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R9 290 Crossfire Performance Issues

D

Dr3amCast

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 8, 2012
Messages
91
Hey all, I just bought a used reference R9 290 to pair with my reference 290 in Crossfire. I've been getting mixed performance results and am not sure if it's potentially an issue with the card I bought?

I uninstalled my drivers using DDU, installed the second card, and installed the newest WHQL catalyst drivers. Didn't have time to test any games. Last night, I hopped on to play Lego The Hobbit (gf wanted to do Co-Op) and noticed black lines all over the screen with choppy performance.

I exited out of the game, loaded up Far Cry 3. With my single 290 with everything maxed at 1920x1080 and 4x msaa I can average ~45 fps. I thought I should be at the very least 60 constant on the same settings with CFX. Not the case. The game chugs with it enabled. I have higher frames (55fps) but the framerate is not consistent at all, and the dips are frequent and severe.

I then opened Bioshock Infinite, which saw my performance almost double averaging well into the 100fps mark constant, no severe framerate drops, stuttering, etc.

Could my issue be with the new card, or those games in particular?
 
Not all games scale the same way with Crossfire, some games have outright issues with CF even when they work just fine with a single card.
Switch the position of the cards, disable CF and check to see if your new 290 performs just as well as the other one, that may be the best way to objectively check out the new card.
 
I saw no mention by you of the cards temps.....don't these cards throttle fairly easily in some cases? but also i think it would be a great idea to test the new card by it self just to make sure its ok.
 
I would try the 290 that you just got solo installed to see if there is something wrong with it. Try running 3D Mark on it for a few loops to make sure it's good. The demo is in the link and free.
 
Hey guys, thanks for all of the insights and sorry for the delayed response. I've been super busy at work and had to travel, allowing only a limited time for troubleshooting but here's what I did so far -

Temperature wise - I didn't play FC3 much at all due to the horrid framerate. I tried Bioshock Infinite - left settings the same as when I had my single 290, and monitored temps and frames. The game scaled out incredibly well. I played for ~25 min. Neither card broke 75C. I have pretty good airflow in my case and keep my apartment at a pretty cool temp.

I swapped the cards and disable crossfire, loaded FC3 and found frames and temperatures to be consistent with what they were before in my old card. I also tried Bioshock again and found the results to be the same. I then enabled crossfire again with the new card in the primary slot and found the same issue with FC3.

I've tried doing some googling and haven't found anything. As for the Lego game, still getting black lines and awful screen tearing with CFX and good performance with either single card.

I will try cageymaru's advice of running a few loops of 3D Mark with the card I purchased and update tonight
 
I probably should also note that I do use Afterburner with these cards - have not done any overclocking, but when I play any games I move the fan speed up to 53% constant. I've tried leaving not using it during all of this troubleshooting, temps went into the 80's C but didn't affect performance that I saw
 
That's strange, we have pretty similar systems but I never had any issues with Far Cry 3 in CrossFireX. Let us know the results.

Do you have any other games to test with, maybe Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, other games that are known to work well?
 
Rizen said:
That's strange, we have pretty similar systems but I never had any issues with Far Cry 3 in CrossFireX. Let us know the results.

Do you have any other games to test with, maybe Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, other games that are known to work well?
Click to expand...

I disabled crossfire with the card I purchased in the first pci-e slot. I ran 3D Mark Firestrike 3 times back to back to back. Highest temp it reached was 72C. I scored 7554, 7594, 7554. I then loaded Battlefield 4 campaign. The initial Shanghai mission at the point where you're climbing that abandoned factory and it falls apart - Ultra Preset, 100% resolution scale. Stayed around 60 fps with highs into the 70's and lows into the 40's.

I then enabled crossfire and restarted my PC. Went back into 3D Mark and did Firestrike twice back to back. Temps were roughly the same, in the Complete Test at the end I believe it was actually a few frames slower than the single card. My scores: 9988 and 9995. I then played through the same portion of BF4 again. Frames in the 130's and I believed the lowest dip went into the high 60's.
 
Go into boo or use gpuz to see what tje vards are running at...ie) 8x each...maybe one card is running at 4x or even less
 
Have you verified that CrossFireX is actually enabled and working? Download GPU-Z: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

Run this tool and ensure that CrossFire is showing as enabled. Also, what does it show for PCI-E link speed? Run the test and confirm that both cards are at least running at 8X.
 
bigbeard86 said:
Go into boo or use gpuz to see what tje vards are running at...ie) 8x each...maybe one card is running at 4x or even less
Click to expand...

