Crossfire help plz :)

[mingebag43]

Ok. So i just got my new shinny card in, the same as my other one. An Amd ATI HD 2600 xt 512mb. I have everything updated and setup. Have crossfire enabled in Catalyst. Doesnt seem to do anything at all. Benched in pc wizzard, and other games, no improvement at all. only thing i saw was the crysis bench mark was making the sky and water glitch and flicker. Other then the sky and water messing up, same fps. Anyway just ask me a question on what i did and ill tell you. I just want this to get working. PLEASE help :(


Pics yay

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g163/agonyskater311/Picture002.jpg
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g163/agonyskater311/Picture003-1.jpg
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g163/agonyskater311/Picture005-1.jpg

also tried with one bridge, same thing :(

[Cheator]

CCC says they are in crossfire? Have you tried seeing what GPUz says?

[Sarsbaby]

Your PEG x1 setting is Disabled in your BIOS right? Is your Cross Graphics Impeller Enabled in BIOS? What is your other PCI-E slot? X1,x4?

[mingebag43]

Your PEG x1 setting is Disabled in your BIOS right? Is your Cross Graphics Impeller Enabled in BIOS? What is your other PCI-E slot? X1,x4?
Well I did enable the impeller, and the peg x1. Only problem was when i disabled the PEG i no longer got a video feed and had to reset the cmos through the jumper pins :(. The impeller is on but same thing, no crossfire.

Oh second pcie slot is a x1/x4 black slot.

[mingebag43]

CCC says they are in crossfire? Have you tried seeing what GPUz says?
Dont have gpuz, will get it now.

[mingebag43]

CCC says they are in crossfire? Have you tried seeing what GPUz says?
GPUZ, crossfire is disabled.

[El<(')>Maxi]

The 4X secondary slot will limit CF performance somewhat. Check fill rates & overall results in 3DMark 05, that will verify CF is working. You can also crank up the resolution and compare single card vs. dual card to get a clearer picture.

[mingebag43]

The 4X secondary slot will limit CF performance somewhat. Check fill rates & overall results in 3DMark 05, that will verify CF is working. You can also crank up the resolution and compare single card vs. dual card to get a clearer picture.
Its not working period, no change in anything i do compared to one card.

[mingebag43]

Heres a pic

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g163/agonyskater311/o0.jpg

[chrome-187]

you sure you have your 2nd pci-e slot enabled? does CCC see both of your cards in the over drive section? should be a pull down tab to switch between the two cards..also on gpu-z as well

[mingebag43]

you sure you have your 2nd pci-e slot enabled? does CCC see both of your cards in the over drive section? should be a pull down tab to switch between the two cards..also on gpu-z as well
yup, both show in gpuz and anything else. And you can see the temps for both cards in the pic above.

[El<(')>Maxi]

I'd say the problem is the drivers then on XP. CFX only worked initially for X2's on Vista, this could be a similar situation. Just for kicks I'd try Catalyst 7.11's and see if it's any different.

[mingebag43]

I'd say the problem is the drivers then on XP. CFX only worked initially for X2's on Vista, this could be a similar situation. Just for kicks I'd try Catalyst 7.11's and see if it's any different.
Drivers on the cd seem no different. It should be on and working fine but just isn't which is Frustrating as hell :(

[Cheator]

Cleaned the drivers and all that jazz? try the omega drivers?

[ghost_recon88]

Yea try the Omega drivers as mentioned above, also I believe there is a registry key to force enable Crossfire.

[mingebag43]

Cleaned the drivers and all that jazz? try the omega drivers?
Where would i get those drivers? and yes I just did a clean install of all the drivers, still nothing.

[El<(')>Maxi]

Do not install Omega's, try Cat 7.11

[Cheator]

Do not install Omega's, try Cat 7.11

Why not?

[mingebag43]

Do not install Omega's, try Cat 7.11
Ok will try cat 7.11. The omega drivers did not work, it came up with and error when i tried to enable crossfire.

[mingebag43]

Do not install Omega's, try Cat 7.11
Cat 7.11 not working, same thing. Says crossfire is on like always, but its not. WTF is going on. Im ready to throw the whole system out >.>

[mingebag43]

Hope this helps at all >.>

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g163/agonyskater311/342342.jpg

[El<(')>Maxi]

Do me a favor, run just the Fill Rate tests in 3DMark03 with CF enabled and disabled. I suspect this is a problem with the way GPU-Z is reporting CF status.

