***M18x - AMD Crossfire (Driver Questions, Performance, Problems) Discussion Thread***

Hey folks quick question here. I installed my AMD cards last night and after looking at the information listed in HWiNFO64 I'm a little confused. Long time Nvidia user so I apologize up front. To the point here:

I bought 6990's but they are showing up as:

1. AMD Radeon HD 6970M/6990M [DELL]
2. ATI/AMD Radeon HD 6970M/6990M (BLACKCOMB XT/XTX/PRO)

Is there a difference here ? because I don't want to find out I have a 6990 matched with a 6970. Or find out they didn't send me the right product. Well I WANT TO KNOW, but lol. Or is it just firmware ? and why is one of them saying I have ATI and the other not ?

Thanks to anyone who has information on this!

 

run Gpu-z it will tell you what cards you have.

 

yeah check the shader count and default clock, whether via GPU-Z or simply in CCC -> Information -> Hardware.

 

It's easy to tell. Launch GPU-Z and select one of the cards from the dropdown. Make note of the clock speeds and shader count. Select the other GPU and compare them. With 6990M you will see 1120 shaders and clock speeds of 715 on core 715/900 on memory. The default clock speeds for a 6970 GPU are 680/900, with 960 shaders.

One GPU could have a different vBIOS than the other, and that might explain the difference in naming convention between the two if the other specs check out OK. Compare that in GPU-Z also. You can extract the vBIOS from one card and flash it to the other one. They are not a master/slave arrangement. Also, attached is a stock Dell 6990M vBIOS from my last set of 6990M cards.

Use Sapphire Trixx for overclocking.

 

guys is it good to overclock 7970ms's? and how u do it.
and the cpu (what oc on does this do)? same question.

any Any word on official drivers?

 

Because 7970M is so new, options are a little more limited than they will as it matures. I am overclocking them using MSI Afterburner. There is not a huge amount of overhead available because the 7970M stock clock speeds are already very high for a mobile GPU, which may explain why it performs so well. How far you can overclock will vary by benchmark. 950 core and 1400 memory is the limit in 3DMark11 for me. On Vantage I can hit 1GHz on core. The limits to GPU overclocking are often affected by stability of drivers. Going too far on core or memory will cause TDR errors and other software glitches before the cards are maxed out.

CPU overclocking is different. The limits are more mechanical... temps, volts, amps, etc. Look at the links in the left side of my signature, directly above the alien head graphic. You will find an index with links to threads for a wide variety of subjects, including overclocking.

The answer to drivers is already posted (yesterday). Just go back a couple of pages.

I highly recommend spending a few days or a week reading what is already posted in forums before posting dozens of questions. You'll not only become better educated, but you'll end up answering many of your own questions.

 

New CFX link cable and same error (cable not connected properly). Time to return the system... I'm done with AMD, what a joke.

 

That sucks! - d'ya think you might have had a dodgy crossfire port on one/both of your cards? - I don't blame you for jumping ship - if it were me experiencing these kind of issues, I'd be sorely tempted to do exactly the same.

 

I've just straight up stopped caring. They say it's a known issue with no fix as of yet. On top of that my sound doesn't work at all either. Lol.

nVIDIA is sounding more appealing by the picosecond.

 

Thank you Long and Mr Fox. I feel like a complete newb for not thinking of that. The shader count confirmed I have the 6990M. Nothing else was giving me a unique ID. GPUID or HWiNFO or any other program. Seems someone dropped the ball when assigning a device ID on the 6990. Its the same as the 6970. The way they sold me these cards I never got an official reciept. They show up as a "Service" so wanted to make sure. These cards are a great improvement over the solo 460M. Im maxing out everything in BF3 and playin in the 70 FPS! Some older games i have like TF2 when maxed out fully play at 200+ fps! feels like im Ice Skating

 

Information sent. For quick reference, here are the stock specs, including voltage for each of the two power states.

