BF3 patch includes 7xxx series perf improvements

[Stuka87]

I don't know why people keep saying that 4Ghz is enough for crossfire for BF3. I'm running 2 X 7970 crossfire at 4Ghz(2500k), 1080p max with only FXAA(no MSAA yet), OSD shows that I only managed to run both cards around 50%-60% most of the time, and it's stuttering and even at 60fps it feels like playing at 24fps, really annoying.

I switched back to single card mode, it's so smooth and enjoyable, comparing single card and crossfire the different is like night and day.

Try most of the drivers, cap or without cap pretty much the same result. So either CPU is the bottleneck factor or something wrong with my system or driver, but I think CPU is the main factor here.

Have you run anything to monitor your CPU usage while playing?

I HIGHLY doubt its a CPU issue. Feeding one card to get 60FPS is nearly the same load as it is to get 60FPS with a CF setup. If its not smooth, something is else is wrong. Either the driver or the profile used.

But monitor your CPU usage. I would be willing to bet money it never gets close to pegged.

 

[Rvenger]

A 2500k @ 4.5 a bottleneck? Not likely.

When you alt-tab out of BF3, do you get a nice 5 second or so pause? And does your CPU spike to 100% while doing this? I noticed this with my Radeon 5850 and 6790 on my 2500k system with BF3. CPU spikes to 100% when alt tabbing out of a game causing the desktop to drag terribly. My GTX 560 1gb does not do this at all. The CPU does not even spike and there is no delay at all. I played BF3 on my bulldozer system a couple times, Alt-tabbed out with no lag. I just hope AMD isn't purposely trying to hinder performance with their cards on intel systems just to get that gaming edge with their own bulldozer. :thumbsdown:

 

[Stuka87]

When you alt-tab out of BF3, do you get a nice 5 second or so pause? And does your CPU spike to 100% while doing this? I noticed this with my Radeon 5850 and 6790 on my 2500k system with BF3. CPU spikes to 100% when alt tabbing out of a game causing the desktop to drag terribly. My GTX 560 1gb does not do this at all. The CPU does not even spike and there is no delay at all. I played BF3 on my bulldozer system a couple times, Alt-tabbed out with no lag. I just hope AMD isn't purposely trying to hinder performance with their cards on intel systems just to get that gaming edge with their own bulldozer. :thumbsdown:

I used to get this every single time when I only had 4GB of ram. Now that I have 12, there is zero lag or hicups when I tab out. So in me experience with was a system memory issue. Being that 4GB was not nearly enough as I easily consume around 5-5.5GB while playing now.

 

[Rvenger]

I used to get this every single time when I only had 4GB of ram. Now that I have 12, there is zero lag or hicups when I tab out. So in me experience with was a system memory issue. Being that 4GB was not nearly enough as I easily consume around 5-5.5GB while playing now.

I have 16gb of ram.

 

[djnsmith7]

Update:

Installed 2/15 CAP - No change
Fans started @ 50%: Changed to Auto: Changed to 65% - No change
PowerTune @ +20 on both cards - No change

I've had minimal CPU usage monitoring, but I haven't seen any of the cores reach 99 - 100% (using Alt + Tab)

I'm going to check to see if my circuit might be overloaded, since this rig is currently sharing power from an outlet with my home theater. I hope that's where the problem is.

 

[Tempered81]

Update:

Installed 2/15 CAP - No change
Fans started @ 50%: Changed to Auto: Changed to 65% - No change
PowerTune @ +20 on both cards - No change

I've had minimal CPU usage monitoring, but I haven't seen any of the cores reach 99 - 100% (using Alt + Tab)

I'm going to check to see if my circuit might be overloaded, since this rig is currently sharing power from an outlet with my home theater. I hope that's where the problem is.

try the bf3 patch and the feb 14th driver 8.950.xx

Also, max out all the game settings and play online on a 64 player server

 

[Rvenger]

Update:

Installed 2/15 CAP - No change
Fans started @ 50%: Changed to Auto: Changed to 65% - No change
PowerTune @ +20 on both cards - No change

I've had minimal CPU usage monitoring, but I haven't seen any of the cores reach 99 - 100% (using Alt + Tab)

I'm going to check to see if my circuit might be overloaded, since this rig is currently sharing power from an outlet with my home theater. I hope that's where the problem is.

