Crossfire experience

E

e-geek

Gawd
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
578
You mostly hear about the bad stories using a multi-gpu setup with driver issues etc. so I thought i would share my good experience with crossfire.

I have owned HD6850's since last year and have regularly updated the amd driver (no not every hotfix) over the course of this period. I am using an Amd X6 1055t @ 3.9ghz, 6gb DDR3 and 3 monitors setup in landscape eyefinity. (5760x1080 res)

I went xfire after using a single card for months and for me it was as simple as plugging in the new card and connecting the xfire bridge. Windows automatically installed the amd driver and it turned crossfire on once completed. I then ran 3dmark with xfire on and off after rebooting to check my score was in the right range for dual cards - the performance was right where it should be with it auto installing. (I assume nvidia/sli is the same process)

Every driver update i've done since 10.12hotfix (each month)has been no problem, amd drivers seem not to mind installing over the top of older versions. CAP's have always installed fine since they became a seperate package.

Personally as far as performance goes i have noticed massive gains in both real world games and synthetic benchmarks, msi afterburner shows the %usage from the gpu's and the 2nd gpu is constantly between 95-100% for as long as in-game.

I have never suffered from this micro-stuttering myth (i thought amd/nvidia fixed it a couple gen's ago when it was a real prob?) some people are worried about. I have also never suffered a worse game experience on 2 cards over 1 and I play a good selection of new games. Tbh i have never had a crossfire problem since owning the cards, have had the eyefinity desktop resolution mess up once but that was a quick uninstall/dsweeper/install fix.

I am convinced that most of the major drawbacks of multi-gpu systems have been overcome and the only real concern for some people is the lack of a crossfire game profile on release day for some games. Scaling is now excellent, most games work out of the box and i haven't needed to tweak driver settings.

Sure some people are going to have problems with it but whether the majority of prob's are user error or not is unknown.

With how easy my experience has been over a long time I think user error or at least some software conflict prob causes 90% of issues, crossfire is now easy mode and scaling rocks.
 
I agree, even using a configuration that probably should be error-prone (2x 4870x2), I have had almost no issues at all. Surprisingly, almost every game I've tried scales effortlessly all the way up to 4 GPUs.

I think the only "problems" I've ever had were with GTA4 and CoD:MW2, where they both only use 2 out of my 4 GPUs, but GPU power isn't a bottleneck in either of those games so it wasn't really an issue.

You mentioned when the CAPs became separate from the main driver. I don't think crossfire support was terrible before then, but that moment really did seem to be when they got their shit together and took crossfire to the next level.
 
GotNoRice said:
I agree, even using a configuration that probably should be error-prone (2x 4870x2), I have had almost no issues at all. Surprisingly, almost every game I've tried scales effortlessly all the way up to 4 GPUs.

I think the only "problems" I've ever had were with GTA4 and CoD:MW2, where they both only use 2 out of my 4 GPUs, but GPU power isn't a bottleneck in either of those games so it wasn't really an issue.

You mentioned when the CAPs became separate from the main driver. I don't think crossfire support was terrible before then, but that moment really did seem to be when they got their shit together and took crossfire to the next level.
Click to expand...

No i definately don't think support was bad before the seperate CAP driver (at least it wasn't for me), But updating crossfire profiles in-between driver releases was the smart thing to do - similar to what nvidia has but not as complete yet.(can't create a custom profile with amd yet if a game isn't supported when released)

Since i first sli'd 7900gt's the difference in usability and ease of setup is huge for multi-gpu system's now, no mucking around editing cfg's or trying diff beta drivers :) It just plain works.

The fact you use a quad gpu setup and have little issues even when more than 2 gpu's can create alot more prob's is testament to this, i bet you've seen massive gains in crossX with the 4870X2's in both performance and ease, working more often than not and i bet at most all you have to do is disable the 2nd card and it works fine for touchy game engines.

More people give it a chance now, sure when a new gen card is released it's always going to ship with "beta" type drivers considering functionality and that's probably where a bulk of the issues lay - people using it with less mature drivers where it's likely to have the odd problem.

Anyway multi-gpu's isn't for everyone and that's 100% fine, but for me it works like a champ.
 
I think you are mostly correct.
I have Tri-Fire and really have had no issues to speak of since I started using this current configuration I have.

I have had some form of SLi or Crossfire for a LONG time.....since SLi was revitalized by nvidia.