I am very sad to hear this. After returning to AMD, I can say that overall I am more satisfied with NVIDIA. But, it's sad that your 7970M CF experience is being ruined. I really do like my 7970M CF setup and find it is a huge improvement over 6970M/6990M CF. Have you tried any registry tweaks to see if you can circumvent the error? I had some issues with CrossFire that were driver related. It could be a hardware issue, and may well be, but it would be nice if you could enjoy it a bit before you replace it with NVIDIA.

 

I guess I could try the driver tweaks, where are they?

CrossFire simply doesn't enable, at all, with any driver...

I was told it was a known issue and they're working on the fix. They will know by next tuesday.

I'm on the phone right now to have my cable replaced yet again because an agent is now saying it's not true at all (that CFX 7970M not working is a known issue in some cases).

....

lol.

 

Change all instances (keys) in the registry:

• EnableCrossFireAutoLink - change DWORD 0 to 1
• EnableULPS - change DWORD 1 to 0
• Reboot

You will find a ton of them. I think I have around 18, but I did not count them.

Use the registry search (Find) feature. Click on "Computer" so your are at the top of the registry tree. You will see EnableULPS two spots below each instance of EnableCrossFireAutoLink. After changing the first DWORD values, press F3 to go to the next occurrence, change both DWORD values, press F3, repeat. Continue until Regedit tells you it cannot find any more matches.

7970M does a much better job with tessellation than 6970M/6990M did. Here's a TessMark run... the tessellation quality looks very nice.

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y0geyxaxenc?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y0geyxaxenc?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='853' height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

 

CFX now enabled... finally.

 

YAY! What was it that worked?

Still do the registry tweaks... it always makes AMD CF work better for me. The EnableULPS tweak is a must for overclocking.

 

Reinstalling the driver 10x over. I'm on Dell's driver ATM, sadly.

I also ran 3DM11 for the first time. 9.73K stock. These cards only hit 67c. The fans didn't even budge. There's no way these are consuming close to 100W.

 

Zero989, Soul Reaver,

"The AMD CrossfireX internal bridge interconnects linking your graphics cards together are not properly attached. Both bridge interconnects must be attached."

For my notes, send me your service tags via private message. Also, it would be helpful if anyone has pictures of the state of the AMD CFX (CrossFireX) cable.

 

Chris, I dont want this to sound "off", but I think these guys know how to connect a crossfire cable - unlike some of the Chinese assembly team.

 

I can do that.

Edit -- 7:23PM EST: PM Sent!

 

Brother Steve, it appears Chris was posting a quote from a comment made by someone else, perhaps internally. I think Chris might be gathering intel so it can be used to try to correct what is going wrong in the assembly process. Don't know that for sure because I have not communicated with Chris about the plan, but that would seem logical.

 

This question may have been asked before, but where do you guys get your 7970M cards ordered from? and how much would it cost for a pair roughly?

 

I just bought a new M18x R2 and my Crossfire 7970 Radeon is also stating this message.

The AMD CrossfireX internal bridge interconnects linking your graphics cards together are not properly attached. Both bridge interconnects must be attached.

Any fix for this? Or do I wait for an official update?

 

Welcome to the club. Mine is still broken. I'm getting a jittery screen with what looks like corruption. I'm awaiting on a tech with yet another cable.

 

I might just return this M18x and just wait for the 680 SLI

 

Hi guys, need help with wierd issue. When running BF3 on my 7970m XF, I was able to get into the game. But if I alt+tab or change the video settings DX error occurs as the pic shown I'm using 12.5 driver, everything was fine when I disable XF in BF3, and while on XF other games were also running fine. My system is m18x R2 with 3820qm and 8gb ram, should not get any problem tho~ appreciate if you guys can figure out what problems are!

forgot to say, I reinstalled driver & updated dx11 too. problems still occur

 

I'm having all kinds of fun times with the 7970M today as well. Too much stuff just doesn't work correctly, but it seems sporadically... very odd. Hopefully, although I am skeptical, it's lack of decent drivers. I'm starting to be concerned that the cards are just another generation of AMD "Edsel" GPUs. I'm a bit grumpy about them right now. They work beautifully one day, and the next day they act stupid again. Don't really understand why that is, other than instability.

