The Asus HD7970-DC2-3GD5 and MSI R7970 Lightning; the solution for tearing in the 79XX family

[overstitch]

12.5 Pre worked for me for a while, then one day they started causing Mass Effect 3 to crash (hard lock) without reason or justification, even after a clean restart. I'm betting that this is a case of the drivers work when they want to work :P I swear AMD has to have something they can't understand in hardware causing all of this grief with drivers. *sigh*

I was able to play Mass Effect 3 for a few hours on the 12.4s before the hard locked my system just as a I made it to the final decision point. Luckily the game auto-saved and prevented me from destroying my computer uncontrollably :P

[g0del]

[quote]Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't say "reference", I said "referenced". Specifically, I have this HD7970-DC2-3GD5 card.

Excuse me, I didn't catch that. Well, if you have tearing, then it must be either;
1. Plugged in the monitors wrong;
2. Somehow drivers are wrong;
3. A defect card (probably the clock generator).

If it's the first case it's easy; with this card you need to hook up all three monitors on the Displayports. You can't mix the DVI outputs with the Displayports (not even with adapters) because that causes tearing.

If it's the second case; you need to make sure you have the correct drivers. AMD has released special drivers for the 7900 series, you need to download those. If the problem still occurs, clear the harddrive and do a clean install to make sure any previous drivers aren't screwing up.

If it's the third case; good luck. I have no idea how to prove that your card's hardware is actually broken, so I suggest you send it back to the shop and let it get tested there.

Moose

PS: Could you tell me what monitors you use? There are users here that have native DVI monitors mixed up with native DP monitors, connected to their cards without adapters, and experience no tearing.
I have a Dell U2410 as my center monitor (the one experiencing tearing), and two Dell U2412M monitors on the sides. All three monitors are connected by displayport, no adapters or converters. Just ordinary displayport cables right from the card to the monitors.

I don't have the driver you listed installed, when I installed the card I simply got the latest driver from AMD (cat 12.4) and installed that. When I get home I'll try those drivers, and maybe try switching the monitors around to see if its' a particular port on the card that's giving me issues.

[suiken_2mieu]

g0bel: You may also want to pull the edid data from all three monitors and check that they all are running at the same refresh rate. Sometimes you get the edid saying to run at 59.99Hz and 60Hz etc. Making an edid mask might fix your issue.

[BirdOtt]

A quick update on my trials and tribulations:

Things have settled down a bit. I put Windows on auto-update. The lockups have been reduced significantly. When I start Windows, I must be patient and wait for GPU weak to boot up and run for maybe 30 seconds before minimizing it, and also wait for the HDD Activity light to stop blinking. If I do that, the Display driver does not fail and recover. I do not know why waiting works; perhaps it is related to STEAM or Windows booting up and doing whatever they do! As indicated previously, this display driver failure NEVER occurs when the Windows start screen is on. It only happens occasionally now when I try to use programs within Windows 7.

The problem with Winamp has been solved! One person on the Winamp forum advised me that if I use 150% text size with the BIG Bento skin, it will not work. He said it is a known BUG! He was right! So I changed the text to 125% and it now works flawlessly. :)

I now have a new problem to address. :( I am running Railworks 3 Train Simulator 2012. Initially it would NOT load and I had an error message saying AGP driver was missing. It definitely was missing. :) I had installed the drivers from the disk that came with the graphics card and for some reason the CCC was mucked up. The download of the AMD driver 12.4 solved that and the Catalyst Control Center now works. Railworks 3 works too. I can now drive sim trains! De-rail them too! :) I am now trying (several days so far) to install the RailDriver software and hardware. So far no success there. I am conversing with the PI Engineering folks who designed the RailDriver hardware and software.. I hope to solve that sometime this year! :)

I have not tried the Displayport connections yet, nor 3 monitors. I might do that this coming weekend. I try to do things one at a time, or else I get them all mucked up and I get confused. I've been confused a lot lately.

I have not installed my ASUS Xonar STX PCIe sound card yet either.

I am running AMD Display Driver 8.961.0.0 at this time. I will check out the special AMD driver Moose identified. I am not sure which version that is yet.

The AMD driver that I downloaded did NOT include AVIVO and Hydravision as they are apparently considered optional by AMD and I was not given a choice if I recall correctly. Are those needed for eyefinity or any other applications with the ASUS HD 7970 DC2T?

[BirdOtt]

I disabled power saving features and operate at "performance" with NEVER as the setting for sleep options. That seems to cut down on the PC sleeping and hanging lockups. I have just set up a screensaver today in case I forget to return to the PC before going to bed! :)

[BirdOtt]

Yes, 8.961 is AMD download 12.4. I don't know why they do the identification this way! Seems confusing to me :)

[BirdOtt]

Hi Moose. I went to the site you identified for the special 7970 drivers. The site does not indicate which AMD version it is, but does indicate that it is 130.82 MB and dated 1/18/2012.