Early Crossfire was shitty, no doubt. Utilization was a problem until the 6000 series.
Currently these cards run very well utilized, except in the current FEAR game where my utilization is about 40% in all three cards. I think that is due to a lack of a CAP for the game.

I am very happy with my current setup.:D
 
Does Crossfire (and SLI for that matter) still not work when games are windowed? That's currently the only dealbreaker for me.
 
djsb said:
Does Crossfire (and SLI for that matter) still not work when games are windowed? That's currently the only dealbreaker for me.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure this is still true, my 2nd card doesn't spin up in windowed mode.
 
djsb said:
Does Crossfire (and SLI for that matter) still not work when games are windowed? That's currently the only dealbreaker for me.
Click to expand...

I can't address SLI but I can say that for games, Crossfire only kicks in when the game is running in full screen mode.
 
djsb said:
Does Crossfire (and SLI for that matter) still not work when games are windowed? That's currently the only dealbreaker for me.
Click to expand...

Nope, never worked for me on the 5970 and doesn't work for me on my two 6970's.
 
I dropped a second 6870 XFX in my game machine a few weeks ago. Updated the drivers to 11.6 and nothing but smooth sailing since.
 
djsb said:
Does Crossfire (and SLI for that matter) still not work when games are windowed? That's currently the only dealbreaker for me.
Click to expand...

Crossfire no, SLI can run in windowed applications. I think it needs to be DX10 or above for it work in windowed mode.
 
Crossfire is great for single screen, although you don't really need it on modern high end cards until you hit the 2560x1600 realm.
 
Kor said:
Crossfire is great for single screen, although you don't really need it on modern high end cards until you hit the 2560x1600 realm.
Click to expand...

Completely false. It depends on the game. Metro 2033 for example, does not perform well at max settings only at 1920x1200 on any single card solution. When I had a single unlocked / overclocked 6950 (essentially a 6970) I would see framerates drop down to about 20 in some extreme situations. And I didn't have the DoF option enabled, which takes about a 30% performance hit.

A GTX 580 might get you by in that game at max, but it's still not going to play it at the silky smooth framerate thatmany enthusiasts want. It's now been reported that a single GTX 580 will not be enough to max Battlfield 3 (I'm sure many people realized that for a while). I can guarantee you it will also get handled by Metro Last Light, which looks like it's going to be absolutely gorgeous.
 
You know I came from a nvidia setup expecting the worst out of crossfire but I took a blind leap of faith and I have to say that my experience has been the same as yours OP. The only exception is a built hatred for display port which is annoying as hell. Either way I manage to get by using it but overall I have to say that my dual 6950s unlocked to beyond 6970 speeds has made me happier than any setup to date.
 
jhokie said:
Completely false. It depends on the game. Metro 2033 for example, does not perform well at max settings only at 1920x1200 on any single card solution. When I had a single unlocked / overclocked 6950 (essentially a 6970) I would see framerates drop down to about 20 in some extreme situations. And I didn't have the DoF option enabled, which takes about a 30% performance hit.

A GTX 580 might get you by in that game at max, but it's still not going to play it at the silky smooth framerate thatmany enthusiasts want. It's now been reported that a single GTX 580 will not be enough to max Battlfield 3 (I'm sure many people realized that for a while). I can guarantee you it will also get handled by Metro Last Light, which looks like it's going to be absolutely gorgeous.
Click to expand...

Not completely false, those titles I would consider exceptions to the rule (and really good nice exceptions to have at that). Other titles such as Bad Company 2, Dirt 3, Bulletstorm or anything made by Valve all get by swimmingly on a single GPU at 1920x1200 or bellow.
 
Kor said:
Not completely false, those titles I would consider exceptions to the rule (and really good nice exceptions to have at that). Other titles such as Bad Company 2, Dirt 3, Bulletstorm or anything made by Valve all get by swimmingly on a single GPU at 1920x1200 or bellow.
Click to expand...

Okie dokie how bout Crysis 2 DX11 w/ high res textures... how bout Witcher 2? Hell even with Crysis 1 at 1920x1200 max you'll be dipping below 60 FPS all the time with a gtx 580.

Enough exceptions for you?

Can we PLEASE stop bandying around the statement that 1 GPU will max everything except Eyefinity? It's not true. It all depends on the games you want to play, and how you want to play them. Sure, for most non-enthusiast users 1 gpu will probably do what they want to do fine. For the rest of us, let's analyze the situation before we throw out blanket statements like that.
 
my system rawks

couple minor driver annoyances...but I run a lot of beta mining code and stuff

very happy
 
jhokie said:
Okie dokie how bout Crysis 2 DX11 w/ high res textures... how bout Witcher 2? Hell even with Crysis 1 at 1920x1200 max you'll be dipping below 60 FPS all the time with a gtx 580.

