How To Make Sure Crossfire Is Working?

[LtMatt]

Is My CrossFire Setup Working Correctly? [Basic/Advanced Guide]

A question i often see asked is, "How do i know if CrossfireX is working properly?" Well i have written a basic and advanced guide that will show you two different ways to check that your CrossFireX setup is working correctly.

The first (simple) method will allow you to get a visual notification in the form of an AMD CrossFireX logo every time a game starts and a CrossFireX profile is loaded. A quick and easy way to make sure that CrossFireX is working when you load a game.

The second (advanced) method requires you to install a third party application called MSI Afterburner. This will allow to to monitor how your gpu's are performing down to the finest detail. Great for the enthusiast or someone that likes to keep a pulse on what his Radeon cards are doing at all times.

I recommend using the latest WHQL driver from the AMD website. CrossFireX users should always use the most recent drivers to keep their CrossFireX profiles up to date.


Basic Method - Quick Way To Check If CrossFireX Is Working


Open Catalyst Control Center. Click preferences in the top right hand corner and make sure Advanced view is selected.

Crossfire should be enabled by default after installing the driver, assuming you've installed the cards correctly and secured the relevant power connections. But lets just double check to make sure that's the case.

Open the performance tab on the left. Click AMD CrossFireX. Ensure that Enable CrossfireX is selected.

Note only Windows 8/8.1 users will see the option below that.

The option to enable/disable crossfire is not present for 7990/295x2 users. Should these users wish to disable CrossFireX for a specific game you need to create a profile within 3d applications, select the game exe, add it, then disable CrossFireX and click apply.

Next we need to make sure frame pacing is enabled. Again this should be on by default, but just double check. Go to the gaming, then 3d applications on the left. Click X in the top right hand corner to close CCC to the taskbar.

Right Click the CCC icon (

) in your taskbar. Go to 1.AMD Radeon >> Show CrossFireX Logo. Tick that like in the picture below.

Now whenever a 3D Application loads, if CrossFireX is working and has applied a CrossFireX profile then you will see a small CrossFireX logo in the top right hand corner whenever a game or 3D application loads that has a CrossFireX profile.

Advanced Method - Will Allow You To Better Monitor GPU Performance

The advanced method to monitoring CrossFireX usage and general gpu performance allows you to access more precise information about how CrossFireX is performing. That is done using MSI Afterburners On Screen Display software called RivaTuner. This will enable you to monitor via a graph on the screen how each gpu is performing while you game. You can monitor its temperature, how much gpu usage it's receiving, (in other words - how hard it's working) as well as things like core clock speed and video memor usage. It's very handy and i recommend it to all 'advanced' CrossFireX users who wish to get every last drop of performance from their setup.

First of all you will need to download the latest version of MSI Afterburner from Guru3D, which at the time of writing is 4.0.0.

Download Link
http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/msi-afterburner-beta-download,26.html

Once you've downloaded it and installed afterburner and rivatuner, run it and follow the prompt to restart your pc.

When you're back in Windows open up afterburner and go to settings. I highly recommend you copy the settings i use below, click ok then restart your pc again.

Key Settings Explained

Disable ULPS is a handy power saving tool that shuts off your second gpu completely when the pc is idle or not under heavy load. It's not absolutely essential to disable this, but it can improve performance a little bit to disable it so typically i recommend disabling it.

Enable unified gpu usage monitoring should be ticked to provide more accurate gpu usage readings. As we want to monitor gpu usage to see how CrossFireX is working, this is essential.


Setting Up RivaTuner


Go to the monitoring tab. Change hardware polling period to 2000. That means the overlay will update once every two seconds. Settings this refresh too low can degrade performance on lower end systems so use with caution. I'd recommend no lower than a setting of 1000.

Now we need to set up the on screen display itself to show the desired information while we game.

Tick and activate each of the hardware monitoring graphs under this section. Put a tick in GPU 1 Temp, then go down to show in on screen display and put a tick there. Then go to override group name and put a tick in there. Name it GPU1. Now do the same for GPU 2 Temp and name is GPU 2. When you get down to override group name make sure you put in GPU2 and not GPU1. You want them on separate lines on the overlay to keep things clear.

GPU1

GPU2

I recommend you set up the following for all gpus. Make sure you tick override group name and keep naming the relevant part GPU1 and GPU2 etc. You want all GPU1 info on one line and GPU2 info on the next line below it.

