

[Copyright]

I have the wierd flicker expecially when flash banged in COD4. You can almost see this ripple effect in dark areas of COD4 but I dont see it in any of my futuremark benches. Setting the AA to 16x resolves teh solution and my fps is still fast enough to game. Its not a huge deal and will probably get resolved with drivers. My buddies 4850's in crossfire do the exact same thing. To me its no deal breaker although it can be annoying at times.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

I have the wierd flicker expecially when flash banged in COD4. You can almost see this ripple effect in dark areas of COD4 but I dont see it in any of my futuremark benches. Setting the AA to 16x resolves teh solution and my fps is still fast enough to game. Its not a huge deal and will probably get resolved with drivers. My buddies 4850's in crossfire do the exact same thing. To me its no deal breaker although it can be annoying at times.

16xAA is SuperAA, which disables AFR, that's why 16x AA "fixes" the problem. Both GPUs render every frame with 8 AA samples, and then all the AA samples are combined.

 

[Kaldskryke]

harsh! Oblivion was the main reason I wanted an X2...

Does it seem to you that each GPU renders at a different brightness or something?

 

[Sabrewulf165]

harsh! Oblivion was the main reason I wanted an X2...

Does it seem to you that each GPU renders at a different brightness or something?

I've heard that theory put forth but I don't feel qualified to say if that's the issue. What I will say is that I have already tried individually removing each card and resetting the CCC settings to factory defaults on each, and it didn't help. I've also tried flashing the same BIOS to each card to make them same-branded (I have an Asus and a Visiontek). Also did not help.

Since I only notice this issue in two games, I'm guessing it's a game-specific driver-related problem, but who knows. I will say that if you're willing to play Oblivion with vsync enabled, you'll probably never see the flicker. The only time I've seen the flicker in Oblivion with vsync is when I use the "AEVWD" mod which absolutely butchers outdoor framerates (cpu-bound). If I remove this mod, I have no problems (but the flicker is still there without it if I don't use vsync). It seems to be more noticeable at certain higher framerates.

In any case, I just play Oblivion with vsync + triple buffering (courtesy of Rivatuner's D3DOverrider) and it's perfectly enjoyable. I only very rarely see < 60 fps and it's almost always a CPU bottleneck when I do. UT2k4 I just disable Cat. AI (which essentially disabled crossfire) and still get 123890182390 fps with everything cranked, so not a big deal either It'd be nice if they fixed the flicker in these games but I'm not holding my breath. At least there's a reasonable workaround for each case.

 

[Chaos_Being]

harsh! Oblivion was the main reason I wanted an X2...

Does it seem to you that each GPU renders at a different brightness or something?

Same here actually, I can't set an acceptable level of AA with my 8800gtx on my modded Oblivion game (which doesn't even include the texture packs.) I was happy to see that the X2 was tearing up Oblivion in all of the reviews, but no mention of the flickering bars problem was made, until actual users had the cards in their hands. In fact, I've never seen an "official" mention of this problem, but real users have been reporting it all the way back to the beginning of crossfire...

Disappointing, really. At least not everyone seems to be reporting it, but at the same time, I don't even want the possibility of such a big problem (for me,) if I'm going to be plunking down $550 for a piece of hardware.

I'd still like to see more feedback, but at this point in time, I'm considering alternatives (which I wasn't before ) I may also hold onto my 8800gtx for a bit longer (actually, I'll probably have no choice,) which is unfortunate because I think it is beginning to die on me.

 

[1erCru]

I have flickering in Oblivion even with vsync. It does not bother me as it seems to come and go. Some games flicker and some do not. I can report flickering is non existent with 16X AA, a tip reported a week or so ago in another thread.

It must be a driver issue, as I had more intense flickering with the 8.8 beta.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

Same here actually, I can't set an acceptable level of AA with my 8800gtx on my modded Oblivion game (which doesn't even include the texture packs.)

Depending on what mods you're using, it may not be a graphics bottleneck.

I've never seen an "official" mention of this problem, but real users have been reporting it all the way back to the beginning of crossfire...

Yeah I found a lot of dongle-era users reporting a similar problem

Disappointing, really. At least not everyone seems to be reporting it, but at the same time, I don't even want the possibility of such a big problem (for me,) if I'm going to be plunking down $550 for a piece of hardware.

I have no way to back this up of course, but I strongly suspect that a lot of people either don't play these games or simply don't notice. It's the kind of thing that definitely stands out if you have discerning eyes but could also be easily overlooked.

I'd still like to see more feedback, but at this point in time, I'm considering alternatives (which I wasn't before ) I may also hold onto my 8800gtx for a bit longer (actually, I'll probably have no choice,) which is unfortunate because I think it is beginning to die on me.

I tried a GTX 260 for comparison but even in a game as old as Oblivion, AA + Transparency AA def hurts performance noticeably when you're in outdoor areas with lots of grass/trees (30-40 fps), whereas with my CFed 4850's it's smooth as silk (. Not sure if a GTX 280 could make up the difference or not. This is all at 1680x1050 with 4xAA and 16xAF (I can run 8xAA with my CF setup, doesn't seem to hurt performance any).

 

[necrophile]

i would not let the flickering put you off IMO as it really only happens when you hit 100FPS+, outdoors not likely to reach that sort of fps even with the x2, of course due to v-sync and it being the worst made game ever i find it can dip down to the 20's at times(must be something wrong with my comp), playable but why they chose to make it like that with so limited gfx options i do not know.

 

[Chaos_Being]

I don't remember exactly what mods I have installed (I configured it a while ago, and then stopped playing for a while.) I did fire it up after upgrading my processor (from 3.3ghz e6600 to 4ghz e3110,) and ram from 2gb to 4gb, and didn't notice an appreciable difference. I still dip below 30fps in forested or grassy areas, and that is mostly what bugs me. I've assumed that since I get slowdowns in graphics intensive areas, that my gpu is my bottleneck.

I actually had high hopes that the flicker issue would be fixed with dongle-less CF (and especially with these "CF on a card" setups,) so I guess that is why I am so disappointed to see this issue still cropping up- even if it does appear to be present in certain games only. I'm super picky about visual quality, so unfortunately this isn't something that I can just ignore, or hope I won't notice.

Ah well, maybe it will get fixed in drivers and it isn't a flaw with the hardware (which is what I honestly believe it to be.) It's not like i'm going to be buying a new gpu tomorrow, but probably instead in the next few months.

 

[Sabrewulf165]

OK if that's the case then yeah you're probably GPU-limited.

I don't know whether it's a hardware or a driver issue, but it certainly is an annoying issue.

 

[Nanan]

After the computer goes into then comes out of S3 sleep mode I get odd screen flicker in Vanguard, UT2k4 and UT3 on the HUD or GUI. I have a feeling this is a Unreal Engine specific bug tho as all three games are of the same base.

If I reboot the computer after it went to S3 mode everything is fine.