Widescreen Gaming Forum

I don't think you understand. My post is referring purely to gains from having enabled *Crossfire* - not gains from the drivers themselves in a a single-GPU scenario. I have no idea how these drivers stack up to 9.11 in single-GPU situations.

[quote]Hmmm so am I bottle necked somewhere these don't seem that great to me.

I am not referring to you at all I am just saying.... I do not think these have much improvements over 9.11 when it comes to a single card. Curious why that is.

[quote]Early CrossfireX impressions (using 2 5870's @ 5760x1200): I was WRONG! CrossfireX makes a big difference (I thought this high res would be bound by memory size and speed).

5670x1200 is only about 70% more pixels that 2560x1600. Many titles can run in 1GB of framebuffer at 2560x1600 with AA enabled, so 5670x1200 isn’t always going to be an issue, but you may have to drop back an AA level in relation to 2560x1600.
Yes, I've noted exactly that. It's unfortunate that I can't run 2xAA on a lot of games, however. But, overall, the situation at 5760x1200 (if you have 2 5870's in Crossfire) is a lot less bleak than with a single GPU trying to push all those pixels.

2 quick questions:
1 - AA in Empire: Total War? Going to be implemented at some point? I hear it's just a bug of some sort.
2 - Performance issues in NFS: Shift? What a great game, and what a horrible job they did ensuring it would run OK on ATI architecture. Can anything be done? It runs so much better on my GTX280-based system (although it can't use SLI worth a crap IIRC).

And thank you so much for taking the time to calmly answer our questions. I think all of us just want Crossfire to be wildly popular so that games support triplehead without having to be hacked to death.

[quote]I don't think you understand. My post is referring purely to gains from having enabled *Crossfire* - not gains from the drivers themselves in a a single-GPU scenario. I have no idea how these drivers stack up to 9.11 in single-GPU situations.

[quote]Hmmm so am I bottle necked somewhere these don't seem that great to me.

I am not referring to you at all I am just saying.... I do not think these have much improvements over 9.11 when it comes to a single card. Curious why that is.

Ok, just wanted to be clear. I think the big value added on these drivers is enabling Crossfire (with the Hotfix) and some improved compatibility. I can't speak for ATI, but it seems like the 5870 is pretty much already doing what it can with that monster 5760x1200 resolution. Certainly, there's a lot of room for improvement via driver optimizations in some specific games (NFS: Shift), but in others the ATI architecture seems well-supported (Dirt 2).

Bottom line - if you want (significantly) more performance in already-optimized games (such as Dirt 2), your best option is probably a second GPU.

1 - AA in Empire: Total War? Going to be implemented at some point? I hear it's just a bug of some sort.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that one. Can you give me some more details?

2 - Performance issues in NFS: Shift? What a great game, and what a horrible job they did ensuring it would run OK on ATI architecture. Can anything be done? It runs so much better on my GTX280-based system (although it can't use SLI worth a crap IIRC).

Have you downloaded the recent patch? Part of the updates in the patch was specifically to address some performance issues on Radeons:

http://needforspeed.com/web/nfs/downloads?p_p_id=nfsdownload_WAR_nfscportlets&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-1&p_p_col_count=1&_nfsdownload_WAR_nfscportlets_action=legal&_nfsdownload_WAR_nfscportlets_download_key=shift.pc.patch.v102.dl.na

In single panel mode, at least, we seem to get OK Crossfire scaling with the patch as well:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1130/3/

[quote]1 - AA in Empire: Total War? Going to be implemented at some point? I hear it's just a bug of some sort.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that one. Can you give me some more details?

Thanks for the quick reply! Ok, details. You can't get any form of anti-aliasing to work - whether selected in-game or through CCC. It's not a huge deal, but of course AA looks nice and this game absolutely loves the 5870 (so I think I could enable it without too much of a performance hit).

UPDATE: OK, I tried NFS: Shift in single-panel (1920x1200) mode, and it only runs at...150fps with 15 other cars on track, 8xMSAA and 16xAF. :D

I really have to lay off the crack before I post things. Not sure how I missed it, but obviously that's one game that runs just fine (!). I can't wait til Eyefinity/Crossfire works with it.

UPDATE2: Yep, Eyefinity + Crossfire in NFS Shift not working. The game slows to a crawl and you have to whack it over the head with Task Manager like a baby seal.

BUT - Overall, the future looks good. I've got more confidence that a pair of 5870's can run modern games at high detail levels at 5760x1200.

kondor999- are you using MSI afterburner? The manual fan controls In catalyst control center for me are completely broke after the 9.12 hotfix. Should I just disable Manual fan control and ati overdrive. and use MSI afterburner for my cooling needs. It's not going to conflict with anything the ATI control center has going on is it?

Probably going to get feedback for my whining ,but for Pete's sake, why cant all this be sorted out before a card is released. Good grief!!! If it takes a few months longer to get the driver right. hold off on putting out the card. I've spent more time with getting stuff to work then I have had time to Play.

kondor999- are you using MSI afterburner? The manual fan controls In catalyst control center for me are completely broke after the 9.12 hotfix. Should I just disable Manual fan control and ati overdrive. and use MSI afterburner for my cooling needs. It's not going to conflict with anything the ATI control center has going on is it?

Probably going to get feedback for my whining ,but for Pete's sake, why cant all this be sorted out before a card is released. Good grief!!! If it takes a few months longer to get the driver right. hold off on putting out the card. I've spent more time with getting stuff to work then I have had time to Play.

Yea I would have to agree with you that's what I have been saying all this time. It is a little annoying that so many features are broken. All this should work out of the box and should not have to wait around for months to get a feature to work how it should. I seen no improvements with these drivers.

[quote]Does this mean that you can run three monitors from DVI (two on one card and one from the other) without the need for one of those DP>DVI adapters?

Or can you still only use the outputs on one card?

That's a great question direwolf. I too would like to know if that is possible now.

I also have a query to add. With a crossfire setup and the Eyefinity (DVI+DVI+DP) hooked up to card 1. Can I use card 2 for HDMI out to my flat screen TV and use all four outputs in extended mode at the same time. I hope that made some sense.


Thanks Dave for any info on this.

I just setup my new rig and it seems that you still need to use DVI+DVI+DP when using Crossfire. I just need to find a DP adapter now.

@direwolf, make sure you get an active adaptor unless you are using a native DP monitor.

OK, so let me verify...

Eyefinity and Extended Mode
Crossfire:
Card 1 > DVI+DVI+DP
Card 2 > -o-

Can I do this?

Extended Mode
Non-Crossfire:
Card 1 > DVI+DVI+DP
Card 2 > HDMI

I use to run this setup with a single 4850x2 with four DVI outputs. Now I may need a second card to do the same thing.

TY :wink:

This is sort of related to topic. anyone know of a good reliable driver cleaner other than drive sweeper found on Guru?