If you had power issues, your rig would be crashing due to low voltage. Sounds like a CPU bottleneck or a wrong setting somewhere.


Try running your 2500k at stock to see if the GPU usage drops anymore.

 

[AdamK47]

I just tried it on 64 player conquest and my framerates were ridiculous, triple digits @ 2560x1440 with fxaa and triple digits with 4x msaa as well, but hovered around 85-90 in dense city areas with a lot of activity. Both GPU's pegged at 99% usage the entire time. GPUs clocked at 1150/1700x2.

I have no basis of comparison though, it "feels" a bit faster than before. I'm eagerly awaiting the AdamK report

My results at 2560x1600:

Before: 60fps average
Patched: 60fps average

 

[Imouto]

lol vsync lol?

 

[raasco]

When you alt-tab out of BF3, do you get a nice 5 second or so pause? And does your CPU spike to 100% while doing this? I noticed this with my Radeon 5850 and 6790 on my 2500k system with BF3. CPU spikes to 100% when alt tabbing out of a game causing the desktop to drag terribly. My GTX 560 1gb does not do this at all. The CPU does not even spike and there is no delay at all. I played BF3 on my bulldozer system a couple times, Alt-tabbed out with no lag. I just hope AMD isn't purposely trying to hinder performance with their cards on intel systems just to get that gaming edge with their own bulldozer. :thumbsdown:

I've never had this issue with my setup. I'm currently running stock with my GPUs and a light OC on my 2500K.

 

[INGlewood78]

I don't know why people keep saying that 4Ghz is enough for crossfire for BF3. I'm running 2 X 7970 crossfire at 4Ghz(2500k), 1080p max with only FXAA(no MSAA yet), OSD shows that I only managed to run both cards around 50%-60% most of the time, and it's stuttering and even at 60fps it feels like playing at 24fps, really annoying.

I switched back to single card mode, it's so smooth and enjoyable, comparing single card and crossfire the different is like night and day.

Try most of the drivers, cap or without cap pretty much the same result. So either CPU is the bottleneck factor or something wrong with my system or driver, but I think CPU is the main factor here.

It's a driver issue b/c I'm running an i7 920 @ 4.2 with xfire 7970s @ 1125. Utilization is around 95-99% in MP running on only 1 monitor (1920x1200). Ultra, FXAA High, MSAA 4x, fps 80-150.

I have not noticed any fps increase with the patch.

 

[GoStumpy]

Am I the only one that concentrates on minimum FPS, not average? IMHO average is fairly useless, minimum is the important one...

Why not run task-manager in the background to measure CPU usage?

 

[lavaheadache]

Minimuns aren't always accurate since a lot of times the minimun frame rate happens during loading and caching times

 

[GoStumpy]

I see... I do a ~120 second FRAP test when I'm in the middle of a map, so no load screens etc.

 

[UJ09]

It's a driver issue b/c I'm running an i7 920 @ 4.2 with xfire 7970s @ 1125. Utilization is around 95-99% in MP running on only 1 monitor (1920x1200). Ultra, FXAA High, MSAA 4x, fps 80-150.

I have not noticed any fps increase with the patch.

Any idea how to fix it? I run Heaven benchmark and both cards utilized 99% all the time, but for BF3 this's different story. I also clocked both card at 1125, it'll a little better than stock, but still suck b/c both cards are still running at 50-70%.

 

[Riek]

why are you focussed on the % in use? If your frame rates are good for the quality you want to set those things don't matter.

Also like mentionned before, could be cpu bottleneck or driver issue.

