Quick question for those with Crossfire and Freesync

ICDP · 19 Feb 2016 at 18:47

I bought one of the recent R9 Nano cards on offer with he aim of making a mini ATX cased gaming PC. While I am getting the parts for that together I am using the Nano in Crossfire with my Sapphire R9 Fury (non X) on my Samsung U32850R Freesync monitor.

The problem is that as soon as I enable Freesync with Crossfire the games take a massive FPS hit and mouse lag becomes unbearable. For example with Crossfire enabled and Freesync off Rise of the Tomb Raider sits at 55+ FPS at 4K mostly max settings. As soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 FPS and moue lag makes the game unplayable. In single GPU mode the same setting get me 28 FPS.

Same for Dying Light. pegged at 60 FPS almost constantly but as soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 and the lag becomes unbearable.

Is this normal behaviour? I would prefer the benefits of Freesync as well as Crossfire if that's too much to ask.

TonyTurbo78 · 19 Feb 2016 at 19:10

No that is not normal, it certainly has never done that for me. Not sure why that is happening.

Asa · 19 Feb 2016 at 19:26

ICDP said:
I bought one of the recent R9 Nano cards on offer with he aim of making a mini ATX cased gaming PC. While I am getting the parts for that together I am using the Nano in Crossfire with my Sapphire R9 Fury (non X) on my Samsung U32850R Freesync monitor.

The problem is that as soon as I enable Freesync with Crossfire the games take a massive FPS hit and mouse lag becomes unbearable. For example with Crossfire enabled and Freesync off Rise of the Tomb Raider sits at 55+ FPS at 4K mostly max settings. As soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 FPS and moue lag makes the game unplayable. In single GPU mode the same setting get me 28 FPS.

Same for Dying Light. pegged at 60 FPS almost constantly but as soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 and the lag becomes unbearable.

Is this normal behaviour? I would prefer the benefits of Freesync as well as Crossfire if that's too much to ask.

Try turning off frame pacing

TonyTurbo78 · 19 Feb 2016 at 19:28

Frame pacing should always be enabled when gaming, that sorts out the stutter. I've always had frame pacing enabled and never had my fps plummeting with freesync. Always been the same fps regardless of freesync on or off.

LoadsaMoney · 19 Feb 2016 at 19:33

As above, its not normal, running FreeSync on Xfire fine here, on the 15.9.1 Betas.

TonyTurbo78 said:
Frame pacing should always be enabled when gaming, that sorts out the stutter. I've always had frame pacing enabled and never had my fps plummeting with freesync. Always been the same fps regardless of freesync on or off.

I turn Frame Pacing off in Dying Light, as with it on in that, i lose about 30+ fps, don't have any issues in anything else with it on though, its just in that for some weird reason.

Asa · 19 Feb 2016 at 19:47

I'd rather keep frame pacing on too, I'm just suggesting he tries it to see if the results are the same. Frame pacing + crossfire + freesync seems to be the recipe for terrible jumping clockspeeds at the moment on my 295x + 290 setup.

TonyTurbo78 · 19 Feb 2016 at 20:04

I still cant believe they havent sorted this combo out Asa. They must know this issues, it's being shouted on every forum and I've put so many bug reports in. I've almost given up on the clocks jumping now, I just use Asus GPU Tweak2 to force maximum clocks and forget about the issue.

What driver version are you running OP? The latest Crimson drivers were meant to fix a lot of the frame pacing and crossfire issues.

ICDP · 19 Feb 2016 at 20:22

Turning off frame pacing helped a bit in Tomb Raider but still getting around 30% less performance with Freesync+Crossfire compared to Crossfire without Freesync.

Dying light is just a complete no go with Freesync and Crossfire. 34 FPS and horrendous mouse lag there. In Fallout 4 I get massive stutter with Crossfire and it's far more playable with single GPU. It doesn't work in any of my flight sims either though it's what I expected to be honest from multi GPU.

It really takes a special bread of sadomasochist to willingly inflict Crossfire upon themselves as a long term viable solution.

