Help with my crossfire setup

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May 20, 2013
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Ok so I have a Visiontek 5750 with stock clocks and a Diamond 5770 XOC edition in crossfire.

Now I found out quickly I have to have both their clocks set to the same speed for any games to play.

So I set them both to 800/1200 which isn't even max for my 5750.


Now these clock shouldn't be an issue but I keep getting flickering in games.
The flickering will happen to either sun light, shadows, and every once in a great while it will flicker a texture.

This issue would be bearable if it didn't happen to every game.
Need for Speed shift 2 has an insanely fast flickering sun and Far cry 3 has some awesome flickering shadows.


I have tried bringing the clocks down,
but this did nothing.
V-sync is on also and frames will stick around 30 at very high for Far cry and 60 maxed out for Shift 2 so i doubt its my monitor.

I looked into this a bit and found someone solved this issue by lowering their core and memory voltages.

This would make sense as my 5770's voltage is 1.20 stock and the clocks are 930/1300.

So do you guys think that could be causing the issue?

I have tried adjusting voltages for both cards in Afterburner but could not.
Yes, I did the msiafterburner.cfg overclocking option and it still didn't work.

I know I can flash a different bios to my cards and that would allow me to have access to change the volts.


The problem with that is its quite risky and i don't want to risked bricking my 5770 over a fix that won't work.
Plus i don't know which bios has voltage options or if it what ones will work with my card.

Any help is appreciated!
 
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The flickering you're experiencing may be an unavoidable by-product of CrossFire, depending on the game. I experienced flickering from certain in-game light sources that could not be fixed when I played Alan Wake on a CrossFire setup. It wasn't unbearable, but it was something I had to tolerate. CrossFire and SLI are not perfect solutions as of yet. Some day they may be problem free, but for the time being, they only work well in some games.
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bigpinkdragon286

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Your 5770 should be clocking itself to match the 5750 automatically.

If you are not already running them, I strongly recommend going to AMD's website and obtaining the newest beta drivers available.

Also, if you haven't done so, download and install the latest CAP (CrossFire Application Profiles) so that your cards are better instructed on how to behave for particular games, as not all games run well using the same settings. These should be found where you obtain the driver, on AMD's website.

Some games have glitches when run in CrossFire, such as flickering light sources. You may have to live with it.

You haven't mentioned the PSU you have installed in your computer. It should ideally be rated at 600 Watt or greater for your CrossFire configuration. If you do not have sufficient capacity to feed the cards from the 12V rail of your power supply, you can have all sorts of weird glitches occur, and even random reboots and shutting down of your system.
 
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Well you are definitely not going to like my PSU. :lol:
Its an Antec VP-450.
I had to do some decent underclocking of my CPU to make this halfway safe.
But it works well, and surprisingly has never really gotten too hot or given random reboots or anything.
Plus these cards don't require much.

And about it clocking itself down,
I thought the same thing until I ran a game and it got to the loading screen then just crashed.
Didn't give a windows pop up or anything.
I underclocked the 5770 and ran it again, and sure enough the game ran fine.
I have tried on other games with the same results.

I currently have the 13.11 drivers which were the latest last I checked so please correct me if they are not the latest.


So what do you think the issue is?

 
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Your right about just going with a single better card but that doesn't help me solve the problem.

Would you have any insight on this?

EDIT- Forgot to add that I posted this in game with crossfire disabled and I am not having the flickering issues with a single 5770 at the same clocks as before.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Hmm, what processor are you running?

Essentially, as I see things, your 5750 is an 86 Watt board and your 5770 is a 108 Watt board.

Your 12V capacity on your PSU is 360 Watts. That really only leaves some 150 Watts, give or take, for the processor and the rest of the system.

Since you are so close to capacity, I would not rule out a lack of proper amperage getting to one or both graphics cards. You can't guarantee the overcurrent protection in your PSU is working as it should, you could be pressing your luck as it stands.

I would say the 13.11 drivers are new enough to rule them out.

As things stand, short of changing your CrossFire modes and upgrading to a PSU of sufficient capacity, I see little I can do to help. The CrossFire mode will be found in the Gaming section of the Catalyst Control Center, in the 3D Application Settings subcategory, along the left side. On the 3D Application Settings page, near the bottom, you will find options for which CrossFire mode to use such as Default, AFR Friendly, Optimize 1x1, and to use an AMD Pre-defined Profile.

You can try different modes and see if it improves your results at all.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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The flickering you're experiencing may be an unavoidable by-product of CrossFire, depending on the game. I experienced flickering from certain in-game light sources that could not be fixed when I played Alan Wake on a CrossFire setup. It wasn't unbearable, but it was something I had to tolerate. CrossFire and SLI are not perfect solutions as of yet. Some day they may be problem free, but for the time being, they only work well in some games.
 
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Hmm, I will try the profiles.
My CPU is a PHenom II X2 B55 unlocked.
It was 3.0ghz with a vcore of 1.4 but i took it down to 2.7ghz and a vcore 1.21.
that wouldn't be pulling that much power would it?
I know the Phenoms are power hungry porcessors though.


If I can find a deal for a 5850 or 6850 I might pick one up and sell these.
But i will sadly be stuck with this setup.

 
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Where did you see that?
I thought it was 125w since it is unlocked to a quadcore.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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I grabbed the specs for your CPU here:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Phenom%20II%20X2%20B55%20-%20HDXB55WFK2DGM.html

My apologies, I overlooked the "unlocked" keyword in your post. I didn't realize you were running it on 4 cores instead of 2. It might be worth running it in it's correct configuration for the purposes of troubleshooting.

Have you run Prime95 or AMD's own Overdrive CPU stability test to ensure all four cores are running without error?
 
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yes, I have run Prime95 for around 6 hours with out any errors.
I have had overclocks pass 12 hours of prime and fail when I play GTA IV and this one hasn't done that yet either.
So it seems pretty stable.


I think it is just a crossfire issue because when I play with my single 5770 there is no flickering but my frame rates are about halved.


I will try flashing a different bios with voltage control to see what happens.

UPDATE- I flashed a modified stock bios I made with RBE and that just bricked the card.
It's unbricked right now and I have my 5750 in the tops PCI slot this time.
didn't make any difference.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Glad you got a successful unlock on your chip, but actually, my suggestion of running the processor on stock was more for reducing the power load on the PSU than stability. The stability was an afterthought. I still think it's a CrossFire issue, also.

As far as flashing different BIOS images to your cards, I think you're barking up the wrong tree there.
 
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