AMD finally fixing frame rate latency problem

[Rollo]

"There is nothing to fear buying two...three...or even FOUR high quality AMD GPUs to run in Crossfire! AMD has all the consoles now, and Crossfire technology is greatly enhanced by this amazing coup! Do not believe the infidels and their wild tales of less than perfect gaming experiences, or use of likely defective measuring softwares! It is all a hoax, like that "War of the Worlds" radio show. Go back to newegg and order more Radeons!"

Ummm....sure.

More seriously, AMD themselves said this is an issue. It's an issue, and not one "you'd never notice".

Theoretically they can fix it like NVIDIA did, and then CF won't be a problem to recommend.

[Elmy]

Where are 7990 QuadFire reviews ? Nowhere ...

2 possibilities :

1. QuadFire is working great and AMD is dumb enough to not show maximum supremacy
2. QuadFire is badly broken, no need to point out more massive flaws

Bonus : Sushi Warrior got 166% better frame rate adding a new card. It's a kind of magic

I got one 7990 on the way ( the new powercolor one ) and working on getting the 2nd one this week ( Sapphire one ) hopefully to run quadfire. Once I get them I will post back here and run any benchmarks you guys want to see.

[Rollo]

I got one 7990 on the way ( the new powercolor one ) and working on getting the 2nd one this week ( Sapphire one ) hopefully to run quadfire. Once I get them I will post back here and run any benchmarks you guys want to see.

I truly mean no offense when I say this, but it doesn't really matter what FPS are reported for Crossfire solutions like the 7990s currently.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...ormance-Test-4

A quick glance at this graph tells you all you need to know ? the CrossFire runt issue remains a problem at 2560x1440 in addition to 1920x1080. Without a doubt the average frame rates you see above are NOT indicative of real world performance for AMD?s multi-GPU solutions.

People need to be made aware of this, not how many fps 7990s get. When the frames delivered are long enough to see, because AMD has released their frame metering technology, THEN 7990s will an interesting solution.

(at least as interesting as two year and a half old GPUs can be)

Said it before, saying it again: If you want $1000 from me AMD, beat the Titan and I'll buy your card. If you want $700, beat my 7970 GHz by 20% and I'll buy your card.

[cadaveca]

Which cards are those? I can quote you some figures right now that show some excellent multi card scaling, all with recent drivers. Even 7990's in CF are getting good scaling now. Just played Crysis 3 in 4K on ultra with CF 7990's. With a single card, I was getting 15FPS. With 2, I was well into the playable range (35-40FPS)..

Crysis3 is one title, and 35-40 FPS isn't playable to me. 4K is also a moot point, since I run 3x 1920x1200 monitors. I also run Win8. Most reviewers use Win7, so they truly have no idea about how these cards work...they only know about how they work, part of the time.

Anyway, that's 3x Gigabyte 7950s. I also have dual Matrix 7970's. That's 5 AMD cards in total. About 80% of titles in Crossfire work properly that I have tried. Add in Eyefinity, and the number of working titles drops to just Three. Bloody 3dMarks don't even work right.

Just remember though, microstutter was WORSE in the past. And did anyone ever mention it in any reviews? Not really, at least not very often (if ever). It's only now that the tools to measure it have gotten better that people have started to think that it is a problem. This is why I think it is more often a quantitative issue rather than a qualitative issue. Reviewers would have been tearing their eyes out years ago given how bad it was if it was actually a visible issue to everyone, yet only now once they have FCAT testing do they actually make a big deal out of it.

Our GPU reviewer, W1zzard, has been complaining about issues in Crossfire, even before all this frame-rating stuff came out. And being a reviewer, I know many other reviewers just post nonsense. However, I'm a boy scout(for realz), and I pride myself on always being honest. For me, Crossfire is broken. For our GPU reviewer, it is as well. Maybe you should stop looking at either sites.

