XFX Radeon 6770 : Killed by DX11?

[shadowofomioc]

I have played many games so far on my current setup. It is an i5-2400 @ 3.7Ghz with a Radeon 6770 1GB DDR5 OC'ed to 950Mhz( from 820 ).

The main thing I have run into so far is that it seems DX11 completely kills this GPU. To the point to where the main games I have tested with it that use DX11 ( Batman City and Saints Row ), the feature has to be turned off for the game to be reasonably playable. I did find something weird with Batman though.

I tested the game on full ultra, not seeing the Launcher at first and just going straight into the game. Was very impressed as the game ran a constant 48-60FPS without issues and no matter what all was going on. I was thinking, man this GPU is a beast!

But then I turned on via the launcher and chose Settings. Saw that it was indeed full on ultra with max AA and all that jazz, but with DX11 off.

Turned on DX11, turned Tessellation to Medium and played. Now the game ran about 25-60FPS depending on the scene. Interior, nothing going on, around 60FPS. Outside in the city with anyone on screen, hitches between 20-27FPS.

Now .. here is the weird part. I decided to turn EVERYTHING off and the detail down to low but keep the DX11 turned on Tessellation still on Medium. The game still ran at exactly the same FPS. ( V Sync Off ). Still the same hitches in still the same spots.

Now ... what in the world could cause that? The game running on full ultra with DX11 at the same level as LOW with no AA with DX11 turned on?

Weird ....

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

The 6770, dispite it carrying the name of the 6xxx generation of GPUs merely a rebadged 5770.

The 5xxx series of GPUs is severely taxed by tessellation and you will see a great improvement by simply disabling the feature.

DX 11 can still be enabled when tessellation is disabled and I recommend doing so because tessellation is really the only feature that the 5xxx series of GPUs does not like.

 

[shadowofomioc]

Your right I turned Tessellation off and it seemed to add about 15FPS. Now running at a more average 32-45 FPS.

But that was with everything turned to LOW, no AA and DX 11 Turned on.
Now lets see what I get with everything turned on with DX 11 Turned on ....

It was actually pretty close to Tessellation activated, just better overall averages. Still dropped to about 20FPS on certain scenes, you know ... a dozen guys running about fighting at once. Averaged about 30 I would say, give or take 10FPS for diff. scenarios.

Benchmark stated Min 13, Max 73 and Average of 40 with DX 11 on with max ultra.

It is 60+FPS with no DX 11 and max ultra.
About 25 Average with Tessellation turned on and max ultra. Same with Tessellation turned on with everything else turned off, Except DX 11 of course.

 

[Arkadrel]

Now .. here is the weird part. I decided to turn EVERYTHING off and the detail down to low but keep the DX11 turned on Tessellation still on Medium. The game still ran at exactly the same FPS. ( V Sync Off ). Still the same hitches in still the same spots.

bad codeing (of game)? extreme tessellation use?

Was gonna go with CPU bottleneck, but remember you said everything on ultra without DX11 was flying.

Do you notice the tessellation alot? or does it play and look better at ULTRA DX9?

Nvidia TWIMTBP titles always do silly stuff for AMD users.... sadly Batman is one such title.

 

[WMD]

If you are not noticing a great difference in quality just play without DX11 altogether. DX11 itself is not very efficient in this game.

 

[shadowofomioc]

Well, funny you asked. I ran the in game benchmark on as many variations as I could think of settings wise. Here are the main results.

DX11 + Tessellation High
Max Ultra
Max MSAA
Result = Min - 6 ; Max - 36 ; Average - 24
__________________________________________

DX11 + No Tessellation
Max Ultra
Max MSAA
Result = Min - 6 ; Max - 37 ; Average - 25
__________________________________________

DX11
FSAA High
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 17 ; Max - 54 ; Avg - 36
_________________________________________

DX11
No AA
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 9 ; Max - 62 ; Average 39
_________________________________________

DX9
Max MSAA
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 42 ; Max - 99 ; Average - 73
_________________________________________


So it seems like Tessellation really wasn't killing the game TOO much. I did see differences while changing around the settings and running the Benchmark. Especially between DX11 and DX9. When it comes to Tessellation though. I could tell you nothing about what it is doing lol. No idea. Maybe the water looks a little different?

DX9 though flew around without a problem. I think the 42 was a hit it took when it switched screens and recorded that frame freeze. Dunno, but whenever it actually ran the benchmark it was always flying around 70-99 fps.

The magic spot for this setup seems to be FSAA on High instead of MSAAx8. There is a difference in the look, but it still looks great. That was my first +30fps average out of any benchmarks.

Oh yeah, and I also did all these benchmarks with V Sync ON. It seemed to hold the game at 30FPS as the high spot. So all those benchmarks are between 22-28FPS averages. VSync Off made a huge difference. About as much as switching between MSAA and FSAA.

