Crysis 2 in Eyefinty questions

[researchcapt]

I am wondering if these frame rates for Crysis 2 are normal with a 5970 card driving three monitors at 5760 x 1200.

Graphics settings (as Crytec describes them and measured with Fraps...)
High, 20 FPS
Very High, 16 FPS
Extreme, 12 FPS

With the games resolution set to 1920 x 1200 I am getting 49, 39 and 33 respectively.

This for me makes Crysis 2 unplayable on three monitors in Eyefinity.

What might I try to speed up my frame rates or is there something wrong?

Thanks

System Specs:
Asus Maximus III Formula | Intel i7-860 @ 3.4 GHz | Win 7 Pro 64 |8 gigs Corsair 1600 | Diamond 5970| Corsair AX1200 | Zalman CNPS10X Extreme | Western Digital Black 1TB 64 meg cache | Lian-Li PC-A71B | Logitec Z-5500 | Three Asus 26" VW266H monitors running under Eyefinity |

Edit: Nice review on the 6990. In looking at the benchmarks, I noticed that widescreen runs faster than Eyefinity. What is the difference and how do I run a game in widescreen? Is this my problem?

[sirtim3]

I had a similiar issue with crossfire, use fear exe and radeon pro. Works wonders for me now playing in extreme setting 70+ frames

[Rpmucha23]

with your resolution, it really looks like you are running out of VRAM. Even though the 5970 has 2GB, it is split between the 2 GPUS onboard so they both have 1GB, that is mirrored. you have to do what ever you can to reduce VRAM usage. turn off AA should help

[Abram]

Starting at 6048x1200, I got 14fps. Going down one step in resolution, disabling SSAO, motion blur, and lowering the water and shadow details one step, I end up with 28-35fps. That's the lowest I see. Still kinda lame, but playable enough. Oh, using teh graphics tweak tool that's around. The Steam forums ahve links to it.

But i gotta say, the console-itis infection of the game is really shitty. Sooo many aspects of gameplay and other little thing clearly show that I as developed console-first.

[researchcapt]

Sirtim,
I Googled fear exe and did not find anything that seems relevant. Could you tell me where to find this? Also where are the settings in the Radeon software?

Abram,
Agreed...I sure hope the future of games is not to write them for consoles and then to poorly convert them over to PC games. I noticed that as well with Crysis 2.

In the game all I could find the very basic video settings, High, Very High and Extreme. Where are all the usual settings for changing anti-aliasing, water effects etc? I know I sound stupid, but they do not seem to be under Graphics.

My other question is that in the benchmarks with the 6990, I saw two different categories. One was a benchmark under Eyefinity and the other was a benchmark under Widescreen, which had faster frame rates. How do I run under Widescreen?

I'm pretty much a newbie with this stuff so very basic explanations are most appreciated.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Basically, what you need to do (if I'm reading this right) is use the Radeon Pro software to tell the driver to use the included profile for FEAR.exe, rather than crysis2.exe...

The forcing of a "wrong" profile to get the driver to stop-being-stupid-and-flamin'-work is a workaround for poor multi-GPU performance that has been in the multi-GPU gamers toolkit since SLI first appeared with the GeForce 6 series PCI-E cards.

[Amon Amarth]

Basically, what you need to do (if I'm reading this right) is use the Radeon Pro software to tell the driver to use the included profile for FEAR.exe, rather than crysis2.exe...

The forcing of a "wrong" profile to get the driver to stop-being-stupid-and-flamin'-work is a workaround for poor multi-GPU performance that has been in the multi-GPU gamers toolkit since SLI first appeared with the GeForce 6 series PCI-E cards.

I'm having similar issues from the OP.

By Radeon Pro software, did you mean CCC? If so, where would I go to manage profiles? I'm on the 11.4 drivers.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Radeon Pro:

http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/

It's basically a third-party program to allow you better control over your GPU than AMD allows natively. Whether it's because they like it tightly locked down, or whether it's because they're too busy doing other stuff to put a feature like this in, I don't know.