Launch 7970 Crossfire review:

We see plenty of performance for the latest and greatest titles at maximum resolution and maximum settings. Unfortunately AMD's reviewer driver did not ship with working CrossFire profiles for Batman Arkham City and Elder Scrolls Skyrim. Battlefield 3 at 2560x1600 also fell back to single GPU performance, even though lower resolutions scale just fine. While I am confident AMD that will provide working CrossFire profiles for these major titles soon, they really need to work on getting their driver support to work right at launch day, when loads of people want to play these games.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ssFire/26.html


Launch 7990 review, 16 months later:

It does make me wonder why AMD had to release the HD 7990 now instead of waiting just a little bit longer, which would have given them the time to solve the frametime and CrossFire scaling issue and, last but not least, get rid of the coil whine.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/31.html




Reviewers aren't reporting problems? Really....?



In the end, I don't care what ANYONE else says. AMD says their stuff is broken, reviewers say it's broken, and my own rigs here in my house show that to be true. Arguing about it when AMD says it's a problem is stupid, and I'm not here to argue, merely relate my story. If there are users that are happy with AMD's Crossfire, good for them, but I expect far better, and it seems AMD does too.

Until they fix things, my AMD cards will make me money with BitCoin. That proves to me they are very capable cards...and that software is the problem. I just hope they actually have staff capable of fixing this...

[lowdog]

Well, now I'll ignore all of your posts, because you're a liar. I have run four GPUs since 3870x2. There has been problems with triple and quad scaling since then. I now run these:





And they work like . Worse than a single card, both in FPS, and in actual usage.


Maybe you should start seeking the truth, not to say that Golden Tiger is any better, because I agree on your summary of his postings. But you are quite obviously no better.


And since I do motherboard reviews, I know 1000000% this isn't some configuration problem, or bottleneck, or whatever. Current AMD drivers suck big-time. You are more than welcome to come over to my house, grab any of the like 40 boards I have here, any CPU(I have about 20), and any ram kit(from 1333 MHz to 2666MHz sticks), build a rig with my hardware, here in my house, and prove me wrong. I've got multiple PSUs, cases, monitors...everything....



And I know you won't succeed, since Crossfire is bloody broken...and AMD admits that it is as well. Nah, AMD just says there are issues to keep some user happy. They don't care about sales.

Hang on hang on!, just hang on one second.................you have been running 4 gpu's since 3870x2....that means 3xxx series, 4xxx series, 5xxx series, 6xxx series and now 7xxx series all with 4 gpu's knowing cfx is to quote you "bloody broken" and you still persist with running multi gpu setups!!!!!!!!!!!!............FFS man what are you????....some sort of masochistic glutten for punishment or something, sheeeeesh!

[STEvil]

Hey Cadaveca, can you do me a favor and check the tightness of the screws on the back of your matrix cards? I found heat due to poor tension caused me a few issues, even though the GPU wasnt reporting that it was hot to the monitoring programs..

[cadaveca]

Hang on hang on!, just hang on one second.................you have been running 4 gpu's since 3870x2....that means 3xxx series, 4xxx series, 5xxx series, 6xxx series and now 7xxx series all with 4 gpu's knowing cfx is to quote you "bloody broken" and you still persist with running multi gpu setups!!!!!!!!!!!!............FFS man what are you????....some sort of masochistic glutten for punishment or something, sheeeeesh!

Yeah, I am. Honestly, back then I thought the issue was a performance-related, since I was running 2560x1600 Dell 3008WFP. Now I know better. buying monitors for eyefinity before the 5870 launched was pretty stupid too.:p Today, I don't buy hardware, it's all given to me for reviews. I did buy one of those windforce cards, and one of the matrix cards, though, and on their own, they work great.

Hey Cadaveca, can you do me a favor and check the tightness of the screws on the back of your matrix cards? I found heat due to poor tension caused me a few issues, even though the GPU wasnt reporting that it was hot to the monitoring programs..

Yeah, I saw your thread when you got your card. I didn't have the same issues, but one card(the platinum) will crash/artifact if it hits over 62c @ load. The windforce cards are cooled relatively the same way, although cooler covers memories too, but it's the same, just 4 screws. I used washers on all my cards to increase mounting pressure, and it definitely affects clocking ability.

[Rollo]

Hang on hang on!, just hang on one second.................you have been running 4 gpu's since 3870x2....that means 3xxx series, 4xxx series, 5xxx series, 6xxx series and now 7xxx series all with 4 gpu's knowing cfx is to quote you "bloody broken" and you still persist with running multi gpu setups!!!!!!!!!!!!............FFS man what are you????....some sort of masochistic glutten for punishment or something, sheeeeesh!

