AMD (ATI) 69xx cards & CrossfireX Performance Improvement Request (+Triple Buffering)

[Dexter_]

Dear Trion developers,

please look for some possible optimisations applicable to Radeon 69xx cards. I've upgraded from a single Geforce 8800 Ultra to two Radeon 6970s and the performance difference is underwhelming. No tweaks (except for MainThreadCPU=0, which barely makes any difference, and VFXLimit=10 (which kills the way the game looks)) help.

Same goes for CrossfireX performance scaling. It appears to be around 50% instead of closer to 100%. Forcing AFR (Alternative Frame Rendering) pushes it closer to 100%, but why do we have to use 3rd party tools such as RadeonPro to fix this?

And the last but not the least, could you please add the option to enable Triple Buffering? Due to the massive FPS swings in Rift I get screen tearing when running around solo (>60 fps) without VSync and serious input lag in raids/invasions (<20 fps) with VSync enabled. Triple Buffering would eliminate all the input lag scenarios without any fps reduction (assuming the amount of video memory is sufficient). Once again, it is possible to force Triple Buffering using RadeonPro or D3DOverrider, but this is a non-native implementation and doesn't work very well.

Best regards

[P0wnStar]

Dear Trion developers,

please look for some possible optimisations applicable to Radeon 69xx cards. I've upgraded from a single Geforce 8800 Ultra to two Radeon 6970s and the performance difference is underwhelming. No tweaks (except for MainThreadCPU=0, which barely makes any difference, and VFXLimit=10 (which kills the way the game looks)) help.

Same goes for CrossfireX performance scaling. It appears to be around 50% instead of closer to 100%. Forcing AFR (Alternative Frame Rendering) pushes it closer to 100%, but why do we have to use 3rd party tools such as RadeonPro to fix this?

And the last but not the least, could you please add the option to enable Triple Buffering? Due to the massive FPS swings in Rift I get screen tearing when running around solo (>60 fps) without VSync and serious input lag in raids/invasions (<20 fps) with VSync enabled. Triple Buffering would eliminate all the input lag scenarios without any fps reduction (assuming the amount of video memory is sufficient). Once again, it is possible to force Triple Buffering using RadeonPro or D3DOverrider, but this is a non-native implementation and doesn't work very well.

Best regards

^^^^^ THIS!

I have a 6950 running at 6970 spec with a 1090t.

I get better frames in crysis than I get in this game. I have the latest drivers and I have tweaked and optomized all visual settings for performance. Just about everyone I know with a new gen card (even some of the GeForce) are having this issue. I have SDD and an optimal gaming rig and can't get over 25 frames with everything on in meridian, and less in raid.

*Also, I don't know if this is just in my head or not, but it seemed as if a few wks ago they released a patch and stated they fixed an issue with AMD processors not being properly utilized. I recall my frames in Meridan nearly doubling to around 60 steady, up to 100 in meridian for a couple days then the next patch it went back to the lower frames.

[muylaetrex]

yesterday i upgraded my ati 3850 to an ati 6970 and i'm totally confused by it's performance. framerates of 25 in sanctum . triple core 3.2 @ 3.8 ghz, ocz vertex 120 GB SDD. this machine should be able to perform way better than 25-30 fps in sanctum with almost none of the eye candy on.

benchmarks and other games give figures of 300 - 400 % increase in framerates compared to previous vid card, except for rift which manages to pull out an extra 20 % framerate ???

why do i only get 26 fps and the gpu is on 21 % activity and the cpu on 50-60 % utilization, decently spread over the 3 cores. ( all cores within 10 % utilization from eachother.) ?

[Ruizo]

Dear Trion developers,

please look for some possible optimisations applicable to Radeon 69xx cards. I've upgraded from a single Geforce 8800 Ultra to two Radeon 6970s and the performance difference is underwhelming. No tweaks (except for MainThreadCPU=0, which barely makes any difference, and VFXLimit=10 (which kills the way the game looks)) help.

Same goes for CrossfireX performance scaling. It appears to be around 50% instead of closer to 100%. Forcing AFR (Alternative Frame Rendering) pushes it closer to 100%, but why do we have to use 3rd party tools such as RadeonPro to fix this?

are you sure to be gpu limited and not cpu limited?
if you cpu cant keep up, you can fill your pc with twenty graphic boards and not see a single fps increase.
plus keep in mind that the game is a lot depending on the data it gets, in heavy congested zones (like meridian main plaza) it lags more because the server cant send data fast enough than for graphical overload.