Rizen said:
Have you verified that CrossFireX is actually enabled and working? Download GPU-Z: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

Run this tool and ensure that CrossFire is showing as enabled. Also, what does it show for PCI-E link speed? Run the test and confirm that both cards are at least running at 8X.
Click to expand...

GPU-Z shows "ATI Crossfire: Enabled (2 GPUs)" and shows the correct info for each. The Bus Interface both show PCI-E 3.0x16 @ x1 2.0, then after about 10 seconds it reverts from 2.0 to 1.1. However, in the render test (I selected the check box for Render in full-screen for Crossfire / SLI) It shows both of them running PCI-E 3.0X16 @ X16 2.0
 
When you play FarCry 3 in CrossFire does Afterburner show that both GPUs are being loaded? What GPU usage % are you seeing?
 
Have you updated your motherboard bios and your motherboard chipset drivers? If not I recommend you do that.

Try a different crossfire bridge if you haven't already.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Have you updated your motherboard bios and your motherboard chipset drivers? If not I recommend you do that.

Try a different crossfire bridge if you haven't already.
Click to expand...

We got bridgeless CFX with the R9 series. So that's one less thing to look at.
 
Rizen said:
When you play FarCry 3 in CrossFire does Afterburner show that both GPUs are being loaded? What GPU usage % are you seeing?
Click to expand...

Lord_Exodia said:
Have you updated your motherboard bios and your motherboard chipset drivers? If not I recommend you do that.

Try a different crossfire bridge if you haven't already.
Click to expand...

I have the most up-to-date chipset drivers, and I updated my Bios to the most recent non-beta bios. I looked at my cpu usage on my other monitor while playing. This is roughly 15min of gameplay, taking one of the forts. Shared GPU load was all over the place there's a spike toward the right middle where GPU2 has all the load while 1 has no and there are other places where it's vice versa. It never really sits at a 50/50 split for very long.

xU1W7H7.jpg

http://imgur.com/xU1W7H7
 
if you bought them used on ebay, they were probably used for mining.

did you check the bios version on the cards? it is very possible that a mining bios was flashed.

if I were you, I would flash the original bios on both of the cards, just in case. it is very easy to do, and I suggest you do it.
 
Something is wrong with your setup. I just installed Far Cry 3 to test on my system (see signature) and I have very consistently high GPU usage and frame rates in-game, FPS hovers between 70 and 110. This is at 2560x1440, 2X MSAA, every option maxed out except HDAO instead of HBAO. 90 FOV.

fc3.png


I would also recommend reflashing your BIOS with the stock BIOS for your card.
 
Rizen said:
Something is wrong with your setup. I just installed Far Cry 3 to test on my system (see signature) and I have very consistently high GPU usage and frame rates in-game, FPS hovers between 70 and 110. This is at 2560x1440, 2X MSAA, every option maxed out except HDAO instead of HBAO. 90 FOV.

I would also recommend reflashing your BIOS with the stock BIOS for your card.
Click to expand...

I was told by the previous owner no new BIOS was flashed onto the card I purchased. I'll try reflashing each card to stock. I'll try flashing each using the stock bios from each manufacturer. I found this BIOS collection:

http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/...er=&model=R9+290&interface=&memType=&memSize=

Is there a certain tool that's pretty easy to use with a low failure rate? I've never flashed BIOS on a gpu before
 
These just look like normal crossfire issues. What you should do is take a look on the ATi forums and see what driver package is the best for the games you are trying to play. I had 4870s and 6970s in crossfire and I would hunt for the older driver sets that ran my games the best. Sometimes the driver packs from ATi will work well with one game and not the other. Longer load times, or just poor performance. You just need to try out the different packs to see which one works. I remember with my 4870s, I ran a driver pack that was 7 renditions old because it ran the three games I was heavy into at the time the way I wanted them to run.

Along with everyone else, check the BIOSs on the cards, and your Mobo. Then play with the drivers. Also at 1920x1080 I don't know if you really need crossfire. Also with crossfire sometimes you can crank up the settings but not see a large FPS increase, but visually the game will look better. So if you can get it work your 45fps might be the same, but the filtering and graphics will look better.
 
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