[Sndm3mny]

yeah i would of done that myself 1st run 3dmark with 1 card...then put the other and run it again....it should work....and if gpu-z picks up 2 cards from the drop down menu that means both cards are crossfired....what you worried about? gpu-z isnt always accurate with anything....my temps on my card are wrong

i keep editing this but i think the reason why gpu-z says crossfire is disabled because your 2nd pci-e slot is slower then the 16x slot.... and that means the 2nd card isnt going to be running @ full speed.... i bet if they both were 16x gpu-z would see the crossfire i mean it sees the crossfire because if it didn't then you wouldn't have 2 cards on your drop down menu....

[mingebag43]

yeah i would of done that myself 1st run 3dmark with 1 card...then put the other and run it again....it should work....and if gpu-z picks up 2 cards from the drop down menu that means both cards are crossfired....what you worried about? gpu-z isnt always accurate with anything....my temps on my card are wrong

i keep editing this but i think the reason why gpu-z says crossfire is disabled because your 2nd pci-e slot is slower then the 16x slot.... and that means the 2nd card isnt going to be running @ full speed.... i bet if they both were 16x gpu-z would see the crossfire i mean it sees the crossfire because if it didn't then you wouldn't have 2 cards on your drop down menu....
True, and If it is enabled, crappy crossfire, not even close to 10% or maybe even 5% faster in anyway. I did run 3Dmarks for amd and with crossfire it was only a 100 point difference, even my cpu went up by 40 points. And Pc wizard said it was off, so far that program seems to be very accurate for me. But really 100 or so points in 3dmarks, does that sound right?

Also cant do a fill rate test as far as I know. I dont have the full program.

[Sndm3mny]

100 points nah man something is definatly wrong a physics card would get you more then one hundred points

[linnaeus]

I was reading something somewhere else where someone had the same problem. They did a fresh install of the drivers and it solved the problem. try uninstalling everything and doing a clean install

[mingebag43]

I was reading something somewhere else where someone had the same problem. They did a fresh install of the drivers and it solved the problem. try uninstalling everything and doing a clean install
Sadly I have done that 5 times with 5 different drivers. ANYWAY, I got to re-overclocking my cpu, now crossfire shows in 3dmarks by ALOT, doubles my FPS, but only in 3dmarks. Anyone know how to get it working for crysis or anything else like wow or Gmod? doesnt show in any of my games. :(

also I really do think my cpu is bottle necking it, but Im buying a Q6700 next week to OC :D

[mingebag43]

So no one knows? Works for 3dmark, but nothing else -_-

[dogbert_2001]

Uninstall MS VC++ 2005 Redistributible

Using CCC, you have to close and open CCC to really check Crossfire status.

[Thracx]

Thanks for posting your problem (mingebag43) - I have pretty much exactly the same problem. I've been trying to play Supreme Commander (SupCom) with dual-monitors, and decided to get a second x1950pro card so I could use CrossFireX - thus far, to absolutely no avail. :bang head

I've tried manually watching my framerate (pressing '/' while in game) and trying the performance test (launch the game with the '/perf' cmdLine argument), both don't see any difference when CCC shows CrossFireX as being enabled. It does seem to be enabled because I loose the ability to change my dual-monitor settings (CrossFire doesn't let you use the 2nd card's DVI ports, etc). GPU-Z (v0.2.3) shows CrossFire as being disabled. I think it might be important that the new Catalst drivers use 3rd generation Crossfire - called 'CrossFireX', while my card (x1950pro) came out during the 2nd generation and GPU-Z says 'CrossFire', without the 'X', so perhaps it just hasn't been updated to look for CrossFireX. I've downloaded a version of 3DMark and will try that tonight, along with perhaps uninstalling "MS VC++ 2005 Redistributible", as I think I may have that. Closing & Re-opening CCC still reports CrossFireX as running, as does restarting the runtime.

I had been using the latest Catalyst 8.5 drivers but tried the older 8.4 drivers - still no luck (and in the process things have gotten quite messed up, with my main GPU showing it's monitors as #1 and #4 and the second GPU as #2 and #3). I plan to try and find earlier 7.x drivers and trying those, and then I will try a fresh WinXP-SP3 install and check that. I haven't messed with Asus A.G.I. yet (it's set to 'Auto') but may try that.


On what may or may not be a side note, in my case I have a second issue - Supreme Commander (SupCom) does not utilize my second CPU core. This is apparently a known issue but none of the online resources have panned out for me thus-far on this topic (Google '/usepmtimer'). :confused:

My thinking right now is that maybe games like SupCom are CPU-bound in some fashion, and perhaps it knows it can't use the second GPU without having more CPU power (since right now it basically only has a single 2.13 GHz core!). I'm hoping that if I can resolve this issue, it will resolve my CrossFireX issue, but I'm running low on ideas so would appreciate any feedback anyone can offer. Thanks a lot in advance!


