Crossfire question!

[Malicemk]

Hey guys, i have a few questions about Xfiring my pc

I just got it and totally am blanking on the MOBO will post that when i get home from class.

I am currently running an a10-5800k apu processor with a crossfired 6670 and i was wondering why when i play wow on ultra my fps is so unpredictable when i'm in the major cities it's fine 60 fps but when i'm out in the largest open expanse ( Kun-Lai Summit) it gets bogged down to 25-31 Fps is this the the 6670s shortcoming or is it a problem with the hardware itself?

Also i'm running a samsung monitor at 1920x1080 and have 8 gigs of RAM

And in general the fps never stays the same it's always bouncing around from 61 at its highest to 21/28 would i'm running around in big expanses and game doesn't seem as fluid as it should be , i was told this setup would run on ultra just fine.

Now if it's the shortcoming of the gpu would something like swapping the 6670 for a 7770 be worth it ? i don't wanna spend more than 200 but i'm pretty sure the graphics and fps shouldn't be that bad.

And i know LoL isn't a graphic heavy game but i have everything on that cranked full max setting and it's a super smooth 60 never even flutters !

Sorry for the wall , just not sure if i was expecting too much from this build for the money or something is broken

 

[Fokissed]

Crossfire didn't support WoW back when I had it (WOTLK days). A 6670 won't play WoW very well at ultra settings, my 5870 had a hard time playing at ultra.

Try disabling Vsync, it'll improve your fps and prevent the random fps drops. Vsync locks your fps to the next lowest factor of your monitors refresh rate. (60 -> 30 -> 20 etc.) If your video card is able to produce 50 fps it will be locked to only 30 fps, and if it's fluctuating around 60 fps there will be random drops to 30 fps.

 

[Malicemk]

Okay i will try that when i get home, but if wow doesn't support crossfire will it try to run the game off my apus graphics (a10-5800) or the gpu (6670)?

I got about 150 left of spending cash is there a diff xfire ready card that could handle the load?

 

[k1114]

Crossfire didn't support WoW back when I had it (WOTLK days). A 6670 won't play WoW very well at ultra settings, my 5870 had a hard time playing at ultra.

Try disabling Vsync, it'll improve your fps and prevent the random fps drops. Vsync locks your fps to the next lowest factor of your monitors refresh rate. (60 -> 30 -> 20 etc.) If your video card is able to produce 50 fps it will be locked to only 30 fps, and if it's fluctuating around 60 fps there will be random drops to 30 fps.

Wow supports crossfire and vsync is not locked to any factoring. If you get 33.5 fps that is what the monitor shows. Dual graphics can have issues at times. I'd suggest trying to disable it and use the 6670.

 

[Malicemk]

Would just buying a 7770 be more beneficial? Trying to get bang for my buck! But i will absolutely try to disable the dual gpus and will report back like an hour ish i should be able to!

 

[Murissokah]

It may be a little late to tell you that now, but you should stay away from Crossfire unless you are using high end cards. I had myself a pair of 6870s, and while they could perform great, they were also very unreliable.

If I went easy on the settings, they would be overkill for most of the time. If I actually started demanding from them, they would run well most of the time, but every now and then there would be very bad performance drops. In the end I could never get a good compromise between image quality and performance.

Ended up trading that for a single powerful card (happened to be a GTX 680, but nothing against another AMD card). Crossfire is a good choice if you want more than what the top card can offer (and have such money, obviously) or when you want to extend the life of a setup that is performing just about good enough.

In your situation, I would try for a good deal on a HD 7850.

 

[Fokissed]

Wow supports crossfire and vsync is not locked to any factoring. If you get 33.5 fps that is what the monitor shows. Dual graphics can have issues at times. I'd suggest trying to disable it and use the 6670.

WoW does support crossfire, but only in Fullscreen mode. Windowed and Fullscreen Windowed does not support it.

Vsync will lock you to a factor of your refresh rate, just how it does it depends on the buffering type.
Typical double buffering (moderate input lag) has two buffers, the display buffer and the render buffer. The display buffer is always fully drawn, and being scanned to the screen. The render buffer is being drawn in the background, and when it finishes the buffers will be flipped at the end of the next scan.
D3D triple buffering (severe input lag) will have three framebuffers and the GPU will fill them and wait for the screen to catch up before drawing the next frame.
The alternative triple buffering (little input lag) also has three framebuffers, but the GPU will continually flip between the two buffers not being scanned to the screen to have the most up to date frame as possible. This keeps the waiting buffers as up to date as possible, reducing input lag.

Double buffering will have the worst frame rate drops as soon as your fps drops, and triple buffering will keep the framerate smoother.

It isn't possible to not lock the frame rate to a factor of the screens refresh rate, screens don't work that way. A screen updates exactly 60 (or whatever the refresh rate is) times a second, and if a frame isn't finished, then it will rescan the same image again (therefore displaying at 30 fps). Of course, with triple buffering, there will be an occasional times where a frame won't be displayed twice, but that only averages to a different fps.

For example, lets say a GPU can produce 45 fps on a 60Hz monitor with triple buffering Vsync enabled. The frames would be displayed as such:
1 1 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 7 7 8 9 9 10
That's 10 frames over the course of 15 screen updates (.25 seconds). It's effectively 45 fps, but most of the time your getting 33 ms frametimes (30 fps).
Double buffering would look like this:
1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8
Exactly 30 fps.

Without vsync things are a bit different, as the framebuffer is flipped as soon as it is finished rendering, usually in the middle of a scan. This causes tearing, but the monitor will always be showing the latest frame that it can. It would look something like this:
1 1(2) 2(3) 3(4) 5 6(7) 7(8) 8(9) 10
Most of these frames will have tearing on them, but it's hard to notice unless you're getting a factor or multiple of your screens refresh rate (30,60,120 etc), as the tear will show up in the same place multiple times.

 

[Malicemk]

On high settings the 6670 ain't too bad a card! i disabled the crossfire for now

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3488649

Is my current card , When i'm picking the card do i want 2gb for my set up or 1?

And i can use nvidia products correct? like throw a 650 in or something

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4501123&csid=_61

^ is that a good car? i don't know if hardware compare is a good site but it seems to indicate much better performance !

 

[k1114]

1gb. A 7770 is a good amount better than a 650 and doesn't cost much more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202011&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
http://www.microcenter.com/product/403019/R7770-PMD1GD5_AMD_Radeon_HD_7770_GHz_Edition_1024MB_GDDR5_PCIe_30_x16_Video_Card

 

[Malicemk]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102993

Is this one a better 7770 than the other two? got all those fancy names like vapor and stuff lol not much more money

 

[k1114]

It is just a better cooler which you don't really need unless you overclock.

 

[Malicemk]

Sorry to keep troubling you , i found a 650ti i liked but then a 7850 popped up on sale for my local store

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5400618&csid=_61#tabs

^ would that trump the other cards i mentioned? it seems like it !

 

[k1114]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202004&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID= This one has a better cooler for the same price. I'd also say it's better quality.

 

[Malicemk]

Best answer selected by Malicemk.