A pair of them from Dell, with heat sinks and CrossFire bridge cable will run about $1,200 USD.

 

After I connected my cable it started rendering in odd ways. It looked similar to screen tearing and screen shaking. And now I'm back to staring at "CFX is not connected properly"....

 

screen flickering on fallout 3 goty. what gives :/

v sync on...

 

What driver are you using? There are only two drivers that will allow CrossFire to be enabled that I have found.

 

id like to know, i get screen tear, and screen moves on fallout. but mw3 runs fine.

 

This one... https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwdqi25LDwZyczljcXEwT0ltQ3M/edit?pli=1# (saved in my own Google Docs, but shared public) ...and this one... AMD Catalyst 12.x (8.980.0 June 4) Unofficial BETA download from Guru3D.com work the best for me. I cannot say that one is better than the other, but they both work OK, and without having to do a bunch of work around stuff to get them installed.

 

Finally, got my problem solved~now I understand Y ppl saying that if you want to do things well, do it yourself~back to the issue, it was simple, just need to install the cap. So for ppl having problem with gamming on CXF, make sure you install the laterest version of cap.

 

Dell's driver. The June 4th driver installs but the CCC panel doesn't install properly. CFX was enabled with the driver because the screen was all screwy.

 

See if this one works any better for you. I have it in my Google docs and it works good for my system. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwdqi25LDwZyczljcXEwT0ltQ3M/edit#

 

Thanks, downloading now.

Edit -- same problem. after installing I either have no CCC panel or CCC doesn't load. CFX isn't enabled either.

 

Guys DOES anybody suffer with Micro Stuttering when using crossfire?
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Micro-Stuttering-with-SLI-or-CrossFire.57232.0.html

 

yes micro stuttering happens all the time

the reason is because at lower FPS one frame is processed by one gpu and another by the other and it cant keep up

This only happens for me when in a loading screen, ive never had this happen during actual gameplay

 

Im having the same problem


as well as my benchmarks are about 20% reduced from the benchmarks in my signature.

 

I hate AMD now.

 

lol im getting close to hate...

 

Well, NVIDIA's GTX 680M should be out soon. Have you contacted Alienware about returning the system or exchanging the GPU assemblies for GTX 680M SLI? With the issues both of you are experiencing, it would be better to have GTX 580M or 675M, even though the 7970M is more powerful.

 

Are there clear differences between issues due to drivers and issues due to hardware (i.e. crossfire cables)? So far I'm getting these shearing horizontal lines traveling up the screen on all of the few games I have installed when cross-fire is enabled (but not outside games) and it works fine if crossfire is disabled (adjusting settings like vertical sync on/off doesn't fix it tho). So far no error messages. Updating to the drivers listed here hasn't helped, am I right in assuming it is still a driver issue?

 

I am not sure... I have not experienced that, so unable to comment about it.

 

anybody know why i got black lines, screen shacking on fallout 3...makes me not wanna play it


i even updated the game

 

Ya I am just returning the laptop, was going to be for a replacement but now i think i might just get a full refund and be on my way. Probably get one with the 680m ( due to the fact i have never had a problem with any Nvidia gpu i have ever owned ). I like the 7970m dont get me wrong but the steps i have had to go through in order to just get them functioning as they should, i feel shouldnt have had taken place.
I might wait for the next driver drop from AMD to see what happens because they now are supposedly only releasing good drivers, not just one every week or two.

 

If you are considering returning your machine, I wouldnt wait too long - make sure that you are within your returns period so you dont get lumbered with it should you choose to return.

 

was Trying to play fallout 3, and sometime the screen would have black lines and the screen would shake like its messing up.

i pop up starcraft 2, i still get black lines time to time, but no screen shake freeze.

what gives?

 

I have a 30 day return label so i figure as long as that return label is valid so will be my return.

 

Its a driver issue... I too had those lines... I did a clean install using the 12.6 (Beta)... The lines are gone...

 

You video card gives/gave/will give out.