Crossfire Support

argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
Does anyone have experience with crossfire recently? I am thinking of getting a second r9 390x and setting it up in crossfire mode for higher in game performance. Does anyone have a recent experience (post visual studio 2013 update?) I really want performance on highest settings to be flawless, (no frame lag during high particle moments).


Game runs quite smooth with everything maxed out (except anisotropic filtering and bloom [which i set to off for a slight frame increase].

I'd like it to be even more fluid on 144hz monitor and would like it to not drop below 120-150 fps at any time.

Comments

  • AbsurdonAbsurdon Germany Join Date: 2015-02-09 Member: 201274Members
    i've lerned that performance is a lot map and position dependend and that it's more cpu heavy than gpu heavy. even though i'm not that versed when it comes to technical stuff if lerned from several pc magazins that crossfire can cause microstuttering.
    as i had microstuttering due to a broken graphics card before i can tell u it's no fun at all cause it happens during engagements most of the time makin u lose these often.
    I'm running the game on lowest settings mostly for best performance having an intel i7 4770 and an gtx 980 TI and still there is moments in the game where fps drop to ~140 from normal 185-200 fps still kinda interested what others think about this.
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    so I get from 90-125 at all times, but my cpu is an AMD 8-core *(8350 lower end 8-core) at 4.1 Ghz Oc'd. I run the game in high priority using .bat file to open it. And turning down the graphics settings doesn't improve the performance much for me (only in woozas and other gigantic servers when all the spam happens), hence the reason i run it with maxed out settings.

    I'm on a 60 hz 5ms 1080p monitor at the moment and am going to move up to 144hz ASAP. I just want a lower latency and smoother results.
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    also wanted to mention i'm using dx 11 and triple frame buffering, because it smooths out on my monitor. Higher fps would be possible without vsync at all.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    • DX11 is in beta and while it has better frametimes it does not have better FPS than DX9 (it could also be more buggy as its rarely tested or developed on)
    • Triple buffering or ANY Vsync (or anything but fullscreen) is going to introduce mouse input delay for you, essentially mitigating whatever gameplay performance advantage you think you're going to get with more FPS.
    • Anisotropic filtering should not negatively impact your performance by much at all and is a nice visual feature to have
    • Ambient occlusion should not be run at max, if at all - the FPS impact it has is huge, as is the mouse input delay it adds.
    • You can run the maxfps command in the console to just below your monitor's refresh rate, and this will provide a more screen tear-free experience but without the mouse input delay issues of Vsync.
    • Use the r_stats command in the console to see whether you are GPU bound or CPU bound. If "X waiting on GPU" doesn't go above 0, then your GPU is not the bottleneck.
    • Has AMD completely resolved their crossfire frame time related issues? Last I checked they still cause issues

    That's all I can think of for now :)
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    edited February 2016
    have you noticed the dx9 FOV looking more like a fish-eye lense?
    I use triple buffering because of very difficult to notice screen tearing during faster movement, but I hadn't thought of using either the AMD driver suite or the application's native maxfps command to mitigate this particular issue. It's not severe by any means and I think that my monitor may be the cause.

    I only run in fullscreen.
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    I'll let you know how this impacts performance and if the improvement is dramatic, I will make a configuration guide containing the combination of settings I use.
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    as far as I know, I haven't heard of any frame time issue with the newest series of cards, but perhaps I am mistaken, source?
  • argentumargentum Join Date: 2010-04-09 Member: 71234Members
    "To make the impact of the information more clear, I have taken the liberty to calculate the deviations from the Ideal score. Once again, AMD’s multi GPU technology shines here. AMD’s deviation from the ideal frame-time and the ideal performance is very minimal at dual Crossfire configuration (both at approximately 7% form the ideal). As more GPUs are added, the score deteriorates, till the Quad GPU configuration is lagging approximately 22% behind the ideal scaling and 28% behind the ideal frame time. This means that instead of 1, the total frame-time (for all GPUs combined) is actually 1.28 – which will be the root cause behind any complications that result from Multi-GPU.

    .....


    The obvious next question, when dealing with multiple GPUs in SLI or Crossfire, is of course, value. In the second half of this article, we will look at the value offered by the setups as well as investigate, why, AMD tends to have an advantage in multi GPU.

    Read more: http://wccftech.com/multi-gpu-nvidia-sli-amd-crossfire-performance-value-comparison/#ixzz40O65UKO1
    "


    I guess my question is, does the 7% (roughly) delay in frame time have a significant impact in how the application runs?

    Would I not have an overall higher framerate and a smoother rendering process?

    my card is pretty beefy all by itself, I just wonder if running the game on 1440p at 144hz will be possible, or even if it hits the refresh rate of a 144hz 1080p monitor.
  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    The gear icon on the top right of each of your comments allows you to edit your comment so you dont have a dozen extra ;)

    Always use an engine's native frame limiter if possible... any outside or 3rd party method of limiting frames, vsync or not, will induce mouse input delay.
    Don't forget to disable ambient occlusion (and enable raw mouse input) as well if you want to test what less mouse delay feels like.

    To answer your question, FPS is not all that matters, especially in an online competitive twitch shooter.. things like frametimes and mouse input delay are arguably more important if you can at least maintain a decent FPS. Also, goodluck maintaining playable FPS with 1440p, it's almost twice the pixel density of 1080p.

    Did you check the r_stats command like I mentioned to determine whether another GPU would even do anything for you?


  • AbsurdonAbsurdon Germany Join Date: 2015-02-09 Member: 201274Members
    I have to check back on the frametimes but DX11 gives me ~20 FPS more (Windows 10 x64 with above mentioned hardware) and prevents me from droppin below 130 except on kodiak which is terrible as by just turning 180° losing 60 fps. as i mentioned before it's map dependend.
    I'll test the maxfps command but as for now my game seems to run quite smooth on my 144Hz monitor but i had some big issues on my 60Hz
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