So from this benchmark, it does seem like DX11 slows the GPU down a ton, compared to the max ultra max MSAA DX9 benchmark, but it is still manageable if I just switch to FSAA or turn it off all together.

 

[WMD]

Well, funny you asked. I ran the in game benchmark on as many variations as I could think of settings wise. Here are the main results.

DX11 + Tessellation High
Max Ultra
Max MSAA
Result = Min - 6 ; Max - 36 ; Average - 24
__________________________________________

DX11 + No Tessellation
Max Ultra
Max MSAA
Result = Min - 6 ; Max - 37 ; Average - 25
__________________________________________

DX11
FSAA High
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 17 ; Max - 54 ; Avg - 36
_________________________________________

DX11
No AA
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 9 ; Max - 62 ; Average 39
_________________________________________

DX9
Max MSAA
Max Ultra
Result = Min - 42 ; Max - 99 ; Average - 73
_________________________________________


So it seems like Tessellation really wasn't killing the game TOO much. I did see differences while changing around the settings and running the Benchmark. Especially between DX11 and DX9. When it comes to Tessellation though. I could tell you nothing about what it is doing lol. No idea. Maybe the water looks a little different?

DX9 though flew around without a problem. I think the 42 was a hit it took when it switched screens and recorded that frame freeze. Dunno, but whenever it actually ran the benchmark it was always flying around 70-99 fps.

The magic spot for this setup seems to be FSAA on High instead of MSAAx8. There is a difference in the look, but it still looks great. That was my first +30fps average out of any benchmarks.

Oh yeah, and I also did all these benchmarks with V Sync ON. It seemed to hold the game at 30FPS as the high spot. So all those benchmarks are between 22-28FPS averages. VSync Off made a huge difference. About as much as switching between MSAA and FSAA.

So from this benchmark, it does seem like DX11 slows the GPU down a ton, compared to the max ultra max MSAA DX9 benchmark, but it is still manageable if I just switch to FSAA or turn it off all together.

The question is do you see a significant improvement in graphics going DX11 and lower performance.

 

[shadowofomioc]

Significant Improvement?

Hmmm ...

Would probably have to take screens to notice the finer details but like I said I do see the different. Significant difference ... perhaps not. But it is pretty good jump in quality.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Tessellation is your enemy, stay away from it if you have anything less than 3 7970s.

 

[blackened23]

AA + tessellation will give you a huge performance hit with that card. Disable tessellation and use FXAA if anything for AA. Set everything to application preference in your control panel. Running with 8x MSAA is insane, especially with that card, AA still has the biggest performance hit of any IQ option outside of tessellation

 

[magomago]

wait i thought dx11 was more efficient than dx9?

 

[zebrax2]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5149/batman-arkham-city-new-villain-dx11-man-on-pcs

^was this fixed? This may explain the results

 

[RavenSEAL]

DX11 is pointless anyways, or at least it will be until the next generation of Home Console pollution comes around.

 

[Red Hawk]

wait i thought dx11 was more efficient than dx9?

IIRC DX11 allows more dynamic light sources without the performance penalty that would happen with DX9. But other than that, no; adding DX11 effects like horizon based ambient occlusion and tessellation on top of what could already be done with DX9 slows down performance.

 

[WMD]

wait i thought dx11 was more efficient than dx9?

DX11 is far more efficient than DX9. Its slower in this game because its also rendering alot more effects besides tessellation. Like what shadow said the quality is far better in DX11 mode. Turn off the additional effects and DX11 will run much faster.

 

[bononos]

...... Turn off the additional effects and DX11 will run much faster.

What other effects should be turned off in DX11 for slower cards?

 

[WMD]

What other effects should be turned off in DX11 for slower cards?

Dynamic shadows, ambient occlusion, light shaft, reflections, and motion blur. Those are not possible in DX9.

 

[bononos]

Dynamic shadows, ambient occlusion, light shaft, reflections, and motion blur. Those are not possible in DX9.

Would the efficiency of dx11(your previous post) be better for slower cards after the above effects are disabled compared to running in dx9?

 

[biostud]

Batman Arkham City has problem with all cards in DX11.

 

[mikeymikec]

I tried DX11 in Arkham City with WMD's suggestions and tessellation disabled, but if anything it was slower (particularly in the main game, outdoors) (1080p).

My PC spec: http://www.mikeymike.org.uk/mikes/mypc.txt

I messed around a bit and found that with AA disabled, DX9, and only extreme detail, motion blur and distortion enabled, the game runs very nicely on my PC. Before I was getting significant frame rate drops (I would guess 15fps at worst).

 

[x3sphere]

Batman Arkham City has problem with all cards in DX11.

No. I finished the entire game on DX11 with my HD7970 at 2560x1600. Ran very smooth, around 40-50 FPS average which is more than playable for this type of game. My older 6970 couldn't cope at this resolution, but it probably would have been fine at 1080p.