My guess is as a reviewer he has multiple PCs? And has to test SLi and CF motherboards?

[aussie-revhead]

Hang on hang on!, just hang on one second.................you have been running 4 gpu's since 3870x2....that means 3xxx series, 4xxx series, 5xxx series, 6xxx series and now 7xxx series all with 4 gpu's knowing cfx is to quote you "bloody broken" and you still persist with running multi gpu setups!!!!!!!!!!!!............FFS man what are you????....some sort of masochistic glutten for punishment or something, sheeeeesh!

HAHAHA lol lowdog ... maybe a supreme fanboi??

[cadaveca]

HAHAHA lol lowdog ... maybe a supreme fanboi??

And this is the one fanboi that cannot deny that there are issues. Actually if you go back though the years of my posts here, you'll find me proclaiming I'm ATi's number 1 fanboy, so you have no idea how accurate that is.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Hang on hang on!, just hang on one second.................you have been running 4 gpu's since 3870x2....that means 3xxx series, 4xxx series, 5xxx series, 6xxx series and now 7xxx series all with 4 gpu's knowing cfx is to quote you "bloody broken" and you still persist with running multi gpu setups!!!!!!!!!!!!............FFS man what are you????....some sort of masochistic glutten for punishment or something, sheeeeesh!

Makes no sense to me either. He's been complaining on TPU for months. I don't know if he enjoys complaining or what. I would have just sold the cards and given some Nvidia cards a shot months ago.

[cadaveca]

Makes no sense to me either. He's been complaining on TPU for months. I don't know if he enjoys complaining or what. I would have just sold the cards and given some Nvidia cards a shot months ago.

Not months...years.


And yes, I do post about these issues often. It's called educating our readers. I have hardware to relate how it works to end users. I don't do reviews for money, just for fun, as a hobby, and if what I report can prevent some frustration for end users, or when an end user runs into a problem, and finds he/she is not the only one, then I've done my "job" well.



And when/if AMD fixes the problems properly, it will be a great victory for them. But if no one knows about the problem, AMD has done nothing.


I didn't change out my cards since I had already done many many reviews using AMD cards, and re-benching 20 motherboards is a task I'm not up to(OS install ,driver install, software install, benchmark install, lots of work there). The first was provided to me to use by an OEM. I bought the second to show Crossfire performance. My own personal choices have nothing to do with what I present in reviews. It doesn't cost me anything out of pocket, really, so I don't care what I run. Maybe Nvidia will provide me with cards. Until they don't, I won't be buying any. Many users report problems with SLI as well.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Our GPU reviewer, W1zzard, has been complaining about issues in Crossfire, even before all this frame-rating stuff came out. And being a reviewer, I know many other reviewers just post nonsense. However, I'm a boy scout(for realz), and I pride myself on always being honest. For me, Crossfire is broken. For our GPU reviewer, it is as well. Maybe you should stop looking at either sites.

LOL

I have never, ever seen microstutter mentioned in a techpowerup review. You do understand that is what this thread is about. Not your eyefintity complaints. Yes, I hear a lot of complaints from eyefinity users. That doens't mean that every amd feature is broken for everyone else like you seem to claim.

I never hear issues bought up in techpowerup video card reviews. Wizzard never seems to notice any issues in any game. It looks to me like he just runs a bunch of timedemos and doesn't look at the screen. It may give you an over view of how the cards perform with average framerate across a variety of games but thats about it.

[Maxforces]

read

It does make me wonder why AMD had to release the HD 7990 now instead of waiting just a little bit longer, which would have given them the time to solve the frametime and CrossFire scaling issue and, last but not least, get rid of the coil whine.

last line
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/31.html

[cadaveca]

read

last line
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/31.html

Yeah, and I posted that above. He's just an asshat. I already put him on ignore.