[Amon Amarth]

Radeon Pro:

http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/

It's basically a third-party program to allow you better control over your GPU than AMD allows natively. Whether it's because they like it tightly locked down, or whether it's because they're too busy doing other stuff to put a feature like this in, I don't know.

Thanks for that. I'm glad I learned about this. I was able to get Crysis 2 fully playable with Extreme settings at 5040x1050. Strangely enough, 5760x1200 gives me pretty low frame rate. But none the less, the game is quite playable.

Crysis 2 is now the only game on my system that has decent FPS. Weird, its like AMD is poking me with a stick. :nudgenudge

[RED-FROG]

LISTEN

Download the Crysis 2 Tool (Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options)

RUN IT xD

The important options for you:


MSAA 0 Disabled
I think YOU MUST disable this. MSAA puts a LOT of performance impact. (not tested but tweaking can be done later on)

Edge AA 0 Disabled. I have also set this to disabled just to make sure it's really smooth. (I later on do screenshot comparison for myself)

That basically is all. I have also set the FOV to 80 but it's too fish-eyeish, just to warn you. 55 should be default.
I have also set MotionBlur to CameraAndObject since on "High" basically everything is on "Low".

With these two AA things diabled, I think everything can be set on high and it's still smooth.
Actually the game is running at 90fps in the outdoors (somewhere at the church where it's really hardware hungry)

I'M SO HAPPY AT THE MOMENT... I bought this 2nd HD6970 just to run this game great...and even with two 6970 it was barely playable @ 5292x1050 @ High just because of the hidden MSAA


Just as a reference.
Even if I set everything to high now, it should run like hell. I'll do this just now. (and lower FoV)

----
oh and the second trick is as mentioned above, rename Crysis2.exe to Bioshock.exe or use the RadeonPro tool and set CrossfireX Tweaks under "Tweaks" to Bioshock.

Use both methods for maximum performance

[sirtim3]

LISTEN

Download the Crysis 2 Tool (Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options)

RUN IT xD

The important options for you:


MSAA 0 Disabled
I think YOU MUST disable this. MSAA puts a LOT of performance impact. (not tested but tweaking can be done later on)

Edge AA 0 Disabled. I have also set this to disabled just to make sure it's really smooth. (I later on do screenshot comparison for myself)

That basically is all. I have also set the FOV to 80 but it's too fish-eyeish, just to warn you. 55 should be default.
I have also set MotionBlur to CameraAndObject since on "High" basically everything is on "Low".

With these two AA things diabled, I think everything can be set on high and it's still smooth.
Actually the game is running at 90fps in the outdoors (somewhere at the church where it's really hardware hungry)

I'M SO HAPPY AT THE MOMENT... I bought this 2nd HD6970 just to run this game great...and even with two 6970 it was barely playable @ 5292x1050 @ High just because of the hidden MSAA


Just as a reference.
Even if I set everything to high now, it should run like hell. I'll do this just now. (and lower FoV)

----
oh and the second trick is as mentioned above, rename Crysis2.exe to Bioshock.exe or use the RadeonPro tool and set CrossfireX Tweaks under "Tweaks" to Bioshock.

Use both methods for maximum performance

Yes, use both. RadeonPro with this tool, but bioshock exe did not do anything for me but the fear exe. did wonders

[RED-FROG]

In my case Fear.exe added a lot of random unfrequent stuttering and worse controls.
Bioshock.exe had the same performance without the stuttering. But it may depend on the used hardware.

Maybe now without the AA the Fear.exe might be the better choice, I have no tested it yet, but it's great already. So awesome that I can play the game smoother now. It was horrible to have the power of two 6970 but the framerates were kinda average at the lowest setting. 30-40fps. Now with almost everything high I'm getting twice as much frames.