Enough exceptions for you?

Can we PLEASE stop bandying around the statement that 1 GPU will max everything except Eyefinity? It's not true. It all depends on the games you want to play, and how you want to play them. Sure, for most non-enthusiast users 1 gpu will probably do what they want to do fine. For the rest of us, let's analyze the situation before we throw out blanket statements like that.
Click to expand...

You'll notice I never provided an absolute, I simply implied that it isn't "really required" until you hit 2560 territory. Five games do not the median make, they're simply the upper limit (and to be honest Crysis 2 DX11 is a bad example due to the ham fisted nature in which it was implemented).

If your looking for a hard locked 60frame with everything cranked to high heaven then sure in the most extreme titles then sure, go SLI/Crossfire (I know I did). But at the end of the day most people are going to do pretty well with just a stand alone GTX580 or 6970.
 
Kor said:
You'll notice I never provided an absolute, I simply implied that it isn't "really required" until you hit 2560 territory. Five games do not the median make, they're simply the upper limit (and to be honest Crysis 2 DX11 is a bad example due to the ham fisted nature in which it was implemented).

If your looking for a hard locked 60frame with everything cranked to high heaven then sure in the most extreme titles then sure, go SLI/Crossfire (I know I did). But at the end of the day most people are going to do pretty well with just a stand alone GTX580 or 6970.
Click to expand...

You don't need anything to play those games. You can get buy with 30fps on minimum detail in a lot of games using an HD2600XT. Where do you draw the line? Blaring around the fact that dual GPUs are 'unnecessary' when in fact, they're the difference between several features below max and/or an undesirable frame rate, to maxing the games out, especially on a forum like [H], is just seen as inaccurate.
You don't have to have SLI or crossfire for 1920x1200, but it is far from unnecessary. I'd estimate there's probably around 20 reasonably popular games that see significant benefit going from one GTX580 to two (or similar with 6970s), and if we're talking about lesser cards, many more. Just because you only play games from 2005, doesn't mean everyone else does.
 
OP how is your experience with the 6850's in eyefinity? Do you "hit the wall" as everyone says with the 1gb vram? Thinking of throwing another 6870 in my machine.
 
I figure I'll throw my experience in:

I upgraded from a 4870/1920x1200 -> 5870/1920x1200 -> 5870/5760x1080 -> 2x 5870/5760x1080 -> 6990/5760x1080

Right now I'm only running a single 1920x1080 display due to space issues(3 27" displays are like 8 feet edge-to-edge) so I'm not really utilizing my 6990 as much. But I've never had anything happen with the card that I would call an issue and the performance is bonkers. CFX hasn't been something I have to even remember I'm running with this dual-GPU single card.

My 2x 5870 setup was much like others have reported as far as setup goes. I bought a used 5870 on Amazon for $200, stuck it in my second x16 slot, booted into W7 x64, let the driver install(took all of 30 seconds maybe) and then started poking around CCC and GPU-Z. I was honestly a little skeptical about CFX being that easy, but it truly was. I had no issues with that setup other than the fact that it was not a 6990 and I had too much money in my checking account. =D

But I got to pass down my i7-930/2x 5870 rig to my little sister when I made the SB/6990 jump(rationalize much?) and I've seen no issues for her either.

So I guess you can add me to the list of satisfied CrossFireX users, twice over!
 
Good to hear, you only tend to see posts from the people that have problems with crossfire really, so it's glad to see someone that doesn't posting :)
I've been using crossfire since the HD3870s, I used a 4870X2 and then two in QCF, and then two HD6970s, skipping the HD5 gen. It's been clearly noticeable that it's improved gradually over the years, it's a lot better now than it used to be.
 
I ran a crossfire setup for about 8 months. Had a standard 5770 and a XFX OC'd 5770 which I just downclocked or OC'd them both to the same rate depending how I felt.

All worked perfectly. Scaling was really good too. No stuttering or other such issues. Was surpised at how easy it was as so many here appear to make such a complete balls up of it.

I took the XFX out in the end, as to be honest I didnt really need all that power and was just racking up the power bill.
 
While it's certainly not perfect, the advantages far outweigh the negatives for me. For me, high frame rates are a requirement, and the only way I can do that is to crossfire/sli. For me, it makes no sense to play pc games at low fps. And low for me is anything under 60 fps. If I'm going to play games at low fps, I might as well just stick with consoles.