[BababooeyHTJ]

So they just now after all these years and several articles by other sites acknowledge microstutter. Still didn't attempt to incorporate it into their testing in any way. We'll probably never see it mentioned again. Even toms hardware has been attempting to do incorporate microstutter in some of their articles for quite some time. Where were the microstutter mentions in their 4870x2 review? I know damn well I saw a lot of it on mine. The 5890 review? The 6990 review? nothing

I look at techpowerup, guru 3d, and anandtech reviews more like 3d mark benchmarks. All they do is show the average fps in timedemos. That doesn't necessarily translate to what you see in real world usage. It may give you an idea but thats a small part of the picture.

Some sites take a different approach. I like that SkyMtl doesn't use timedemos and includes minimums. Hopefully he'll keep using fcat. I love what techreport has been doing. Its about damn time that someone tried to test for smoothness. Thats a damn good thing for the consumer. Testing like that does a much better job of showing off how the card actually performs once you have it in your pc.

If constructive criticism makes me an "asshat" then you might want to get off the forums. I find you to be extremely condescending and are exactly why I avoid techpowerup forums. The forums are for discussions, people will have opinions that differ from yours. You just like feeding your ego.

Again, this thread is about microstutter. You've complained about everything but.

Well, now I'll ignore all of your posts, because you're a liar. I have run four GPUs since 3870x2. There has been problems with triple and quad scaling since then. I now run these:




And they work like . Worse than a single card, both in FPS, and in actual usage.

and I'm the asshat, grow up kid. I already called you out on that bs on tpu when you were defending their use of old drivers. You must have been using those drivers for that bad scaling.

Kid, not everyone uses eyefinity. Tri-fire scales pretty well on a single display especially when you like forcing things like SSAA. I like to get the most out of my cards.

Your expereince isn't going to be the same as everyone else. I forgot you don't listen to anyone else's opinions since you're above that.

[cadaveca]

So they just now after all these years and several articles by other sites acknowledge microstutter. Still didn't attempt to incorporate it into their testing in any way. We'll probably never see it mentioned again. Even toms hardware has been attempting to do incorporate microstutter in some of their articles for quite some time. Where were the microstutter mentions in their 4870x2 review? I know damn well I saw a lot of it on mine. The 5890 review? The 6990 review? nothing

I look at techpowerup, guru 3d, and anandtech reviews more like 3d mark benchmarks. All they do is show the average fps in timedemos. That doesn't necessarily translate to what you see in real world usage. It may give you an idea but thats a small part of the picture.

Some sites take a different approach. I like that SkyMtl doesn't use timedemos and includes minimums. Hopefully he'll keep using fcat. I love what techreport has been doing. Its about damn time that someone tried to test for smoothness. Thats a damn good thing for the consumer. Testing like that does a much better job of showing off how the card actually performs once you have it in your pc.

If constructive criticism makes me an "asshat" then you might want to get off the forums. I find you to be extremely condescending and are exactly why I avoid techpowerup forums. The forums are for discussions, people will have opinions that differ from yours. You just like feeding your ego.

Again, this thread is about microstutter. You've complained about everything but.

There are other problems than microstutter in Crossfire? WTF you talking about....it's all the same problem. This shows how inept you are at understanding the situation, so yes, you are an asshat. Someone whose head is up their own ass.

and I'm the asshat, grow up kid. I already called you out on that bs on tpu when you were defending their use of old drivers. You must have been using those drivers for that bad scaling.

Kid, not everyone uses eyefinity. Tri-fire scales pretty well on a single display especially when you like forcing things like SSAA. I like to get the most out of my cards.

Your expereince isn't going to be the same as everyone else. I forgot you don't listen to anyone else's opinions since you're above that.

Oh yes, I only use Eyefinity, which is broken. Your close-mindedness has me treating you the way I am. That's all. I game today on a single monitor, because Eyefinity is broken, and as mentioned, many titles still have issues, even with newer drivers. Current 13.4 WHQL drivers have issues, betas do as well. AMD has yet to release their fixed driver to the public, but I have it myself, and it's far from perfect. As to issues in Trifire, I can post videos at any time that will show things contrary to what you have posted. Like you said, people have differing opinions, but me, I base my opinions on fact.


And the fact is, I've done a good job at getting you riled up. I hope you don't like me, and DO avoid TPU, beucase I think you're a useless piece of that lies when backed into a corner. When I'm wrong, I admit it. And treating you this way is not wrong...it's just dessert.

