SH4 and Crossfire

[Fincuan]

Since the NVidia folks have their own SLI thread, I thought us Crossfire users need one too. After some fiddling I finally managed to enable Crossfire in SH4, and immediately noticed why Ati doesn't want us to do it Please, read on to find out more.

How to enable Crossfire AFR(alternate frame rendering) mode in SH4

1. Rename "sh4.exe" to "AFR-FriendlyD3D.exe"(without " " obviously)
2. Make sure you have "Enable Crossfire" ticked in Catalyst Control Center/Ati Tray Tools/whatever you use
3. Make sure you have set Catalyst AI to either "Normal" or "Advanced"("Low" and "High" in Ati Tray tools)

Why would I do it?

• Noticeable increase in framerate

Why not and other weird things

• Vertical sync definitely does not like Crossfire. With vertical sync enabled from SH4 gfx menu you get considerably higher and more stable framerates, but also some annoying glitches when viewing the nav map. Note that SH4 needs to be restarted after changing this setting.
• Altering gfx settings via both SH4 and/or CCC/ATT does not always make a difference. Sometimes Alt+Tabbing out of SH4 and back is enough, sometimes(as in the case of vertical sync above) SH4 needs to be restarted, other times the whole computer. I've also had to reload the SH4 3D profile a few times(I'm using Ati Tray tools) for the settings to take effect.
• Catalyst AI "Low" vs. "High" doesn't seem to make any difference

So far I have mixed feelings on SH4+Crossfire, but I'm definitely going to continue testing different settings in hopes of ironing out the kinks listed above. Input from other Crossfire users would be much appreciated, since my testing has been pretty limited. I'd be interested to know if this really works, or if it's just my imagination

My specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Two Ati Radeon X1950 Pros
MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition
2 gb ram
Windows XP Home Edition SP2

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