Since threads are swapped over cpu's you won't see one core at 100% load. What you can try is to assign cores to bf3. Starting with one, 2, and more untill you see no progression in framerate. If you then lower the resolution and the cpu taxation goes up you know you were gpu limited, although i highly doubt that is the case.

 

[UJ09]

Because it's stuttering and slowing down during heavy battle, and the worst part is that both cards also utilize 50-60% when heavy battle, but around 80% when nothing much happens on the screen.

I don't think you'll be happy when you've spent thousand for both cards and get this kinda performance, other people can get max utilization but why can't I get it? All I want is just finding out the problem.

 

[Tempered81]

Because it's stuttering and slowing down during heavy battle, and the worst part is that both cards also utilize 50-60% when heavy battle, but around 80% when nothing much happens on the screen.

I don't think you'll be happy when you've spent thousand for both cards and get this kinda performance, other people can get max utilization but why can't I get it? All I want is just finding out the problem.

Yeah man. Clean install of your drivers first. Which means removing the old stuff, which may require safe mode and 3-4 cleans & reboots with a driver cleaner/sweeper. Removing your hardware from device manager, and doing a clean install with a single card at a time. Patch and hotfix your operating system - maybe a service pack if available. make sure your motherboard has the latest bios - check gpu-z for your pci-e 2.0 at 16x. Reinstall your card and drivers 1 card at a time. Put one card in, install those feb 14th drivers that just came out. Run and check it, reboot. Power down, put the 2nd card in. Reboot.

This whole process takes a bunch of reboots between the bioses, cards, updates, and drivers. It technically doesnt have to be this way, however for the small percentage of folks with problems such as yours, this is what you gotta do.

Make sure your battlefield 3 PC game has the updated patch to help 7900 performance. And lastly when you're up and running with crossfire, try different methods of testing your gpu usage.. One can be letting gpu-z log the sensors in the background. Another could be Afterburner logging. Try one or the other, or neither, but not both. And sometimes OSD's and overlays can affect the % usage as well. Like fraps, dxtory, or Afterburner's OSD.

 

[djnsmith7]

Because it's stuttering and slowing down during heavy battle, and the worst part is that both cards also utilize 50-60% when heavy battle, but around 80% when nothing much happens on the screen.

I don't think you'll be happy when you've spent thousand for both cards and get this kinda performance, other people can get max utilization but why can't I get it? All I want is just finding out the problem.

I'm with you 100% on this & I'm still trying to figure it out. Believe it or not, on some 64 players maps, on certain servers, my cards actually do reach the aforementioned 95 - 99% usage. However, on other 64 player maps, they'll get stuck anywhere between 60 - 85%. This is with everything running on Ultra. My cards are all over the place.

I am experiencing some stuttering, but maybe not as much as you are. I don't know if that's because my avg. FPS are usually over 90, but there shouldn't be this much fluctuation. I mean, I should be able to flick the switch & just have my cards pinned at 95 - 99% & be done with it.

It's funny you should mention the idle part. That happens to me too. I'll be in the menu screen & my FPS will be at like 150 & both cards at 95%. I'll join the game & the FPS will drop to 110 & the cards will drop to 65%. I'll be like, wait, what the...? Next round the opposite will happen.

 

[UJ09]

Yeah man. Clean install of your drivers first. Which means removing the old stuff, which may require safe mode and 3-4 cleans & reboots with a driver cleaner/sweeper. Removing your hardware from device manager, and doing a clean install with a single card at a time. Patch and hotfix your operating system - maybe a service pack if available. make sure your motherboard has the latest bios - check gpu-z for your pci-e 2.0 at 16x. Reinstall your card and drivers 1 card at a time. Put one card in, install those feb 14th drivers that just came out. Run and check it, reboot. Power down, put the 2nd card in. Reboot.

This whole process takes a bunch of reboots between the bioses, cards, updates, and drivers. It technically doesnt have to be this way, however for the small percentage of folks with problems such as yours, this is what you gotta do.

