Technical Query - XFire

[kvbrock82]

Hi all,

Would anyone be able to tell me whether SH4 is XFire/SLI compatible?

Im running the game on an ATI 5970 with an i7 cpu and 6gb ddr3 ram and 90% of the time im hanging in the 40-50 FPS region. For some reason there are times when I load up the game, it runs at a constant 60 fps. When I run GPU-Z in the background it tells me that 1 core of card is running at 100% yet the other one never activates? If the game ran at 60 all the time it would be great as it is smooth, however when its in the 40-50 range the stuttering can get quite annoying, especially after spending all this money on the damn thing. Is this normal or is there a problem with my graphics card?

Any help will be very much appreciated!

Brock

[tomoose]

kvbrock;
I have a similar new system except just one card (Radeon 5700HD). I also have Win 7 plus the i7 and 6Gig RAM. SH4 runs very smoothly. I'm not sure what my FPS is as I never checked. From that I would say that you should not be getting stutter even with one card.
I'm looking at getting a 2nd card and taking advantage of the XFire aspect but not if it causes more probs than solutions. I'll be watching this thread.

Can you 'disable' the XFire and use just one (or the other) card to see if there's any change or simply remove one card and see what happens? You may have tried this already but have you switched the cards around in the slots or used them one at a time to verify they're both working OK?

Any background programs which might be running?

Norton I found was a pig for that so that I ended up switching AV software (I was a big fan of Norton but found that it became quite intrusive to the point I got tired of it).

Just a couple of suggestions. As I said I don't have experience with XFire as yet.
Good luck.

[Fish40]

I'm playing with 2 ATI 5850's with X fire enabled. Not sure if SH4 makes use of this, but the game is smooth. I'm not obsessed with the number of frame rates, as long as the game looks smooth. I'm talking no slowdowns during stormy weather, convoy attacks, and torpedo impacts. As a side note, also have Windows 7 64, Intel Quadcore i7 960, and 6 gigs ddr3 ram.

[kvbrock82]

tomoose;

The HD5970 is basically one card but it has two cores. There are times on GPU-Z where it shows both my card's cores are running and there are other times when the 2nd core just remains idle while the 1st core struggles to keep up. The weird thing is that it should run fine even with just one core, as i believe the 5970 is the equivalent of two 5850 cores. Well it should be, considering the bloody thing costed me 750 euro.

If you could do me a favour, try download fraps and run it in the background and you will see the FPS displayed in the corner of the screen while you are playing. Id appreciate that so i could get an idea of where mine should be running.

The weird thing is that sometimesthe game runs fine at 60 FPS, but at others it just cannot run above 50 and theres some evident jittering and lag which really is getting on my nerves.

Im seriously starting to suspect that this card may be damaged.

[tomoose]

I've used FRAPS to make a test movie on my new system which is something I couldn't do on my old system. I know the FPS indicator you're referring to, I'll have another look. The game also ran well on my old system (AMD 64 2.9ghz, nVidia AGP card) and only stuttered when there was lots of action.

That being said, again I can confirm that the game runs extremely well (including storms, convoys etc) on this new system so the FPS has to be OK.

I'll post back my findings.
:salute:

[kvbrock82]

Thanks tomoose,

If possible check the FPS with Vsync on and then try with Vsync off :yep:

[tomoose]

I've used FRAPS to make a test movie on my new system which is something I couldn't do on my old system. I know the FPS indicator you're referring to, I'll have another look. The game also ran well on my old system (AMD 64 2.9ghz, nVidia AGP card) and only stuttered when there was lots of action.

That being said, again I can confirm that the game runs extremely well (including storms, convoys etc) on this new system so the FPS has to be OK.

I'll post back my findings.
:salute:

[WernherVonTrapp]

Hi all,

Would anyone be able to tell me whether SH4 is XFire/SLI compatible?

Im running the game on an ATI 5970 with an i7 cpu and 6gb ddr3 ram and my graphics card?

Any help will be very much appreciated!

From what I can gather at the website below, on an older game like SHIV, Crossfire graphics technology might be more readily apparent at the higher resolutions, like 1920X1080.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454-33-crossfire-faqs

The page describes it in greater detail. I can't say I completely understand it all but, somebody here might be able to simplify it.

[Mescator]

As both a Crossfire and Xfire user as well as someone running hardware monitoring around the clock i can probably clear this up pretty well i hope ;)

Firstly, SH does NOT use Crossfire. My Primary card will run at 100% much of the time, but the secondary will NOT be used ever in SH.

Secondly, Xfire works fine. The only problem is if you bring up a chat window with the mouse unlocked moving the mouse still moves the camera, even with the overlay up. Just gotta make sure you can see the mouse cursor and your golden. Much better than having to Alt tab to talk to someone as SH is notorious for bugging out when the player does that.

As far as your framerate is concerned i can't help you much. I'm running 2x 4870's which are far less powerful than your 5970. Only thing i could recommend is checking your CCC and turning AA down if it's really high. 4x is usually enough. 8x and 16x are practically unnoticeable. The spray effects are quite intensive as well i've found. If your looking at the spray coming off a ships bow from close range you'll suffer a large drop.

[kvbrock82]

Thanks for the replies.

I downloaded the latest hotfix from ATI and things seem to have improved slightly. My framerate is slightly better but its still in the mid fifties in port with TMO, so there still a noticeable jitter.

Mescator, Im using GPU-z in the background on each core and ive noticed that since the hotfix, both my cores are taking on a load during the game, with the raise in fps.

My main problem is that even with 55fps, the visuals are by no means smooth. If I had to pan my view from the left to the right of the command room slowly, there will be a small but noticeable jitter/lag. Its difficult to explain, but its just not 100% smooth. Could it be a monitor issue or maybe some other hardware besides my graphics card? i thought buying a velicoraptor hdd would help but it hasnt made a difference. The weird thing is that 5% of the time the game will load up and it will be 100% smooth without a glitch, then the next time Im back to the problem.

Could this be a monitor issue?

[kvbrock82]

Fixed it!

Looks like SH4 isnt in the least compatible with Xfire. I disabled the 2nd core in Catalyst Control Centre and now its smooth as silk.

It was incredibly buggy in Xfire, with loads of jerkiness and lag and some movable of parts of the sub glitching from visible to invisible at a very fast pace.

Mescator: I would have thought that since it doesnt use Xfire, it would just not use the 2nd core.. what was happening instead was it was using BOTH cores but slowing down the game drastically!

[tomoose]

....glad you got it sorted out. That's good info too for guys like me who are thinking of getting a second card.:salute:

[WernherVonTrapp]

Fixed it!

Bravo!:yeah: