XRay Engine 1.0 & 1.5 + 4870 Crossfire = Random fps drops

wrangler

2[H]4U
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Jan 17, 2005
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Rig in sig. Latest bios. Latest drivers for everything. Ram reseated. Vid cards reseated. Multiple diagnostics checking for temperature problems etc. etc. OC removed. Drivers uninstalled-reinstalled-uninstalled-reinstalled Driver Sweeper each time in safe mode blah blah blah etc., etc. System is in all other respects the nicest working system I've ever had. ( i have torn my freaking system apart piece by piece and reassembled:eek::confused::mad::()

OK

The symptoms are, whenever I try to play SOC or Clear Sky with 2 cards in my system with Crossfire and Catalyst AI enabled, I can play fine for a while and then I'll turn or look up or something and the fps will drop from, oh let's say 60, down to ~5-12 fps. THere are areas that are more prone to it than others but it is mostly random.

So, I'm sitting there with fps @ 5. Without changing my point of view, I pull down the in-game console and type vid_restart and magically, the fps return to normal and I can play again for a little while. Each time I do this, the time I can play before it drops again gets shorter and shorter until I must exit and restart.

I have played Clear Sky extensively with rs_stats open. About 4 lines down is an entry titled memory. I ASSUME this is video memory. Whenever I start a new game it sits at roughly 300-400 (the numbers roll really fast so thats an estimate) but sometimes it can briefly show up to 800 then it come right back down and all is right with the world. I also ASSUME these are Mb we are dealing with. So, game is using 300-400 on average with spikes to 800. Sounds reasonable. When fps drop happens, if I sit there and look at it I can see that number climb to 32000.:eek: That would be 32 Gb. I'm sure it's a math anomaly but sheesh. Anyway, it goes crazy.

Naturally, I have posted this problem over at GSC and have scoured the internet and I see a smattering of people who have this random fps drop problem but much of the complaints are too general, theres never a solution and some are even Nvidia cards so obviously doesn't apply to me. So finally some guy at Steam Stalker forums says "turn off Catalyst AI". So I do. Performance suffers considerably but the fps drops are gone. So, I think Catalyst AI is the problem but come to find out, disabling Castalyst AI in a Crossfire system is really disabling Crossfire. What is really weird is I had tried disabling Crossfire in console but still had the problem.

As of right now, I have one of my 4870's removed from my system with Catalyst AI enabled and Clear Sky is running well for me. IF I put the other card in, it starts again and I have to disable Catalyst AI.

I know other people are running Crossfire with this game and not having this happen. Well, to be honest, I haven't seen anybody talk about how their 4870 Crossfire runs the game. Just 4870X2 folks and they mostly seem happy.

What am I not thinking of here?

I can play without problems:
Crysis....@1920x1200 DX10 64bit all high.....gets in the high teens at times but totally stable and mostly stays above 30
Bioshock
Source games......take your pick they all run like scalded dogs.
Grid
UT3
X3
F.E.A.R. loaded this because i read that it had some fps drop problems but.....no problem here.
Many more......you name it and I can play it. Except for my favorite games ever.
 
I would guess the games have memory leak issues? I know Clear Sky's weather system will give me temporary frame rate drops, then stabilize at 40+fps. I had a similar issue to what you're going through with Crysis, as the Binoculars or scopes would drop the performance to 10fps and wouldn't recover unless I alt/tabbed in and out of the game.
 
Im having the same problem with crossfired 3870's. Like you ive seen several complaints but no solutions.
 
Well the issue with the xray engine is that it is not the best engine for Multi-core gpu setups. Both nvidia and ati will have these issues with the engine when using the respective gpu X2 setups.

I do agree that crysis does have an issue with the rapid zoom in with the scoped items in the game, but that is about all that i have experienced. When i first got the game i could not look at the ice effects in the game without getting a massive performance hit. But since the 1.2 patch i have had nothing but smooth performance. Warhead seems to have a better optimized zoom in for its scopes since i have yet to notice a fps lag when scoping and i play at enthusiast settings in it and it's ice levels play even smoother than on crysis.

