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BF3 SLI vs CFX

V

Vega

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 12, 2004
Messages
7,380
Interesting article capture below. Seems like AMD is doing really well in BF3 compared to Nvidia in multi-GPU setups. Maybe I will hold onto these 6990s after all in hopes they fix the cross-fire GPU use issues in Eyefinity:

nvidia%20sli%202560.png


amd%20crossfire%202560.png



Edit: I've read some speculation that the AMD setup does not have any MSAA on and the nVidia setup does. Anyone confirm/deny?
 
Are you planning to water cool those 6990s? I saw that you are running them at 100% fan speed which is bound to be deafening. If not it doesn't seem like you would need the couple of extra fps (from such an extreme overclock) when you consider your resolution and the dB/fps ratio :p I know you like being at the [H]igh end of what's possible.

I've been impressed by my CF 6950's in BF3 -- the gpu utilization is pinned at 99% and it's smooth as butter. I'm looking forward to an updated [H] review now that Cap4 is out.
 
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The fans run at 100% and are deafening when I am in the room the actual computer is in. I don't care about the noise as I cannot hear it where my actual desk setup is; in a differnet room.
 
Well the gtx 590 is going to lose cause it has less VRAM and those resolutions are just too high for it.
 
Vega said:
The fans run at 100% and are deafening when I am in the room the actual computer is in. I don't care about the noise as I cannot hear it where my actual desk setup is; in a differnet room.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. I wish I had that kind of setup just so the heat would be dumped into another room.
 
Vega.....I have one 6990 and one 6950 modded to a 6970, using the Preview rev3 and CAP4 I can run EF 6050 x 1200 in BF3 at a constant 60 FPS +/- 5% using FXAA.

Are you having issues with EF?

I DO have an occassional crash to desktop.....but i think thats my CPU OC and nothing to do with the EF.
 
Vega said:
Edit: I've read some speculation that the AMD setup does not have any MSAA on and the nVidia setup does. Anyone confirm/deny?
Click to expand...

It's tom's hardware, so they're bound to have screwed something up. Those results are interesting though from a scaling perspective. I'm happy to see quad-CF and quad-SLI working well, this game can really make use of it!
 
Questions;

Is this a single player campaign map or multiplayer? I never heard of this map

Where the hell is the 560Ti Sli performance testing? Really TH... Really GTX 285 :rolleyes:

LOL J/K about the 285 setup, I just think 560Ti is what most people would currently like to see tested to be comparable to AMD's slide.
 
Right now i run 3 6970's in Tri-Fire coupled with a 2600K@4600Mhz and i get anywhere from 100Fps to 150Fps with every graphic setting at MAX. No Eyefinity here waiting on 2 more moniters.
 
Quadfire 6990s here running Ultra Everything with FXAA High, 4x MSAA, 16xAF, HBAO, Motion Blur On 70% in game. FPS is always 140-200, never seen it dip below 140. Playing at 1920x1080 right now until they fix the Center Monitor Issue with Eyefinity/Surround. Quadfire 6990s is definitely overkill for this res. Would probably be getting the same FPS with just one 6990, but no point in disabling CF if it's not causing any issues.

GPU Usage with these settings is around 50-60% (Guesstimate) judging by the RadeonPro Bars on the left hand side. When I was in Eyefinity playing at 5760x1080 I ran Ultra Settings w/ FXAA High, Deferred Off, HBAO ON, Motion Blur 50% usage was 90-100% on All 4 GPUs and was getting 80+ FPS butter smooth Gameplay no matter what was going on around me. Can't stand playing without friendly tags in center though because I like to play in HC servers so was racking up a ton of TKs pretty quickly until I noticed something wasn't right with the game lol :p. Also noticed that you can't tell how far the MCOM has been armed/disarmed in center playing EF Mode so guess I'll wait for them to fix it.

I'd hold on to the 6990s for right now to be honest, ton of horsepower there for this game and many others to come. Will probably upgrade whenever the high-end next gens come out though. :D This upgrading bug is becoming an addiction

**EDIT**
FPS Numbers are for Multiplayer Only as I have not played the Campaign at all yet & refuse to until the EF/Surround issue has been resolved. Running 11.10 Preview 3 & the Unofficial 11.9 CAP4
 
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What Eyefinity issue? The only problem I've had is with those blinding street/car lamp effects.

I'm getting around 30-40 FPS in Eyefinity with 6950 CF with ultra and no deferred AA. At 1080p the FPS varies around 50-120 depending on scene and whether I have 4xAA on.
 
The eyefinity issue is that in portrait mode, only half of the 6990 GPUs work. If I alt-tab out and back in, the screen goes black and you cannot fix it, even with the game running fine in the background. The black screen happens on all multi-player games too.

If I do get in the game single player, the icons and everything on the screen above soldiers names etc are mis-aligned.
 
Vega said:
The eyefinity issue is that in portrait mode, only half of the 6990 GPUs work. If I alt-tab out and back in, the screen goes black and you cannot fix it, even with the game running fine in the background. The black screen happens on all multi-player games too.

