HD 6950 cf framedrops

[Davidb2]

I wanted to know if its normal that my crossfire setup of my 2 HD 6950's ( 1Gb + 2Gb ) can have framedrops in 1920 x 1080 resolution on the highest settings with games as Crysis 2 ( Ultra settings DX11+ Hd textures ), The Witcher 2 highest setting ubersampling OFF (around the flotsam hanging area with crowds ) when alot of things are happening ? Even in a older game as Crysis sometime frame drops from 60 to 45. I almost always get a solid 60Fps ( due to V-Sync ) in all other games. So i am a little concerned about those framedrops is this normal ?
I find it very annoying for my gameplay experience when playing 60 Fps it drops to 45 its for me a huge huge anoyance... if more people experience it please tell me how you solved it.

my rig :
i5 2500K @4,5 Ghz
8Gb vengeance @1600
HD 6950 1Gb + HD 6950 2Gb crossfire
Corsair 950 watt psu
windows 7 64 bit

drivers 12.1 ( 1/25/2012)

 

[kajabla]

Check your temperatures, but if they're not crazy I'd say you just can't handle those games on Ultra. I wouldn't expect 6950s to max out Crysis 2.
Tom's saw a minimum of 50fps with 6970s: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-2-directx-11-performance,2983-6.html

 

[Gordon Freeman]

Check your temperatures, but if they're not crazy I'd say you just can't handle those games on Ultra. I wouldn't expect 6950s to max out Crysis 2.
Tom's saw a minimum of 50fps with 6970s: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-2-directx-11-performance,2983-6.html

LOL 6950 CF is more powerful than a 7970 just in case you didn't know FYI

 

[kajabla]

Yes. That's true. A 7970 can't max Crysis 2 on Ultra either; it's not much better than a 580, and it's certainly not better than two in SLI. Please look at my review link.

 

[xerxces]

I have two 6870's and can play crysis 2 maxed out. I did not have any bad stutter or ne thing. I mean, a few spots the FPS would dip down but overall it was stable. BF3 on the other hand, they have trouble with Ultra settings.

 

[kajabla]

Oh, I run into this every once in a while. Apologies. When I say "maxing out", I mean a fairly consistent 60fps. Should have defined earlier. The OP's complaining about drops to 45fps. You're probably getting, oh, 40 or 30? Check it out with MSI Afterburner's onscreen display.

 

[Davidb2]

so the bottomline is that framedrops do occure in games despite having a crossfire setup even with the lastest graphic cards ?
So it doesnt matter how fast your graphic card is framedrops will happen in any game from the lowest to the highest settings ?

i ask this because i am wondering if i sell my HD 6950's and buy a, lets say for example 2 HD 7970's, games will have FPS drops and maybe not all the bottom way to 30 but to (depending on how fast your GPU is ) to 45-50 something like that ?

 

[Gordon Freeman]

so the bottomline is that framedrops do occure in games despite having a crossfire setup even with the lastest graphic cards ?
So it doesnt matter how fast your graphic card is framedrops will happen in any game from the lowest to the highest settings ?

i ask this because i am wondering if i sell my HD 6950's and buy a, lets say for example 2 HD 7970's, games will have FPS drops and maybe not all the bottom way to 30 but to (depending on how fast your GPU is ) to 45-50 something like that ?

Sometimes some games may briefly drop to 59fps for a split second which is still annoying and some times it drops to around 30fps which is extremely annoying and sometime 2fps LOL look at the mess that is Skyrim it depends on how the game was coded not just on raw processing power on the hardware level but how well the software can use that high end hardware. Crysis 2 is a joke of a game.

 

[Davidb2]

So it also depends on how a game was coded ? i play Skyrim and i almost never fall down below the 59/60 FPS only when i am in Markarth and i look a particluar direction it drops right down to 45 FPS, whenever i pan the camera it comes back up to 60FPS, this is same in the Witcher 2 in the Flotsam hanging area..alsoin the beginning level, with the tents in the Witcher 2, when i pan the camera towards the soldiers /tents it goes from 60 to 45 ..
My question was if thats normal with a crossfire setup or is it just marketing that crossfire never will fall down 60 FPS ?

 

[Gordon Freeman]

So it also depends on how a game was coded ? i play Skyrim and i almost never fall down below the 59/60 FPS only when i am in Markarth and i look a particluar direction it drops right down to 45 FPS, whenever i pan the camera it comes back up to 60FPS, this is same in the Witcher 2 in the Flotsam hanging area..alsoin the beginning level, with the tents in the Witcher 2, when i pan the camera towards the soldiers /tents it goes from 60 to 45 ..
My question was if thats normal with a crossfire setup or is it just marketing that crossfire never will fall down 60 FPS ?

That's just poor coding of the game in Skyrims case for sure cause it is well documented and I have the same exact problem as you in Skyrim and so does everyone else but being it is a pure RPG I could not care less and I still enjoy the game as much as I possible could regardless. As far as the Witcher 2 is concerned well that game is one of the most if not the most graphically demanding and beautiful games out today and even a GTX 580 has a hard time maintaining even just 30fps with Uber sampling on still even so it could be a coding optimization of the game engine as well but nobody is running The Witcher 2 @ 60fps throughout the whole game and that goes for most games even on the highest end SLI/CF rigs.

 

[kajabla]

Skyrim is generally CPU-limited, by the way. Other games, such as Crysis 2, are said to be badly optimized. It looks to me as if they're just too beautiful for today's hardware to handle, but I don't know everything.

Yes, there are games out there that won't hold an absolutely consistent 60fps with just about any configuration out there. Actually, triple 7970s would probably do it, but you'd be looking at a $4000+ X79 build.