Crossfire Users Thread

[rbV5]

Added a "Max w/6xAA" setting for Crossfire to ~ match a single card "Max" settings. I notice that the single card "Max" setting performance is somewhat similar to Crossfire "Max" settings. With the additional profile, it kinda gives a comparison between single/multi with similar settings.

 

[Kahlos]

Hi
Well this is a bit off topic but i was wondering if any of you guys could offer me some advice. Well the story is that i bought my new system all going good except for the GPU. I got a X800GTO2 and tried overclocking it and i got very poor results. I then tried playing CS and i get stuttering frames and blurryness in the distance. Is something wrong with the card ?
I bought it off eBay so shall i try to get my money back ?
I fitted a ATI Silencer 5 on the card and i get artifacts at 50 degrees. I know cards can run up to 70 so something must be wrong. The card is one of the first made cause it still has the analog monitor output.
I also have an A8R-MVP motherboard and i was going to get a second GTO2 and run them in crossfire to get good speeds for a long time.
I was wondering if the performence difference is worth it. So shall i not get a replacement GTO2 and get a better card. I don't have much money so a X1900XTX is deffinatly not in my budget. £200 is the max i will pay. So shall i get 2xGTO2 or get a better single card
So what i want to know is
1. Is my card buggared
2. Is crossfire good for 2xGTO2's or is it better to get a single better card

Thanks for any help. Oh and check This forum out for any problems with the A8R-MVP motherboards including the A8R32-MVP

 

[Golgatha]

ASUS P5WD2 Premium 955X, 2GB Samsung DDR2 ECC, X1800XT Crossfire, Pentium D 920 (2.8Ghz@3.73Ghz, 1.35V), and Enermax Liberty 620w PS.

My experience is (so far) very limited, but my biggest issue right now is combatting heat. I absolutely had to set my Accelero X2s at 100% to keep everything stable. Apparently the thermal control on the ATI cards is just not that great. I ran 3DMark 2005 to get everything warmed up and after a couple of passes, I started artifacting without some fan control. I downloaded ATI Tray Tools and set both fans at 100% (still extremely quiet) to combat the heat issue. I also set my power supply fan for 100% (single 120mm, so still very quiet at about 1800rpm) to combat heat.

3DMark shows some flashing textures occasionally and will crash occasionally when in Crossfire mode and this never happened with either of the cards ran individually. Thankfully, I don't play 3DMark . The only other oddity I ran across is CCC thinks for some reason that Folding@Home is a video application (due to high CPU usage is my guess), and I couldn't enable crossfire unless I totally shut it down. Finally, figuring out how to properly plug in the dongle cable was a PITA and ATI needs to get some clear, easily accessible electronic documentation out there STAT.

When you figure in the cost of the Accelero X2s, I spent about $665 for my Crossfire setup and it is pretty sweet.

 

[VERTIGGO]

I have almost the same setup as Ackmed, but I've had numerous problems with my rig. I am overclocking, but it's Prime stable, so I didn't think that was my problem.

Basically, for a while I had problems with HQ AF and the CCC AA not being forced, so BF2 and HL2 looked like crap, and nothing I did would make AA turn on. It was unpredictable, sometimes it would work, and sometimes not. I still haven't figured out what is affecting it, but I reformatted and installed only what I need to run BF2 and Steam, including 6.5 Catalysts, and I keep setting restore points, and backing up my registry whenever I've made major changes, and the driver AA/AF works. I have had to restore the registry several times when the settings stopped working, and it works currently. However, I've been having incessant crashing which never happened before, especially in BF2 and HL2 Episode 1. Windows error reporting came up with a web page saying they were clueless about the crashing, but it was possibly an "unknown driver", which means they didnt' know which driver but one of mine was probably causing the problems. I hope its all driver/windows problems, because performance and IQ are amazing with this setup, but its a ROYAL PITA to keep having these problems and have no clue as to what's causing them.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

One thing I can say is that you folks should avoid an Accelero X2 because IMO it is impossible to remove! The thermal pads end up being like super glue making it impossible to pull off. I heated my card up extensively and it wouldn't even budge...

 

[augep]

I have a question I recently bought an AIW x1900, if i were to buy a crossfire x1900 would that run in cf mode? or do i need to get rid of it and get a regular x1900?

 

[Armorize]

it'll run in xfire mode, go to ati's crossfire website. your first card goes in slot1 and the xfire card goes in slot2. I dont think they have connectors like the x800, but im pretty sure after you install the second card you just need to enable it with the catalyst control center, you also need to have a xfire supported motherboard as well.

 

[Armorize]

sounds like you fried it oc'ing it, but i dont think you'll be able to return it since you oc'ed it unless the person/dealer you bought it from is an idiot sorry.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Running crossfire no problem. I hope ATI does a better job with the profiles, though.

BTW, what mode does Quake 4 and Doom 3 use for crossfire? Cos it doesn't seem to get a bog boost from crossfire... I didn't bench but it seems to be about the same.

On the other hand, ghost recon has HUGE crossfire scaling. like 2x FPS.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

thump