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Crossfire and windowed mode

Z

zepcs

Weaksauce
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Joined
May 11, 2011
Messages
100
Anyone around here know if they ever made crossfire work in windowed mode? I have 3 monitors I run and like to play most of my games in windowed mode so I can easily mouse off to another screen.

From what I've googled it looks like dx10 may work now but dx9 doesn't.
 
As far as Ive experianced with games, if you go into window then crossfire shuts off.
 
I always believed this to be a firm NO, but the other day I alt-tabbed out of BC2 and when I tabbed back into the game it was running in a window all of a sudden. The window was the same res as my monitor, it was just offset for some reason, like if you took a window and dragged it so one side was hanging a few inches off the screen. During this time crossfire was still functioning on all 4 GPUs.

Still I'm not sure if that was really windowed mode or just some odd quirk or what. I've not been able to replicate it.
 
Whenever I go into windowed or the fake-full screen mode (windowed without borders), crossfire stops working for me. I think SLI is the same thing, but I haven't done SLI since the 7950GX2.
 
zepcs said:
Anyone around here know if they ever made crossfire work in windowed mode? I have 3 monitors I run and like to play most of my games in windowed mode so I can easily mouse off to another screen.

From what I've googled it looks like dx10 may work now but dx9 doesn't.
Click to expand...

It's fullscreen or bust.
 
Try using Sapphire Trixx and disabling ULPS (ultra low power state) that might help OR if you are still having trouble you can try and run msi afterburner and set unofficial overclocking to 2 which disables Powertune and presumably leaves you at maxed values.

I have never gotten Afterburner unofficial overclocking to work on my system as I get a BSOD loop which I fix by going in safe mode and re-editing the .cfg file value from 2 to 0.

Sapphire Trixx

MSI Afterburner 2.2 Beta 6

Read the Readme's of both and they will tell you how to do what I suggested for each. Good luck. Not sure if it'll work but I have a hunch it might.
 
I generally play full screen windowed mode if the game supports it (I have an autohotkey setup to move the window to fake it if the game supports windowed mode but not fullscreen). I like being able to alt-tab quickly as I sometimes play during "work" hours. Some games handle that better than others, but windowed mode usually makes it instant to go out and back in.

I have a single 6970 right now, my wife's 4850 is in need of an upgrade badly so I was thinking about giving her mine and going with 2x6950 2gigs.
 
zepcs said:
I generally play full screen windowed mode if the game supports it (I have an autohotkey setup to move the window to fake it if the game supports windowed mode but not fullscreen). I like being able to alt-tab quickly as I sometimes play during "work" hours. Some games handle that better than others, but windowed mode usually makes it instant to go out and back in.

I have a single 6970 right now, my wife's 4850 is in need of an upgrade badly so I was thinking about giving her mine and going with 2x6950 2gigs.
Click to expand...

I would def suggest against doing that and just wait for AMDs refresh which is coming in oct/nov from what I've read.
 
We can probably wait a month or two, she needs a new video card for SWTOR.
 
zepcs said:
I generally play full screen windowed mode if the game supports it (I have an autohotkey setup to move the window to fake it if the game supports windowed mode but not fullscreen). I like being able to alt-tab quickly as I sometimes play during "work" hours. Some games handle that better than others, but windowed mode usually makes it instant to go out and back in.

I have a single 6970 right now, my wife's 4850 is in need of an upgrade badly so I was thinking about giving her mine and going with 2x6950 2gigs.
Click to expand...

I think you would be better served if you got another 6970 for yourself. As for an upgrade for your wife's 4850, a 6870 would probably be a good choice. Also what kind of CPU does her computer have?
 
wait...so, crossfire doesn't function in windowed mode? I only run in windowed mode...Have I been wasting my crossfire capability this entire time? Holy crap.
 
StatutoryApe said:
wait...so, crossfire doesn't function in windowed mode? I only run in windowed mode...Have I been wasting my crossfire capability this entire time? Holy crap.
Click to expand...

You never checked your GPU usage while in a game?
 
I did, but I thought one registered 0% all the time because of crossfire. Someone had told me this. I feel dumb now. Oh well, it works now. lol. You know, for running off a single 6850, black ops was doing pretty good at full settings. lol
 
I know in kombuster burn-in crossfire is never enabled in directx 3d API when using windowed mode. If you use GL2 it enables crossfire windowed.
 
I know SLI works in windowed mode. I have not tried crossfire yet. Hopefully should have a pair of 6950s comming to test it.

Will report back on it.
 
It never used to, but I heard someone say they changed it. Can't confirm this, I haven't tried it.
 
qbanb8582 said:
I think you would be better served if you got another 6970 for yourself. As for an upgrade for your wife's 4850, a 6870 would probably be a good choice. Also what kind of CPU does her computer have?
Click to expand...

She has a Core i5-760, I am pretty sure it's the 512MB of vram on the 4850 that's killing her. She has two 1920x1080 monitors and is looking to get a third soon so something that can run 3+ is a must (not eyefinity gaming tho).

I have an amd 1090t with the 6970, my monitors are only 1680x1050 so performance is not really an issue for me. I was thinking about trading her monitors to help her card out.
 
zepcs said:
She has a Core i5-760, I am pretty sure it's the 512MB of vram on the 4850 that's killing her. She has two 1920x1080 monitors and is looking to get a third soon so something that can run 3+ is a must (not eyefinity gaming tho).

I have an amd 1090t with the 6970, my monitors are only 1680x1050 so performance is not really an issue for me. I was thinking about trading her monitors to help her card out.
Click to expand...

A 6870 would be just fine. For yourself at 1680 x 1050 a multi-gpu setup will unlikely net you any real performance. Thats a relatively low resolution and the difference between 1 6970 vs 2 6950s in most cases wouldn't be noticeable.

