AMD Catalyst bug reports [Eyefinity / Crossfire]

[Juanlo]

For all of you that don't know me, let me introduce myself. My name is Juanlo and I'm an AMD betatester (and I'm Spanish so apologies for my English). I do not work for AMD, I'm just an enthusiast user like you all, but I was chosen a few months ago to be in direct contact with AMD and help them by gathering info from the community about problems and driver bugs affecting AMD cards. After a happy ending of the system freezes on Radeon 79xx cards in Eyefinity & Crossfire with X79/X58 chipsets thread, several users there wanted to continue debugging problems with our computers and AMD Radeon cards, so this new thread is born.

The target of this thread is to gather info about problems and driver bugs you may find with AMD Radeon cards, focusing on multigpu and multidisplay configurations. There are other forums where gamers and AMD betatesters interact and help each other, but here at Republic of Gamers we are not common gamers. We are ultra-enthusiast users with passion for our gaming rigs and gaming in general, so we don't settle with single GPU or single monitor configurations.

So, how should you report driver bugs? As you may have guessed, the more info you provide, the better. If we want to get the maximum attention to our reports, they must be very thorough reports. So, do not forget to include:

- Rig details. Motherboard, chipset, CPU, RAM and OS. If you put that info on your signature, you don't need to include it with the post.
- Driver details. Post the driver version where you have found the problem. Please, always use the latest Catalyst driver available.
- Step by step guide to reproduce the problem.
- Screenshots if applicable. Please, do not embed the screenshot at the forum, just add a link to a image hosting website.
- Workarounds, if any. On the old thread, a user posted a problem that could be fixed by setting the game executable to Windows XP compatibility.
- Compare to single screen/single gpu. Does the problem go away when switching to single screen and/or single GPU mode?
- Video if applicable. You can't imagine how important a video of a problem can be. The amount of freeze videos I sent to AMD when debugging the X79 problem helped a lot to catch their attention. If they can see a step-by-step video of a driver bug, it will be faster. And it will be also faster for me. The more videos you record, the less videos I have to record, and the more bugs I will be able to replicate and send.

I will try to keep a record of the reported bugs and their status on the second post of this thread. If you have any suggestions to make the whole process better and more friendly for us, please let me know.

Good hunting folks!

[Juanlo]

Reserved post

[Juanlo]

Another reserved post

[Nodens]

I'm taking the liberty to sticky this.

[KaRLiToS]

Subbed

12.11 beta 11 FTW

[MarshallR@ASUS]

It's great to have you here Juanlo!

[Benjet]

Hi Juanlo,
I'm still having issues with this new driver in the form of "horizontal tearing". It happens in game when you quickly move the point of view and occurs so far in bf3 and also borderlands 2. I've tried your "game time" fix (50 to 65 fps limits), v sync and lower graphic setting. None of them seem to have any effect. Something also I've noted, the graphical problems are more blocks rather than on a horizontal line. This problem has only been since the last driver install. I'll try to nut it out from this end but any ideas for your end would be greatly appreciated. System = i7 960, 3x7970, 875w + 450w psu's, win 7 64 pro, 12gb ram. Gpu's stock volts and clock, CPU 4 ghz on water. I sort out my signature soon so I'll list everything. Keep up the excellent work!!!!!!!

[Juanlo]

In Battlefield 3 I also noticed a little bit of horizontal tearing, even after limiting framerate, but for me it's the same visual tearing that I get in any game with vsync disabled and I can play perfectly with it (this weekend I have played over 8 hours of BF3 and it has been a wonderful experience). I don't know, maybe I just haven't paid attention to the problem you are describing and I just concentrated on playing. But I will take a closer look as soon as I can.

Anyway, if anyone else could share their thoughts about this problem, it would be very helpful.

[HK-47]

Hi Juanlo,
I'm still having issues with this new driver in the form of "horizontal tearing". It happens in game when you quickly move the point of view and occurs so far in bf3 and also borderlands 2. I've tried your "game time" fix (50 to 65 fps limits), v sync and lower graphic setting. None of them seem to have any effect. Something also I've noted, the graphical problems are more blocks rather than on a horizontal line. This problem has only been since the last driver install. I'll try to nut it out from this end but any ideas for your end would be greatly appreciated. System = i7 960, 3x7970, 875w + 450w psu's, win 7 64 pro, 12gb ram. Gpu's stock volts and clock, CPU 4 ghz on water. I sort out my signature soon so I'll list everything. Keep up the excellent work!!!!!!!