If I do get in the game single player, the icons and everything on the screen above soldiers names etc are mis-aligned.
Click to expand...

Yup. In Eyefinity Portrait with multiple GPUs I can only get one GPU to work. Like Vega said when you start the game it comes up in a tiny window. Changing it to full screen results in a blank black screen. What I have to do is alt tab, grab the tiny window drag it, double click on the bar to make it full screen windowed mode and then play that way. I can get full screen to work once I'm in an actual game by changing the full screen option to on, but if I do that in a menu (i.e. not loaded level) it just results in a black screen.
 
FaRKle0079 said:
Yup. In Eyefinity Portrait with multiple GPUs I can only get one GPU to work. Like Vega said when you start the game it comes up in a tiny window. Changing it to full screen results in a blank black screen. What I have to do is alt tab, grab the tiny window drag it, double click on the bar to make it full screen windowed mode and then play that way. I can get full screen to work once I'm in an actual game by changing the full screen option to on, but if I do that in a menu (i.e. not loaded level) it just results in a black screen.
Click to expand...

Ya, fun times eh Farkle. :(
 
Yall aren't alone - looks like similar issues in NV Surround Portrait mode:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1646289

That thread does mention that Dice knows about the problem - hopefully they fix it soon. I'm still only playing on one screen due to the tagging/friendly indicator issues in landscape eyefinity.
 
FaRKle0079 said:
What I have to do is alt tab, grab the tiny window drag it, double click on the bar to make it full screen windowed mode and then play that way. I can get full screen to work once I'm in an actual game by changing the full screen option to on, but if I do that in a menu (i.e. not loaded level) it just results in a black screen.
Click to expand...

Farkle, are you saying you play in windowed mode or full screen mode? I can play windowed mode, but only 1 GPU of course as is standard with crossfire. No matter what I do multi-player ends up with a black screen in full-screen mode. I launch the game in windowed mode, let the level load, start playing, fo to menu and select full-screen, results in black screen every time. You say you can do the same but then your game works normally? Still with just 1 GPU?

-Sn1PeR- said:
Yall aren't alone - looks like similar issues in NV Surround Portrait mode:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1646289

That thread does mention that Dice knows about the problem - hopefully they fix it soon. I'm still only playing on one screen due to the tagging/friendly indicator issues in landscape eyefinity.
Click to expand...

Seems their problem is just that the menu is not visible. AMD is having the issue of only 1 GPU working full-screen and the screen going completely black and never being able to get it back, even when outside the menu and actually playing the game.
 
General Lee said:
What Eyefinity issue? The only problem I've had is with those blinding street/car lamp effects.

I'm getting around 30-40 FPS in Eyefinity with 6950 CF with ultra and no deferred AA. At 1080p the FPS varies around 50-120 depending on scene and whether I have 4xAA on.
Click to expand...

So you can see friendlies and enemies identified on your HUD?
 
Farkle, are you saying you play in windowed mode or full screen mode? I can play windowed mode, but only 1 GPU of course as is standard with crossfire. No matter what I do multi-player ends up with a black screen in full-screen mode. I launch the game in windowed mode, let the level load, start playing, fo to menu and select full-screen, results in black screen every time. You say you can do the same but then your game works normally? Still with just 1 GPU?
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I play in both full screen and windowed mode maximized. Like you, sometimes when I enable full screen from windowed mode in a loaded level all I get is a black screen, other times it works. It's quite sporadic... In either case only 1 GPU works while actually playing. Only during cutscenes and movies does CFX actually work...

And just to make sure it wasn't something on my end I again uninstalled all ATI drivers/CAPs/ect ran ATIman uninstaller, and then reinstalled 11.10p3 with 11.9 CAP 4.
 
I'm waiting for a FPS vs Time graph so we can get a feel for microstuttering in bf3.

Isn't it very likely that these crossfire benchmarks are being artificially inflated by AMD's larger framerate variance?
 
Idont think there is any microstutter. My 6870's run great. Just wish the XFX 2GB version was out when I bought them. Faster the a 580 for cheaper. I just cant turn on Ultra textures, stutters too much.
 
As far as microstutter goes, BF3 doesn't seem like a particularly bad offender for it. My frame rate routinely drops below 60 with my current settings yet it doesn't make the game run horribly for it, I have to approach 30 (large smoke cloud) for that to be the case.
 
Here's a graph of 6950 CF in Caspian Border, about 6 minutes of gameplay. Settings are ultra with no AA @ 1080p. I play on 120 Hz monitor and I have capped the FPS to 120 max.



Here's the frametime graph. It isn't as good as it could be, but it's certainly not the worst offender I've seen. Actually I don't even notice it since the tails are still mostly above 60.

 
How do you cap the frame-rate at 120, is there a command?
 
The scaling and lack of microstutter in BF3 are very good, but I wish AMD would sort out the green flashing on the screen that manifests itself after you've been in the server for a while. It's inherent to the frostbite engine and a thorough pain in the arse...
 
samuelmorris said:
The scaling and lack of microstutter in BF3 are very good, but I wish AMD would sort out the green flashing on the screen that manifests itself after you've been in the server for a while. It's inherent to the frostbite engine and a thorough pain in the arse...
Click to expand...

