Direct X / win 7 or crossfire issue?

[bluemoon4me]

I just put a new system together and am trying to work out the kinks. I've been playing a bit of starcraft 2 and have had some FPS issues. Here's what I got:

Mobo: Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5
Processor: Phenom II x6 1090t
Video Cards: 2x Sapphire 5870's
RAM: 8GB @ 1333mhz
OS: win7 64bit

Not sure of his exact specs but my buddy has a single Geforce 295. In one of the more demanding mini games he was getting around 50FPS where I was struggling for 30. We'd have our screens on the same area and were both using FRAPS to monitor frame rate. Also, my max frame rate was 60 while his was 120. GPU-Z reports crossfire mode being enabled. However, in Team Fortress 2 I dont go below 90 FPS. I ran dxdiag recently and apparently the new version of DX11 has a bug. In windows 7 64bit, if you have over 4GB of RAM and a video card over 1GB, the "Approx. Total Memory" it reports is wrong. It says I have 716MB. Here's what Microsoft says:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2026022

And my system:



For now it looks like I'll have to wait for an update. These FPS rates don't seem right though. Is there any way the reporting of the "Approx Total Memory" of 716MB is what Starcraft 2 thinks I have? Or could it be a crossfire problem? And is there anything else I can do to troubleshoot / test my system in order to increase FPS? Thanks in advance.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Try updating to Catalyst 10.8. It contains the SC2 related bugfixes from 10.7a - all related to crossfire.

Run the 64bit version of dxdiag, the 32bit doesn't know what it's saying

oh, and download the 10.8a Crossfire Application Profiles - same page as the Catalyst drivers.

EDIT: I am a crossfire XFX HD5870 owner (just two), running on an i7 930, win7 64bit.

 

[bluemoon4me]

Try updating to Catalyst 10.8. It contains the SC2 related bugfixes from 10.7a - all related to crossfire.

Run the 64bit version of dxdiag, the 32bit doesn't know what it's saying

oh, and download the 10.8a Crossfire Application Profiles - same page as the Catalyst drivers.

EDIT: I am a crossfire XFX HD5870 owner (just two), running on an i7 930, win7 64bit.

Upgraded the drivers last night, same problems. Ran the 64bit dxdiag, same reporting. Downloaded the profiles, but what do those do? Do I just need to install them or do I have to change something?

 

[jeremyshaw]

Upgraded the drivers last night, same problems. Ran the 64bit dxdiag, same reporting. Downloaded the profiles, but what do those do? Do I just need to install them or do I have to change something?

Just install them.
They add crossfireX application profiles for games and applications - typically improving their performance by a sweet bit.

Also, in the CCC, change Catalyst AI to "Standard"

I recently learned that:

disable: crossfire offline
standard: crossfire application profiles applied
advanced: forced AFR (alternate frame rendering)

This way, your drivers will automatically utilize the crossfire application profiles.

 

[Balthazor]

I recently learned that:

disable: crossfire offline
standard: crossfire application profiles applied
advanced: forced AFR (alternate frame rendering)

I've seen this mentioned before, but I don't believe it is true. From comments that moderators have made on the AMD forums, and my own experience in using crossfire and Catalyst AI settings, 'Advanced' appears to use driver-level optimizations, particularly with regard to shadow rendering.

These optimizations sometimes work fine, but other times present visual artifacts, like strange rendering of shadows. The applications affected change over time as AMD sorts out bugs in their drivers.

I recommend using Advanced unless you see visual artifacts, then try Standard, which applies crossfire profiles but few or no driver optimizations. And for those games that still don't render properly (probably because they don't have a proper crossfire profile yet) just Disable Catalyst AI and that will prevent the game from using any driver optimizations or crossfire profiles.

Unfortunately official documentation of Catalyst AI is limited to this:

"ATI Catalyst A.I. makes use of AMD's texture analyzer technology to optimize performance in 3D applications, while maintaining or even improving image quality. It analyzes individual textures as they are loaded to determine the best and fastest way to display them.

ATI Catalyst A.I. includes application-specific detection for various games and games engines such as Doom 3, the Half Life 2 engine, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Splinter Cell, Race Driver, Prince of Persia, and Crazy Taxi 3."

 

[jeremyshaw]

I've seen this mentioned before, but I don't believe it is true. From comments that moderators have made on the AMD forums, and my own experience in using crossfire and Catalyst AI settings, 'Advanced' appears to use driver-level optimizations, particularly with regard to shadow rendering.

These optimizations sometimes work fine, but other times present visual artifacts, like strange rendering of shadows. The applications affected change over time as AMD sorts out bugs in their drivers.

I recommend using Advanced unless you see visual artifacts, then try Standard, which applies crossfire profiles but few or no driver optimizations. And for those games that still don't render properly (probably because they don't have a proper crossfire profile yet) just Disable Catalyst AI and that will prevent the game from using any driver optimizations or crossfire profiles.

Unfortunately official documentation of Catalyst AI is limited to this:

"ATI Catalyst A.I. makes use of AMD's texture analyzer technology to optimize performance in 3D applications, while maintaining or even improving image quality. It analyzes individual textures as they are loaded to determine the best and fastest way to display them.

ATI Catalyst A.I. includes application-specific detection for various games and games engines such as Doom 3, the Half Life 2 engine, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Splinter Cell, Race Driver, Prince of Persia, and Crazy Taxi 3."

Thank you


Also, http://radeonpro.info <-- allows custom profiles

 

[Xzyrus]

What are both your buddy's and your CPUs running at? SC2 is more of a CPU limited game than it is GPU.

 

[Coaxial]

I think SC2 is very picky with xfired cards. I had a 4870x2 that would get horrendous framerates in it. What fixed it for me was to disable Catalyst AI.

 

[shansoft]

SC2 just dislike Multi-GPU in general.. let it run single GPU mode, you will be fine..