Crossfire nuisances: a serious "troll-free" feedback thread for AMD multi-GPU gamers.

Lurk

Lurk

Active member
Crossfire nuisances: a serious "troll-free" feedback thread for AMD multi-GPU gamers.

Hi all, I'm notceing a strange behaviour with my two 7950's on a couple games, i.e. Thief and Shadow of Mordor.
My second card wines like a baby, and I can hear the fan changing speed ever so often, especially when switching back and forth from game to menus.
This also seems to be associated with occasional stuttering - not the well known microstuttering - where the game hitches for a couple of seconds before returning to normal smooth behavior.
In both these games I see a similar pattern, where 2nd GPU fan speed and inconsistent performance problems seem to be directly connected.
Also, both games exhibit the same type of artifacts when trying to force a different Crossfire rendering method, namely AFR friendly and optimize1x1, flickering menus and occasional crashing being the most evident.

I should also add that lowering IQ settings has next to no effect on this behaviour, which I can only see as poor multi-GPU optimization (driver side or game developer side, I don't know. Maybe both?)

A proof of the relationship between Crossfire and the problems described is that disabling Crossfire at executable level seems to settle things down, if it weren't for the natural reduction in performance.

Anyone with similar experiences? Are some games naturally doomed to return an unsatisfactory multi-GPU experience?

Anyone with Crosssifre having similar problems with SOM, which I'm currently playing like there was no tomorrow?

EDIT: found a thread on my particular issue:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=393377

Doesn't seem like the new Omega did much for SOM, since I'm experiencing pretty much the same problems people were having with previous betas. Second GPU utilization seems definitely sub-par.
I'm still experiencing crashes with Crossfire and, strangely enough, ultra textures run almost smooth on one GPU, while they turn the game into a stutter fest with Crossfire enabled.
 
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yes, been doing that for a while now.
I just played through a couple hour session of SOM with Crossfire disabled, all settings ultra except textures; everything super-smooth, had virtually no itches whatsoever and for the first time in a while the game didn't kick me to desktop with a black screen.
Incredible that a single 7950 can handle the game easily, while two of them cards turn it into a crapfest.
This and Thief are the only games where I hear fan going crazy on the second GPU.
 
Sounds like the second card might be dying. Tried switching the cards around?
 
others game work fine in Crossfire, though. I'm playing Elite: Dangerous maxed out @ 6048x1080 Eyefinity with no issues whatsoever and consistent frame rate, nor can I hear the second GPU whining.
SOM and Thief seem to be the only two games I've played so far where the second GPU actually hinders performance, even though they both have a Crossfire profile.
The thread on guru3d in the link I posted has various reports of people having my same problems with SOM.
Will try swapping cards, I very much doubt the second one is dying though.
 
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There's supposed to be a new driver released at some point today. Maybe that will help.
 
Did you try testing the cards separately? I used to have rare game crashes (mostly when initializing the game), and somewhat frequent desktop issues, with my 7950 crossfire setup. In the end, I found out that one card had actually died. It couldn't work in standalone mode. I had tested the card when I first purchased it, and since the framerates in crossfire mode were still scaling up, I didn't suspect the card, until much later.
 
will actually have to try that. what brand were your cards?

on a side note, from the Steam forums it seems more people are having problems with SoM being crash-prone - single or multi GPU, AMD or NV - and are complaining it's the only game in which they are experiencing such behavior.
 
I played SoM from start to finish with SLI. Not a single crash, hiccup, or stutter. I'd make sure overclocks are still stable ... it's one of the few games that really made the TITANs crank up.
 
Lurk said:
will actually have to try that. what brand were your cards?
Click to expand...

MSI Twin Frozr and Sapphire DualX - both 7950 Boost. I purchased MSI card first and it has run great ever since. Tested Sapphire for a week separately, before setting up crossfire and all was well in the beginning. Sapphire's DualX was generally quieter than MSI card, so during an upgrade, I moved the card to the HTPC, only to find out that it had the infamous black screen bug by then in standalone mode. The BIOS screen and Windows logo would show but at 1920x1080, once the drivers would load, I'd get a black screen with a cursor. Sapphire shipped me a replacement.
 
ok, will have to try and swap cards.
Could it be a problem with the Steam version of the game only?
All the crashing posts I've read are from the Steam forums!
 
gigabyte actually had a bios update for my 290x's that were noted as "stability improvements"

perhaps you guys should look into this for your cards?
 
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