7970 Crossfire BF3 issues

so I was kinda expecting a bit better performance out of my setup, with 2x 7970s, I want to know what are some of the most optimal settings people have been setting their BF3 in console commands to get their max FPS with still having it look amazing, Also 1 thing I notice, when I set the FPS limit to 60 FPS in game (When I lower the settings) , it does not seem like 60FPS on my screen, 90FPS moves more fluid when I set it to that, but note, that i only have 60hz 25.5inch ASUS vw266h monitors, so technically there shouldnt be a noticable difference there.

My FPS screens were showing microstuttering on the side monitors, so I had to disable it a bit by, renderdevice.triplebuffering 0
also tried renderdevice.forcerenderaheadlimit 1, vsync is disabled, motionblur is disabled, lasted update is installed, BF3 currently I have to set at High settings with AA/MSAA HSO all off to get frames that I want with 3 monitors, but it seems people are getting better frames than I am or no Microstuttering/screentearing issues on the side monitors. my PC setup should be in my sig, but if not, ill post that as well.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2239124

I have yet to try overclocking my card because I've only ever done CPU overclocking in the past and would need to look into it. but was hoping I wouldn't have to do that.

Any other tweaks or stuff I may be able to do to enable higher FPS with still looking beautiful and running fluid (not Vsyncish fluid, but you get the idea)

Also some other settings I have enabled with my FXAA injector as well

WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapResolution 256
WorldRender.SpotLightShadowmapEnable 0
RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 0
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 1
WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0
WorldRender.TransparencyShadowmapsEnable 0
WorldRender.MotionBlurEnable 0
render.drawfps 1
WorldRender.FxaaEnable 1
gametime.maxvariablefps 80

Any help would be greatly appreciated, wanted to get my moneys worth with these 2x 7970s, really love this game (As you can tell) so wanted to get this to work as best as possible.

If vsync is disabled then your refresh rate doesn't matter. why even set a limit?

whats your cpu? bottlenecking?

I think he is saying that @ 1920x1200 the CF is wasted, but he's only mentioning 1 monitor. So maybe he missed the part of you running 3?

Those cards overclock like the Core i5/i7 K series does, very easily. I've heard up to 1300mhz on air. But I'd say 1100 would be easy like 4.2 on the i5 2500K

well, right now im using DVI cables, should i use HDMI? I heard it was pretty much the same

Hmm I was running BF3 at Medium with a few settings at High, 5760x1080 and averaged around 45-50 fps, and for the most part it was very smooth. You have basically 4x the GPU power so I'd expect a little better experience (I have CF 5850s)...

I did hear from another thread that when you run DP and DVI off a 7970, the DVI can get some tearing. I don't know what the deal is with that.

I'm curious how/what FXAA injector you're using. Obviously it has to be "custom" since AMD doesn't support that the way Nvidia does.

Anyway to the issue at hand, are you using 12.1 or 12.2? Or other? AFAIK you want 12.1 for now. And the CAP.

also about the FXAA injector, im using this, http://forum.techinferno.com/pc-ga [...] guide.html it shows main support for Nvidia, but the guy says it should work fine with ATI as well.

nah, I have to tab out and stuff and it minimizes like normal, only game I play borderless windows are RTS/MOBA/MMOs not FPS

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 2-0002.png

this is my FPS and my overlay with max settings at an average area in the map, 47, not too bad, but not what im looking for.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] 2-0003.png

This is my FPS and overlay at High settings with AA/MXAA and HBSO turned off, now its staying at a stable 59FPS (i do 59 because i currently have vsync enabled and its suppose to have no input lag if you set to 1 FPS below your monitors FPS) and its okay, but was looking for more tweaks and such so I can run it at Ultra settings without disabling HBSO and AA/MXAA.

Ok... so what is the problem?

EDIT: Actually maybe that is low. I've seen reports these cards scale nearly 100% now, and HARDOCP got a single 7970 at max settings, 5760x1080, running at 38.6 avg, 28 min, 60 max. So in theory you should get as much as 77.2 avg at Ultra...
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/12 [...] d_review/9


I'd definitely suggest running BF3 at stock settings again. I think your console command tweaks are messing it up.

That is true.

But IMO for BF3 it's way better to disable it unless you're running into the 100s. I usually average around 66 in regular maps and closer to 60 in B2K maps (not sure why they run a little slower). Using Vsync causes a few issues, generally speaking there is intermitten lag spikes, but also when it gets really intense your min FPS is usually going to be lower than without vsync.