Make sure your battlefield 3 PC game has the updated patch to help 7900 performance. And lastly when you're up and running with crossfire, try different methods of testing your gpu usage.. One can be letting gpu-z log the sensors in the background. Another could be Afterburner logging. Try one or the other, or neither, but not both. And sometimes OSD's and overlays can affect the % usage as well. Like fraps, dxtory, or Afterburner's OSD.

Thanks for the tips, I'll try it later on.

I'm with you 100% on this & I'm still trying to figure it out. Believe it or not, on some 64 players maps, on certain servers, my cards actually do reach the aforementioned 95 - 99% usage. However, on other 64 player maps, they'll get stuck anywhere between 60 - 85%. This is with everything running on Ultra. My cards are all over the place.

I am experiencing some stuttering, but maybe not as much as you are. I don't know if that's because my avg. FPS are usually over 90, but there shouldn't be this much fluctuation. I mean, I should be able to flick the switch & just have my cards pinned at 95 - 99% & be done with it.

It's funny you should mention the idle part. That happens to me too. I'll be in the menu screen & my FPS will be at like 150 & both cards at 95%. I'll join the game & the FPS will drop to 110 & the cards will drop to 65%. I'll be like, wait, what the...? Next round the opposite will happen.

For me the stuttering is so bad and it isn't funny. During heavy battle framerate can dip down to 40fps, massive stuttering and jerky, on 64 players btw. A single 7970 is actually more playable than 2 7970 xfire, I'm currently playing at single card mode, I just don't know why it happens and how to fix it.

Max utilization for both of my cards is about 90%, never before both reach 99%, not even once.

 

[wahdangun]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try it later on.



For me the stuttering is so bad and it isn't funny. During heavy battle framerate can dip down to 40fps, massive stuttering and jerky, on 64 players btw. A single 7970 is actually more playable than 2 7970 xfire, I'm currently playing at single card mode, I just don't know why it happens and how to fix it.

Max utilization for both of my cards is about 90%, never before both reach 99%, not even once.

hmm i never have that, maybe you can just do clean install??

 

[Rvenger]

According to this guy, the 2500k and 2600k are bottlenecked in BF3. 2600k, not so much. 5-10% difference between HT on and HT off on a 64 player map it seems.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038342174&postcount=67

 

[djnsmith7]

According to this guy, the 2500k and 2600k are bottlenecked in BF3. 2600k, not so much. 5-10% difference between HT on and HT off on a 64 player map it seems.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038342174&postcount=67

I would say that my experience thus far is similar to his & I've done similar tests on the same map & server. Even though my FPS don't hover near the 50 - 60 mark for long or often, when the GPU's are in the 70 - 80% range, they'll stay there the whole round. Seems like his issue is more FPS-based where mine is GPU usage-based (or at least that's what he's focused on).

But how do we explain the change when moving to a different 64 player map & server (GPU usage increases to 95 - 99%)? If there really is a bottleneck, why is it circumstantial?

 

[BD231]

Some maps scale a *LOT* better than others no matter player count as odd scaling even shows up in single player missions, its a software limitation. Tough to gauge online issues as well because half the time you're connecting to cheap servers or stupid players that ruin good ones with 80+ ping rates.

 

[djnsmith7]

Some maps scale a *LOT* better than others no matter player count as odd scaling even shows up in single player missions, its a software limitation. Tough to gauge online issues as well because half the time you're connecting to cheap servers or stupid players that ruin good ones with 80+ ping rates.

I'm guessing your points are valid because shortly after my previous post, I joined a different 64 player server & a different map (don't recall which) that only had about 18 players (don't recall their pings, but nothing jumped off the charts).

FPS @ 100+ & both cards between 97 - 99% the entire round. (Smoothest round I've played thus far).

One thing I changed was I increased my OC from 4.5 > 4.8.

I'll do some more testing later & see how it goes.