eyefinity + BF3

[Wijkert]

Oh, please don't. I'd run everything on ultra low if I could just leave the resolution as it's supposed to be. But that's just me :)

I am not saying anybody should run this game on a lower resolution, but why not try it out if you want to get more fps? It is a competitive online shooter after all. It doesn't matter that you don't prefer to do that, since everybody prefers different settings. The goal of this thread is to see how BF3 is performing in eyefinity and I am just suggesting ways to let it perform better, but look a little less good.

[LordJuanlo]

I'm running an i7 3930k with an Asus Rampage IV Formula and 16 GB of RAM. I have Dual 7970s at 5760x1080 with everything set to ultra and FXAA set to medium (no FSAA). I'm getting around 55-60 FPS with occasional dips to low 40s under really heavy action. Inside buildings frames go up to 70-80 fps, but the game feels great and really smooth everywhere, I wish more games would work this well in Crossfire. Both GPUs are at 99% usage all the time. Enabling MSAA makes me lose between 10 and 15 FPS, so for me it's not an option. Maybe with 3 cards...

[Moose]

I have Dual 7970s at 5760x1080

You're not having any microstuttering problems? I've heard quite a few complaints about microstuttering even being unavoidable when CrossfireX'ing 7970's.

[LordJuanlo]

If there is any, I can't feel it at all. I clearly see microstuttering in other games like Lord of the Rings Online and Assassin's Creed Revelations (higher frame rate than single card, but lower fps feeling), but BF3 seems smooth for me.

Anyone with a quad core or higher should always user the Core Parking Tweak, this really helps to reduce microstuttering in multigpu configurations.

[Wijkert]

Anyone with a quad core or higher should always user the Core Parking Tweak, this really helps to reduce microstuttering in multigpu configurations.

Are you sure that the fix is meant for multiple gpu builds instead of builds with multiple cpu's?

[LordJuanlo]

This fix is not really meant for GPUs, it fixes some CPU spikes caused by CPU cores going into "parked" state. Those CPU spikes can make games stutter, and this stuttering is even more noticeable on multiGPU systems. This tweak is meant to fix another problem: there are games that run better with hyperthreading disabled on BIOS, and that's because of the core parking. When Windows sees so many CPU cores, it "parks" and "wakes" them more often, and this leads to larger CPU spikes. MultiGPU system are more sensitive to those CPU spikes.

Since I applied this tweak, I didn't need to disable hyperthreading anymore, and it's one of the first tweaks I apply every time I reinstall Windows.

[Wijkert]

This fix is not really meant for GPUs, it fixes some CPU spikes caused by CPU cores going into "parked" state. Those CPU spikes can make games stutter, and this stuttering is even more noticeable on multiGPU systems. This tweak is meant to fix another problem: there are games that run better with hyperthreading disabled on BIOS, and that's because of the core parking. When Windows sees so many CPU cores, it "parks" and "wakes" them more often, and this leads to larger CPU spikes. MultiGPU system are more sensitive to those CPU spikes.

Since I applied this tweak, I didn't need to disable hyperthreading anymore, and it's one of the first tweaks I apply every time I reinstall Windows.

I have done some reading on this core parking topic. It seems that you can also turn off core parking by changing the power plan to 'high performance'. After that click on 'Change advanced power settings -> Processor power management -> Minimum processor state'. There you can see that the minimum power state is 100%, which means that no cores should be parked: source.

[LordJuanlo]

Very interesting link, I didn't know it was a feature of intel processors. I guess if you change it via power settings, in the end in writes to the same registry keys I posted, but it should be safer to do it without messing with the registry