AlamoX · 19 Feb 2016 at 20:34

TonyTurbo78 said:
Frame pacing should always be enabled when gaming, that sorts out the stutter. I've always had frame pacing enabled and never had my fps plummeting with freesync. Always been the same fps regardless of freesync on or off.

freesync main role is to get rid of stutter, he doesnt need frame pacing when using freesync

TonyTurbo78 · 19 Feb 2016 at 23:36

Just cause you go freesync doesn't make frame pacing irrelevant. My games are buttery smooth with both frame pacing and freesync enabled. I can definitely see and tell the difference if I disable frame pacing, it's much lumpy in motion when FP is disabled.

Frame pacing was brought in to balance the fast frames and slow frames, thus for making a much smoother frame. you might lose 1% fps by having it on, but it makes the fluidity much more pleasing.

The rule is framepacing on for gaming off for benching regardless of freesync or not.

tommybhoy · 19 Feb 2016 at 23:52

ICDP said:
It really takes a special bread of sadomasochist to willingly inflict Crossfire upon themselves as a long term viable solution.

Hi, my names tommy, Iv'e been clean for 9 months 3 weeks and five days now!

ICDP · 19 Feb 2016 at 23:56

I have been trying and failing to find a solution to why my Crossfire FPS tanks when Freesync is enabled.

I made it to the Geothermal Vents level in Rise of the Tomb Raider and in one part I get the following FPS at 4K.

1 GPU (R9 Fury 1050): 26FPS
With R9 Nano as second Crossfire GPU (No Freesync): 45 FPS
With R9 Nano as second Crossfire GPU (Freesync enabled): 36 FPS

Frame pacing off or on makes no difference. So from 73% scaling to 38% scaling is quite a drop. This is all on the latest Crimson Drivers.

Witcher 3 and Dying light drop from 50+ FPS at 4K mostly high settings to 34 FPS and generally stay at 34FPS. It's almost like enabling Freesync and Crossfire at the same time is adding some sort of vsync with the associated lag.

tommybhoy · 19 Feb 2016 at 23:57

AlamoX said:
freesync main role is to get rid of stutter, he doesnt need frame pacing when using freesync

TonyTurbo78 said:
Just cause you go freesync doesn't make frame pacing irrelevant. My games are buttery smooth with both frame pacing and freesync enabled. I can definitely see and tell the difference if I disable frame pacing, it's much lumpy in motion when FP is disabled.

Frame pacing was brought in to balance the fast frames and slow frames, thus for making a much smoother frame. you might lose 1% fps by having it on, but it makes the fluidity much more pleasing.

The rule is framepacing on for gaming off for benching regardless of freesync or not.

Exactly, FreeSync requiring Frame Pacing needing to be disabled is reducing output and defeating the purpose, bottom line there's a bug somewhere that's needing fixed.

ICDP · 19 Feb 2016 at 23:57

tommybhoy said:
Hi, my names tommy, Iv'e been clean for 9 months 3 weeks and five days now!

Lol, this kind of crap from MGPU is not new to me to be honest. I am really pushing myself to get the mini ATX case sorted so I can go back to single GPU bliss

Just find it all very odd. :confused:

tommybhoy · 20 Feb 2016 at 00:43

If you can, try and hold on for hopefully a solid Polaris delivery and just go single mate.

I felt your pain and chucked it after years of happy mgpu gaming, I couldn't take it any more after (the best AMD mgpu driver ever)Omega, absolutely made my 290X's destroy everything I threw at them.

Then killed my hopes stone dead with the ~4 month driver drought :mad:

as I was hammering into various mgpu titles with zero profiles but FC4 was main game at the time and the best I could get my 290X's running was with home made profiles that detracted from the experience(glitches)-frustration kicks in, most of the time I just used single gpu

and by the time the first working FC4(second fixed profile) profile arrived, I'd finished the main game and frustration kicks into overdrive.

The final nail was when the CDPR W3 AMD can't be optimised for GW's announcement aired-I sold up

Frustration no more now, it's just plain sailing now on single.

ICDP · 20 Feb 2016 at 17:16

tommybhoy said:
If you can, try and hold on for hopefully a solid Polaris delivery and just go single mate.

I felt your pain and chucked it after years of happy mgpu gaming, I couldn't take it any more after (the best AMD mgpu driver ever)Omega, absolutely made my 290X's destroy everything I threw at them.

