In a bit of a GPU pickle...

S

shantd

Gawd
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Aug 2, 2008
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I built my current system a couple years back, thanks to many of the members here who helped me make the right decisions (and I'd like to thank you all again for doing so). Here's my current system:

CPU - Q9450 (quad core, 2.66 Ghz, no over-clocking)
RAM - 4G (PC3200 Dual Channel DDR 400mhz)
MoBo- Rampage Formula
GPU - 2 x ATI HD-4850's (512MB)

Quick History - My computer has been working great but recently games are becoming a problem to play at the high settings. Namely, The Witcher 2 I'm barely able to play at medium settings. So it's time to get a new graphics card. The reason I have the two 4850s in there is because I was told that 2 of those were faster than 1 card, double the price. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way because my system only recognizes 1 card at a time, no crossfire. I'm guessing it's because I'm still on Windows XP? Also, I heard that not all games recognize/utilize crossfire. I probably should've done more research and just gotten 1 really kick-ass card. I did a dual boot with XP and Vista but Vista had so many problems I reverted to XP exclusively. Anyhow, you have my history. Let me cut to the chase. I have 2 options here:

1: Update the Vista partition to Windows 7 (which I am planning to do no matter what) and keep my 2 4850s. Hopefully then crossfire will kick in. That will supposedly give me the performance of a 6870 according to this: http://www.gpubench.com/index.cfm

2: Buy a really nice GPU. Looking at a 6850 at the low end, 6950 at the high end. Only issue here is that my mobo came out just before PCIe 2.0 so I will get a bit of choking there.


What do you guys suggest? It should be stated that either way I will be updating to Windows 7 on the Vista partition. If I go with the 2x4850 route, I won't be able to use DX11. If I go the latter route, my mobo's PCIe will bottleneck the card. I guess the question is, in real world terms, will that limitation be noticeable?

Thanks again guys, don't know how I'd get through these scenarios without your help.

Shant
 
You should focus on why your motherboard is only seeing one card at a time.... Is your GPU up to spec, and all connectors to the motherboard plugged in [aka 24 pin, 8 pin for cpu, and the 6pin or more for each video card]?

Vista shouldn't have any better GPU support than Windows 7.... Have you tried different sets of drivers? Are you using the AMD System monitor to see when your crossfire is engaging or not?

I found I had to roll back drivers on occasion because crossfire didn't seem to be engaging with whatever version.

Do you have a crossfire bridge? Does the control panel have the option for xfire?
 
Let me clarify, the motherboard recognizes both cards fine (I do have a crossfire bridge). When I fire up catalyst control center, it sees both cards. However when I fire up a game, only one card is grayed out. This is not in Vista, mind you, this is in XP. Does crossfire even work in XP/directX 9?
 
You happen to be running in windowed mode?

can't remember if crossfire needed vista or not, new abstraction framework might help tho
 
shantd said:
Let me clarify, the motherboard recognizes both cards fine (I do have a crossfire bridge). When I fire up catalyst control center, it sees both cards. However when I fire up a game, only one card is grayed out. This is not in Vista, mind you, this is in XP. Does crossfire even work in XP/directX 9?
Click to expand...

Crossfire should work fine in XP, and certainly works in DX9.

What does "only one card is grayed out" mean?

For a start I recommend you install MSI afterburner:

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

You should see both of your cards in that. You can then run games and look at the GPU usage graphs to see what sort of scaling (if any) you are getting. If you're only using one card then one of the cards should graph at 0% while playing a game. This will at least confirm that there is a problem.
 
The witcher kicks even my SB + 6970 xfire build's ass (@2560); if that is the game you are gunning for, get the highest end card you can afford.
 
rangda said:
Crossfire should work fine in XP, and certainly works in DX9.

What does "only one card is grayed out" mean?
Click to expand...

When you run CCC and go to the crossfire page, you can highlight both of your cards and monitor them independently. So, for instance, one card may be 70 degrees. Then you scroll down to the other card, and it may be 68 degrees. Well, as soon as I start a game up and then minimize it and go back to the CCC crossfire page, only one of the cards will be viewable. The other card will be grayed out.

Not only that, it will also give me a message that indicates that crossfire cannot be used at the present time (when a game is running). I forget the wording, I'll fire it up and post the exact wording shortly.

I'll also try that afterburner utility. I'm assuming it also works for non-MSI cards...

That is good new though, to hear that crossfire works in XP/dx9. All this time I've assumed that it was worthless in XP because of the reasons listed above, as well as the fact that I've never seen any difference with both cards in vs. one card.
 
If you're planning to do it anyways, now's the time to do it... installing Win7 and updating with the latest Catalyst drivers and profiles might solve some of your Xfire issues. If you're still finding it a bit slow then definitely try out the 6950 and flash it to a 6970... you can migrate that, maybe even with another 6950 for Xfire, to your next build. Overclocking to at least 3.0 ghz will be quite noticeable, too.
 
OK, I took Rangda's suggestion and installed MSI afterburner and sure enough, only one of the cards is being taxed. GPU2 stays at 0% during gameplay. Oddly enough though, GPU2's temperature is a good 20 degrees higher than GPU1's even though it's not being used.

I don't get it, I've done everything to get crossfire going. I've got the cards bridged to eachother. What am I missing?
 
Scratch my last post, I've gotten crossfire working. I read something about a primary and a slave, so I decided to switch the 2 cards' positions on the motherboard and presto, I've got crossfire. However, I see the strange message I mentioned earlier. Here is what it says in CCC as soon as I start a game:

"Before crossfireX can be enabled or disabled, you need to close the 3D application or video playback that is currently running"

So it's telling me that crossfire can't be enabled until I turn the video game off. Am I mis-interpreting that? When I run Rangda's MSI afterburner, it does show that both cards are at work.

Any ideas? I'd like to upload a screenshot if that's possible...
 
OK I figured out how to do screenshots. This is what CCC says before I start a game:

CCC-Pre_Game.jpg




And this is what it says after I fire up a game:

CCC-Post_Game.jpg


Anybody seen that before? Any thoughts? Thanks again for your patience fellas.
 
It just means "Something 3D is running, you can't change xFire on the fly while it is running"

So since it is ticked, it is working and you can't turn it off unless you get out of the game.
 
Really? So that's normal? Wow...thanks Rev. So this whole time I thought crossfire didn't work on XP. Should've asked you guys about this a long time ago. I guess I'm really gonna have to go all out on my next GPU...6950 minimum. Supposedly, 2 4850's in crossfire is supposed to be the equivalent of one 6870 but I honestly find it hard to believe. I think it's better to spend the money on 1 great card vs. 2 good cards.
 
Wanted to thank everybody once again for helping me out with this. Everyone here is always unusually patient and eager to help. Wish I could return the help in some way. Anybody need a demonoid invitation?

Shant
 
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