5970 Settings Advice

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Wonda-Boy

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
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Can I get some advice on what setting peeps on here with 5970's have the CCC setup as?

I mean do I set it up for PERFORMANCE or OPTIMAL VISUALS? What do I need to have AA and AF set to. I suppose I should be able to set them as high as possible with this card right?

Aslo, If I disable Overdrive will that effect the auto fan control as I am not going to be overclocking this card yet...I mean what the point most games do not trouble it.

Any help would be very much appreciated....I am running 9.12 drivers with no HOTFIX Do I need the hotfix.

Thanx
 
I've been an Nvidia user until this 5970 equipped system I got a week ago. I use profiles for different games, as different games usually require different 3D settings.

If you want a more general approach, I'd recommend using the 'application preference' option where applicable, and then highest quality (best visuals) for everything else. For vsync I'd go with 'off, unless application specifies otherwise' option; personally I turn on vsync within any game that has it.

If you don't want to touch Overdrive, that's fine; the card will still downclock when running non-3D programs anyway, and the fan should be controlled automatically.
 
Did I not read somewhere you can set the card to run MAXED Performance all the time? Overdrive is purely for overclocking is it...nothing else. Will the card still auto fan according to the temps?

Also, what are the differenet setting with the catalyst A.I...as in normal, advanced etc.

Thanx for the help guys. ;)
 
I think your best bet is to try the games you play and play with the settings yourself. There isn't any one answer for the questions you are asking. I suggested 'application preference' because in my games it is preferable to set the AA or AF from within the game.

Catalyst AI has something to do with how the drivers apply Crossfire to different games and applications, so I would suggest using Advanced. The 5970 will need Catalyst AI in order to use both GPUs.
 
I pretty much usually have 'Application Controlled' and jsut set the AA type to the best (e.g. Edge Detect)
AI on Advanced (or standard as it may have issues with some games)
Advanced AA on performance (transparent AA)
 
Thanx for all the input advice guys....I just ran Crysis Benchmark and I am getting 44.5 FPS average....is that okay. And 3DMark with my rig currently running at 3.3GHz I got a score of 20200...does that seem low?

Merry Christmas
 
Wonda-Boy said:
Thanx for all the input advice guys....I just ran Crysis Benchmark and I am getting 44.5 FPS average....is that okay. And 3DMark with my rig currently running at 3.3GHz I got a score of 20200...does that seem low?

Merry Christmas
Click to expand...

Vantage? Seems about right I got 20833 on my rig with the 9.12 drivers.

Bumping up the 5970 to stock 5870 clocks netted a high 22K score.
 
Wonda-Boy said:
Thanx for all the input advice guys....I just ran Crysis Benchmark and I am getting 44.5 FPS average....is that okay.

Merry Christmas
Click to expand...

Assuming you ran the gpu demo at 1920x1200 maxed DX10 with no AA, seems pretty normal. I was a bit underwhelmed too. The 5970 is not going to impress you much at stock speeds if you already had a multi gpu setup. You need to overclock it to make it perform like a $600 card should.
 
Wonda-Boy said:
Thanx for all the input advice guys....I just ran Crysis Benchmark and I am getting 44.5 FPS average....is that okay. And 3DMark with my rig currently running at 3.3GHz I got a score of 20200...does that seem low?

Merry Christmas
Click to expand...

I find that there is something wrong with Crysis scaling, but Warhead scaling is perfectly fine for some reason.

It looks like driver issue to me when GPU are running around 50-60% on both core in Crysis..
which its not suppose to do that...
but warhead on the other hand, it runs like 90-100% most of the time.

the odd thing is, my old 4890CF is running 90-100% most of the time and getting higher fps in Crysis :confused:
but warhead have extreme stutter while 5970 doesn't....
 
For the Crysis benchmark I had the standard 8AA but no AF....and it was 3Dmark06 no t vantage. I might take it up to stock 5870 speeds..but I think my Q9450 is limiting the card.

A weel excuse to upgrade to i7...:D
 
I personally think with such a fast card you should have 16xAF and the quality settings all forced high all the time, I also force off vsync because I like buttery smooth frame rates. Everything else ideally should be dealt with in game, AA tends to be a real performance killer so I deal with that on a per game basis from menus.
 
So AA is much more demanding then AF? I taught it was the other way around :confused:

Thanx all the same.
 
Well traditionally AA and AF have always been power hungry but things have improved a lot over the years, now a days 16xAF shouldn't be a problem in any game for a high end card.

The performance hit isn't masive, 16xAF is basically on for everything for me, I just force it in the CCC and leave it on without worrying. Obviously which is more stressful AA or AF depends on what level of filtering you use, AF tends to allow high levels without much worry, AA is OK at lower levels but high levels like 8xAA can incur quite harsh performance penalties.
 
The performance hit for AF is basically next to nothing these days. You lose maybe 3-4 FPS with 16xAF on, if that. AA is far more taxing, generally going up to 4xAA incurs a 20-25 % hit on FPS, though it depends on the game. I find 4xAA to be the best balance between quality/performance. 8xAA is nice but rather overkill at the resolutions of today (1920x1200+).
 
What about the settings for AA...i.e Edge detect etc....Is it worth it. I mean I have FPS to spare with my 5970 but is it worth the grunt.:confused:
 
Wonda-Boy said:
What about the settings for AA...i.e Edge detect etc....Is it worth it. I mean I have FPS to spare with my 5970 but is it worth the grunt.:confused:
Click to expand...

I turn on AA whenever possible.. less jaggies adds to the experience, giving visuals a more CG look. So yes it is most definitely worth it. For nearly all DX9 games you can get away with enabling SSAA on a 5970, which is the best form of antialising as far as quality goes. Takes a big hit on performance but if you have the FPS to spare there is no reason not to enable it.
 
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