Crossfire problem in Metro 2033

[sargentchimera]

I have 5970s running in crossfire and i was getting horrible performance in metro 2033 when they where running in crossfire (15-30fps), and unplayable when i turned on 4x msaa (0.5fps), this was all running max setting at 1920/1080 btw. When i turned crossfire off performance was much better (15-75fps) but i still cant play with 4x msaa on (2fps), even though after seeing screenshot comparasons i wouldnt want it anyway, also something else thats strange is that when i turned on 4x msaa the fps was around 2 but after 5 to 10 minutes the fps would go to around 20-25, i just thought that was stange.
I am just wondering what the reason is for this poor performance and if there is a way to fix it. I have seen the benchmarks Toms put up but that was awhile back and i was hopping something has happened by then.
Thanks for any help!!

 

[sargentchimera]

bump

 

[Omniblivion]

Sounds like driver problems, or a bad card. Have you tried running one card at a time to test the difference? (just disable one at a time)

Many games are not designed to utilize 2 5970s yet, so you may not see much bonus from the second card right now.

 

[notty22]

4 gpu scaling is throwing a wrench in to that game. Is it possible to disable one card via ccc ? I'm under the impression their is one crossfire checkbox, and that needs to be checked with even ONE 5970 since its a dual gpu card. It functions as a result of crossfire.
So you can't disable half your system, its either 1 or 4 gpu's , is that correct ?

 

[sargentchimera]

Notty i believe it registers a single 5970 as 1 card instead of 2 but i am not sure, i never thought of it like that so maybe.

Omniblivion, i tested both cards seperatly in the past and know that both work equally so i know that is not the problem. I think its odd that i actually get a decrease in performance with crossfire then without it so i dont even get equal performance, let alone a bonus with a second 5970 running. In crysis i only get an 8fps average increase on the benchmark running crossfirex instead of just 1 card 47fps to 55fps avg and thats with every thing maxed, 4xaa at 1920 1080. Bfbc2 runs smooth though but i get bad flickering.

 

[wolfram23]

2 5970s = 4 gpus even tho it's 2 physical cards. Performance doesn't scale well past 2x generally.
But anyway aside from that, I'm running cf 5850s and just beat metro last night. I was fooling around with the settings because I had the same problem where fps dropped horribly at 4xmsaa. I then turned depth of field off and 4xmsaa on, and the fps stayed nice and high. So looks like you just need to choose d.o.f. or 4xmsaa but not both. Try it out. IMO 4xmsaa is the way to go for nice smooth lines. Dof is basically just focusing and blurring effects but you still get that with the option turned off.

 

[sargentchimera]

Apprentice do you think that the cards will get drivers which will help with tesselation? I sure hope so because if future games really use tesselation then what is the point of owning a 5xxx series card if they cant improve tesselation?!? BTW on unigine on default setting with 2 cards i get a score of 3100 and that is all about tesselation but im sure that the nvidia 400 series does better.

My mobo is 16x so i know thats not the problem.

In metro i like aa and all but i love DOF and the msaa in metro makes everything blurry not just the edges of objects, i saw some screenshots of msaa and aaa and the msaa made the whole environment very blurry.

 

[wolfram23]

Tesslation in Metro is ONLY on characters. So at it's most it's only going to be happening inside small areas (stations) when the GPU isn't taxed very hard on everything else (effects, particles, large areas). Tesslation is hardly an issue from my experience. DOF is the issue. I don't know why you'd be so hard on for DOF anyway... I mean sure if you think it's great, well, great. But honestly turn it off, look at your watch (in game). Turn it on and repeat. Pretty much the same thing (everything but your arm is blurry). I think DOF does add to it slightly but that's it. 4xMSAA should not make everything blurry. It's possible if you're not using AF I guess, but really, 8x or even 16xAF isn't going to hurt FPS that much.
The settings I'm using are Very High 1920x1080 4xMSAA 16xAF DX11 Tesslation ON DOF OFF Advanced PhysX ON (I have a PhysX card otherwise this does jack all) and average is generally over 50FPS except in a couple areas. Exact same FPS if I turn DOF ON and reduce the AA to AAA, but I notice the "edge steps" which I don't like. As for everything blurry, haven't experienced that.

Anyway, use the settings you like, but yes I agree that it's crappy that a super high end set up can't run ALL the settings (4xMSAA + 16AF + Tesslation + DOF)

 

[rofl_my_waffle]

Tesselation and DOF takes a lot out of the game. Even with a 5970 running at 1000/1300 I can't get tesselation and DOF to work at 2560x1600. It runs fine at 1920*1080 but that is nearly half the pixels.

 

[sargentchimera]

Ok so I did a more formal test in Metro. I played useing fraps at the part where Bourbon gets captured and you have to sneak through the andits and then meet up with Khan. I got an average of about 40fps, high of 55 ( just roaming tunnels near no one), gunplay 30-40, and never went under 30 until the next lvl where i got a low of 15fps when that ghost train went by. I suppose that sounds aout like yours Wolfram23 as i think 2 5850s are about equal, if no a little better, than 1 5970 but i was useing a little different setting than you, i had DOF on and no msaa and idk if they are equal performance hits or not.

Psycho i agree, 3.33ghz is bottlenecking it, i will get it overclocked to 4.0 maybe 4.2 in the near future and i also might get some waterblocks for the cards as ive reached insane temps, usually around 90-95c under system heavy games like crysis, and a sitting temp of about 55c for 1 card, 65c for the other, ive hit 100c a couple times lol...