How To Make Sure Crossfire Is Working?

aceytrixx · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:02

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

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:04

aceytrixx said:
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

tommybhoy · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:07

Forget Batman as a CrossFire BM, usage sits about 60%-it's just the game, if you want though you can go into CCC and max out tessellation and untick 'surface optimization' and basically override everything to max for BAC and save it to the BAC profile.

SD or BioShock Infinite are the best oc testers, they really do kick the **** out your cards.

Get Gpu-z and check your Asic, if you have a high and a low Asic then voltage oc'ing becomes a harder proposition but can still be done.

AB was a pita with my high/low Asic cards when I had them for adding voltage, I used AB for one card and His iTool or Trixx for the other, that way voltage was applying, you oc as normal but just use two programs instead of one, important part though is you have to manually start the second OC tool for the second card each boot as it will override the first cards voltage if left on auto.

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:15

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

tommybhoy · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:54

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.

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 20:56

tommybhoy said:
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.

RetrogamerX · 23 Sep 2013 at 21:30

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.

zMarkon · 23 Sep 2013 at 21:39

Should come in very handy when I get my 2nd 7950 next week. Thanks Matt!

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 21:59

RetrogamerX said:
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.

aceytrixx · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:05

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

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:07

aceytrixx said:
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.

aceytrixx · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:13

LtMatt · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:16

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?

aceytrixx · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:19

Spoiler tags done now.

Im also on Windows 8. My usage seems to take about half of the first scene to ramp up and through most of that run it was 97% and drops in the second to last scene as it goes through the walkway. I'll run it again and see what I get

aceytrixx · 23 Sep 2013 at 22:40

I was using the steam screenshot not afterburner. Sorted now!

Cpu is i5 3570k at 4.4ghz

Usage still jumps around a bit but here are the benchmarks

Valley one wont upload for some reason but its

FPS 70.9
SCORE:2968
MIN: 31.5
Max: 144.7

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 07:00

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?

aceytrixx · 24 Sep 2013 at 07:30

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.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 07:36

aceytrixx said:
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.

aceytrixx · 24 Sep 2013 at 08:10

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.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 08:22

aceytrixx said:
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.