Crysis+DX10+Catalyst 8.7 == disaster?

[LstBrunnenG]

It seems as though there's some sort of bug in ATi's drivers when it comes to DX10 mode on Crysis. The following is a screenshot of Crysis at the menu after a run-through of the final level in DX10 mode:



And here it is after a very similar run-through in DX9 mode:



As you can see, the DX10 version is using 3161 MB of RAM at the menu, and would have happily eaten more memory had I kept playing. The DX9 version is only using 1368 MB. This is apparently despite the inherent inefficiency of using DX9 mode in Vista; [H] said in an article once that there is a significant overhead for DX9 emulation.

Not only this, but the DX9 version offers much better performance, so much so that Crysis is almost playable on High at 1920x1200 with just one card! It's still not the way I'd want to play through the whole game though. Adding back in the second card for Crossfire made for awesome performance.

Also, DX9 mode greatly reduced the stuttering I was experiencing as I transitioned from one part of the level to another. Though as DX10 mode used more memory, it would stutter doing practically nothing, likely because it was nearing the limit of my physical memory's capacity.

Speaking of just one card, I did this run-through with just one card and then with both, to make sure it's not a crossfire specific issue.

Can anyone else here confirm my findings, or is it just a quirk of my system?

 

[firewolf]

I don't have this problem, Crysis on very high eats up about 800MB for the GPU benchmark. I get 24fps with a single 4850.

 

[Miscommunication]

I've been tinkering with this game since the demo (heh). I'd wager that what you're seeing is something exclusive to your setup (whether it's a HW or SW/game install issue). CF could be the problem, although you seemed to have tested that out. You seem to be updated (Crysis) as well. IMO, the issue is with the 64-bit drivers possibly not playing too nice with Crysis, especially if your performance is good in DX10. As you can see in the [H] article, DX10 should use quite a bit less RAM in Crysis vs DX9. Like the guy above me, I see 800-860MB usage at those settings.

***This is all assuming that you didn't just install additional RAM to get 4GB total and haven't allowed Vista to get "used to" the extra RAM (still prefetching). ~ Especially if you've got all 4 DIMMS filled and are OCing, but I doubt this applies to your setup.***

I can tell you that the 32-bit drivers work fine, at least on my system. That could be the cause of the memory issue, but I'm not sure. You could try emptying your Prefetch folder, although it will take a few days for Vista to re-build it etc. You could also try using the 8.7 Beta or 8.6 Hotfix driver instead. As for the hitching, I'd try de-fragmenting (using JKdefrag) and/or setting r_TexturesStreaming = 0 before you join a server or start from a save file. Have you poked around too much in Crysis (Cvars etc.)?