DCS World and Crossfire

[woofer15]

[ATTACH]86059[/ATTACH]

 

I recently downloaded CCC 13.8 and found crossfire no longer worked. I had to delete my CCC and re-install 13.4 and re-create a DCS World profile.

I now have a AMD Crossfire logo in the top right hand corner of my start-up screens...:)

 

I did not notice any performance enhancement with AFR Friendly enabled. I'm running crossfired 6870s. Notably, I'm still running the CCC 12.8 (I'm always scared to upgrade drivers when everything's working...especially since this is a CPU issue, it seems).

 

Should I try 13.4? What, precisely, are all the settings you're using for CCC? Can you describe in detail? What do you mean "recreate a DCS World Profile"? You mean just associate profile settings with the a new application profile and save it to the .EXE? Which .EXE do you use? launcher.exe? run.exe?

 

Thanks for the assist!

 

NOTE: I managed to overclock my Phenom X4 965BE to 3.9ghz and still can't play campaigns (missions w/ lots of AI/units). Single player missions still playable 95% of time.

[hollywoodvillain]

Woofer15, its been my experience like others, forcing crossfire using any settings actually degrades the performance. Its just not made to utilize it, and now you're forcing it to split the same amount of data between 2 cards, which hinders efficiency.

 

IMO I would not jump through the hoops needed to downgrade ccc only to be disappointed. If anyone has BENCHMARKED crossfire and actually got a performance BOOST I would be interested to know about it.

[woofer15]

Woofer15, its been my experience like others, forcing crossfire using any settings actually degrades the performance. Its just not made to utilize it, and now you're forcing it to split the same amount of data between 2 cards, which hinders efficiency.

 

IMO I would not jump through the hoops needed to downgrade ccc only to be disappointed. If anyone has BENCHMARKED crossfire and actually got a performance BOOST I would be interested to know about it.

 

Great advice, thanks hollywood. After mapping the Crossfire to DCS.exe (I previously had it mapped to launcher.exe), I now see the "Crossfire Status Icon" indicating that crossfire is active in DCSW. Unfortunately, I am also of the group where Crossfire appears to degrade performance. I see a 7 to 10 FPS drop on my standard FPS test track & the clouds and TGP/MAV now flash constantly. This occurs regardless of (AFR/Default modes...did not test 1X1); obviously disabling Crossfire is the way to go -- sadly.

 

And actually, my CCC being 12.8 was NOT a typo as you may have thought -- :D HAHA. So going to 13.4 would be an upgrade not a retrograde. I use 12.8 mainly because I never really see FPS boosts with newer drivers -- mostly just see new incompatibilities and problems. Especially with older games like F4:AF and IL2 1946 (4.12m).

 

Do you think it's worth going up to 13.4 from 12.8? I doubt it will resolve this crossfire FPS hit, right?

[SkateZilla]

I've spoken with an AMD Driver tech,

They have no plans to evaluate and make an updated Catalyst Application Profile for DCSWorld.

 

Trust me guys, every new beta driver that comes out, I'm all over AMD about DCS' Performance.

 

While most of the problem is the engine, there's more to be gained out of Looking at it, as nVidia Cards do better, and Every AMD Driver the Performance of DCS goes up or down, or down and down some more. So it's not ENTIRELY on the engine.

 

Unless it's a Top Teir Company. it's simply not on AMD's priority list (to put it professionally )

[woofer15]

I've spoken with an AMD Driver tech,

They have no plans to evaluate and make an updated Catalyst Application Profile for DCSWorld.

 

Trust me guys, every new beta driver that comes out, I'm all over AMD about DCS' Performance.

 

While most of the problem is the engine, there's more to be gained out of Looking at it, as nVidia Cards do better, and Every AMD Driver the Performance of DCS goes up or down, or down and down some more. So it's not ENTIRELY on the engine.

 

Unless it's a Top Teir Company. it's simply not on AMD's priority list (to put it professionally )

 

Thanks for the effort, Skate -- good to know there's a few advocators out there.

 

In your opinion, do you think I'd gain from moving to CCC 13.4 from last year's 12.8?

[westr]

Create A profile in your catalyst control centre use DCS.exe as the executable when you create the profile I use the settings in the picture. And of course I have Crossfire Enabled in the AMD Crossfire Tab. Hope this helps...