To correct it try limiting the fps to your frequency of your monitor then adjust up or down +/- 1 fps at a time to see if it corrects it.

Here are a few commands you can play with to get your setup running smoother.

Use the tilde key next to 1 on keyboard in game.

Gametime.maxvariablefps 60 - (Limits fps change to what you want)
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLiimit 1 - (Sets how many frames to pre-render)
RenderDevice.TrippleBufferingEnable 0 - (Enables triple buffering if set to 1)
Render.drawfps 1 - (On screen display shows fps)
Render.perfoverlayenable 1 - (Enables the performance overlay)
Render.perfoverlayvisible 1 - (Shows the performance overlay)

The performance overlay is helpful for adjusting your renderahead limit. Rendering to many frames taxes the cpu pretty hard and you should be able to see it on the overlay. I found that with 3 7970's and my cpu renderahead limit of 1 gives me the smoothest game play. Mess around with the setttings until you find a combination that works for you. Also limiting the fps + or - a frame or 2 near your refresh rate can move the tearing so it is not visible sometimes.

Here is a few quick video clips I recorded of my son playing. As you can see the tearing has been eliminated for the most part unless I just can't notice it. Sorry for the poo quality recorded with my Iphone.

http://youtu.be/zdgutdH5A0o

http://youtu.be/-IjT3v0bV7E

Also each game is a little different, some take a little more time to get setup correct. But yeah, vsynch is sometimes a nightmare to get working smoothly in games. I will post my settings when I get home from work.

I did some testing in game:

With Vsynch enabled and trifinity enabled the graphics were jerky but synched. Disabled trifire and run one card and vsynch worked fine.

I messed with some of the setting I posted above and was able to get the game smooth with trifinity and vsynch enabled but mouse lag was terrible. If you look at the performance overlay with crossfire,eyefinity and vsynch enabled you can see the graph going crazy. You disable vsynch and it smooths out.

Settings I am using are renderahead 1, no vsynch, rest of the settings ultra, using in game 2xMSAA. I get no noticeable tearing with vsynch off. What Monitors are you using BTW?

[Benjet]

To correct it try limiting the fps to your frequency of your monitor then adjust up or down +/- 1 fps at a time to see if it corrects it.

Here are a few commands you can play with to get your setup running smoother.

Use the tilde key next to 1 on keyboard in game.



Gametime.maxvariablefps 60 - (Limits fps change to what you want)
RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLiimit 1 - (Sets how many frames to pre-render)
RenderDevice.TrippleBufferingEnable 0 - (Enables triple buffering if set to 1)
Render.drawfps 1 - (On screen display shows fps)
Render.perfoverlayenable 1 - (Enables the performance overlay)
Render.perfoverlayvisible 1 - (Shows the performance overlay)

The performance overlay is helpful for adjusting your renderahead limit. Rendering to many frames taxes the cpu pretty hard and you should be able to see it on the overlay. I found that with 3 7970's and my cpu renderahead limit of 1 gives me the smoothest game play. Mess around with the setttings until you find a combination that works for you. Also limiting the fps + or - a frame or 2 near your refresh rate can move the tearing so it is not visible sometimes.

Here is a few quick video clips I recorded of my son playing. As you can see the tearing has been eliminated for the most part unless I just can't notice it. Sorry for the poo quality recorded with my Iphone.

http://youtu.be/zdgutdH5A0o

http://youtu.be/-IjT3v0bV7E

Also each game is a little different, some take a little more time to get setup correct. But yeah, vsynch is sometimes a nightmare to get working smoothly in games. I will post my settings when I get home from work.

I did some testing in game:

With Vsynch enabled and trifinity enabled the graphics were jerky but synched. Disabled trifire and run one card and vsynch worked fine.

I messed with some of the setting I posted above and was able to get the game smooth with trifinity and vsynch enabled but mouse lag was terrible. If you look at the performance overlay with crossfire,eyefinity and vsynch enabled you can see the graph going crazy. You disable vsynch and it smooths out.

Settings I am using are renderahead 1, no vsynch, rest of the settings ultra, using in game 2xMSAA. I get no noticeable tearing with vsynch off. What Monitors are you using BTW?

Thanks all for the advice, we're getting somewhere. Have been able to get 90% smoothness from setting the refresh rate to 50 fps (monitors are benq bl2201 with a refresh rate of 60hz). I might drop it to 48hz to stop interference from the lights in the room, other than that a great result. Also my gpu's are running a bit cooler, 65c max. I'll be doing the change to win 8 soon, so I know I'll be back here soon with more questions. Thanks again everybody.