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M17X R2 bottleneck?


Huuy

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Hello,

I've been playing Tribes: Ascend, CS:S, HoN, Dota 2, Diablo 3 beta, and I've noticed a problem. No matter what graphic setting I put the game on I always get the same FPS. On the highest settings I get around 50-60 FPS but will dip to 25-30 during intense fights, I get the same graphics settings with everything turned off and 800x600 res. Not sure if i can blame poor optimization on those games, maybe my computer isn't running at max all the time.

Specs:

i7-740QM

Xfire 5870

8GB RAM

5400 RPM HDD

Is there a monitoring program out there I can run while playing a game so I can see the load of both the GPU and CPU to see if I have a bottleneck?

Thanks,

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Hm, I played Dota2 an Diablo3 beta and haven't had any problems. Not sure what the exact FPS was but it was above 30 (perfectly smooth). Dota2 was maxxed out with only single 5870M (because for some reason I got some artifacts with crossfire).

You can check both with HWInfo64.

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Well I fixed the tribes issue, I found a CAP profile online and used it, and now I get 60 FPS all the time. As for HoN, I disabled Xfire and it ran smoothly. Is there anything I can do in catalyst so HoN can utilize both cards properly? I'm not sure how to create profiles

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@Huuy

Afterburner+HWiINFO for in game on screen display

Download Afterburner:MSI Afterburner

Download HWiNFO: HWiNFO64 Download

-Install both and launch Afterburner first and HWiNFO second.

-once installed the tray should show both apps and Afterburner's additional OSD icon.

post-34-14494993057987_thumb.png

-Open the sensors window and hit configure

post-34-14494993058089_thumb.png

-Check "Show RivaTuner OSD" and set it to line 1 on the CPU#0 Sensor Core#0 Clock

post-34-1449499305823_thumb.png

-proceed to set the same for Core#1 Clock and again set it to line 1

-Check "Show RivaTuner OSD" and set it to line 2 on the CPU#0 Sensor Core#2 Clock and again on Core#3 Clock

post-34-14494993058538_thumb.png

-for the cpu temp go to Intel CPU#0 "CPU Package" and select "Show RivaTuner OSD" and set it to line 3

post-34-14494993058812_thumb.png

-for cpu usage go to the "CPU#0" heading and to "total CPU usage" and select "Show RivaTuner OSD" and set it to line 3

post-34-14494993059206_thumb.png

-I like to see CPU power so here go to "Intel CPU#0" heading and go to "CPU Package Power" and select "Show RivaTuner OSD" and set it to line 4 and again if you want "IA core" or "GT Core" power check them and on line 4

post-34-14494993059502_thumb.png

-in HWiNFOs options it is important to have open sensors, minimize main window and minimize sensors enabled

post-34-14494993059808_thumb.png

-open Afterburner the main app

-click on settings on lower right

-click the On-Screen Display Tab and create a hot key for hiding and showing the OSD optionally have one to disable it too

post-34-1449499306022_thumb.png

-click on the monitoring tab and either leave the polling rate default or set your own (you can set to same as HWiNFO if you'd like)

-check each of the pictured OSD sensors or select your own

post-34-14494993060712_thumb.png

-hit ok

-right click the jet icon with pink number in tray from the start and hit show

-on the displayed screen click Global and make sure On Screen display is set to ON

post-34-14494993060937_thumb.png

-now click on this + and browse to HWiNFO executable and hit okay

post-34-14494993061222_thumb.png

-now on the HWiNFO selection make sure On Screen display is set to ON and "display own statistics" is on

post-34-1449499306149_thumb.png

Afterburner OSD is even good for creating screenshots and monitoring your framerate plus even recording in game videos so no need for Fraps necessarily.