[Dexter_]

are you sure to be gpu limited and not cpu limited?
if you cpu cant keep up, you can fill your pc with twenty graphic boards and not see a single fps increase.

4.2 GHz Core i7 is more than enough. Not a single core (thread) is ever fully loaded. I think the CPU scaling stopped past around 3.6GHz for me.

plus keep in mind that the game is a lot depending on the data it gets, in heavy congested zones (like meridian main plaza) it lags more because the server cant send data fast enough than for graphical overload.

I can live with low-ish frame rates in sanctum/meridian/etc.
The problem is 20 man raids. I raid 3-5 times a week, and my fps is disappointing even though I do not use AA/AF/logging/parsing/video recording, only the bare game on mid settings.
Sometimes it's okay and I have around 25 fps in combat, but in certain zones and fights it gets really bad and fps drops under 15 fps (which is sloooooow), so I have to switch to low settings, and they (to be fair) make the game look UGLY.
The only thing that somewhat helps is setting VFXLimit to 10, so I hover around 25 fps on mid settings in general, but there seem to be barely any SFX floating around, then. The game turns very dull looking.
I am yet to see the game break 80 fps even when I am running around solo in a low-populated ("ghost town") area with VSync disabled (on mid or high). Even when there is barely anything to render. I know people with different graphics cards who get over 120 fps when running around solo.
Something is clearly not working as intended.

"Ultra" settings are only an option for solo questing. And not in towns since I once again drop under 30 fps...

[Viper2KRT]

I'm running an i7 930 @ stock which is 2.8ghz and ~2.93ghz on turbo. I run rift off of a 7200 rpm hard drive with 6gb ddr3 1600 ram. My graphics card is a single xfx hd 5870 1gb. Not overclocked
I am running the 11.7 drivers with cap2 profiles

I have set the game to ultra, but then i disable AO so it's technically custom. I do not run AA and my shadows are on full. In rift.cfg I have maincputhread = 0, lightingcomplexity = 10, vfxcull = 256, and vfxlimit =250 (setting on 10 prevents me from seeing any spell effects which kinda sucks)

Solo questing in many areas is good, but swings between 40-60 very randomly. In dungeons I usually get around 35-45, but sometimes under 30. Sanctum really depends on the traffic because sometimes I get over 40 and sometimes like 25. Rifts and invasions are the worst. Especially raid rifts which drops into the teens at about 16fps.

One thing that bothers me is that performance really seems to get worse over long play sessions (1hr+) Especially after porting around and lots of loading. It becomes noticable that the same area where i got 50fps I now get 44fps. Or one area where I got 32fps i now get 25fps.

I definitely think my hardware is good enough to run a bit more smoothly so I've been wondering what's going on behind the scenes that make myself and many gamers irked about performance

I think it would be nice if we just got some kind of response from a CM confirming or denying any possible issue with the way the game engine works. I understand the code is constantly evolving and some patches may be better or worse but I'm curious to know if this is basically the performance we should expect on the current generation of hardware.

[Dexter_]

What bothers me the most is that I have guildies with Radeon 48x0 and Geforce 2xx graphics cards and their game performance is close, and sometimes even higher than what I have. This just can't be right.
I've tried pretty much all the tweaks, but my fps stays pretty much the same. Even if I lower the graphics settings significantly the fps increase is marginal. That's just strange.

One thing that bothers me is that performance really seems to get worse over long play sessions (1hr+) Especially after porting around and lots of loading. It becomes noticable that the same area where i got 50fps I now get 44fps. Or one area where I got 32fps i now get 25fps.

I am experiencing the same issue. I am just trying to relog more often. If I do not relog for 4 or more hours I am very likely to crash.
Using 6GB of RAM if that matters.

It really seems to be some kind of AMD (ATI) 69xx (possibly also other 6xxx and 5xxx cards) issue. Nvidia and older AMD (ATI) cards appear to perform a lot more in line with what they should.

[muylaetrex]

rift really seems to dislike amd 69x0 series.

[Nupzs]

rift is not at all about the video card, its all cpu. And for that matter, it never seems to be able to use your cpu to its fullest potential. I bet everyone but someone with a latest overclocked i7 is bottlenecked by their cpu.

[Dexter_]

rift is not at all about the video card, its all cpu. And for that matter, it never seems to be able to use your cpu to its fullest potential. I bet everyone but someone with a latest overclocked i7 is bottlenecked by their cpu.

