RadeonPro CrossFire Tweak - Major FPS Boost!

[Longbone]

Originally Posted by roadczar

Here is a tweak using RadeonPro utility: http://www.radeonpro.info/en-US/

In “The Black Death.trk” using "very high" settings my FPS went up from average: 20, max: 64 to average: 42 / max: 122. All 4 GPUs are at about 75%.

The only issue encountered was some menu and mini-map (multi player) corruption. EDIT: Disabling API monitoring in RadeonPro setting resolved corruption issues.

Your experience may differ!

Here are the settings:





You can also download these settings from my website:

Click Save As

Congratulations! +100% Nice work!

Keep it up!

[roadczar]

Different cards may require different settings.

I also had issues with flickering using some of profiles. For those with flickering problems be sure to try different crossfire profiles. Remember DX9 cards may not work with DX10 profiles...


Also, try disabling API monitoring. This helped with menu corruption.


(Added this to the first post as well)

[naz]

ok Guys, did some more testing...mixed bag of results unfortunately.

I tried some different profiles as roadczar suggested and ran the blackdeath track with the following results:
Lost Planet Extreme Condition (DX 10) - FPS avg 51 but flickering
Call of Juarez - Flickering
Unreal 3 - no improvement of FPS (41 avg)
Crisis - Flickering
Dirt 2 - no flickering and avg FPS of 52 (decent increase)

All above in True Full screen, V-sync off. Also ran msi afterburner to check both GPUs on my 5970 were being used.

I also did a run of the track in Pseudo mode, with the Dirt2 profile enabled (just to see what happened) ... avg fps was back down to the standard 41 and msi afterburner showed only one GPU being used.

So from that, the Dirt2 profile seemed to do the trick. Whilst actually flying a mission however, it was unfortunately a different story.

I have a variation of the QMB mission "Airfield Attack - Mansfield" set up for testing. Whilst playing with the true full screen and the RadeonPro settings, performance seemed to be more sluggish with stutters down low...avg fps in the low 30s. I had also turned on v-sync and triple buffer to eliminate the track IR tearing.

I went back to my usual Pseudo mode settings and disabled the RadeonPro (back to how I have my game after the latest patch/hotfix) and whilst flying the same mission, everything seemed a lot smoother again, minimal stutters and avg fps in the high 30s.

Don't know what to say really, I wish I could get the same performance increases that roadczar and Kankkis are reporting but it aint happening at my end...well, not when actually flying a mission anyway.

I suspect I am applying Radeonpro correctly as I got the different performance results (flickering/no flickering etc) when trying the different profiles so I think I have done things correctly.

Thanks anyway guys, but it looks like I will just have to wait for official updates for any further improvements on my rig.

Thankfully, I get decent performance with Pseudo mode as is (albeit with some tearing) so i am still having fun with the game.

specs: intel i7 950 @ 3.8, 6Gig 1600 DDR3 Ram, ATI 5970, win 7 64 bit, track ir 4.

Usual In game settings (Psuedo mode): 1920x1200 (Native), Epilspy off, SSAO off, V-sync off, Building amount High, Building textures medium, Textures High (down from original), no AA ..everything else on and maxed.

[335th_GRAthos]

Originally Posted by naz

...disabled the RadeonPro (back to how I have my game after the latest patch/hotfix) and whilst flying the same mission, everything seemed a lot smoother again, minimal stutters and avg fps in the high 30s.

I had a similar experience on SLI with NV, running Black Death, at the moment when the ME110s approach the airfield, in SLI mode there is a lot of stutter and both GPUs run at 50% utilisation). In non-SLI there are no stutters and the single GPU works at 90%.

[roadczar]

Originally Posted by naz

ok Guys, did some more testing...mixed bag of results unfortunately.

I tried some different profiles as roadczar suggested and ran the blackdeath track with the following results:
Lost Planet Extreme Condition (DX 10) - FPS avg 51 but flickering
Call of Juarez - Flickering
Unreal 3 - no improvement of FPS (41 avg)
Crisis - Flickering
Dirt 2 - no flickering and avg FPS of 52 (decent increase)

All above in True Full screen, V-sync off. Also ran msi afterburner to check both GPUs on my 5970 were being used.

I also did a run of the track in Pseudo mode, with the Dirt2 profile enabled (just to see what happened) ... avg fps was back down to the standard 41 and msi afterburner showed only one GPU being used.

So from that, the Dirt2 profile seemed to do the trick. Whilst actually flying a mission however, it was unfortunately a different story.

I have a variation of the QMB mission "Airfield Attack - Mansfield" set up for testing. Whilst playing with the true full screen and the RadeonPro settings, performance seemed to be more sluggish with stutters down low...avg fps in the low 30s. I had also turned on v-sync and triple buffer to eliminate the track IR tearing.

I went back to my usual Pseudo mode settings and disabled the RadeonPro (back to how I have my game after the latest patch/hotfix) and whilst flying the same mission, everything seemed a lot smoother again, minimal stutters and avg fps in the high 30s.

