Please help with new Crossfire setup! - update with resolution

[The Sauce]

Seems it is the motherboard which chokes down to 4x PCI-E with 2 cards in that is responsible for the poor performance. Original post to follow:

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Just got my second 5850 for some Crossfire action. Mobo and PSU are Xfire ready. Tested each card independently and they work fine.

Card is installed. Bridge cable installed. Card clocks set to default on both cards.

Go into CCC and it recognizes both cards in Overdrive. Go into the Crossfire Configuration menu and "Enable Crossfire" is ticked. When I press "Identify GPU" all I see is a big, red "1" on the screen for a few seconds....then nothing.

Into Crossfire Diagnostics. "Identify GPU" again only gives a big #1 on the screen. In the box that says "The following information indicates the status of your setup" there is nothing...it's blank.

Now here's the kicker. In GPU-Z the Crossfire box on the bottom says "Enabled (2 GPUs)"

So...CCC says no, GPU-Z says yes. Help?

 

[jimbo75]

If CCC doesn't recognise crossfire you'd have nothing to indicate you had crossfire. The fact that you have a box ticked proves that you have it and it's working fine.

Identifying a gpu probably only shows one gpu because they are seen as one combined gpu.

 

[The Sauce]

Hope you're right =) I just ran 3DMark Vantage and got a score in the 22,000 range. Would that fit?

 

[Kenmitch]

Hope you're right =) I just ran 3DMark Vantage and got a score in the 22,000 range. Would that fit?

That doesn't sound correct. I get get around 20K in vantage with my slightly overclocked 5850

What settings did you run vantage with....Mine was the default settings

Not sure about crossfire/sli as I've never ran that way yet.

 

[Termie]

Hope you're right =) I just ran 3DMark Vantage and got a score in the 22,000 range. Would that fit?

Well, what was it before???

Actually, I'm pretty interested in how this goes for you, as I've been toying with the idea. I'd be curious regarding benchmarks but also whether you get reliable scaling in games, driver/system crashes, and/or microstutter that makes things bog down even if you have higher average frames.

 

[Arg Clin]

I have the same happen with my 6870CF setup. CrossfireX is enabled, even though CCC only shows "1".

 

[jimbo75]

That doesn't sound correct. I get get around 20K in vantage with my slightly overclocked 5850

What settings did you run vantage with....Mine was the default settings

Not sure about crossfire/sli as I've never ran that way yet.

Slightly overclocked you gotta be joking.

22k is more than good for crossfired 5850's. A single 5850 would barely break 11k on an average non overclocked quad.

 

[alcoholbob]

Vantage doesn't score CF too well. 2 x 6970s is only getting around 32,000.

 

[Powermoloch]

Your CF is doing fine

enjoy :thumbsup:

 

[The Sauce]

Oh...no it's not.

Went into Rift to check it out. HORRIBLE LAG. Checked my FPS and it was around 30 - not moving. Dropped into the teens during a rift. Took out the second card and FPS went up to 70's. There is a major issue here. Now I really have no idea. Can;t think of any reason my FPS would have tanked like that.

 

[alcoholbob]

5xxx series CF is really bad I heard.

Have you tried renaming the program Fear.exe or Bioshock.exe? Maybe that would work.

 

[jimbo75]

There's no way you are gonna beat 22k in Vantage with a single 5850.

What you may be experiencing is the same as a lot of people who try out sli or crossfire - that is that it's a total waste of money and gives you a worse gaming experience than a single card at half the fps.

And that's when drivers are fine. Sounds like Rift might be one of those games lacking crossfire support. Honestly just do yourself a favour and send your 2nd card back, I know I'll never Crossfire or SLI again until a completely new method of rendering is used.

 

[Powermoloch]

After looking around, it's a known issue atm. You can take a look at the responses and other user solutions

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthre...d-scaling-problem!-RIFt-tech-team-Plz-Respond

If you're wondering how your score is compared with other dual gpu setups, here's a link from guru3d.com

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/14

 

[pcm81]

It shows 1, because your monitor is connected to 1st GPU. It also shows 1 on my 6990s CFed...

 

[pw38]

It shows 1, because your monitor is connected to 1st GPU. It also shows 1 on my 6990s CFed...

That's what I was gonna say. I had Xfire 5770s and I tried the second gpu and it identified as number 2.

 

[The Sauce]

Ah ok thanks for all the responses. Extremely helpful! Especially Powermoloch, thanks. Those links show that my crossfire was working fine but there is some issue with RIFT. So maybe I'll just hold onto it and wait until the issue gets fixed and have it for other games if I need it.

Is there some way to disable crossfire in CCC so that I don't have to remove the card to play RIFT?

 

[pw38]

Yes under the Performance drop down there is an option for Crossfire. Uncheck the box that enables it. You'll then be on one card.

 

[The Sauce]

Ok, well I did a few more tests. Someone had a workaround for Rift, which maybe got me a 10 FPS improvement...still much worse than single card. I decided that if it was just Rift I would keep the card and wait for a patch. So...I tried Battlefield.

Compared to stock speed single card there was maybe a 10-15fps improvement. Compared to single overclocked card there was about a 20fps drop. IT'S...GOING...BACK. Crossfire seems to be pretty damn poor in general from this experience. Battlefield BC2 has been out long enough for all the bugs and drivers to have been worked out and it still isn't very much better. What a waste...out $35 for shipping and restocking.

 

[badb0y]

Purge your Windows and resinstall it, SlowSpyder had a similar problem I think.

 

[The Sauce]

Yeah...no. Not gonna reinstall Windows. Don't care that much and its a huge hastle. Thanks, but it runs fine...just slow. Don't think thats an issue that a reinstall will fix. Either way too much effort.

 

[badb0y]

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...0999-nvidia-geforce-gtx-470-sli-review-4.html
Battlefield 2 should net more then just 10 FPS.

 

[Powermoloch]

^ I would take his advice.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Gtx 580?

 

[Termie]

OP - huge bummer that this didn't work. Given how good an overclocked 5850 is, I can understand why you don't feel like messing around to make this work. Thanks for giving us the update.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Vantage are heavily influenced by your disk setup especially if you have ssds running. Using a Areca PCI-E card give you huge scores. 3dmark 11 is more gpu bound and they seem to work on that where its so easy influenced like the previous ones. Run 3dmark 11 on it you should score in the 5000 - 8000 region with them. Remember with 3dmark the first run is always the best scoring one normally

Just one question OP. Did you OC the cards and what did you use if you did so?