Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey guys,

I am still running 11.12 for my 3 7970's on Eyefinity. I have yet to find a driver that didn't crash. Anyone have experience with the 12.6 or 12.7 Betas with 3+ cards of 7xxx generation of EF?

I won't lie, this might be my last AMD card purchase for a long time if I can't get some drivers that work properly.

Thanks for your help:)

I hear ya Johnny. I dont' know why these problems persist? I had two 4870's and then two 5870's over the years, and a few minor hiccups with these, but no "real" problems. And now with my 2 7970's I just keep the Crossfire disabled!! Only had the second card for about 6 or 8 weeks. But have tried to solve problems. Why did I spend that second $500? Ya its been a load. The only games I play where Crossfire works without bad issues is L4D2. Games like iRacing won't accept it, and all my Call of Duty/ModernWarfare type games suck with it, at least when I use any of the wide screen fixers that always worked in the past.(1920x1080x3) I can use Crossfire OK with 12.3 driver as long as I only use one 1920x1080, but who needs a thousand dollars worth of gpu's to run a single little monitor?

What sort of crash are you getting if you update beyond 11.12?

Well, it's not just crashing. I apologize for making it sound that way. Either I get no usage out of 2/3 cards, or Eyefinity doesn't work OR it crashes. Too many games to list. I get horrible performance when 2 cards works much better.

I have 2 680s and have zero issues with the same games. I'm going to try out the 12.6 or 12.7 betas and see how they work.

Hey Bifurk8

Just wanted to say I got my Radeon 7970's working great in Crossfire after I followed your 11 step how to guide for AMD driver uninstall/install process. I've played them in various games and used them with Flawless Widescreen and also WideScreenFixer and they work great. Something? was causing the 2nd gpu to run slow.

And I proved it when I ran TechPowerUp Gpu-Z tool and it showd one gpu PCI-E 3.0x16@x16 2.0 but the other @x16 1.1 which indicated somewhere/somehow Crossfire software wasnt' working. They should both be @x16 2.0.

And after uninstalling all as you instructed in your 11 steps and reinstalled latest Catalyst etc I got things working again. And in my case I did all the software unistall and reinstall with only a single gpu. I removed the 2nd gpu totally and only put it back in case after all the uninstall/reinstall. But once that all was done I turned off machine/installed 2nd gpu/restarted and Catalyst auto dectected 2nd gpu and I just clicked OK.

Since then..smooth sailing.



Thanks for the help.

Glad to hear it! It's a damn shame that AMD doesn't have their driver update/install process ironed out any better. I know a bunch of us have run in to these issues over several generations of AMD cards and I've never heard AMD comment on it. At least it's no problem once you know which hoops to jump through.

So far 12.6, 12.7, 12.8 give negative scaling in 3-Way Crossfire,

These are my 3DMark Scores, I did a fresh install before each test, installed the drivers i was testing + 3DMark 11

Look at the Graphics Score on each of them.

Windows 8 with 12.8 Drivers - Took ages to install these drivers, kept crashing after installing Catalyst install manager
3-Way Crossfire
2-Way Crossfire

Windows 7 with 12.8 Drivers
3-Way Crossfire
2-Way Crossfire

Windows 7 with 12.7 Beta Drivers
3-Way Crossfire
2-Way Crossfire

Windows 7 with 12.6 Drivers
3-Way Crossfire
2-Way Crossfire

Windows 7 with 12.4 Drivers
3-Way Crossfire
2-Way Crossfire

I haven't checked any before 12.3, but I'm very disappointed with AMD, I've only ever used AMD/ATI Graphics cards in my main gaming rig, next time I'll probably go with Nvidia.

And we won't be able to update to Windows 8 and play games until AMD decides to sort out their shit.

Intel i7 2600k (Stock for 12.4) (4.8Ghz for 12.6, 12.7, 12.8 )
G.Skill 8Gb 1600Mhz
Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7

I too am sad. I got my crashes sorted out with 12.8 and added another card but I agree, this will most likely be my last AMD build.

I have 3 x 680's (I use this mainly for distributed computing) but now find myself gaming on it). No problems with drivers, scaling is what it should be etc. I will be putting my 7970's up for sale soon.

Finally something happened! You're still on your Tri-Fire setup?

Resolved issue highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.9 Beta driver

Tri and Quad CrossFire+ Eyefinity configurations – Certain DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications lower than expected performance

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst129betadriver.aspx

and 12.9 CAP1 http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=368980

I gave up on the trifire 7970's and eyefinity. I am just tired of the system not working. I have spent hundreds of hours troubleshooting the system and have come up empty handed for a solution. Every game I play the screen will freeze and the system becomes non responsive where I have to cycle the power. I have tried every driver from RC11 through 12.9B. All of them crash at some point or another.

I have order 3 680's and never will buy another AMD product again. It disgust me spending $1500 on a product and have it not work. I have called and emailed AMD tech support back and forth for months and all they do is try and pass the blame to the motherboard manufacture. If you read any of the forums there is a issue with no word from anyone if it is even being looked into. I have put up with this for to long and am just done with this whole mess that is AMD eyefinity and crossfire.

Heard there is a bug with some MB (asus?) and amd cards in crossfire set ups.
However, new tech arc dosnt make it easier.

I am happy with my single card at 5040x1050 as it runs just fine.

