6950 2gb crossfire skyrim stutter

phippsy

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Aug 25, 2011
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i have 2 6950 2gb in crossfire and i am getting stuttering in some places in skyrim i am using newest drivers and the beta CAP is anyone using a different driver and getting better performance in skyrim

i7 3770
12gb ballistix ram
64gb ssd
1tb samsung
iceq 6950 2gb crossfire
ocz 700w psu
 

randomkid

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Same here. I started playing Skyrim when I was still in 12.3. It used to be pretty bad when running. Then I upgraded to 12.4 which improved a bit. It's much better now with 12.6

If you are bothered by it while at 12.6 you will be furious if you experienced in previous version. Mine is 2xSapphire 6950x2GB but playing in Eyefinity.
 

kendrose

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Sep 30, 2011
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I have not played skyrim in over a month, but it studdered for me too (2x 6970). I just disabled crossfire. Not like you need crossfire to run it max. At least I didnt.
 

blade061188

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Oct 14, 2011
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Mine is 2xSapphire 6950x2GB but playing in Eyefinity.

This was my setup too. I had this annoying ripple stutter effect, that I couldn't get rid of no matter what I tried. (except disabling crossfire, but then what's the point?)

Latest Beta drivers with the AMD application profile work pretty well for the most part, I just had to turn off water displacement.
 

kendrose

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I agree, its certainly crappy that after dropping $700 on dual 9670's (the 6950s arent that much less!), that half the games we have to disable that second card to get it to run. D3 hates crossfire. Deus Ex had terrible micro studdering at first, skyrim... Im sure the list could go on. I cant help buy wonder whos at fault though. It seems AMD is releasing new drivers or at least profiles for just about every major game, but the issues are still there. Are the game studios just dropping the ball because they dont want to deal with optimizing for dual cards?
 

blade061188

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Are the game studios just dropping the ball because they dont want to deal with optimizing for dual cards?

This is one thing I was worried about. Half the time, the game devs have terrible multi GPU support, and half the time Drivers have terrible multi-GPU support. I was excited about the performance of two 6950s, but was pretty quickly disappointed. I sold my cards while they were still worth a fair amount of money and invested in a single more powerful GPU (7970 is an awesome card by the way )
 

kendrose

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I cant say much on the issue of crossfire vs SLI. But it seems the games with serious problems are not restricted to one or the other. D3 hates ANY multi GPU. I believe skyrim is the same, though perhaps nVidia has cleaned up the drivers enough to compensate for Bethesda's sloppy work (under the hood). I have been feeling very tempted to try and sell my 6970's for a single card solution, Though I wonder if a single 7970 is going to give me equal *potential* as the dual card solution. I still have hope that as dual card systems become more common that studios will start actually taking multi gpu support seriously.
 

dechy

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Not sure if this is something that's worst on newer AMD hardware than older, because I finished the game on my 4870s (2x 4870, not 4870X2) and aside from that fact that I couldn't turn on everything to the max @ 1080p (for obvious reasons, but the game still looked incredible), I didn't have any weird stuttering while just running around or even in fights.

Had to hit up the Skyrim forums to hammer out some file tweaks, but all in all my CFX experience was good

As far as D3 is concerned, my CFX setup works flawlessly; both cards hitting 75%+ @ 1080p with everything maxed and 60+FPS... hell, my i5 is sleeping @ ~30% usage lol.
 

blade061188

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Though I wonder if a single 7970 is going to give me equal *potential* as the dual card solution.

Pure performance, not quite, but close. I had my two 6950s OCd to 925/1375 and 3dMark11 P score right around 10k. the new 7970 stock was around 8k, but it had a ton of headroom for overclocking. at 1200/1700 i got 9700. to me a 3% pure performance drop was an easy compromise to make now that I don't have to worry about crossfire support.

Also, the 3GB VRAM was attractive to me since I run Eyefinity.
 

kendrose

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Im not running eyefinity (yet!!), but hope to. How is the fan noise? Reviews I have been reading complain a LOT about the cards being very very noisy. Though to be fair, when my dimond 6970s hit 50% fan speed it sounds like a jet turbine. And they run HOT. full load hits 86-90 at stock speeds. Though I think some of that is my fault, I really need to tidy up my cables to provide better airflow from my front intakes. =(
 

kendrose

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V-sync issue perhaps? The first thing I do with every new game is disable v-sync. I have yet to have a game that needed it. More often then not it causes a host of other problems. Sluggish mouse is the most annoying one.

Im going to open the case up this weekend, blast out the dust, and start tying back the cables into a more managable jumble. Perhaps Ill even have to check into selling off my 6970's and getting a single 7970. Maybe. Thanks for sharing your personal experience with me. =)