[paulbagz]

-PB

[LordEC911]

Remember kids... when your opinion is based on your personal experience it means it is now a fact.

[STEvil]

er, less hostilities please..?

[lowdog]

LOL yeah I run multi gpu's in cfx (2 x 7970) some times they preform okay and sometimes they jerk and stutter to the phuck! Just get the driver out AMD to finally address this issue ffs.

atm i'd rather stick with the devil I know to run eyefinity than the devil I don't, and yes! they are both the devil!

[DefStar]

Remember kids... when your opinion is based on your personal experience it means it is now a fact.

All opinions were based on personal experiences and became facts if they were reproducible. It takes all kinds to make the world go round (figuratively speaking of course).

[Sushi Warrior]

Launch 7970 Crossfire review:



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ssFire/26.html


Launch 7990 review, 16 months later:




http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7990/31.html




Reviewers aren't reporting problems? Really....?



In the end, I don't care what ANYONE else says. AMD says their stuff is broken, reviewers say it's broken, and my own rigs here in my house show that to be true. Arguing about it when AMD says it's a problem is stupid, and I'm not here to argue, merely relate my story. If there are users that are happy with AMD's Crossfire, good for them, but I expect far better, and it seems AMD does too.

Until they fix things, my AMD cards will make me money with BitCoin. That proves to me they are very capable cards...and that software is the problem. I just hope they actually have staff capable of fixing this...

What I meant by "reviewers not mentioning it" was how microstutter was rarely mentioned in past reviews for 3870x2's, 4870x2's, 9800GX2's, etc. etc. when it is unanimously agreed that frame stutter was MORE of a problem.

[cadaveca]

What I meant by "reviewers not mentioning it" was how microstutter was rarely mentioned in past reviews for 3870x2's, 4870x2's, 9800GX2's, etc. etc. when it is unanimously agreed that frame stutter was MORE of a problem.

I believe that back then it was limited to specific configurations. Today, every Crossfire 7-series build has these issues, so the situation is very much different today than it was in the past. Stutter and such has always been a bane of high-end configs, IMHO, but mid-range and low-end did not seem to have much issues, if any. Today, it's the exact opposite, where a few configs have no issues, but all the rest do. And with that in mind, it makes sense that things have changed in how they are reported...since the problem itself is very much a different beast.

And thanks to sites like PCPer, other sites need change nothing, I think. FPS is still the end-all-be-all, we just need to confirm with PCPer if those FPS are real or not. :p

So, to me, today, it's more of a problem than it was in the past, and now the issue deserves attention...and it's getting it. All arguments aside, it is a very interesting topic.

[Sushi Warrior]

I believe that back then it was limited to specific configurations. Today, every Crossfire 7-series build has these issues, so the situation is very much different today than it was in the past. Stutter and such has always been a bane of high-end configs, IMHO, but mid-range and low-end did not seem to have much issues, if any. Today, it's the exact opposite, where a few configs have no issues, but all the rest do. And with that in mind, it makes sense that things have changed in how they are reported...since the problem itself is very much a different beast.

And thanks to sites like PCPer, other sites need change nothing, I think. FPS is still the end-all-be-all, we just need to confirm with PCPer if those FPS are real or not. :p

So, to me, today, it's more of a problem than it was in the past, and now the issue deserves attention...and it's getting it. All arguments aside, it is a very interesting topic.

I am of the opinion that the issue WAS worse in the past, from low-end to high-end. I believe it was universally worse, and AMD and Nvidia have only made improvements (if only slight) since then. I think it was just as much, if not more, of an issue then, but there is only a giant issue now because FCAT says there is an issue, and frametimes are now quoted in benchmarks. Reviewers didn't care or notice the issues 2 or 3 or even 4 years ago, but they existed and were probably worse. But they care now because "well this tool says it's an issue". People didn't LOOK at the gameplay and figure it was an issue, they convinced themselves it was an issue because they were told it was one. Psych 101 folks. IMO the entire issue has been blown out of the water, it's noticeable to some but to others they're being convinced it's an issue by numbers that reviewers are quoting that don't actually mean perceptible problems.