Performance query

Nitth

Hello,

Ive been experiencing some strange fps with my hardware for a few months now which i believe was working pretty well only a few months ago..(might just be different games i'm playing now)

I've noticed in some games i get even or worse performance running crossfire over a single card which is frustrating. Ive checked all the connections, drivers, power, and cooling.

Specs:
OS:Win 8.1
Resolution:5760x1080
GFX: 280x Crossfire
Cput I7 920 @ 3.8ghz
PSU:1200w

Trying games with eyefinity on/off doesn't really effect the scaling.

Anyone know if this is common among ati crossfire users?

I should probably add i get 30 fps in eyefinity for most games(ultra), Does that sound about right for this type of configuration?

Quizzical

Crossfire, like SLI, is very heavily dependent upon driver magic to scale properly.  While it's possible for game developers to sabotage Crossfire and SLI (e.g., by having an engine pause when rendering to try to time when a new frame starts), it's not possible for game developers to implement it.  That relies on video drivers, and often relies on driver optimizations on a per-game basis.

AMD and Nvidia don't have time to optimize drivers for every single GPU they've ever made for every single game.  Instead, they focus on a handful of high-profile games, especially games that are used in video card reviews.  And they also focus only on recent cards; once a card is off the market, they don't need to keep optimizing drivers for it to get you to buy it.

This is why people recommend against buying two mid-range or upper mid-range cards for Crossfire or SLI.  You're better off with a single high end card, even if it's only 50% faster, as you'll get that 50% in every single game rather than having to rely on per-game driver optimizations.

Nitth

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Originally posted by Quizzical
Crossfire, like SLI, is very heavily dependent upon driver magic to scale properly.  While it's possible for game developers to sabotage Crossfire and SLI (e.g., by having an engine pause when rendering to try to time when a new frame starts), it's not possible for game developers to implement it.  That relies on video drivers, and often relies on driver optimizations on a per-game basis.AMD and Nvidia don't have time to optimize drivers for every single GPU they've ever made for every single game.  Instead, they focus on a handful of high-profile games, especially games that are used in video card reviews.  And they also focus only on recent cards; once a card is off the market, they don't need to keep optimizing drivers for it to get you to buy it.This is why people recommend against buying two mid-range or upper mid-range cards for Crossfire or SLI.  You're better off with a single high end card, even if it's only 50% faster, as you'll get that 50% in every single game rather than having to rely on per-game driver optimizations.

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I realize that, But im saying these games were scaling well before previously.

Quizzical

So you're saying that a particular game used to scale well with Crossfire at that resolution, you didn't change anything, and now it doesn't?  Did you update video drivers?