Here is example pic of me playing Skyrim as you see 5ghz running over 3 cores and the 4th is idle at 800mhz on the CPU, Drawing 46.3 total watts @ 9.3% usage and 55C. 29.1FPS and the 580M vram overclocked to 1800mhz from 1500, while the core overclocked to 665mhz. Both cards in SLI at 98% usage and are 54C.

post-34-14494993062731_thumb.jpg

For me Skyrim takes that 1.3gb of vram in basic areas go into a detail house and its at full 2gb of vram. Since you can take pics of the sensors this is also a great way to prove issues to dell and other companies of issues us gamers are having... enjoy any questions just let me know... if you need help the is plenty material I have written and can direct you to on starting HWiNFO with the task scheduler and fixing sleep function etc :) see here actually for those fixes: http://forum.techinferno.com/hwinfo32-64-discussion/65-alienware-fan-control-17.html#post21054

post-34-14494993060466_thumb.png

post-34-14494993061778_thumb.jpg

Edited by mw86
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Well I fixed the tribes issue, I found a CAP profile online and used it, and now I get 60 FPS all the time. As for HoN, I disabled Xfire and it ran smoothly. Is there anything I can do in catalyst so HoN can utilize both cards properly? I'm not sure how to create profiles

yes you can get the program Radeon Pro for free and customize a profile for any game and have specifics for each game ... gives you countless settings including crossfire.

download here: RadeonPro: Radeon Games Profiles Automation Tool

*added the OSD guide to my signature

Edited by mw86
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I think everything is okay now. Great frames in Tribes. Got Dota 2 to scale crossfire better. Still have an issue with HoN but after reading a bunch of forum posts apparently everyone gets the same frames, and it almost has 0 crossfire support.

thanks for the guide mw86, much appreciated.

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You are very welcome. Mr.Fox wrote the same basic guide at NBR and helped users set this up so figured we could host one too for the users who only frequent here :) any questions let me know :)

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Well i downloaded MSI afterburner but it freezes my computer whenever I try to run it. I disabled ULPS, so I'm not sure what the problem could be. Sometimes it runs, but most of the time is locks my computer.

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Well i downloaded MSI afterburner but it freezes my computer whenever I try to run it. I disabled ULPS, so I'm not sure what the problem could be. Sometimes it runs, but most of the time is locks my computer.

I have the exact same problem, have been looking around the net and cant find a solution so have been forced to avoid it :(

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Hmmm no prob guys I'll search high and low for a solution. You guys are on AMD gpus right... can you list your gpus and driver your on now [MENTION=1692]Adam Noble[/MENTION]? Afterburner is great for just monitoring to... i think its overclocking upon open I'll do some research I had the same issue on 5870m last year... let me see what i can find because its very useful to be able to monitor your system like this... Rivatuner works but this is implemented better in Afterburner. I'll see what I can find.

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Hmmm no prob guys I'll search high and low for a solution. You guys are on AMD gpus right... can you list your gpus and driver your on now @Adam Noble ? Afterburner is great for just monitoring to... i think its overclocking upon open I'll do some research I had the same issue on 5870m last year... let me see what i can find because its very useful to be able to monitor your system like this... Rivatuner works but this is implemented better in Afterburner. I'll see what I can find.

Wow thanks mw86 (^_^) Specs as follows;

Xfired ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870's (ATI M98)

Driver - Catalyst 11.11 (on both cards) according to TRIXX

OR

atiumdag 8.911.0.0 (on both cards) according to GPU-Z.

The reason for wanting to run Afterburner is exactly what you said, i want in-game and in-app stats for recording my findings especially when i move to newer specs and want to see if the old motherboard keeps up :)

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Xfire 5870

12.4 driver

I'm thinking it might be because of the new driver, I'll try rolling back to a few. Trixx works for me so I might just stay with that. Thanks for the help mw86, don't spend too much time trying to find a fix :)

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okay first lets try this i read ULPS can cause that issue and also lets make sure your on the right Afterburner version... you need the latest BETA.

So go through the Registry and disable ULPS.