When I looked at AMD's site at: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx , they identify drivers as follows:

SIZE Revision Number Release Date
153.5 12.4 4/25/2012
161 12.3 3/28/2012
162 12.2 3/7/2012
109 11.12 12/13/2012
100.9 11.11 11/15/2011
95.7 11.10 10/31/2011
92.3 11.9 9/28/2011

I did not see an AMD version with the same size and date as the site you provided.

Can you provide any insight regarding this particular driver? Which AMD site did it come from? Is it an AMD driver or a modified version, or a partial version?

[Wijkert]

The AMD driver that I downloaded did NOT include AVIVO and Hydravision as they are apparently considered optional by AMD and I was not given a choice if I recall correctly. Are those needed for eyefinity or any other applications with the ASUS HD 7970 DC2T?

Both programs aren't essential for your setup. You can use Hydravision to be able to maximize windows to a single screen instead of all three.

I disabled power saving features and operate at "performance" with NEVER as the setting for sleep options. That seems to cut down on the PC sleeping and hanging lockups. I have just set up a screensaver today in case I forget to return to the PC before going to bed! :)

It has been my observation that some power savings settings are indeed causing crashes. Never turning the monitor helps, because the card won't go into a power saving mode when at least one monitor is active. I have not have a display not responding, since I stopped turning my monitor of a week ago. You don't need to use a screensaver though, unless you are using an old crt monitor. All current monitors won't 'burn in' when you leave them on for longer periods of time.

[BirdOtt]

I did turn the Screen Saver on, but it appears not to work anyway! I went away and came back after the time delay and the monitor was still on without screen saver on. Oh well. Not a big deal as you indicated.

Yes, the power save options seem to be more trouble than they are worth.

I find that if I minimize GPU tweak (which starts all the time on boot-up by default), and click on almost anything before the Notify and Info popup windows shut off, I will get the error message that the Display Driver has stopped working and recovered successfully. However, if I wait until they disappear and the HDD indicator stops flashing, I will not get that message. I wonder what is causing it to occur.

Are you running the same g-card driver that Moose recommended? Or something else?

[Wijkert]

Are you running the same g-card driver that Moose recommended? Or something else?

I am running 8.97-120418a (aka 12.5 unofficial beta). It seems that I had more trouble with the different 12.4 versions. That might be why they have a bad rep (also because of artifacts in several game though).

[Haldi]

[quote]Are you running the same g-card driver that Moose recommended? Or something else?

I am running 8.97-120418a (aka 12.5 unofficial beta). It seems that I had more trouble with the different 12.4 versions. That might be why they have a bad rep (also because of artifacts in several game though).

QFT!
8.970 works fine. And i heard of a lot ppl with problems from 12.4!

The Special HD7000 Drivers are either 8.925.2 or 8.925.5 which released in january and where the first real working drivee for hd7970!


(fu smartphone! Cant scroll!)
The special HA7000

[g0del]

g0bel: You may also want to pull the edid data from all three monitors and check that they all are running at the same refresh rate. Sometimes you get the edid saying to run at 59.99Hz and 60Hz etc. Making an edid mask might fix your issue.

Well, that looks like it might be the problem. Moninfo says that the side monitors are running at 60HZ while the center is running at 59.80 HZ. But I have no idea how to make an edid mask to fix that. I've looked at the edids for both monitors in Phoenix edid designer, and I can't see what I would need to change to get the 2410 to run at 60HZ. I've loaded the 2410's edid into Phoenix, and it's already set to 60HZ for refresh in there.

[BirdOtt]

I shall give 8.97 a try. Thanks Wijkert and Haldi.

[Wijkert]

I shall give 8.97 a try. Thanks Wijkert and Haldi.

I have made a new thread about Powerplay and the 7xxx series. Maybe you can check if it helps you as well?

[Count Shagula]

Just adding my 2c. My second rig at home here is all new... (Tested a few CPUs and stuck with the one that overclocked the most and sold the others off) Running 3570k @5ghz (Temps under 90c in Prime95, hardly hit 60 when gaming), 32gig GSkill 1600mhz, ASRock Fatality Z77 Professional, Corsair AX1200, Asus Xonar Essence STX and an Asus 7970 DCU2(Non TOP) and another Asus 7970 Reference. 5760x1200 via 3 x Dell u2412m's straight from DP on the vid card to DP on the monitor. 12.4s with CAP2s, i've also tried the Beta 12.5s.