 

I did not notice any performance enhancement with AFR Friendly enabled. I'm running crossfired 6870s. Notably, I'm still running the CCC 12.8 (I'm always scared to upgrade drivers when everything's working...especially since this is a CPU issue, it seems).

 

Should I try 13.4? What, precisely, are all the settings you're using for CCC? Can you describe in detail? What do you mean "recreate a DCS World Profile"? You mean just associate profile settings with the a new application profile and save it to the .EXE? Which .EXE do you use? launcher.exe? run.exe?

 

Thanks for the assist!

 

NOTE: I managed to overclock my Phenom X4 965BE to 3.9ghz and still can't play campaigns (missions w/ lots of AI/units). Single player missions still playable 95% of time.

 

Oh and make sure its Catalyst Control Centre 13.4 not the latest Beta version, that would not run DCS in crossfire mode.....

You will find the DCS.exe in the bin folder within your DCS World directory....

Edited August 19, 2013 by westr

[SkateZilla]

Thanks for the effort, Skate -- good to know there's a few advocators out there.

 

In your opinion, do you think I'd gain from moving to CCC 13.4 from last year's 12.8?

 

The 6000 Series may do better on the 12.xs, as most of the late 12.x and 13.x drivers priorities were to help 7900 series cards,

 

on that note the 12.6 12,8 and 12.10 drivers were pretty good

[woofer15]

Thanks westr, will give it a go. Do you notice any graphical anomalies (like the flashing clouds/TGP)? Which ATI card do you crossfire?

 

Also, noticed you have Falcon 4 BMS installed. Do you have any graphical issues with it using 13.4? I fear driver updates, haha.

 

EDIT UPDATE:

 

Ok, so upgrading from CCC 12.8 to 13.4 gave a small, yet definitive increase in FPS of 1-2 frames during all scenes. Good news!

 

I also did extensive testing with Crossfire setups before and after this driver update. Conclusion: Set Crossfire to disable (at least for me!).

 

DATA on drivers 12.8:

--Default, AFR Friendly, and 1X1 crossfire modes result in a decrease of 7 FPS (from ~30 to 23) consistently across the board. Notably, AFR Friendly results in flashing clouds and TGP/MAV while 1X1 and Default does not.

--GPU load with xfire disabled: GPU #1 = 100% peak // 36% average & GPU #2 = 0% peak // 0% average; GPU #1 load with Default/AFR/1X1 = 100% peak // 35% average; GPU #2 load with Default/AFR/1X1 = 39% peak // 15% average

--Crossfire status icon illuminates only for Default/AFR/1X1 when useing westr's settings and mapping to DCS.EXE

--CONCLUSION: Crossfire DOES enable but does not "work" for me. I get 7 FPS hit regardless...GPU 2 is disabled when crossfire is disabled, yet when crossfire is enabled GPU 2 only peaks/avg 39%/15% while GPU 1 still carries peak/avg of 100%/31%.

 

DATA on drivers 13.4 (slightly different, but same story):

--Default, AFR Friendly, and 1X1 crossfire modes result in a decrease of 7 FPS (from ~32 to 25) consistently across the board. Notably, AFR Friendly still results in flashing clouds and TGP/MAV while 1X1 and Default does not.

--GPU load with disabled GPU #1 = 89% peak // 35% average & GPU #2 = 0% peak // 0% average; GPU #1 load with AFR/1X1 = 34% peak // 3% average; GPU #2 load with AFR/1X1 = 35% peak // 9% average; GPU load with default crossfire GPU #1 = 89% peak // 35% average & GPU #2 = 0% peak // 0% average;

--Crossfire status icon illuminates only for Default/AFR/1X1 when useing westr's settings and mapping to DCS.EXE

--CONCLUSION: Notably, in 13.4 the Default Crossfire mode does NOT put load on the 2nd GPU (it stays 0%/0% peak/avg), yet the crossfire icon shows up in the corner. Also of interest, the GPU #1 load during crossfire went from peak 100% in 12.8 to peak 34% in 13.4 (this more closely mimics the GPU #2 crossfire loads)...but this did not result in FPS loss or FPS gain.

 

NOTE: the peak load for 13.4 on GPU #1 reduces from 100% to 89% (probably accounting for the 2 FPS addition across the board with or without crossfire enabled).

Edited August 20, 2013 by woofer15