New 3870X2: Crossfire a no-show

[Evenkeel]

I just finished building my new rig:

Intel DX38BT mobo
QX9650 CPU
2GB x2 Crucial RAM
Seagate 7200.11 750 GB SATA II
Vista Ultimate 64-bit

and a Radeon HD 3870 X2, from Visiontek.

I downloaded and installed the new 8.2 Catalyst drivers from ATI, rather than using Visiontek's drivers, either their CD or download (their download file was twice the size of ATI's, so either the file was built for all versions of Windows, or there was a serious amount of crapware in it). ANyway, I installed the ATI CCC and drivers for the card.

I know I saw something on this here awhile back, but I can't for the life of me find it. According to the ATI Catalyst Help file, there is supposed to be a "Crossfire" entry in the "Graphics Settings" tab of the CCC. But I don't have a "Crossfire" entry. Nada. Complete no-show. I looked thru all the other entries but did not find anything saying "Crossfire".

The problem is, it looks like the 3870 X2 is acting like two seperate, unconnected cards. I ran GPU-Z, and it has two listings for the same card--again, acting like there are two seperate cards in the system.

Also, on the "ATI Overdrive" entry, everything is grayed out--I can't change anything.

What's going on? Where's my Crossfire? I don't have a great depth of knowledge about graphics cards, and this is the most I've ever spent on one, so I would appreciate knowing how to get Crossfire enabled.

 

[lopri]

Thought the X2 was supposed to act as if it were a single GPU card? Why don't you run.. 3DMarks and see what you're getting?

 

[Evenkeel]

Originally posted by: lopri
Thought the X2 was supposed to act as if it were a single GPU card? Why don't you run.. 3DMarks and see what you're getting?

Exactly--the X2 is supposed to act as a single, dual-GPU, Crossfire-enabled card.

As I said, I am inexperienced in the finer points of graphics cards--I have heard of 3DMarks, but don't know what it is, or where to get it?

And would it tell me anything differently than GPU-Z?

 

[Sylvanas]

Although the X2 is essentially a Crossfire card, AMD hid the 'Crossfire' tab from the CCC as the card acts as a single card solution- theres no point having a 'Crossfire' tab when both GPU's are used by default. To use Overdrive you have to click on the lock up the top left, once you do that you'll have access to frequency control. However to use Overdrive you'll need to have an 8pin connector +6pin connector plugged in- not just two 6 pins, there are ways to get Overdrive with only 2 6pins but it requires shorting out two pins on the 8pin connection and only really recommended if you know exactly what your doing .

EDIT: GPU-Z will show you two cores, however CCC won't- thats fine and normal and how things work, additionally the core/mem clocks are unified between both GPU's.

 

[BFG10K]

Yep, having no Crossfire setting for the 3870 X2 is normal. You can confirm it's Crossfired by the presence of 16xAA.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Yep, having no Crossfire setting for the 3870 X2 is normal. You can confirm it's Crossfired by the presence of 16xAA.

Yep, thats what I was gonna say. Its really the only way to tell. Even 3dmark results can be misleading.

 

[Tempered81]

try the cat 8.4's for your X2

1 week old catalyst 8.47 for vista (Feb 21. leaked)

ftp://ftp.onda.cn/download/dri...ati_8.47_rc1_vista.exe

 

[Blacklash]

Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

you are still full of ... old examples

i have CrossFire - right now ... you have 24 hour "experience" with it and old drivers
:thumbsdown:

everything in Bold i have and they work FINE in CrossFire
No disabling whatsoever and scaling is good!
this is the 2nd time you posted this FUD

 

[Tempered81]

@apoppin: I realise not all games work on sli and crossfire.

Which games do not work on sli (or not that well) and which games do not work on crossfire (or not that well)?

If you can only comment on crossfire, thats fine.

thanks

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
@apoppin: I realise not all games work on sli and crossfire.

Which games do not work on sli (or not that well) and which games do not work on crossfire (or not that well)?

If you can only comment on crossfire, thats fine.

thanks

What is your point?


this is a Crossfire thread and i have CrossFire

backlash made a statement about PARTICULAR games that i own and play that is completely false ... i called him on it for the 2nd time

he is talking about his ONE day's fooling around with a 3870x2 ... surely nothing to make him an 'expert' on it ... not any longer .. his is OLD news
:roll:

 

[Tempered81]

there was no point, it was a question, lol?

 

[apoppin]

so that's why i was SO confused

no, i don't have SLi and i can't comment on it .. i would LOVE to try it but it would be WAAY too expensive for me to gut my rig completely.
-of course you will still hear comments about Crossfire from me - as long as it is [hopefully] relevant ... i intend to update my drivers regularly

 

[Tempered81]

so which games work well with x-fire, and which ones don't really see an improvement. I know it doesn't have a 100% success rate, just like sli doesn't as well.