MSI Afterburner

click where it says "download latest afterburner beta"

let me know from there if its still a bsod upon launching it... both of you if possible... thanks either way.

@Huuy [MENTION=1692]Adam Noble[/MENTION]

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Installing and going through the registry again to see if i missed anything.

found a line that says enableulps_na, did you disable that as well or just the Enableulps line?

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I got it working for me, my fault actually. I was trying to open up MSI afterburner and not MSI afterburner on-screen display server. I think only the beta had it though.

Thanks again, mw86

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well when setting this up you need to open the normal afterburner app as well when configuring it because in the options for afterburner your telling it to use afterburner gpu data to display to the Afterburner OSD app...then the rest of config is in the actual afterbuner OSD app. Your welcome... but make sure you can get through all that and end up with the on screen statistics once your in game.

*Side note if you have checked the box for "XP compatibility" in the properties of an app it may not show the on screen data. So atleast for me that was true when I did that on a fluke tip for Skyrim to enable XP compatibility and I noticed afterward I didn't have the OSD anymore in game...

*Huuy I usually see it recommended to use the search function of the registry editor and use the additional "find next" button when disabling the ULPS keys as they are spread out in the registry.

Edited by mw86
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Well I got it to work in-game, it doesn't look exactly like your screenshots but it shows core clocks, % usage, etc. What I find odd is when I'm playing Tribes or HoN my GPU clocks keep going up and down. 100-150, 700-1000, 500-100. It keeps changing, I can understand if I was just sitting in the main menu but this is during intense fights, I'm wondering if this is why I'm getting low FPS. I'll try turning off powerplay to see if that helps

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great glad you got it work :) good idea and turn off all those power saving options related to gpu "power options" of windows and in AMD control panel like you said the powerplay. all should say something like performance.

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Tried doing that and now my main GPU is stuck on 300/400. This is really weird. Only thing I can think of is bad firmware maybe?

Edit: I think it's just poor optimization. I tried out Tribes and the clocks are constantly at 700/1000, but the game is only using 50% of both my cards, I get 60 FPS but certain areas and during combat it drops to 25-30. As for HoN from what I read it has almost no crossfire support and the engine isn't optimized very well. Going to try and download TF2 and CoD and see what happens. Limited on the amount of games i have :)

Edited by Huuy
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Uh sorry to hear that. I know this is not the solution you are looking for but... since I have never played HoN and played a bit of League of Legends and Dota2 may I recommended those games instead? :D They both work perfectly fine on R2.

One thing I can think of is that some game may lock at 60FPS if you enabled "vsync" to prevent possible screen tearing. Also I think I am using 12.3 Catalyst driver (not at home atm so I can't check).

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Followed the instructions.............AND GOT IT RUNNING (^_^) Thanks guys :triumphant: My problem was caused by TRIXX not properly disabling ULPS and so causing other OC'ing software to crash. Now everything is great and i can now look forward to benching my way to new hardware :)

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Great glad things are running correctly now.. our Aliens are slick when they behave... Guys if you end up utilizing the in-game monitoring upload a screenshot sometime of your endeavors so we can see how you may prefer to display the info... we can use this OSD to point out issue to service reps :) plus for your overclocking endeavors you can keep an eye in real-time on temps while you check your overclocks in game :) have fun let us now how things are going with your overclocking :)

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Great glad things are running correctly now.. our Aliens are slick when they behave... Guys if you end up utilizing the in-game monitoring upload a screenshot sometime of your endeavors so we can see how you may prefer to display the info... we can use this OSD to point out issue to service reps :) plus for your overclocking endeavors you can keep an eye in real-time on temps while you check your overclocks in game :) have fun let us now how things are going with your overclocking :)

I am compiling a list of benching records to put on my blog as we speak, running a few of the old classics such as Crysis and Supcom ect with some of the newer beauties available such as Skyrim, Crysis 2, ANNO's 14xx & 2070, Battlefields & COD's so plenty of screenshots and data to present once done :)

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