Eyefinity + Crossfire = Stuttering

[Wijkert]

Hi Guys,

I am using 2 x 6950's to play games on triple 1080p monitors. The thing is that when both crossfire and eyefinity is enabled, fraps shows high fps, but every game (e.g. Deus Ex 3, Dirt 3, League of Legends, Mafia 2 etc) I tried out so far (micro) stutters. My current solution is to only enable crossfire when I play on one monitor and to disable it when I play on three. The obviously sucks since I need more gpu power when playing at higher resolutions. So if I play on one gpu I get 40 fps for example, but that feels a lot smoother then let’s say 70 fps using two gpu's and eyefinity at the same time. I realize that I am quite sensitive to imperfections such as stuttering, but I can't be the only one on this forum that find this issue annoying, right?
Using Google I have found that this is a known problem, but I don't think AMD fill fix this any time soon (not anough people use both eyefinity and CF to give it a high priority). The green camp also have stuttering when using both SLI and 3D Surround, but they say it is less pronounced. When the 7xxx will be releases early 2012, I am considering replacing both the 6950's for one high end 7xxx gpu, because currently only Battlefield 3 makes good us of two 6950's on one monitor.

Any thoughts or maybe even solutions are very welcome.

[c69]

I eliminated MS in my cf eyefinity setup. Try installing CCC 11.10. Make sure that native display adapters on your board are disabled. This is what fixed my system. Keep trying things until it works.

[Wijkert]

I eliminated MS in my cf eyefinity setup. Try installing CCC 11.10. Make sure that native display adapters on your board are disabled. This is what fixed my system. Keep trying things until it works.

I am not sure how to disable native display adapters. Can you tell me how to do that?

[Bushmaster]

[quote]I eliminated MS in my cf eyefinity setup. Try installing CCC 11.10. Make sure that native display adapters on your board are disabled. This is what fixed my system. Keep trying things until it works.

I am not sure how to disable native display adapters. Can you tell me how to do that?



I think what he means is go to device manager and disable any onboard video that your motherboard/system may have. This really should only apply if you are running sandy bridge. Also I tried this and it did not fix my micro stuttering. The problem is that Eyefinity and Crossfire do not work together and AMD drivers are horrible.

[Wijkert]

I think what he means is go to device manager and disable any onboard video that your motherboard/system may have. This really should only apply if you are running sandy bridge. Also I tried this and it did not fix my micro stuttering. The problem is that Eyefinity and Crossfire do not work together and AMD drivers are horrible.

No onboard video is turned on, so this doesn't apply. I think you are right in that there is no fix. I am planning on selling both my 6950's in jan-feb and buy just one 7950 or 7970. Using the second one only for bf2 on single monitor, so its not worth it to go crossfire anyway. Will still be playing in eyefinity, but just with one high end card until the drivers are fixed (if ever).

[Bushmaster]

[quote]I think what he means is go to device manager and disable any onboard video that your motherboard/system may have. This really should only apply if you are running sandy bridge. Also I tried this and it did not fix my micro stuttering. The problem is that Eyefinity and Crossfire do not work together and AMD drivers are horrible.

No onboard video is turned on, so this doesn't apply. I think you are right in that there is no fix. I am planning on selling both my 6950's in jan-feb and buy just one 7950 or 7970. Using the second one only for bf2 on single monitor, so its not worth it to go crossfire anyway. Will still be playing in eyefinity, but just with one high end card until the drivers are fixed (if ever).




NO WAIT!!!!

I have changed my mind and I have figured out the problem. I am going to make a separate post with my actually testing, testbed and results. The problem is in fact that the AMD video cards do not like to be crossfired on an INtel sandy bridge setup. (to be specific my sandy bridge had 2600k a nf200 CHIP, so maybe thats the problem)

I ran my 6970s in crossfire on my friends phenom x6 1100t last night, along with his Asus crosshair V Premium (stock clocks too). V sync works at 5040x 1050 (Resolution was limited due to monitors available) will run tests with 5760x 1080 this weekend), and it ran the game so smooth I was just in pure AWE!!!. BTW my intel system stuttered even at 4900 x900, or any other wide screen resolution available including 2xxx X whatever.

I really was so stunned by this finding , and I will post a link to my actually testing later tonight.

These cards work incredible on an AMD system. No bottleneck at the cpu or anything!! Hey after all the AMD boards are running true dual 16 x lanes. Maybe all the synthetic benchmarks weve been reading about sandy bridge, are just that . Synthetic benchmarks.

I am actually very thrilled by this discovery. SO much that I am getting rid of my sandy bridge and downgrading (umm I guess) to a Phenom x 6, Thats gonna be way cheaper than going NVidia. (oh and part of my findings were that sli worked perfect in my INtel rig, better so than the SLI in his AMD RIG !)
The crossfire with the 6970s in his AMD reigned superior to the gtx 460 SLi in my system. This however should be expected.


Here is my post http://widescreengamingforum.com/forum/forums/multi-monitor-gaming/amd-eyefinity-discussions/18546/eyefinity-crossfire-stuttering-res

[Bushmaster]

Wijkert,

Would you mind posting your complete system specs? Lets start helping others be aware of what works and what doesn't.

