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AMD ULPS Is Killing Multi GPU Performance & Smoothness

LtMatt

LtMatt

LtMatt

Caporegime
Joined
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I would like to see AMD give an option in CCC to disable ULPS. I also believe AMD should reccomended all review sites to disable it before benchmarking their multi gpu solutions. Single gpu's are unaffected.

Thanks to Tommy for compiling some results for me.

ULPS ON

llmMEEB.png

bNQanC2.jpg


There is no drawback to disabling ULPS, unless you consider an extra 10W at idle a drawback. Plenty of drawbacks to leaving it enabled though.




ULPS OFF

IT5yA23.png

XYeBYbz.jpg



Note the extra performance with ULPS off on the minimum and average fps and the low gpu usage of gpu 2 with ULPS on. Seriously harming performance and decreasing smoothness and frame time as one gpu is not pulling its weight evenly in the usage stakes.
 
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chris-82 said:
Does this have any effect on single gpu performance?
Click to expand...

LtMatt said:
Single gpu's are unaffected.
Click to expand...

ULPS is Zerocore. It shuts off the second gpu when not in use so it won't affect single gpu. Its a nice feature but it seriously harms performance and there should be an option in CCC to disable it without having to use a third party overclocking tool. Extra performance and smoothness is noticeable as soon as you disable it.
 
Might break their low power mode which is a selling argument.
Those that OC use more often than not special tools from thirdparty anyhow so for me its a none issue.

If you cant OC using thirdparty tools you shouldnt OC ;)
 
flopper said:
Might break their low power mode which is a selling argument.
Those that OC use more often than not special tools from thirdparty anyhow so for me its a none issue.

If you cant OC using thirdparty tools you shouldnt OC ;)
Click to expand...

That's not really the point though, even if you aren't overclocking disabling it gives you extra performance, there should be an option or something put in the driver where UPLS disables itself when a full screen application is launched, not sure if it requires a restart though to disable it, I've never needed to use it.
 
Just gave this a try on my setup as I've always run with ULPS active. Using the Sleeping Dogs benchie I got:

With ULPS active -
Average: 70.8FPS
Max: 92.1FPS
Min: 43.1FPS

With ULPS de-activated:
Average: 71.2FPS
Max: 93.9FPS
Min: 44.7FPS

All at 5760x1080x60Hz, AA-High, Hi-res-On, Shadow-High, SSAO-High, V-Sync-Off, Motion Blur-On, FPS Limiter-Off

It's a bit of a difference in favour of ULPS being off, but it's not as dramatic a difference as others are seeing. Wonder if it's because of the resolution, or maybe because I've only clocked the cards to 1000/1500?

EDIT: did notice GPU2 was at 99% for both runs, with GPU1 at 95%+ the whole time too.
 
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Suarez7 said:
That's not really the point though, even if you aren't overclocking disabling it gives you extra performance, there should be an option or something put in the driver where UPLS disables itself when a full screen application is launched, not sure if it requires a restart though to disable it, I've never needed to use it.
Click to expand...

Each time it is enabled or disabled you need to restart before the setting is applied.

Confused Stu said:
Just gave this a try on my setup as I've always run with ULPS active. Using the Sleeping Dogs benchie I got:

With ULPS active -
Average: 70.8FPS
Max: 92.1FPS
Min: 43.1FPS

With ULPS de-activated:
Average: 71.2FPS
Max: 93.9FPS
Min: 44.7FPS

All at 5760x1080x60Hz, AA-High, Hi-res-On, Shadow-High, SSAO-High, V-Sync-Off, Motion Blur-On, FPS Limiter-Off

It's a bit of a difference in favour of ULPS being off, but it's not as dramatic a difference as others are seeing. Wonder if it's because of the resolution, or maybe because I've only clocked the cards to 1000/1500?

EDIT: did notice GPU2 was at 99% for both runs, with GPU1 at 95%+ the whole time too.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it wasn't disabled.
 
Confused Stu said:
I took the easy method to check if it was disabled or not - peek under the desk and see if my GPU2 fans are spinning. :D Fans were stopped at desktop with ULPS enabled, and were spinning at desktop with ULPS disabled.
Click to expand...

Furry muff. Was the gpu usage constant at 99%? Because i see similar usage like in the pics in the OP with ULPS on. Gpu 1 pegged at 100% and Gpu 2 anywhere from 70-95%. I'm on single screen, so i don't know whether that has any effect or not.
 
With ULPS de-activated:
nim9.png


With ULPS active:
km8r.png


The only drops are in the menus before I actually started the benchmark, and the bits between scenes. GPU2 isn't as static as I thought it was during the ULPS-deactive run from the figure on the screen, on the graphs it shows it wander a little.
 
Guys god darn it.. Now i have to dig up my second 7950 again to see if disabling ULPS will help the horrible performance i had on the new Frame pacing beta driver..how could you do this to me... no really..how?

PS: Thank you so much!!
 
Cheers shankly and Matt :D

I've just ran a couple of Valley benchmarks (Extreme HD).

Both with ULPS disabled and enabled, both benchmarks were run a couple of times.

With ULPS on,

FPS 72.2
Score 3020
Min FPS 32
Max 146.6

ULPS off,

FPS 77.6
Score 3248
Min FPS 33.6
Max 152.3

Both my 7970s are downclocked to 925/1375 due to my CPU bottleneck.

I think the results speak for themselves :cool:
 
I've 2 screenshots of my tomb raider benchmarks that show a 20 fps drop (average) on tomb raider with ULPS enabled, I would also like to see an option in their software to disable it (if HIS software can have a check box for it surly amd can )
 
Just another point - I didnt even know about ULPS and stumbled on it by accident, when I got my crossfire setup going I used CCC to set my clocks and stress test it to make sure it was working, but I knew my 2nd card could clock higher on the memory, so I loaded up HIS software as it allows you to exceed the maximum clocks, and when I tried to clock the card it said I had to disable ULPS - hadnt a clue what this was and had to google it, so only came across it by chance!
 
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