Detailed computer specs available via PM (I don't want to give out my website to web crawlers ;) ), but what's important...
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Asus P5B Deluxe
2 x ATI™ Radeon X1950Pro by Sapphire (CrossFireX)
WinXP-Pro SP2

[mingebag43]

Thanks for posting your problem (mingebag43) - I have pretty much exactly the same problem. I've been trying to play Supreme Commander (SupCom) with dual-monitors, and decided to get a second x1950pro card so I could use CrossFireX - thus far, to absolutely no avail. :bang head

I've tried manually watching my framerate (pressing '/' while in game) and trying the performance test (launch the game with the '/perf' cmdLine argument), both don't see any difference when CCC shows CrossFireX as being enabled. It does seem to be enabled because I loose the ability to change my dual-monitor settings (CrossFire doesn't let you use the 2nd card's DVI ports, etc). GPU-Z (v0.2.3) shows CrossFire as being disabled. I think it might be important that the new Catalst drivers use 3rd generation Crossfire - called 'CrossFireX', while my card (x1950pro) came out during the 2nd generation and GPU-Z says 'CrossFire', without the 'X', so perhaps it just hasn't been updated to look for CrossFireX. I've downloaded a version of 3DMark and will try that tonight, along with perhaps uninstalling "MS VC++ 2005 Redistributible", as I think I may have that. Closing & Re-opening CCC still reports CrossFireX as running, as does restarting the runtime.

I had been using the latest Catalyst 8.5 drivers but tried the older 8.4 drivers - still no luck (and in the process things have gotten quite messed up, with my main GPU showing it's monitors as #1 and #4 and the second GPU as #2 and #3). I plan to try and find earlier 7.x drivers and trying those, and then I will try a fresh WinXP-SP3 install and check that. I haven't messed with Asus A.G.I. yet (it's set to 'Auto') but may try that.


On what may or may not be a side note, in my case I have a second issue - Supreme Commander (SupCom) does not utilize my second CPU core. This is apparently a known issue but none of the online resources have panned out for me thus-far on this topic (Google '/usepmtimer'). :confused:

My thinking right now is that maybe games like SupCom are CPU-bound in some fashion, and perhaps it knows it can't use the second GPU without having more CPU power (since right now it basically only has a single 2.13 GHz core!). I'm hoping that if I can resolve this issue, it will resolve my CrossFireX issue, but I'm running low on ideas so would appreciate any feedback anyone can offer. Thanks a lot in advance!


Detailed computer specs available via PM (I don't want to give out my website to web crawlers ;) ), but what's important...
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Asus P5B Deluxe
2 x ATI™ Radeon X1950Pro by Sapphire (CrossFireX)
WinXP-Pro SP2
Well I'm talking with AMD now to try and resolve the issue, hopefully they can figure it out soon. So far nothing they tried helped.

As for the single cpu core, go to task manager while you have Sup commander running and try to set it to 2 cores. Right click it in task manager / processes - click set affinity. should have 1-32 cores lmao. should only have 2 available for you :P since you have a c2d. hope that works for ya

[mingebag43]

Uninstall MS VC++ 2005 Redistributible

Using CCC, you have to close and open CCC to really check Crossfire status.
Will try that tonight :) thx

[mingebag43]

Uninstall MS VC++ 2005 Redistributible

Using CCC, you have to close and open CCC to really check Crossfire status.
Reinstalling c++ broke CCC some how, idk. but got it working, but same thing, no crossfire.

[satandole666]

I still go through this with my 2900s if I mess with them or heavily clock my motherboard at all. My problem is not identical, but very similar.

The problem is in the drivers. I fought for a whole weekend, 12 hours a day when I got these cards and couldn't get Crossfire to work. Finally I formatted a spare drive, did a clean install of Windows, copied the 7.11 drivers over and installed everything fresh.

It worked.

Now I run CCC Uninstall utility, Driver cleaner, reboot and run Driver cleaner again. After one last reboot, I install the drivers I wish to use and it works perfect.

Hopes this helps but I'd bet the farm your problem is drivers.

If I ever heavily overclock my board I have to restart multiple times occasionally just to get Crossfire working again. Easiest way to check is to run the first test in 3d06 and memorize what the frames are supposed to be at certain parts for 1 and 2 cards. After that I know within 30 seconds if it works or not. If it works in 3d mark it works everywhere else for me.

Hope this helps.

[Thracx]

Well I'm talking with AMD now to try and resolve the issue, hopefully they can figure it out soon. So far nothing they tried helped.
I hope they figure something out or release new drivers! Good Luck, and let me know how it turns out!