GPU1 TEMP
GPU2 TEMP
GPU1 USAGE
GPU2 USAGE
GPU1 CORE CLOCK
GPU2 CORE CLOCK
GPU1 MEMORY CLOCK
GPU2 MEMORY CLOCK

You can also monitor other things like fps, video ram usage, cpu temperature and usage etc. These can be handy to monitor as well, so if that interests you then setup overlays for those as well. Just remember to put them on a different line to keep things organized and tidy.

Note under Framerate and Frametime you're not able to select override group name. So all you do is tick show in on screen display, like so.

If you do decide to monitor video memory, system memory and pagefile usage then i suggest you use override group name on all of them, and have the name as MEMORY or MEM in capitals. If you use the same override group name on all of them it will position them on the same line on screen.

As above, you can add cpu temperature and cpu usage (per core/thread - similar to gpu usage) to the on screen display as well if you want. Just follow the same instructions as above to add those.

Now we need to tweak the overlay so we can see it easily while running 3D applications. It needs to stand out so we can easily read it while fragging. For this we need to open RivaTuner

which will be in your taskbar somewhere near the MSI afterburner icon.

With RivaTuner open, go to 'on screen display shadow' and change it to on.

Next we need to change the colour of the text so it stands out well against backgrounds. To do that click the purple on screen display palette. Select white as the primary colour and black as the secondary colour. You can select whichever colour you choose, but i think white and black stands out best on any colour background in my opinion.

Once all that is done and you're happy it's time to play some games and check out that overlay. Pay special attention to the 'GPU Usage', look out for the percentage sign that is displayed. This will tell how much each of your gpu's is being used. Ideally you will want to see this on or around 99% on both gpu's. This will mean each gpu is working to 99% of it's maximum capability.

Here is what the overlay should look like in game.

Spoiler

Here's what you should be looking out for in games. Both gpu's showing at 90-99% gpu usage with crossfire running. The GPU usage is on the top line, after the gpu temperature. Below that i have cpu temperature and cpu usage.

Spoiler

Frequently Asked Questions

The on screen overlay is annoying. How can i disable it once I'm gaming and things are working to my satisfaction?

You can set up a toggle key to enable and disable the on screen display overlay at the press of a keystroke, should you find it irritating while gaming. To set this up do the following. Choose a toggle key from the monitoring tab in settings to turn the on screen display overlay on or off. I use F8. Press that while gaming and the overlay will vanish. Press it again to bring it back. Very handy if you plan to take screenshots while gaming.

Why is my gpu usage not consistently at 99%?

Gpu usage can and will fluctuate depending on many things, so don't worry. As long as performance is good and fps are high, i wouldn't worry about it. However low gpu usage coupled with poor performance can sometimes indicate one of the following.

1. You're using vsync or an fps limit. This is stopping the gpu from working to its full capacity as it can provide the number of frames required without working at maximum (99%) capacity. As long as performance is good and smooth, don't worry about low gpu usage here.

2. There could be a cpu bottleneck in place. This occurs when your cpu is unable to provide enough grunt (fps) for the gpu's to work at their maximum capacity, 99%. The only way to fix this is to overclock the cpu or upgrade the cpu. Faster system memory can also help, but less so than the cpu.

3. The bottleneck could be a limitation of the game engine or the API (DirectX) itself. Overclocking the cpu can sometimes help with this and can sometimes improve fps and get cpu/gpu usage up a bit further. Otherwise the only option may be to lower details a bit and see if you can improve performance at lower settings.

Crossfire does not appear to be working and gpu usage on the second gpu is at 0% while playing games. I followed the guide, CrossfireX is enabled in CCC but i don't see the CrossfireX logo when i start a game. What does that mean?

Currently under DirectX/OpenGL CrossfireX will only work if the 3D application or game is running in Full Screen Mode. Please check the video options and ensure that you're running in Full Screen Mode and not Borderless Mode or Windowed Mode.

If you're using the Mantle API then CrossfireX will work in Borderless Mode or Windowed Mode. It should be noted that although Crossfire will work under Mantle in Borderless or Windowed Mode, to get the best possible performance i recommend running in Full Screen Mode.


PLEASE NOTE THAT THE AMD PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY RUNNING COMPONENTS OUTSIDE OF SPECIFICATION INCLUDING DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING. (EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED WITH THE AMD OVERDRIVE UTILITY)

ALL ADVICE PROVIDED HERE IS FOLLOWED AT YOUR OWN RISK, AMD CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE CAUSED BY FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES.

 

[LtMatt]

Excellent. Finally got the on screen display working. Didnt realise you had to manually set it up like that.

