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Warhead & 4870x2 & Microstutter ?

W

Willhcm

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 24, 2008
Messages
107
I finally got around to playing Warhead. My specs:
Q9450@3.0
4gb Ram
Sapphire 4870x2
Vista 64
Catalyst 8.10


I'm averaging around 20-30fps on 1900x1200 on Enthusiast in dx10 - which is a little less than I would have hoped for - so I decided to try dx9 after hearing of better performance with minimum sacrifice in terms of image quality.

In dx9, my fps jumps a significant amount but I get terrible micro stutter. Is there anything I can do about that? I can achieve 40-50 fps however it just feels like every second it pauses and then keeps going. It made it really unplayable which is why i would rather tolerate lower fps on dx10. The microstutter wasn't apparent/noticeable in dx10.

I haven't noticed microstutter in any other games but in Warhead it makes it really unplayable. I also have the zoom/binoculars bug too (only in dx9). It's really really bad on the ice levels.

Could this possibly be faulty hardware? Drivers (noticed this in 8.9)? or what?

Anyone else noticing this?
 
just a poorly coded game. the 4870x2 doesnt really like DX9, for some reason. Many reviews show a huge difference between DX10 performance and DX9, and the same is not seen with other cards in most cases.

I would say, do Direct x 10, but turn down a few things to gamer, things that dont matter. leave textures and shaders on max, but maybe some other things turn down.
 
No it doesn't. You can't turn off Xfire with CCC on an X2. Disabling Catalyst AI turns off game-specific driver optimizations. I've run dual card crossfire and now the X2 and Catalyst AI seems to cause microstutter for me in games either way. Try disabling it, can't hurt you right?
 
Interesting. I've looked at GPU-Z logs showing no core activity in the second core on a 4870x2 with Catalyst AI off -- seemed to work just like a normal Crossfire set-up.
 
Ballpoint, that is wrong, crossfire, since it's inception i believe requires catalyst A.I, always has always will, indeed setting it to advanced since the 6.7/8's has forced AFR mode.

The reason the "microstutter" or whatever he is experiencing goes away is because crossfire is turned off and it is just like a single 4870.

Of course i could be wrong and you will have a link that proves wrong everyone including reviewers who say otherwise?
 
You guys are both wrong, for fuck's sake. Stop spreading misinformation!

Crossfire does NOT require Catalyst A.I. Crossfire "works best" with Catalyst A.I. according to ATI's marketing.

Catalyst A.I. is driver optimizations. Setting it to advanced forces AFR mode, it doesn't "allow" it to use AFR mode. Leaving Catalyst A.I. to normal or disabled allows the game to choose which Crossfire mode will be used.

Do you have a link that proves Catalyst A.I. is required to run Crossfire?
 
ballpoint said:
You guys are both wrong, for fuck's sake. Stop spreading misinformation!

Crossfire does NOT require Catalyst A.I. Crossfire "works best" with Catalyst A.I. according to ATI's marketing.

Catalyst A.I. is driver optimizations. Setting it to advanced forces AFR mode, it doesn't "allow" it to use AFR mode. Leaving Catalyst A.I. to normal or disabled allows the game to choose which Crossfire mode will be used.
Click to expand...


You are wrong. It turned it off on the 3870X2, it turns it off on a normal Crossfire set-up ( aka, mine ), and it turns it off on the 4870X2. End of story. Google it if you are having any doubts.
 
Testing now,.. okay WTH u guys might be right.

In TF2 with Cat AI disabled I have no 2nd GPU activity and it's totally smooth.

In TF2 with Cat AI on normal I have activity on 2nd GPU and it's microstuttering....

FUCK ME
 
Just did. And just disabled Catalyst AI and watched my second GPU go to 0% utilization.
 
I am wrong. I am an idiot. I look and feel like a hypocrite WRT to "spreading bad information." Again, FUCK. ME.

Looks like I wasted my money upgrading to a 4870X2....

Forgive my tone above, that was the denial speaeking. I didn't want to believe I wasted all that money on the X1950XTXCF Edition in Sep 2006, and then wasted money upgrading to 4870X2 when I already had 4870.

I had thought disabling Catalyst A.I. was taking care of my microstutter problem. I just tested it advanced again and advanced with the 4870X2 seems pretty smooth. My last Xfire rig was mismatched (1900 + 1950) so maybe that's why advanced caused bad microstutter for me (worse than standard since it forced AFR and my cards were different performance levels).

FUCK ME I HATE CROSSFIRE NOW
 
Well, I did just get an e-mail from a field engineer at AMD who says:

Hi Guys,

The only way a person can turn off / disable Crossfire is to Uncheck the
"Enable Crossfire" tab in CCC. When the check mark is enabled, CF is on
doesn't matter what settings you are using.

Crossfire performance depends on a lot of things: drivers, game, etc.
As for games, different game can determine the way they want CF or even
SLI to work. It's up to the developer to decide

Thanks,

(NAME OMITTED)
Field Applications Engineer - GPU / Chipset / Multimedia
55 Commerce Valley Drive West,
Markham, Ont, Canada, L3T 7V9

So maybe I'm not quite so wrong. I have asked him in my reply, why does there appear to be no 2nd GPU activity with Cat A.I. off? Because it certainly feels faster to me with Cat A.I. off, and my framerates don't drop at all (in fact it feels like they go up).

edit: just got an e-mail from the engineer, forwarded from the driver team... disabling A.I. disables all driver optimizations, game detection, and Crossfire.

Well, shit. Look at what the engineer told me in the first place. Totally contradicted by the driver guys.
 
Different departments will always tell you different things... It's like that in most companies and very rarely the opposite...
 
Well if you look at it, seems like the engineer thinks it damn well ought to be in Crossfire. Why should turning off driver optimizations and game detection also turn off Crossfire. If Crossfire is ticked, or you have an X2 card, it should be used unless explicitly turned off!

The forward from the driver guy said that the ability to turn off Catalyst AI is only present as a "proof point" to demonstrate that image quality is the same with driver optimizations on or off. It would be nice if the hint text on the Enable/Disable checkbox said something like "disable driver optimizations AND CROSSFIRE"
 
Disabling Cat AI killed Crossfire back when I was using X1900XT Crossfire. I really don't know how I can illustrate my point any better than I did in my last post.

I'm surprised at the comments from some @ AMD.

I can tell you with absolute certainty based on experience disabling Cat AI causes Crossfire to not work properly.
 
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