I've been trying to give the rig the benefit of the doubt as all new rigs have problems. But tonight its finally pissed me off to no end (I just want to relax and play a game...). My CPU OC is 100% stable... I can run the pc fine with an Nvidia GTX 580 i have lying around. Running with the dual 7970s is a nightmare tbh... Whether i actually have a hardware issue or its just software i dont really know. My temps never ever go over 80c but im subjected to constant crashes and bluescreens. Getting my first irritation out of the way is to say that its impossible to overclock the DCU2 card as i can find no way of giving it more voltage... http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?15155-7970-DCU-Useless-for-overclockers http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363117

Both threads created by myself and have had no usefull answers other than get rid of it... I've tried flashing to the bios of the TOP card with no luck, in fact ive tried flashing any and every bios to it with no luck. Asus GPU Tweak lets me set standard voltage and nothing more, even after unlocking Afterburner i cant even touch the slider on the DCU2. So unless anyone can say otherwise its pretty much impossible to get a decent overclock out of it as you cant give it more than stock voltage (Wondering if i have one of the original ones with the problems... My backplate has no VRM cut-out).

After that the endless crashes ensue. Playing Anno 2070 results in a crash, if i try to relaunch the game i see the second GPU is still at 99% usage and i get a atikmpag.sys BSOD. Crashing at desktop all the time with display driver has stopped responding. On a hunch i got rid of the Virtu MVP drivers and all of my desktop/idling crashes have been resolved.

If its not crashing its running like crap. Playing Battlefield in 5760x1200 and im getting 60ish FPS but it feels like im struggling to get ~20... Microstuttering? ... Sigh... Im not buying a third card (Apparently solves micro stuttering), i'd rather take both back and go back to Nvidia at this point.

Running in Crossfire with Eyefinity and Vsync on results in this nasty tearing on the bottom of the right side monitor and half of the middle monitor. I've changed Crossfire bridges and drivers with no luck. Its so annoying i cant actually play a game with it going on, even if it were running smoothly. Just like this, only in games though http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saG2mr6qM_8

Pretty much my old GTX 580 SLI rig was putting out half the framerates this is (If that) but it felt several times smoother than this. I've threatened to take both cards back but have been holding off to see if i could fix things but im at wits end now, i just want to play some games and i dont care what brand hardware im using...

I dont actually expect anyone to give any advice or fixes. Just posting my experiences so that anyone who buys something similar knows what they might expect. Not a happy camper atm!

[Haldi]

Getting my first irritation out of the way is to say that its impossible to overclock the DCU2 card as i can find no way of giving it more voltage... http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?15155-7970-DCU-Useless-for-overclockers http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363117

Heard of that! seems like there are more of this Un-overvolteable Asus 7970 Direct CU out there.

And i don't know whats going on with the AMD Drivers... but when i use Crossfire on my two HD7970 and play for more than 1-2hours depending on the game i get a Computer freeze! Skyrim or Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning i .e Works perfectly fine in Single GPU. but using Crossfire crashes them after a while! On contrary Firefall or Need for Speed The Run works fine over more hours!

[Wijkert]

You probably already have, but did you turn off ULPS? Otherwise overclocking cards in crossfire will result in a bsod if you do even a +1mhz and apply.

Running both crossfire and eyefinity is a nightmare microstuttering wise. SLI is your best bet if you want to run 2 cards. Less microstuttering, but still some. Running 7970's in crossfire even on a single screen apears to cause problems for most users. While troubleshooting I would run the cpu at stock, just to rule that out. I am sure you won't notice the difference since almost all games are gpu bound especially in triple wide res.

[Haldi]

SLI is your best bet if you want to run 2 cards. Less microstuttering, but still some.

Nope! GTX690 is the only way to go against Micro Stuttering!

http://pics.computerbase.de/4/0/9/5/0/diagramme/104.svgz

i wonder what Two 690 would do...

[LordJuanlo]

Playing Battlefield in 5760x1200 and im getting 60ish FPS but it feels like im struggling to get ~20... Microstuttering? ... Sigh...

I had that same problem, the solution is to limit framerate in this game. I edited the user.cfg file at the game folder and added the following line:

gametime.maxvariablefps 58

In game I disabled vsync and presto... smooth framerate and no more stuttering or tearing. Those 58 fps feel like real 58 fps.

[X3R Kefran]

I had a 2 * reference 7970 since the release of the cards. I sold one of the two cards having to much problems with eyefinity (and even more with eyefinity + crossfire).

I decided to give a last try with AMD before moving to Nvidia and I ordered a MSI Lightning 7970 to see if using 3 displayport connections changes anything.
I received the MSI 7970 yesterday evening and started to test it with Catalyst 12.6 beta + 12.6 Cap 1, crossfire and one-card only

After several tests, I must say that it looks very promising :-)
I have had a 5970, 6970 crossfire and 7970 crossfire so I am used to pros and cons of eyefinity. At that stage, MSI Lightning 7970 + 12.6 beta is the best eyefinity experience I have had; even in crossfire.

Edit:
I did some additional tests and results are very good in mono GPU with the MSI ans 12.6 beta.
I had a lot of tearing with the "normal" 7970 in Assassin's creed revelations and batman Arkham asylum. WIth the new set-up, I just needed to turn V-sync on Boum ! No tearing and games are perfectly smooth.

Unfortunately, the situations is not so good in crossfire: Tearing is back.

So crossfire + eyefinity is improved but still not what we expect.