[Wijkert]

Wijkert,

Would you mind posting your complete system specs? Lets start helping others be aware of what works and what doesn't.

Sure:
2500K @ 4.5 (1.365v)
2x 6950 Dirt 3 edition
XFX Pro 650W
Z68X-UD3H-B3
Ripjaws 1600mhz
C300 64GB, 1TB F3
CM 690 II Adv.
Win7 Ultimate

[Bushmaster]

[quote]Wijkert,

Would you mind posting your complete system specs? Lets start helping others be aware of what works and what doesn't.

Sure:
2500K @ 4.5 (1.365v)
2x 6950 Dirt 3 edition
XFX Pro 650W
Z68X-UD3H-B3
Ripjaws 1600mhz
C300 64GB, 1TB F3
CM 690 II Adv.
Win7 Ultimate



Thank you! this is important. We now just discovered that it is NOT the nf200 chipset that causes the stuttering. You have stuttering on your motherboard which only has the native Intel PCI-e lanes. I have the Nvidia NF200, and I was thinking that maybe that could be the problem . Now I believe that the NF200 chip set has been eliminated as a the culprit.

The only thing that our systems have in common is the following:

we are both using similar video cards. Im using 6970s your using 6950's
- We are both running windows 7 64 bit OS
- we are both running a sandy bridge cpu
- we are both running the z68 chipset
- ok one more.. we are both running 1600 mhz ram ( I tried running mine at 1333mhz too)

[Wijkert]

To me it seems most likely that the z68 chipset is the best candidate. The is still a possibility that amd's driver play's either a large or small roll depending on your findings this weekend. Let me know how it goes.

[Bushmaster]

To me it seems most likely that the z68 chipset is the best candidate. The is still a possibility that amd's driver play's either a large or small roll depending on your findings this weekend. Let me know how it goes.

I will let you know. I have already found the findings I was looking for with my original test. I kid you not that the system was very very smooth with my cards. I will however post some sort of video to proove it.

[Wijkert]

One of the better articles that addresses micro stuttering is this article from Tom's Hardware. As far as I know eyefinity wasn’t tested. However they used a sandy-bridge platform and found that amd's cards where effected more by micro stuttering then nvdia's cards. This might be an indication that amd's gpu's are less 'compatible' with a Intel or at least a sandy bridge platform. Maybe using eyefinity magnifies this effect somehow. If the above is true then using an amd platform with amd gpu's should decrease micro stuttering, but not eliminate it entirely, because crossfire alone causes it, even when you play on one screen, although I personaly don't notice it.

[Bushmaster]

One of the better articles that addresses micro stuttering is this article from Tom's Hardware. As far as I know eyefinity wasn’t tested. However they used a sandy-bridge platform and found that amd's cards where effected more by micro stuttering then nvdia's cards. This might be an indication that amd's gpu's are less 'compatible' with a Intel or at least a sandy bridge platform. Maybe using eyefinity magnifies this effect somehow. If the above is true then using an amd platform with amd gpu's should decrease micro stuttering, but not eliminate it entirely, because crossfire alone causes it, even when you play on one screen, although I personaly don't notice it.

yeah I guess.

As far as I know all sli/ crossfire systems cause a degree of micro stuttering. The kind of micro stuttering you get with AMD cards on sandy bridge systems however is nothing near average nor acceptable. its just broken .. Period.

[rombat]

[quote]One of the better articles that addresses micro stuttering is this article from Tom's Hardware. As far as I know eyefinity wasn’t tested. However they used a sandy-bridge platform and found that amd's cards where effected more by micro stuttering then nvdia's cards. This might be an indication that amd's gpu's are less 'compatible' with a Intel or at least a sandy bridge platform. Maybe using eyefinity magnifies this effect somehow. If the above is true then using an amd platform with amd gpu's should decrease micro stuttering, but not eliminate it entirely, because crossfire alone causes it, even when you play on one screen, although I personaly don't notice it.

yeah I guess.

As far as I know all sli/ crossfire systems cause a degree of micro stuttering. The kind of micro stuttering you get with AMD cards on sandy bridge systems however is nothing near average nor acceptable. its just broken .. Period.

I agree with Bushmaster, I think it is the drivers that needs to be fixed. One ati cards works but as soon as you do crossfire, BANG, the stuttering begins using sandy-bridge chipset. Bushmaster have you created a ticket to amd techsupport and tell them what was happening with your 6970 crossfire issues? My gtx580 sli runs great on my Asrock z68 extreme 7 board so I guess in the future I will be buying Nvidia cards now since I can not do ati crossfire on this board.

[Haldi]

Please try out this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl7-3J1hA0

In fraps you can set "Frametimes" under "Benchmark" i realy wan't to see a Graph of micro stuttering !

If you don't want to..... can't.... just send me the frametimes.csv !

[Wijkert]

I probably will have time to record microstuttering with Fraps in the weekend.

[Bushmaster]

Please try out this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl7-3J1hA0

In fraps you can set "Frametimes" under "Benchmark" i realy wan't to see a Graph of micro stuttering !

If you don't want to..... can't.... just send me the frametimes.csv !

Ok I see that... Ill try it. I know that last time I tried running a benchmark with fraps that it only ran it for about ten seconds. I do not have the stop benchmark box checked, so I don't know why it does that.