Crossfire has mostly been positive for me. And if crossfire doesn't work properly, I'll just disable one of the gpu's. Yes, not ideal, but again, I'd much rather have two cards than one any day.
 
latexyankee said:
OP how is your experience with the 6850's in eyefinity? Do you "hit the wall" as everyone says with the 1gb vram? Thinking of throwing another 6870 in my machine.
Click to expand...

Latest patch finally made eyefinity and crossfire perfect for me (not the poster in question, but I have 2x6870). Presets work, switching is fast and clean, no buggy desktops, drivers installed fine, and they tweaked it so that the lousy mini-dp adapter I have (been through 6) doesn't freak out now and kill the screen on a switch or power save anymore. Honestly quite impressed now.

Just in time for Deus Ex: HR, which seems like the first game really, truly, designed for Xfire and eyefinity. Love it now. Only took them a year, which isn't that bad in the great scheme of things, to get the drivers for the 6 series of cards totally ironed out.

edit: There has been one game that had stuttering issues, but I can't remember what it was - something I got on a steam deal, played for a couple of hours, and toasted ($5 special!). :)
 
e-geek said:
With how easy my experience has been over a long time I think user error or at least some software conflict prob causes 90% of issues, crossfire is now easy mode and scaling rocks.
Click to expand...

You're not kidding. If I am having a pretty much error free experience on my HD 5970, there are bound to be other people like me who are also having a great crossfire experience.
 
I was using a Quad-Fire set-up: 6990+6970+6970 with 3X30''Eyefinity without a single problems. And that's a really complicated system. :)

Now using 3X6970 in my main computer, and 6970 Crossfire in my 2nd computer at home.

Not a single problem. Latest AMD drivers since 3-4 months are awesome, and working fine.
 
The only issues I've run into is crappy performance due to a game being new and not having profiles. Other than that, everything has been performing really well with very few issues.

Although, I am tossing up the idea of just buying a single high end card the next go around as I play some games in a window.
 
e-geek said:
You mostly hear about the bad stories using a multi-gpu setup with driver issues etc. so I thought i would share my good experience with crossfire.

I have owned HD6850's since last year and have regularly updated the amd driver (no not every hotfix) over the course of this period. I am using an Amd X6 1055t @ 3.9ghz, 6gb DDR3 and 3 monitors setup in landscape eyefinity. (5760x1080 res)

I went xfire after using a single card for months and for me it was as simple as plugging in the new card and connecting the xfire bridge. Windows automatically installed the amd driver and it turned crossfire on once completed. I then ran 3dmark with xfire on and off after rebooting to check my score was in the right range for dual cards - the performance was right where it should be with it auto installing. (I assume nvidia/sli is the same process)

Every driver update i've done since 10.12hotfix (each month)has been no problem, amd drivers seem not to mind installing over the top of older versions. CAP's have always installed fine since they became a seperate package.

Personally as far as performance goes i have noticed massive gains in both real world games and synthetic benchmarks, msi afterburner shows the %usage from the gpu's and the 2nd gpu is constantly between 95-100% for as long as in-game.

I have never suffered from this micro-stuttering myth (i thought amd/nvidia fixed it a couple gen's ago when it was a real prob?) some people are worried about. I have also never suffered a worse game experience on 2 cards over 1 and I play a good selection of new games. Tbh i have never had a crossfire problem since owning the cards, have had the eyefinity desktop resolution mess up once but that was a quick uninstall/dsweeper/install fix.

I am convinced that most of the major drawbacks of multi-gpu systems have been overcome and the only real concern for some people is the lack of a crossfire game profile on release day for some games. Scaling is now excellent, most games work out of the box and i haven't needed to tweak driver settings.

Sure some people are going to have problems with it but whether the majority of prob's are user error or not is unknown.

With how easy my experience has been over a long time I think user error or at least some software conflict prob causes 90% of issues, crossfire is now easy mode and scaling rocks.
Click to expand...

I'm glad to hear you have had a great expierence with crossfire but microstutter is not a myth. some people just aren't sensitive to it. Just like some people can not tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS or between 720P and 1080P or MP3's and original source recordings. Just because my mom can't tell the difference between the sound that comes out of a pair of $20 dollar head phones and my sennheiser hd555's doesn't mean there is no difference it just means that my mom either A. Does not care or B. Has much less acute hearing.
 