Don't know what to say really, I wish I could get the same performance increases that roadczar and Khankiss are reporting but it aint happening at my end...well, not when actually flying a mission anyway.

I suspect I am applying Radeonpro correctly as I got the different performance results (flickering/no flickering etc) when trying the different profiles so I think I have done things correctly.

Thanks anyway guys, but it looks like I will just have to wait for official updates for any further improvements on my rig.

Thankfully, I get decent performance with Pseudo mode as is (albeit with some tearing) so i am still having fun with the game.

specs: intel i7 950 @ 3.8, 6Gig 1600 DDR3 Ram, ATI 5970, win 7 64 bit, track ir 4.

Usual In game settings (Psuedo mode): 1920x1200 (Native), Epilspy off, SSAO off, V-sync off, Building amount High, Building textures medium, Textures High (down from original), no AA ..everything else on and maxed.

I'm sorry it did not work for you naz. The only other thing I do is turn off mirrors. With mirrors on I'm still getting stuttering regardless off settings. vsync results in texture corruption on my end. No other issues here...

[naz]

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention that, yeah, I always have mirrors off (useless atm and a fps killer from day one for me).

Anyway, Its great that you found that it works for you and some others, if nothing else it will give the Developers another avenue to look at as they strive to improve things generally for the rest of us. Thanks for sharing your findings!

Weird thing though is, it definitely makes a decent, and reproduceable improvement in the track, its just a shame it doesn't seem to carry over in gameplay so far.

Oh well.

cheers mate.

[Liz Lemon]

Originally Posted by naz

I had also turned on v-sync and triple buffer to eliminate the track IR tearing.

Not to drag this thread off topic, but triple buffering wont do anything on crossfire.

[naz]

Hi again lads...I have some more results to report.

I decided to give this another try after work today. Loaded up the dirt2 profile again, no changes whatsoever with RadeonPro settings to my previous attempts. Game set to true fullscreen. Aero off.

THE GOOD

I loaded up my normal QMB Manston mission. I start in a Spitfire on the runway and my FPS is solid around the 60 mark. I take off and fly about for a bit, engage a few bandits and my FPS is still averaging in the low 50s. Everything seems great for the first 5 or so minutes...more on what happens after those first few minutes to come later.

I tried the same thing with v-sync on and off..as one would expect, tearing with no v-sync...all fine with. Same FPS results on each run.

I have no idea, for the life of me what, if anything I did differently this time, but it seems to work now whereas it did not before.

THE BAD

As I played the FPS continually dropped gradually so that by the end of the mission, say 10 minutes or so, the average FPS was down to the low 30s again.

Initially I guessed that the high initial FPS was due to me pretty much just staring straight ahead, and no other planes in sight...as the action heated up (with the accompanying higher processor load) and as I was looking around wildly in the engagement, then the FPS was dropping..this makes some sense to me.

However the thing is, if I restart the mission, then whilst I am sitting still in the cockpit, I am getting those same lower FPS instead of the high FPS I was getting at the start of the play session...that doesn't make any sense to me unless something is broken in the game.

If I actually exited the game completely, and then set up the same mission again...the same story, initially brilliant performance with FPS starting at the 60fps mark but gradually worsening the longer I play.

I notice in the patch/hotfix thread several people noticing a definite degradation of performance the longer they play...so it suggests to me something is amiss again....perhaps a memory leak or something with memory leak symptoms?

I guess I had not really noticed it before as prior to tying this Xfire workaround, my FPS was already in the 30-40 range in game (any slowdowns being attributed to action hotting up) with an avg 41 in the black death track. The degradation is perhaps not as pronounced in that case so I had not noticed it as stark. The performance degradation also did not (with the xfire workaround) seem to get below the normal performance I was getting previously to trying this fix.

Anyway, hope the devs are reading this thread for some feedback.


EDIT: This may explain why I thought things were not working on my initial attempt a few days ago...when I wrote..."Weird thing though is, it definitely makes a decent, and reproduceable improvement in the track, its just a shame it doesn't seem to carry over in gameplay so far" in my previous post....I had run the track and got the FPS boost, and then gone straight into the QMB and ran a mission where my FPS were not then showing any increase.

?? ....

[roadczar]

Originally Posted by naz

...
Anyway, hope the devs are reading this thread for some feedback.
...

+1. With all the effort people are contributing, it would be nice to get a response from 1C acknowledging the issue(s) or explaining why it is not.

A prioritized list of bugs being worked on would be nice as well...

[322Sqn_Dusty]

Originally Posted by Ataros

Please share your results. I am thinking of adding a 2nd 4890 as a temporary solution till nextgen cards introduced later this year.

OT: How much you managed to OC your 4890s by the way?

Currently both @905 / 1000. They can do better (945/1200) but currently i've got a cooling issue.

The profiles don't seem to influence CloD (almost if they don't kick in on the launcher).