Hi guys, this is a known issue and a fix is on its way. The computer may freeze when using two or more 79xx cards in Eyefinity. In some games it's very easy to reproduce, in others it may never happen. In my experience, this issue only happens with certain intel chipsets (X58 and X79). I have a Z77 computer that runs crash-free with the same cards that crash my X79.

The fix should be ready "soon" ;-)

oha....

so a Software fix will to this?
Or we need a BIOS update? When its somehow related to Mainboard.

Hi guys, this is a known issue and a fix is on its way. The computer may freeze when using two or more 79xx cards in Eyefinity. In some games it's very easy to reproduce, in others it may never happen. In my experience, this issue only happens with certain intel chipsets (X58 and X79). I have a Z77 computer that runs crash-free with the same cards that crash my X79.

The fix should be ready "soon" ;-)

I get this crash alot in The Witcher 2 and occassionally with Dota 2.

Hi guys, this is a known issue and a fix is on its way. The computer may freeze when using two or more 79xx cards in Eyefinity. In some games it's very easy to reproduce, in others it may never happen. In my experience, this issue only happens with certain intel chipsets (X58 and X79). I have a Z77 computer that runs crash-free with the same cards that crash my X79.

The fix should be ready "soon" ;-)

[


Good to hear about a fix coming. I've got the X58 chipset in a ASUS board from a couple years ago..and its been "freeze free" for some time now..With me it was just a problem cleaning out the old driver stuff and getting the second GPU recognized properly. But I still get some small hiccups using two 7970's in iRacing games. But that could be iRacing..They work..I'm just not sure all isn't better with just one card though?

Could be iRacing or some game configuration on my part..they have a lot of graphic choices in iRacing and I'm pretty new there.

Planning to get a new CPU and MOBO in the near future..Will be interesting to see if there's a change regarding graphics.

First, I am sorry I can't find any referances directly..

But some of the intel chip sets do have an inherant problem mostly is has to do with where the PCIe bus is connected. As 1 channel is hooked to Northbridge/directly to CPU and other channels hooked to South bridge. (or did I get North/South mixed?)

Anyway, the up-shot, you will not get 3 x16 slots going the same way. Some have 2 muliplexed on the channel direct, the 3rd will still be hung out on the other. Then there are those that do not multiplex the direct channel and would leave 2nd and 3rd hung out on the other bridge.

AMD boards have them all "going the same way", even the higher end boards with 4 x16 slots.

There is a post here somewhere with one guy getting "micro stutters" driving him nuts. So dragged his triples(nVidias) over to a buddies runing ATI triples and ran them there. They ran perfectly smooth with buddies Phenom II 6x. The board had 4 x16 slots, not the newer PCIe spec' mind you. But they rocked.
He went home and dumped the Intel setup.

Try a search here for micro stutter..

I come from a racing back ground, and it did not matter how much power you had as much as having all cylinders firing evenly.

So have closer look at where yer PCIe bus is going. For dual setups the multiplex setup should be fine, other wise you would need to put them in the other/Southern slots. Same with the doubled up cards, obviously giving you quads.
Tripples are a problem on intel. Not sure what is curently availible.

There may be tweaks, like runng all on the older x16 spec' rather than mixed.

The problem has been fixed with the Catalyst 12.11 beta 11 driver.

LordJuanlo wrote:The problem has been fixed with the Catalyst 12.11 beta 11 driver.

Thats what she said!

Did you try it out yourself?

I've downloaded 12.11b11 and CAP2, but i don't plan on a correct installt, i^ll just overinstall (did the same with the last few Beta drivers. never had problems!)
So i wonder if my game still crashes in Eyefinity Crossfire. But sadly i don't have the time to test it out tonight... first date would be this Saturday.... gaming night inc!

Yes, I have been testing this driver over the weekend and the problem hasn't happened again. I have also collected reports from other forums and everybody reports that same good news.

So glad to hear it! I've been having intermittent (from once per day to several times per day) non-recoverable hard freezes when gaming since I got my 2 Radeon 7950s a few weeks ago. When they occur, whatever is being rendered gets frozen on the screen and the audio begins a short stuttering loop of whatever was playing at the time. They've occurred in Crysis 1, Battlefield 3, and Borderlands 2 pretty consistently. I'm also pretty sure I've gotten them in Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution. I'm running a core i7 920 Bloomfield with an Asus P6T, which is indeed an X58 chipset.

I never had any issues with 2 4870s or 2 5870s in Crossfire on the same rig and I've been trying every damn thing I could to fix the issue with the 7950s in Crossfire: updating the motherboard bios, trying different driver revisions and CAPs, swapping PCIE slots, trying different crossfire bridges, and using different power cables from my modular PSU. None of that fixed my issues, though.

I updated to the 12.11 beta 11 AMD drivers and the corresponding CAPs last night and got in a few hours of Far Cry 3 without any hard freezes. But, I hadn't tested Far Cry 3 on the previous drivers so I don't know if it would have exhibited issues or not. I'll definitely do some more testing under Crysis, Battlefield, and Borderlands tonight to see if they've still got issues or not.

Now just stay on top of AMD so they don't patch it back out in the next release Thanks again!

Edit: Just wanted to add that I did 50 loops of the Crysis GPU benchmark with the new drivers and didn't hard freeze like I had been under 12.6 through 12.11 beta 8. So, that's encouraging! Given that the hard freezes had been intermittent, I'll continue testing and report back again later.

Edit 2: Day three with the new beta drivers and still no more hard freezes. I've run through another 50 loops of the Crysis GPU benchmark and played a couple more hours of Far Cry 3.