For SWTOR I would also recommend atleast 4 GB of RAM also. ;)
 
qbanb8582 said:
A 6870 would be just fine. For yourself at 1680 x 1050 a multi-gpu setup will unlikely net you any real performance. Thats a relatively low resolution and the difference between 1 6970 vs 2 6950s in most cases wouldn't be noticeable.

For SWTOR I would also recommend atleast 4 GB of RAM also. ;)
Click to expand...

She has 8GB and I have 12GB currently. She got invited to the beta and it plays pretty bad on her computer, and pretty nice on mine. My fps is 3-4x hers on average.


What is the real difference between the 6870 and 6970 besides speed? Would we be missing any must have features? I'm trying to get her to wait for the next gen's and either pick up one of them or get the 6970 at a good price.
 
zepcs said:
She has 8GB and I have 12GB currently. She got invited to the beta and it plays pretty bad on her computer, and pretty nice on mine. My fps is 3-4x hers on average.


What is the real difference between the 6870 and 6970 besides speed? Would we be missing any must have features? I'm trying to get her to wait for the next gen's and either pick up one of them or get the 6970 at a good price.
Click to expand...

The beta right now gets terrible performance. 8GB is plenty. Other then speed the shaders are different. As far as must have features theres none. The 7000 series cards won't be out until Q1 of 2012.

Was it the weekend beta or the closed beta?
 
qbanb8582 said:
The beta right now gets terrible performance. 8GB is plenty. Other then speed the shaders are different. As far as must have features theres none. The 7000 series cards won't be out until Q1 of 2012.

Was it the weekend beta or the closed beta?
Click to expand...

Closed beta, she hasn't played in a month because of the lag. I've been pretty solid with work so she hasn't been able to play on mine. I keep telling her I will swap video cards with her but she says she can wait. Hopefully I will have some free time by the time the final game comes out.
 
zepcs said:
Closed beta, she hasn't played in a month because of the lag. I've been pretty solid with work so she hasn't been able to play on mine. I keep telling her I will swap video cards with her but she says she can wait. Hopefully I will have some free time by the time the final game comes out.
Click to expand...

Theres plenty of time til the game is released. After monday things may perform better.
 
Yeah the HD4850 is woefully inadequate for the Battlefield 3 Alpha, no surprise there's lag. An HD6970 is a good 3x as powerful as an HD4850. The i5 760 should be plentiful though.
 
So I have two questions.

1) I have read in some places that crossfire can work in windowed mode with some workarounds/hacks, but I can't find anything on how to do it. Has anyone? (long shot, I know)

2) I have a Q9400 @ 2.66 with 2x 6970's. How much am I bottlenecking my graphics bandwidth? Would an overclock really help that much? Do I need to fork out for a new Core i7? Can anyone share real world experience/evidence to help me decide to drop $650-700 for a new motherboard, proc, and ram?
 
byusinger84 said:
So I have two questions.

1) I have read in some places that crossfire can work in windowed mode with some workarounds/hacks, but I can't find anything on how to do it. Has anyone? (long shot, I know)

2) I have a Q9400 @ 2.66 with 2x 6970's. How much am I bottlenecking my graphics bandwidth? Would an overclock really help that much? Do I need to fork out for a new Core i7? Can anyone share real world experience/evidence to help me decide to drop $650-700 for a new motherboard, proc, and ram?
Click to expand...

You should be able to get more than 2.66 out of that quad even with a crap board.

The degree to which you are bottlenecking your cards is going to depend on the games you play and what settings you run at.
 
True, ok so then assume I'm trying to play the newest, most demanding games (hence why I bought the two video cards) at 1920x1200 res at the highest settings possible including AA (whatever form that may be)
 
A Q9450 at stock is definitely a bottleneck for two HD6970s unless you're running eyefinity. If you can afford $700 of graphics hardware, you can afford $400-$500 to update your system with an i5 2500K and some DDR3.
 
@sam, true. though, if I'm going to upgrade, I'm going to really upgrade.

I'm trying to see, though, in the meantime how much I can push this Q9400. I also have a Q6600 I could switch to if that's a better overclocker.
 
byusinger84 said:
True, ok so then assume I'm trying to play the newest, most demanding games (hence why I bought the two video cards) at 1920x1200 res.
Click to expand...

Those can overclock to 3.6-3.7 or so on good air cooling. At it's most highest speeds on air you shouldn't bottleneck that setup too bad. I mean it'll be a bit but nothing that should make you rush out and buy a new system asap. If you can sell your stuff that'll be great as a cheap sandy setup is easy to come by,

i5 2500k $220
p67 or z68 mobo $60-$90 After MIR
8GB ram $45

By selling your mobo/cpu/ram your easily 50%-75% there.

As for your question on hacking for windowed mode, I haven't heard anything but the way the driver works crossfire seems to disable because the driver detects as if the game was closed and the second card goes into ULPS.
 
byusinger84 said:
@sam, true. though, if I'm going to upgrade, I'm going to really upgrade.

I'm trying to see, though, in the meantime how much I can push this Q9400. I also have a Q6600 I could switch to if that's a better overclocker.
Click to expand...

No, apart from them very rarely being better overclockers, they're also much closer to start with. You'd have to clock that Q6600 to 3.0Ghz before it'd draw level with the stock Q9450, and my Q6600 only went as far as 3.4Ghz. Some will do 4, but so will some Q9450s...
 
I can't seem to get this CPU to overclock at all. The Q6600 I could take all the way to 3.0 without even doing anything but upping the FSB. The Q9400 won't do that. I tried upping the CPU VID voltage to no avail. I'm very nervous about upping the chipset voltage as I burned out my old Abit board that way (I didn't even take it up very much).
 
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