ATI 4870 Crossfire not working?

So,

I realized today after playing Dragon Age: Origins for about an hour, that my right video card was not warm at all, not even the vent. I was curious because I noticed periodically my FPS would drop from around 60 to around 20-30 in game, running at 1920x1200 with AA off. So, my suspicion is that video card isn't being utilized at all and the "crossfire is enabled" thing is not properly set up. Also, the Crossfire icon does show up when I start the game, via the ATI CCC, but then why would the second video card not be warm at all? (it's actually the coldest part of my laptop)

Any ideas on what I should do?

Also, I'm using 10.11 drivers and the CCC that installed with it. I also installed the Application Profiles that came with it.

 

Did you check GPU performance in other titles? Is it just DA:O?

If you are seeing the same behavior, axe the current driver install. Clean install of this driver to troubleshoot:


ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 Driver
v 8.763-100810a-104118C-Dell

Fixes and Enhancements
1. Displays configuration becomes incorrect when Crossfire is disabled
2. A non existent 2nd monitor appears in CCC and Display Manager after resume from S3/S4 with CrossFire disabled
3. System hangs when crossfire is disabled and re-enabled
4. Driver updates
5. Support for new game titles

Direct link:
Drivers and Downloads

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DA:O doesn't support crossfire. that's why the icons shows up but the card doesn't get used....i guess i should say im fairly certain that it doesn't fully support X-fire. as far as the FPS dropping it really shouldn't when i was playing the game on a Clev0 M570ru with the very underpowered 8700gt i could get 30fps through out, with pretty maxed settings in native resolution.( obviously not @ 1920x1200)
i was about to take my 4870s out today but ill install the game and see what i get and see if x-fire works with mine

edit: ill be using a different driver (10.10), i don't ever use Dells video drivers unless i have to, idk if that will make much of a difference

 

using the 10.10 drivers i was able to max out Dragon age to max settings and can maintain 60fps. and i am proven wrong, BOTH GPUs are being used, but from what i read the game doesnt support X-fire/SLi.

So i tried the dell drivers. No 2nd card action. 0% utilization. so IMO its a driver issue at this point, i would use the ATi issued 10.10 drivers then try it again. also check in CCC that x-fire is enabled. but i experienced no drops in FPS really it pretty much hung out at 59-60 fps for about an hour.

 

What would be a good test is to run the AMD reference driver's app profile update with the Dell 4870 8.763 driver and see if it changes...

 

for reference, i don't change any of the profiles. what ever the CCC uses default is what i use. i set mipmaps to performance and that's about it.

i found that after re-installing the Dell driver, for a 2nd time the correct way, that it utilized the 2nd card in the same way that the ref driver. so it really seems that the OP's issue may actually be hardware related. we have similar hardware an the game rarely varies from 60fps. and when it does it certainly doesn't dip below 55fps. also according to Hwinfo32 both cards are utilized @99.blah..blah %

i would try using fraps & Hwinfo in a myriad of different games and see what kind of reading you get,.

 

The most common factor with display driver issues is install. Before leaning towards a hardware issue, OP - be sure you perform a clean install of the driver I referenced. Again, just a suggestion - since clever confirmed the 2nd card is working with the Dell driver, you should eliminate the 'possible bad install' of the driver first.

 

So, I did a complete removal of all the ATI software and drivers and installed the drivers from the dell website. Crossfire is listed as enabled under preferences and there is an obvious temperature increase now for my second video card. That said, FPS is now around 80-140, depending on the scenery obviously. The odd part though, is my FPS still drops randomly through game play down to about 1/2 of that. In areas where I get about 80, it drops to 40. The 120 fps areas drops to 60, then eventually it comes back up. Typically, it stays lower longer then when it peaks. Any ideas?

 

what are you using to measure your FPS? it seems funny that mine would cap @ 60 fps and rarely move but your is shooting up to 140??? seems weird

 

I use Fraps and I have VSYNC disabled.

Also, I downloaded HWiNFO32 and noticed that when I click on the second mobility card, it doesn't list anything under performance or memory or anything, unlike the top card which gives the cards performance information. Is it suppose to?

 

So I did some data logging with my system while I was playing DA:O and I came across something that I pretty much expected. Periodically my GPU Utilization goes from 99% down to ~50% on my #1 adapter and from 99% down to ~0% on my #0 adapter. That, is not normal by any means, HWiNFO32 also only shows my GPU fans running at 30% approximately 90% of the time, with the #0 (assumed primary video card) never reaching above 30%, and my secondary card (#1) will periodically hit 100% fan speed.

Honestly, I'm lost, I just did another data collection with the game simply running with my character sitting next to a fire. That way I could have a sustained time frame to collect data where none of the variables would be changing, i.e. loading screens and combat. During this time period the game still had drops in FPS equating to approximately 50% of the normal max. The data I've collected is attached in an excel spreadsheet format, or at least a .CSV. In order to upload the spreadsheet I had to change the extension to .doc, so if you take a look you'll have to change it back to .CSV.

Thanks