I sort of accidentally benchmarked it:

From my Crossfire experience and BF3, Vsync in BF3 causes terrible micro stuttering at least on my setup.
And if your running eyefinity modes, don't ever turn Vsync on, 3 monitors with Vsync causes some serious issues with performance due to trying to keep the timing of 3 monitors.

all i know is that im running BF3 on 3 1080p monitors with one 7970 and its smooth with max settings. well aa is turned down but otherwise max.

untill they come up with an "actual fix" for micro stuttering im not doing dual cards.

Is it possible for you to send me your user.cfg (if u have one) and your PROF_SAVE_profile in C:\Users\computer name\Documents\Battlefield 3\settings

I wanna see if just redoing or transfering your info into my settings may help, kinda mad that ur trifire 6970s are outdoing my crossfire 7970s, you're right, it shouldn't be, gonna look into some other stuff in the mean time.

Sent you a message with my email address.

well still no fix to my problem, getting really bummed that I have to run everything on low to maintain a good FPS at 5760x1200 res

turn off crossfire. i know the game runs great on a single card at max.

Okay, so I did what Farrengottu said, just to see, and I seem to be getting better performance in non-crossfire mode, than in crossfire mode for my 7970s, why is this? and is there a fix to get crossfire running properly for my setup? It shouldnt work this way, right? im able to hold a sustained 70 FPS in single card mode on ultra but with both cards inside but crossfire not enabled, shouldnt I receive even more with crossfire enabled?

also noticing the difference of alot of microstuttering in crossfire mode, not sure what to do about that either

in my original post, you are right on the money, the main reason I bought two cards was to display BF3 at max settings this way, hence the pic of my mouse and keyboard,lol. I <3 the game, now just wish i could play it... :C

so got so frustrated, tried formatting and doing everything fresh, used the ATI 7900 series specific drivers as well, still no luck

these are the frams, and perfoverlay stats im getting right now:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/pho [...] directlink

and these are my current settings in game:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/pho [...] directlink

still no luck and getting pretty frustrated at this point :C any idea what I can do to increase my frames without having to buy a 3rd 7970?

I see people getting almost twice as many frames with just about the same setup, all the time, alrobichaud is 1 example, So please, if any advice or more suggestions, let me know, done everything this forum thread has said to do so far and no luck.

I'd suggest you contact your GPU manufacturer or retailer and get some help from them. They'll probably either tell you to update the bios (and send you the right one) or RMA the cards.

There are some well known facts about FPS games and settings that you have knowledge about but seem to want a solution to when there is none.

FACTS:

VSYNC in FPS games (or any 3d game for that matter): WILL CREATE INPUT LAG.
- solution: DO NOT RUN VSYNC IN your FPS games. No hardcore fps player runs with vsync. It creates input lag, vsync should always be off. Screen tearing is just something that you have to learn to deal with. It's either input lag or tearing, the tearing is the lesser of the 2 evils.

MICROSTUTTERING: Crossfire is known to have worse microstuttering than nvidia sli cards. This is a fact. Nvidia actually has hardware on their cards that helps with the problem, ati does not.
- solution: If you don't want microstuttering, you either have to run single card, or trifire with 3 ati cards. Or you could possibly try SLI with nvidia and see if that's any better. If you want the performance benefit of crossfire, you're going to have to deal with microstuttering.

You said that when your crossfire 7970s were running 60fps, if felt a lot less smooth than when they were running at 90fps on your 60hz monitor. Well, this is exactly how microstuttering works! If you cap those cards, your 60fps is going to feel a lot more like say 40fps. When you're running at 90fps, it'll feel a lot more like say 60-70fps! That's why you felt the difference.

Seems like you have a large budget, my solution to you is to either try running just one 7970, see how you like it. If not, the other option is to go 3x crossfire.

Go read the toms hardware article on microstutter.

so not sure what exactly, may be the new drivers from the 15th/16th of feb, or all the hot fixes, FPS limiting, registry tweaks and some minor overclocking in the video cards, but I finally have a sustained FPS with no issues with everything on ultra except for MSAA and HSAO off, and it looks great, runs smooth and no microstuttering, some slight frame distortion when moving really fast, but thats to be expected with Vsync off. It runs smooth,plays smooth and feels smooth, finally feel like I am getting my moneys worth.

here is an image with my FPS and settings set up to. (I capped fps at 55, felt somewhat smoother and someone else on another forum recommended it w/ msi afterburner)



and this is some in game footage while flying



Works great, and i am really happy with the results, Thanks for those who helped in this thread and the many other threads I read on this forum, much appreciated.

(Side note) the second pic, what does the graph on the left mean with that weird curve its doing?

That happens by default with Eyefinity.