Ok so ran sleeping dogs and both GPU's usage is jumping around from 60-100 throught the benchmark. What do I need to do to fix that?

Have you disabled ULPS and vsync?

 

[LtMatt]

Yes on both.

EDIT: Ran Arkham City and its showing both cards at 50%

Show me a screenshot of MSI Afterburner and CCC Overdrive panel please.

 

[LtMatt]

Got those screenshots? Do you know how to take screenshots?

Looking through your thread here id say your issue could be one of the following.

You don't have power limit set at +20% for both cards. One of them or even both might be throttling. Core clocks jumping around during the sleeping dogs benchmark would indicate that. As would fluctuating gpu usage.

ULPS is not really disabled. GPU-Z showing different Bandwidths would indicate that.

Your overclock is not stable. Put it back to stock and see what happens. Does usage stay more constant?

Are you using the latest 13.10 beta drivers?

That's all i can think of for now.

 

[LtMatt]

Both GPU's in CCC Overdrive look the same.

I can't really read that. Can you make it bigger and upload it to IMGUR. Lock overdrive and just use afterburner for now. See my post above as well. Maybe one of those suggestions helps.

EDIT

Nevermind i downloaded the screenshot. I see the problem. Answered below.

 

[LtMatt]

Set the power line at +20%. One of your cards is likely throttling, possibly both. Put both cards at 925/1250, leave power limit at +20% and run the sleeping dogs bench again. What's your usage like now?

EDIT

If you want to overclock you should always leave the power limit at +20%, otherwise the card will throttle and de-clock to stay within TDP. Leave voltage at default as well. Get things working correctly before you start overclocking and adding unnecessary voltage. More voltage means you throttle quicker.

 

[LtMatt]

If I click reset to set everything back it drops the voltage right down to 1094 and the WF runs fine like this. However the HIS seems to jump from 600-950mhz. Im guessing it needs a bit more power?

Prior to starting this overclock again I was getting much more stable results in the benchmark with the only problem being the last section where it never seemed to go above 60 but that section has always ran worse than the rest which im guessing is the same for everyone

Unfortunately it appears like you have two cards with drastically different voltages. That's a bit of a crapper tbh. You have what appears to be a normal non boost 7950 and a boost 7950.

You either have to run each card with separate voltage settings (can be done via afterburner, you untick synch gpu settings, then save a profile for gpu1, go back into settings and switch to gpu2 then rinse and repeat) or you're gonna have to compromise and meet in the middle.

In this instance what i would recommend is trying out these clocks and voltages. Make sure you have Sync both cards set in settings. It should be like that via default. Try running both cards with these voltage settings and clock speeds.

If that is stable and all runs ok then you can slowly start increasing the core clock/memory.

It was your HIS card that would have been throttling by the way.

 

[LtMatt]

Gpu usage should be 99% constant in this benchmark. It might drop a bit as the scene's change though, so that is normal. Bump core voltage to at least 1.125v. That was the stock minimum for the HIS card. That should be good up to around 1000 core or so, maybe higher. Always make sure power line is at +20%.

You can tell when the card throttles as the GPU Core clock will drop. You should be able to see this on the OSD.

 

[LtMatt]

Another excellent piece of work from the Lt, oCuk really need to get you on the payroll matt.

Can an oCuk mod get this onto the '** Useful links to popular threads and resources **' thread please?

Feel free Tommy (or anyone else) to add some suggestions or possible FAQ's at the bottom if i missed something.

 

[LtMatt]

So it all runs fine untill the 2nd last scene (with the walkway bridge over the road) where it drops to the high 80's and the last scene (interior) where the HIS card sits at 60% usage.

Is this with the +20% power limit set on the his card? I suspect the voltage might not be changing with the HIS card.

Pretty sure afterburner didnt change voltage with his boost cards did it Tommy? Not without the bios flash. What do you think Tommy?

Maybe we should get him to flash the bios with the one i use? It might work better that way as he has a non boost 7950 as well.

Either that or hes gonna have to use HIS tool for the HIS card and afterburner for the Windforce.

 

[LtMatt]

Yes with +20% on.

Just ran Arkham City again and the usage there is around 60% on both for most of the benchmark there

Feeling brave?

Your HIS 7950 card is not really compatible with MSI afterburner unless you flash the bios to a non boost bios. That's what i and many others have done in the HIS 7950 Ice-Q thread.