Nvidia has the green flashes in BF3 too. It's an issue with the game that they will hopefully patch and fix soon. People in my squad have been complaining about the green flashes with SLI and CF set ups. I thought it was some bug with multi-gpu set ups at first, but one person also had the issue on a single 560Ti.
 
Vega said:
How do you cap the frame-rate at 120, is there a command?
Click to expand...

No command unfortunately, there's only a few console commands available. Though "render.perfoverlayvisible 1" is quite nice for stutter recognition. I used DXtory to cap the FPS, like I do for most stuttering games. It works quite well (not with Afterburner though) but the free version has some annoying "BUY ME" reminders and I don't actually use it for anything else. It seems there's no alternative for just FPS capping at the moment. I hear Nvidia might be adding a FPS cap feature in their Control Panel, but a lot of good that does for CF users. :(
 
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I'd guess 2560x1600 is not on because this shows them winning in even single GPU when I'm pretty sure MSAA hurts AMD for some reason quite a bit. Those charts don't reflect that.
 
General Lee said:
No command unfortunately, there's only a few console commands available. Though "render.perfoverlayvisible 1" is quite nice for stutter recognition. I used DXtory to cap the FPS, like I do for most stuttering games. It works quite well (not with Afterburner though) but the free version has some annoying "BUY ME" reminders and I don't actually use it for anything else. It seems there's no alternative for just FPS capping at the moment. I hear Nvidia might be adding a FPS cap feature in their Control Panel, but a lot of good that does for CF users. :(
Click to expand...

There's a program called bandicam ( can be downloaded at http://www.bandicam.com/ ) that let's you set a FPS cap on any game pretty easily. I used it with BC2 since that one had stuttering at anything above 80 in Eyefinity mode with High, HBAO, 8xEQ AA/16xAF.

Just go to the FPS Tab and check the box that says "Set FPS limit" Pick your desired FPS Cap and then uncheck the box that says "Only when capturing". This will set the cap on everything and you can adjust the cap while you're playing if you're trying to experiment with different FPS Caps so no restart of the program or game is required.

Enjoy :cool:
 
Vega said:
Ya, set up Bandicam and it works great!
Click to expand...

Vega can you post a fps line chart recorded form a play though to see how often it keeps you consistently at 120fps. Without spiking above 120 I'm hoping it will keep that line as flat as possible
 
samuelmorris said:
The scaling and lack of microstutter in BF3 are very good, but I wish AMD would sort out the green flashing on the screen that manifests itself after you've been in the server for a while. It's inherent to the frostbite engine and a thorough pain in the arse...
Click to expand...

I have never seen this at all and i play for 2 to 4 hours straight, Im running 3 6970's in Tri-Fire with most current Cap and Drivers
 
SaViOr- said:
Nvidia has the green flashes in BF3 too. It's an issue with the game that they will hopefully patch and fix soon. People in my squad have been complaining about the green flashes with SLI and CF set ups. I thought it was some bug with multi-gpu set ups at first, but one person also had the issue on a single 560Ti.
Click to expand...

I seen my first green flashes just today, actually seen what appeared to be a red flash for an instant as well. :eek:
 
WOW look at the scaling of CFX, Just wondering though what micro-stuttering will be like...
 
Chris_B said:
I seen my first green flashes just today, actually seen what appeared to be a red flash for an instant as well. :eek:
Click to expand...

To me the Green Flashes resemble blinds being pulled down where you can tell the difference between each rectangle that's on the screen. I believe that's the AFR working for the GPUs which leads me to believe its some issue with multi-gpu set ups. :eek: It's not serious enough to warrant an immediate fix since there are other issues that EA/DICE need to look into, but it can get quiet annoying when you're tracking someone through the woods or arming/disarming an mcom when it happens.

blazarcher said:
WOW look at the scaling of CFX, Just wondering though what micro-stuttering will be like...
Click to expand...

ZERO micro-stuttering on my Quadfire 6990s. Both at 1080p and at Eyefinity 5760x1080 :D. GPU Usage in Eyefinity mode is 90+ on all 4 GPUs and at 1920x1080 Usage is 50-60% per GPU and I can't tell that I'm experiencing any micro-suttering. It may be there, but I don't notice it at all.

Bad Company 2 was pretty bad for micro-stuttering in Eyefinity Mode, I had to cap my FPS at 80 to eliminate this, but with BF3 it's almost non-existant (at least for me). Using 11.10 Preview 3 and CAP4 drivers.
 
Agreed, the game works exceptionally well by comparison to most others, wrt microstutter.
 
You may also want to wait for the new Kepler cards by Nvidea and the new ATI cards
 
Based on the graphs in the OP. I'm assuming they are framerate #'s. A link to the article would have been helpful.

Nvidia
590: 176%
580: 178%
570: 180%
285: 164%

ATI
6990: 190%
6970: 185%
6950: 194%
6870: 197%
 
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