 

[apoppin]

all the games i play scale ... some better than others ... look at my 2 recent threads on it ... i have a lot of scores in my Vista Showdown thread also
- i am RUNNING for work ... i will check in later
:clock:

 

[Rubycon]

I noticed this too - >20k in 3DMark06 tells me it's working. (Not to mention the effect just before the levels load I discussed in another thread)

 

[nevdawg]

Sorry for the silly question, but I just picked up a HD 3870 X2 and I have always disabled Catalyst AI with my previous cards... So I did it with my 3870 X2 aswell... Does this mean that I have disabled crossfire on the card?

 

[Zstream]

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

Please, this shows how little knowledge you have with crossfire.

Setting it to advanced forces AFR rendering in Crossfire mode.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Zstream

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

Please, this shows how little knowledge you have with crossfire.

Setting it to advanced forces AFR rendering in Crossfire mode.

backlash has 24 hours total "experience" - trying to get it to work .. and it wasn't even CrossFire - as i remember, it was a 3870x2 - probably with the DVD drivers - he couldn't wait to get rid of it.
:roll:

... i have 11 brand new games - '06 or later - and i will report as i go along
But as i promised, here is my experience and benchmarking with CrossFire, to date:

Vista32- vs. Vista64-bit OS Showdown *Done!*

CrossFire Woes - *SOLVED*- 2 alligator clips and some wire

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

you are still full of ... old examples

i have CrossFire - right now ... you have 24 hour "experience" with it and old drivers
:thumbsdown:

everything in Bold i have and they work FINE in CrossFire
No disabling whatsoever and scaling is good!
this is the 2nd time you posted this FUD

I'm not taking sides here, but you do realize that...

1) You have completely different cores on your two cards than he had on his 3870X2.
2) Crossfire on with 2900s is about 1 year old tech, while the 3870X2 came out just last month.

...it's possible that your experiences don't reflect what someone with a 3870X2 would have.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Blacklash
Some games run very badly with on board Crossfire enabled or that is you get well less than single HD 3870 performance. If you run into one of those go into the CCC and untick CAT AI, or that is, disabled it. That will disable Crossfire giving you full single card performance.

Examples that jump readily to mind; SupCom, Gothic 3, NWN2, Need for Speed: Pro Street, WiC on the DX10 path with AA, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Jericho with edge smoothing active.

you are still full of ... old examples

i have CrossFire - right now ... you have 24 hour "experience" with it and old drivers
:thumbsdown:

everything in Bold i have and they work FINE in CrossFire
No disabling whatsoever and scaling is good!
this is the 2nd time you posted this FUD

I'm not taking sides here, but you do realize that...

1) You have completely different cores on your two cards than he had on his 3870X2.
2) Crossfire on with 2900s is about 1 year old tech, while the 3870X2 came out just last month.

...it's possible that your experiences don't reflect what someone with a 3870X2 would have.

You are TOTALLY right

His experience should be BETTER than mine

Yet my current and continuing experience for over a MONTH is excellent and his 24 hours was crap.

feel free to believe whatever you want to believe ... i can still provide benchmarks

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: apoppin
You are TOTALLY right

His experience should be BETTER than mine

Yet my current and continuing experience for over a MONTH is excellent and his 24 hours was crap.

feel free to believe whatever you want to believe ... i can still provide benchmarks

You're missing the point... He's talking about functionality, so driver maturity plays a role. Again, I'm not taking sides, but you're accusing someone of spreading FUD about apples based on your experiences with oranges...

The only game I have from your list that I own is Hellgate:London... I should be getting my 3870X2 from UPS today, so I might be able to check that out.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: apoppin
You are TOTALLY right

His experience should be BETTER than mine

Yet my current and continuing experience for over a MONTH is excellent and his 24 hours was crap.

feel free to believe whatever you want to believe ... i can still provide benchmarks

You're missing the point... He's talking about functionality, so driver maturity plays a role. Again, I'm not taking sides, but you're accusing someone of spreading FUD about apples based on your experiences with oranges...

The only game I have from your list that I own is Hellgate:London... I should be getting my 3870X2 from UPS today, so I might be able to check that out.

again .. you are missing my point ...

no i am not ... i am accusing him of spending only 24 hours with X2 and also spreading claims he will not back up. He has 'hit and run' twice.
Any confirmation that you can provide would be good. .. make sure you run Hellgate on the DX10 pathway in Vista64 and make sure it is fully updated.

 

[nitromullet]

Well, I got my X2, and I have found two issues so far...

1) WoW - can't force driver AA 16x, actually can't force AA settings at all. I have to use game settings (max 8xAA)
2) WoW - enabling adaptive AA (either MS or SS) causes objects to become semi-transparent

WoW w/out adaptive AA - http://img204.imageshack.us/im...hot022708195114mr9.jpg
WoW w/ adaptive AA - http://img207.imageshack.us/im...hot022708195208qj8.jpg

I need to install Hellgate before I can check it out...

 

[apoppin]

cool ... i look forward to your results and we can compare apples to apples in backlash's case
:thumbsup:

not all settings are available "in game"
-i haven't played WoW at all .. i understand that is it not graphically intense

and you will get the "deluxe" experience with Hg:L with Vista 64 ... try Single Player for best results ... you need to set the settings *twice* [restart the game in between] after you start it in DX10; some settings then become "extreme" with higher settings
... i seriously doubt that you will get over 4xAA at playable FPS