You either have to flash a bios, which is pretty easy as ive written a full guide for it. Its fail proof. The bios would remove the throttling from your HIS card, as well as give you a +50% permanent power limit.

Or you can download HIS Tool. The HIS version of MSI Afterburner. You would have to use that for your HIS card and afterburner for your Windforce. With HIS Tool downloaded you would need to do Tommys power limit hack. This will allow you to increase the HIS card's power limit to +35% and will remove any throttling on it. Tommy power hack guide and my bios flashing guide are both in the HIS 7950 Ice-Q thread linked above.

 

[LtMatt]

So I just flash the HIS card? Seems straight forward enough

Yep just flash the HIS 7950 card. Make sure you flash the right card. Might be safe to remove the Windforce first.

If you follow my guide carefully you won't do it wrong. Use this bios and follow my bios flashing guide in the spoiler in Tommy's post.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5mv49f

 

[LtMatt]

Thanks Tommy that explains that one then. I had a feeling optimisation would be poor when i saw it was a TWIMTBP title.

 

[LtMatt]

It's just as poorly optimised on Nvidia too matt, devs really ***** it up big time, the most they bothered was to make it work(DX11) in the end- never mind optimise it lol.

Loved the first, got ****** off when WL scrubbed about 3-4hrs of play time off my save and I haven't picked it back up since and probably won't finish it now.

Hopefully the 3rd one will be WL free, if it's not, I won't be picking it up for pence on the Steam Sale.

Ah fair enough then. Lazy devs.

 

[LtMatt]

LtMatt I wish the green team had someone like you so helpful. I truly mean that dude. You help out every person here with AMD card issues.

Last Nvidia card was a Geforce 440MX. How things have changed since then. It'd be like starting over if i switched now.

 

[LtMatt]

So ive flashed my card and re installed afterburner and re done the settings above etc.

Just ran the benchmark again and it fluctuates from 90%+ but mostly staying at 97%+ apart from the second to last one where it can dip to 87%. The indoor section is showing both being used at 98-99% but the fps still stays dead on 60

Use 1.175v voltage for both cards, 925/1250 with power line at +20%. Show me your sleeping dogs score with those clocks.

 

[LtMatt]

Wrap [spoiler*]remove the *[*/spoiler] tags around your image mate.

Your score looks about right. Mine is just a few fps higher. I'm on Windows 8 so that could be the difference. Your minimum looks a bit low. Maybe run it again to see if it improves. Are you definitely sure ULPS is off and you restarted after disabling it?

I checked cpu usage and its at 99% constantly on both gpu's for me. This comes down to 90% when the first scene changes. Then after a few seconds both gpu's go back up to 99%. The gpu usage drops a tad during the other scene changes, but again after a few seconds its back at 99%.

What cpu and overclock are you using?

Another good thing to check would be Unigine Valley and post your stock score. I will include mine below so you can compare.

EDIT

Why does your overlay never appear on screen?

Spoiler

 

[LtMatt]

I've figured it out. You have a 120hz screen. You're suffering from mild cpu bottleneck, even in sleeping dogs. Hence not quite 99% usage constant. Overclock your cpu a bit more, if you can. However its nothing to worry about too much id imagine. Performance looks about right. Enjoy.

What cpu do you have?

 

[LtMatt]

No im close enough to your results that its not the end of the world. May try and oc the cpu a bit more. Do you think 4.6 would make a difference. Its a i5 3570k.

I cant thank you enough for all this help.

Unfortunately i5's bottleneck Multi Gpu setups in this day and age. In some games more than others. Your 120hz screen and 1080p resolution is only going to increase that bottleneck more. If you want the absolute best performance sell your i5 and get an i7 3770k. Or you can just overclock that i5 as much as you can and settle for that. In some games it will make a big difference, in others you'll never get that 99% dual gpu usage you crave because of a lack of cores/threads on your cpu. Battlefield 3 and Crysis 3 are two games that are worst case scenarios.

 

[LtMatt]

Ah right. Well im not gonna be upgrading the processor at the moment sadly. Maybe early next year ill be able to get around to it. Thanks again. At least I know its the best I can do at the moment. Ill run BF3 and Crysis 3 to see what a worst case scenario plays like.

To highlight the problem best try the following.

Crysis 3, very high system settings preset. AAx4 or so. First couple of levels.

Battlefield 3 Ultra preset, 64 player busy server. Caspian, Firestorm or Baandar Desert. Leave the base and look across the whole map so you can see all flags. Watch gpu usage plummet. Even with my i7 i see it drop to 80-90% and fps tank to 70-80.