So for stalker i would stick to single cards setups and for crysis i would just adjust the graphics settings to get the smoothest zoom in
 
I was most shocked that it affected Shadow of Chernobyl. I mean, that games been out a while. sheesh

I installed SOC about 3 weeks ago when Clear Sky was first delayed thinking I would quench my Stalker thirst with Priboi Story which I hadn't played yet. Imagine my dismay. But I figured, oh well, they must not have the 48xx's fully up to speed. Then 8.8's came out and then 8.9's and still the problem persists. I have literally torn my system apart. I am now convinced I have an excellent system. No other issues whatsoever.

I did send driver feedback to ATI but I told them I couldn't play the game with Catalyst AI enabled but thats not exactly right. I can't play with Catalyst AI enabled with 2 cards in my system. I have recieved no response.
 
I was most shocked that it affected Shadow of Chernobyl. I mean, that games been out a while. sheesh

I installed SOC about 3 weeks ago when Clear Sky was first delayed thinking I would quench my Stalker thirst with Priboi Story which I hadn't played yet. Imagine my dismay. But I figured, oh well, they must not have the 48xx's fully up to speed. Then 8.8's came out and then 8.9's and still the problem persists. I have literally torn my system apart. I am now convinced I have an excellent system. No other issues whatsoever.

I did send driver feedback to ATI but I told them I couldn't play the game with Catalyst AI enabled but thats not exactly right. I can't play with Catalyst AI enabled with 2 cards in my system. I have recieved no response.

I don't think ati can fix this problem because it is an engine issue with the game. GSC would have to fix the problem on their end. Same with Nvidia.
 
I don't think ati can fix this problem because it is an engine issue with the game. GSC would have to fix the problem on their end. Same with Nvidia.

Well I'm not holdin my breath for THAT one.

I haven't seen X2 people complain. Is it the extra memory? I mean, if it is an engine issue, then eventually, at some point in the game, when memory had leaked enough, X2 owners would experience it as well. Maybe it just goes long enough that they quit playing before it happens or can play long enough that they just think "oh that darn Stalker is so buggy.....sigh, let me restart". WIth my 512's it happens pretty quick.

I've got a plain jane X48 motherboard with no 3rd party sofware running an a 2 week old install if Vista Ultimate 64. I just don't see it

No denying it runs just fine on a single card though AND, I have a grand total of 2 ctd and no broken scripts in many many many hours of playing the game so I consider myself lucky.
 
Well I'm not holdin my breath for THAT one.

I haven't seen X2 people complain. Is it the extra memory? I mean, if it is an engine issue, then eventually, at some point in the game, when memory had leaked enough, X2 owners would experience it as well. Maybe it just goes long enough that they quit playing before it happens or can play long enough that they just think "oh that darn Stalker is so buggy.....sigh, let me restart". WIth my 512's it happens pretty quick.

I've got a plain jane X48 motherboard with no 3rd party sofware running an a 2 week old install if Vista Ultimate 64. I just don't see it

No denying it runs just fine on a single card though AND, I have a grand total of 2 ctd and no broken scripts in many many many hours of playing the game so I consider myself lucky.

Well the X2 and the GX2 work kind of different from the standard 2 cards setup. They can sync much better in my opinion then having to sync up through the mother board in which case a faulty PCI-E port could cause an issue. But an X2 and GX2 sync up on the card itself Making it much faster on the sync and probably much more stable as well.

There have been many boards out there that have talked about the difference between the X2\GX2 vs standard CF\SLI. And some say that the 2in1 cards do seem to work better most of the time than the 2 separate cards. I Personally try to stay way from CF\SLI in all it's forms unless it is a dire requirement. But a possible fault in the drivers could cause an issue with the CF Support. I don't quite know if the CF drivers work the same for the X2 cards.
 
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