Like I said, going from 3.6 to 4.2 yielded pretty much 0 performance gains for me. So it's a GPU issue.
Also, you completely missed the fact that people with worse GPUs and lower clocked CPUs get higher frame rates than I do. Rift just doesn't utilise 69x0 cards efficiently for whatever reason. And possibly other 6xx0 and 5xx0 cards as well.

Let's make it simple and gather some data.
Are you using an AMD (ATI) card, 5xx0 or 6xx0? In this case...
Please list your:
CPU and CPU clock;
GPU(s);
resolution and settings you play at;
tweaks you applied (if any);
some fps data (e.g.: "I have 15 fps in Sanctum with 5 npcs and 2 players on my screen" or "I have 200 fps in RoS (20 man) during combat").

That way we can determine whether it's just 69x0 series or the other cards are affected as well, and whether there is some magical tweak some people may be missing.

Post away, don't be shy.

I'll start.

1. CPU: Core i7 920 @ 4.2GHz;
2. GPU(s): 2x Radeon 6970 2GB in CFX;
3. Medium settings, 2560x1600 (no CPU bottleneck at this res even @ 3.6GHz), no AA/AF;
4. MainThreadCPU = 0, VfxCullDistance = 256;
5. ~40 fps in Sanctum on average with ~15 models (players and NPCs) on screen, ~15 fps in combat in RoS (20 man raid), 5-15 fps during an invasion when >30 people are fighting the same boss.

[Dexter_]

Does nobody else use Radeon 5xx0 and 6xx0 cards?
Come on, post your experiences, good or bad! Don't have to go in a lot of detail, just post some sufficient info to determine performance in one of the situations. Even if you don't have issues, you may help people who do.

And could we have a dev response as well, please?

[Nupzs]

1. CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3.0Ghz
2. GPU(s): 1x Radeon 5770 1GB
3. 1920x1080, windowed fullscreen, high, no shadows, no AA, no occlusion, low clutter.
4. MainThreadCPU = 0, vfxlimit = 20
5. 10-20fps in meridian (high pop server, prolly at least 25 characters), 30-45 fps questing with a few players on screen, 15-20fps in raids

Few things I've noticed: having mainthreadcpu = 3, caps a core of mine at 95% thus causing a max load of the gpu of 50%. However, the overall load on all cores is never higher than 50%

with mainthreadcpu = 0, its divided over 4 cores, thus causing a max load of the gpu of 70%. However, while no core is capped, theyre all chilling at 50% load.

[ViolenceUndone]

rift is not at all about the video card, its all cpu. And for that matter, it never seems to be able to use your cpu to its fullest potential. I bet everyone but someone with a latest overclocked i7 is bottlenecked by their cpu.

I can vouch for not being bottlenecked on my cpu anymore after my upgrade.

Went from:
amd x2 4600+ at 2.4GHz
4GB DDR2
single 6870
Single SATA2 3Gb/s

To:
Intel i7 sandy bridge 2600k OC'd at 4.4GHz (no turbo mode, all cores/threads are that high)
8GB DDR3
Dual 6870
Raid 0 SATA3 6Gb/s

Rift never uses more than 25% of my cpu, even in meridian, with all settings maxed. Normal fps is around 60, slows to 30 in zone raids (I do not, and will not, ever run raid instances)

[DarkestLife]

So...I just bought me and my wife a Dirt 3 Saphire Radeon 6950 2GIG DDR 5 and it's not doing what I thought the price tag suggested it would. I mean this nicely but i'm glad to know that other people are having the same problems. I was going to cross fire but than I thought...I could buy an Xbox and a PS3 for that much. Anyhow.

[jerwel]

I can attest to problems with performance with ati/amd products using rift as well. Recently upgraded my computer from the following settings:

cpu: AMD phenom II X4 2.5 ghz
gpu: ATI Raedon HD 3600 1gb
RAM: 4gb ddr 2 800 mhz

to

cpu: AMD phenom II x6 3.4 ghz
gpu: ATI Raedon HD 6870 1gb and ATI Raedon HD 6850 1gb cfx (store wouldn't let me get 2 6870s qq)
Ram: 16 gb ddr 3 @ 1800 mhz

saw the following performace increases:

sanctum: 15 fps on low to 20-25fps
solo: 40fps to 39fps??? on low actually get more fps on the new card on ultra (42)
raid: 10 fps on low to 15-20fps

not really seeing the increases in this game that I should. As a comparison ill use fall out 3 where my old rig ran mid settings at 32 fps and the new one runs ultra at 60+. CPU usage never seems to go over 50% in any one core on rift, and gpu usage seems to peak at even less...