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ATI crossfire vs windowed mode - fight!

  • Thread starter Thread starter uv
  • Start date Start date

uv

uv

uv

Soldato
Joined
16 May 2006
Posts
8,435
Location
Manchester
So, I currently own a 4870x2 that's sitting in a box on my shelf, whilst I use my inferior spare GTX280. This is because I like to play games windowed, in order to keep an eye on server admin rools and the like; for some reason, crossfire isn't supported in windowed mode :(

does anyone know of a way to force crossfire in windowed mode?
Can anyone provide an explanation as to why this limitation exists, when multi-GPU works fine with nvidia's offerings?
 
uv said:
So, I currently own a 4870x2 that's sitting in a box on my shelf, whilst I use my inferior spare GTX280. This is because I like to play games windowed, in order to keep an eye on server admin rools and the like; for some reason, crossfire isn't supported in windowed mode :(

does anyone know of a way to force crossfire in windowed mode?
Can anyone provide an explanation as to why this limitation exists, when multi-GPU works fine with nvidia's offerings?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure SLI has the same drawback too?
You could just buy another minotor? :p
 
From what I've read plenty of games are unstabled with SLI windowed, lots of people complained about it in the Eve forums.

From what I've seen DX9 can't run crossfire windowed, DX10 can, its been a while but i'm pretty much 99% sure Lotro would run crossfired on my 4870x2, and I ran that in DX10.

Remember theres a lot of very specific functionality drivers have to support and things it can't do, Vista/Windows 7 are really very un dx9 friendly in many ways. Not sure if theres any way to force sli or crossfire specifically in windowed situations.

one thing to keep in mind, is clockspeeds, are you sure its not running crossfire and that its not just running lower 2d clocks. Thats another issue I had with windowed gaming, I had to set a couple extra profiles so I could switch to a profile with only 3d clocks for Lotro as on various driver sets the 4870x2 would either stay in idle clocks, or constantly switch up and down.
 
drunkenmaster said:
From what I've seen DX9 can't run crossfire windowed, DX10 can, its been a while but i'm pretty much 99% sure Lotro would run crossfired on my 4870x2, and I ran that in DX10.
Click to expand...

Cheers DM, I'll double check I've got BFBC2 set to DX10.
 
Forgot to also say with the 4870x2 theres no explicit "crossfire" option which I think you get with 2 separate cards(only ever had x2's for crossfire), but it used to be that the catalyst AI option, on normal would enable it generally though not work in all games and the "advanced" option would try to force it on in situations it otherwise wouldn't work, not always successfully but thats worth a try also.
 
drunkenmaster said:
...one thing to keep in mind, is clockspeeds, are you sure its not running crossfire and that its not just running lower 2d clocks. Thats another issue I had with windowed gaming, I had to set a couple extra profiles so I could switch to a profile with only 3d clocks for Lotro as on various driver sets the 4870x2 would either stay in idle clocks, or constantly switch up and down.
Click to expand...

I sold uv the 4870x2 and was with him when he first installed it. We tested it with various apps it definitely was a lack of crossfire rather than just lack of clock speeds.

Thankfully he didn't demand a refund right there and then :p
 
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