Then killed my hopes stone dead with the ~4 month driver drought as I was hammering into various mgpu titles with zero profiles but FC4 was main game at the time and the best I could get my 290X's running was with home made profiles that detracted from the experience(glitches)-frustration kicks in, most of the time I just used single gpu and by the time the first working FC4(second fixed profile) profile arrived, I'd finished the main game and frustration kicks into overdrive.

The final nail was when the CDPR W3 AMD can't be optimised for GW's announcement aired-I sold up

Frustration no more now, it's just plain sailing now on single.

I am of the same opinion and am happy with Fury non X performance at 4K with Freesync. I am happy to compromise on graphical options and even resolution if performance is required.

I just thought I would try Crossfire since I have the Nano sitting waiting on the rest of the parts for my mini ATX build.

nashathedog · 20 Feb 2016 at 17:57

tommybhoy said:
Hi, my names tommy, Iv'e been clean for 9 months 3 weeks and five days now!

Hello Tommy.

LtMatt · 20 Feb 2016 at 18:04

ICDP said:
I bought one of the recent R9 Nano cards on offer with he aim of making a mini ATX cased gaming PC. While I am getting the parts for that together I am using the Nano in Crossfire with my Sapphire R9 Fury (non X) on my Samsung U32850R Freesync monitor.

The problem is that as soon as I enable Freesync with Crossfire the games take a massive FPS hit and mouse lag becomes unbearable. For example with Crossfire enabled and Freesync off Rise of the Tomb Raider sits at 55+ FPS at 4K mostly max settings. As soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 FPS and moue lag makes the game unplayable. In single GPU mode the same setting get me 28 FPS.

Same for Dying Light. pegged at 60 FPS almost constantly but as soon as I enable Freesync the FPS tanks to 34 and the lag becomes unbearable.

Is this normal behaviour? I would prefer the benefits of Freesync as well as Crossfire if that's too much to ask.

Are your core clocks fluctuating when this occurs?

ICDP · 20 Feb 2016 at 19:49

AMDMatt said:
Are your core clocks fluctuating when this occurs?

Yes they are but even with clockblocker keeping clocks static the problem occurs with massive FPS drop using Crossfire and Freesync concurrently.

I also get the same issue with Heaven 4.0 which gives around 15% performance loss when enabling Freesync + Crossfire compared to just Crossfire.

For reference I get anything from 15% to 50%+ performance loss just enabling Freesync along with Crossfire.

Another Update

I used Display Driver Uninstaller to remove the latest 16.1.1 FO4 Hotix drivers and installed 15.11.1b drivers (last CCC drivers pre Crimson). I tried these with Dying Light and they work perfectly with Freesync+Crossfire enabled. The FPS is identical in Crossfire with and without Freesync enabled. Same for Heaven 4.0.

So it seems to be a Crismon driver related issue.

P.S Dying light with Crossfire and Freesync at 4K is just awesome. Really makes me see what Crossfire can do when it works.

LtMatt · 20 Feb 2016 at 19:53

ICDP said:
Yes they are but even with clockblocker keeping clocks static the problem occurs with massive FPS drop using Crossfire and Freesync concurrently.

I also get the same issue with Heaven 4.0 which gives around 15% performance loss when enabling Freesync + Crossfire compared to just Crossfire.

For reference I get anything from 15% to 50%+ performance loss just enabling Freesync along with Crossfire.

Another Update

I used Display Driver Uninstaller to remove the latest 16.1.1 FO4 Hotix drivers and installed 15.11.1b drivers (last CCC drivers pre Crimson). I tried these with Dying Light and they work perfectly with Freesync+Crossfire enabled. The FPS is identical in Crossfire with and without Freesync enabled. Same for Heaven 4.0.

So it seems to be a Crismon driver related issue.

P.S Dying light with Crossfire and Freesync at 4K is just awesome. Really makes me see what Crossfire can do when it works.

Good man, that was going to be my next piece of advice. The clock fluctuation issue is not present in 15.11.1 Beta or earlier drivers. We hope to have a fix for this one soon, so stay tuned!