Correct, and I wish people would stop saying that it doesn't, when it's been categorically proven and both acknowledged by AMD and nvidia as an issue!
 
Well i dove right into a 6970 Tri-Fire setup, believe me the first couple of days i was confused about the drivers and different setups for each game i wanted to play but after i sorted everything out i LOVE IT!
 
samuelmorris said:
Correct, and I wish people would stop saying that it doesn't, when it's been categorically proven and both acknowledged by AMD and nvidia as an issue!
Click to expand...

Well while you are worrying about it, we arent and getting on with gaming. :)

Life is too short....
 
I don't worry about it either, I ensure my frame rate is high enough such that it doesn't bother me :)
 
Just ordered another 6870 to crossfire. I'll post once I have it for a few days. I can't wait! Gtx580 performance and then some for only $300 is unfuckingbelievable, imo.
 
Pfft kids these days. When I was a kid we had to run crossfire on an X1900XTX with an X1950XTX CF master card.
 
Yeah I remember that. For the sake of 40% scaling, I think I was wise to ignore it and stick with a single X1900XT, that was enough even for 2560x1600 in those days :)
 
Thinking back, in the fall of 2006 I don't know what the rationale would be for ugprading an X1900XTX... that was a damn fast card at the time and I know it was running everything just perfect at 2560x1600. Obviously it was sheer compulsive behaviour, totally wasteful. The only game I played during that 18 months that taxed the setup legitimately (without pushing AA to stupid levels on a 4 megapixel monitor) was Crysis, and it taxed it so much that it was pointless (had to bump res down to 1680x1050 for a playable experience).

I had a much better experience with the 4870X2, except for the microstutter in Valve games which really cheesed me off (turn off CF and it would get MUCH smoother).
 
Yeah, I started getting 8800GTX cravings once games like COD4 and HL2 Episode 2 came out, and I had to cut detail down to get decent frame rates at 2560, but I hung on and got a pair of HD3870s instead. That was a bit of a non-starter due to motherboard issues, and I swapped them for a 4870 about 6 months later, which became a 4870X2 a fortnight after, having been offered an epic deal on one.
 
e-geek said:
You mostly hear about the bad stories using a multi-gpu setup with driver issues etc. so I thought i would share my good experience with crossfire.

I have owned HD6850's since last year and have regularly updated the amd driver (no not every hotfix) over the course of this period. I am using an Amd X6 1055t @ 3.9ghz, 6gb DDR3 and 3 monitors setup in landscape eyefinity. (5760x1080 res)

I went xfire after using a single card for months and for me it was as simple as plugging in the new card and connecting the xfire bridge. Windows automatically installed the amd driver and it turned crossfire on once completed. I then ran 3dmark with xfire on and off after rebooting to check my score was in the right range for dual cards - the performance was right where it should be with it auto installing. (I assume nvidia/sli is the same process)

Every driver update i've done since 10.12hotfix (each month)has been no problem, amd drivers seem not to mind installing over the top of older versions. CAP's have always installed fine since they became a seperate package.

Personally as far as performance goes i have noticed massive gains in both real world games and synthetic benchmarks, msi afterburner shows the %usage from the gpu's and the 2nd gpu is constantly between 95-100% for as long as in-game.

I have never suffered from this micro-stuttering myth (i thought amd/nvidia fixed it a couple gen's ago when it was a real prob?) some people are worried about. I have also never suffered a worse game experience on 2 cards over 1 and I play a good selection of new games. Tbh i have never had a crossfire problem since owning the cards, have had the eyefinity desktop resolution mess up once but that was a quick uninstall/dsweeper/install fix.

I am convinced that most of the major drawbacks of multi-gpu systems have been overcome and the only real concern for some people is the lack of a crossfire game profile on release day for some games. Scaling is now excellent, most games work out of the box and i haven't needed to tweak driver settings.

Sure some people are going to have problems with it but whether the majority of prob's are user error or not is unknown.

With how easy my experience has been over a long time I think user error or at least some software conflict prob causes 90% of issues, crossfire is now easy mode and scaling rocks.
Click to expand...

Microstuttering is there, and it exists on EVERY multi-gpu setup... it's just a matter of how much and if you perceive it or not. Some dont, some do.

6850s and 6870s are BAD with it in crossfire. tomshardware.com has a great article on those cards

If you want to eliminate it entirely on the 6850/6870s, tri-fire them.

Nvidia is much worse affected by it on the higher end cards, but still has the problem with crossfiring 550Ti's for example.
 
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