As for the single cpu core, go to task manager while you have Sup commander running and try to set it to 2 cores. Right click it in task manager / processes - click set affinity. should have 1-32 cores lmao. should only have 2 available for you :P since you have a c2d. hope that works for ya
I'm pretty sure it was set to use both cores... but that's definitely worth a shot, thanks! I'll try to set it to a single core, then set back to dual-cores! Can you do me a favor here? Check to see how much CPU usage 3DMark06 is using? Mine seems to also be using less than 100%, although more than 50% (i.e. more than 1 core) so it could easily just be a GPU bottleneck and not the same issue. On a side note, google for SysInternals Process Explorer - it's way better than the default TaskMgr!


...The problem is in the drivers. I fought for a whole weekend, 12 hours a day when I got these cards and couldn't get Crossfire to work. Finally I formatted a spare drive, did a clean install of Windows, copied the 7.11 drivers over and installed everything fresh.

It worked.

Now I run CCC Uninstall utility, Driver cleaner, reboot and run Driver cleaner again. After one last reboot, I install the drivers I wish to use and it works perfect...


Thanks for the info, it should help focus my efforts. I had tried such a fiasco last night - uninstall all ATI, reboot into Safe Mode, run Driver Cleaner 1.5, reboot into Safe Mode, do it again, blah blah. I ended up having quite the trouble getting ride of the ATI drivers but it should be unique to me - I had provided some ATI drivers during my original installation via oem (WinNT.sif, etc)... which Driver Cleaner did NOT remove for me... I had to manually track that inf file down and kill it before I could get windows to not auto-install anything ATI.

I then installed the 7.7 drivers and tried CrossFire... nutin' :'( I'm going to try the same thing tonight with the latest 8.5 drivers, as well as try messing with the Asus A.G.I. settings and perhaps removing one of the crosslink cables.. wish me luck!

PS. Does anybody else have experience with dual-monitors with CrossFire? The 'number' of my monitors seem to change often, first-reboot after installing ATI drivers my second monitor is my first... reboot again and my main monitor is back to being main but the second DVI port on my main GPU is #4, and that number has changed a few times. Soooo odd, it's as if the drivers can't tell which ports belong to which cards (and I know I have a hard time doing that since the adapters in Device Manager are named identically the same!).

[Thracx]

I still go through this with my 2900s if I mess with them or heavily clock my motherboard at all....
Do you actually mean your motherboard? I assume CPU/RAM/etc - if such things did mess up your CrossFire setup, then perhaps it does have something to do with how the drivers interact with the motherboard, i.e. perhaps the drivers expect a certain bus speed (could be accidentally changed when overclocking, etc) or something. hmmmm...

This is so frustrating I keep wanting to take time off work to go home and figure this freakin' thing out!!! :bang head

[mingebag43]

I hope they figure something out or release new drivers! Good Luck, and let me know how it turns out!


I'm pretty sure it was set to use both cores... but that's definitely worth a shot, thanks! I'll try to set it to a single core, then set back to dual-cores! Can you do me a favor here? Check to see how much CPU usage 3DMark06 is using? Mine seems to also be using less than 100%, although more than 50% (i.e. more than 1 core) so it could easily just be a GPU bottleneck and not the same issue. On a side note, google for SysInternals Process Explorer - it's way better than the default TaskMgr!





Thanks for the info, it should help focus my efforts. I had tried such a fiasco last night - uninstall all ATI, reboot into Safe Mode, run Driver Cleaner 1.5, reboot into Safe Mode, do it again, blah blah. I ended up having quite the trouble getting ride of the ATI drivers but it should be unique to me - I had provided some ATI drivers during my original installation via oem (WinNT.sif, etc)... which Driver Cleaner did NOT remove for me... I had to manually track that inf file down and kill it before I could get windows to not auto-install anything ATI.

I then installed the 7.7 drivers and tried CrossFire... nutin' :'( I'm going to try the same thing tonight with the latest 8.5 drivers, as well as try messing with the Asus A.G.I. settings and perhaps removing one of the crosslink cables.. wish me luck!

PS. Does anybody else have experience with dual-monitors with CrossFire? The 'number' of my monitors seem to change often, first-reboot after installing ATI drivers my second monitor is my first... reboot again and my main monitor is back to being main but the second DVI port on my main GPU is #4, and that number has changed a few times. Soooo odd, it's as if the drivers can't tell which ports belong to which cards (and I know I have a hard time doing that since the adapters in Device Manager are named identically the same!).
Ill let you know if they find anything that helps.
also i do have process explorer, its nice :P and 3dmarks goes from 60 to 100%, jumps around a bit.