[Rel.] AMD Enduro Performance Fix for DirectX 9 Games and Applications (for 7700/7800/7900/8500/8600/8700/8800/8900M GPUs)

Code:

AMD Enduro™ Performance Fix for DirectX 9 v2.0
GUI application © by MacHater
Fix proof-of-concept © by LeeKM
----------------------------------------

Description:
		Resolves GPU underutilization and poor performance in many
	DirectX 9 games and applications on AMD Enduro™ (PowerXpress™ 5.x) mobile
	platforms.

Compatible with the following GPUs (on AMD Enduro™/Switchable Graphics platforms):
	- AMD Radeon™ HD 7700M, 7800M Series, 7970M
	- AMD Radeon™ HD 8500M, 8600M, 8700M, 8800M Series, 8970M
	- Other notebooks with AMD/ATI GPU and Switchable Graphics / AMD Enduro™ technology

Other requirements:
	- Microsoft® Windows™ 7 or Windows™ 8 (x64 is preferred)
	- Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5
	- Intel CPU with integrated processor graphics
	- AMD Catalyst™ 13.2 minimum; always install latest version from support.amd.com

Initial test platform:
	- CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM
	- RAM: 8 GB Samsung DDR3 1600 MHz (CL 11)
	- GPU: AMD Radeon™ HD 7850M (Overclocked), Intel® HD Graphics 4000
	- GPU drivers: AMD Catalyst™ 13.6 Mobility beta, Intel® HD Graphics 15.28.17.3190
	- OS: Microsoft® Windows™ 7 Ultimate x64

Fix has been tested and confirmed to work by others on:
	- Microsoft® Windows™ 8 Pro x64
	- AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M
	- AMD Radeon™ HD 6770M
	- AMD Radeon™ HD 8870M

Games and applications tested with fix and seen substantial performance increase:
	- 3DMark06
	- 3DMark Vantage
	- 3DMark (2013) Ice Storm and Cloud Gate
	- Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™
	- Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare™ 2 & 3
	- Counter-Strike™: Global Offensive™
	- Counter-Strike™: Source
	- Guild Wars 2 (tested by sigbin)
	- Left 4 Dead™ 2
	- StarCraft™ II: Heart of the Swarm™
	- Team Fortress™ 2

Disclaimer:
		By using this application and/or the fix associated with this application,
	you acknowledge that neither the author of the application nor the author of the fix
	proof-of-concept may be held responsible for any consequences that may arise from usage.
	Use entirely at your own risk.

	You agree not to violate, circumvent, reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise
	tamper with any of the security technology for any reason or to attempt or assist another
	person to do so.

	This software and the fix associated are provided free-of-charge and allowed for redistribution
	provided that the application and all of the included files, including this text shall remain
	intact and free from 3rd party modification of any kind and are redistributed together.

GUI application, © 2013 MacHater
Fix proof-of-concept, © 2013 LeeKM
All rights reserved.

AMD, Radeon™, Enduro™, PowerXpress™, and Catalyst™ are registered trademarks
of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ("AMD")

Screenshots:
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The application itself:


If an unsupported platform is potentially detected:


Before and after (GPU utilization):


Before and after (game FPS and frame times):


Game test settings:


New fix (Sept. 7, 2013), if applied successfully, CCC will show:

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Download:
http://goo.gl/po5mP

 

so just install straight away? no need disable signature something and restart?

 

Correct. Just Apply Fix and restart.

 

thanks 3dmark06 pass 20k finally

 

Is this something diffrent than the fix included in the drivers from LeeKM? Can I install it on tip of those moddified drivers and still get some improvements ??

What about DX11 and dx10 games like bf3 ?

Thanks

 

Wow, I don't have any enduro troubles, but if this really works, that's awesome. AMD should hire you

 

Wow great job! Although there are not many gpu utilization problems on the 8870m I'm definitely gong to try this.

 

Why do you specifically say DX9? What about DX10 and 11 and all future DXs?

Also could you give us some technical information on what was done to overcome the under-utilization?

 

Good effort MacHater! Highly appreciated, +rep

 

Rep! I hope the news about this fix reach AMD. Should definately be included in the official driver set. Is there still room for enhancements?

 

would be interesting to know what modification exactly achieves such a difference, and which files are getting modified (cfg or dll, display driver?).

 

Thanks ! I can confirm better utilization and fps Windows 8 x64 NFS The Run , Left 4 Dead 2, 3d Mark V , 3d Mark 2013

 

Hear hear, I would also like to know which files i'm messing with when using this.

 

Without knowing the source code I suppose that the original driver let the graphic card utilize if it has reached ~60fps. You don't need more then 60 fps for playing a game without stuttering and it conserves the graphic card, because it doesn't go very hot.

Perhaps LeeKM find the place where you can set the fps limit for the utilization. However, I'd also like to know where he changed something. xD

 

there are games that need more than 60fps (eg. counter-strike), so such a vsync-like fps cap wouldnt be a wise thing, especially when not being controllable by the user.

i rather assume there are some presets for certain gpus which are likely to limit performance, and lifting them, or pretending the gpu was a different one (eg. a mobility gpu being treated as its desktop counterpart), may open new possibilities.
wouldnt be the first time with ATI/AMD... i used to mod each catalyst driver on my previous mobile workstations to enable desktop drivers being installed on mobility gpus in order to have them install radeon drivers instead of firepro ones for gaming performance.. worked flawlessly.

and looking at the dates modified/created of the files inside the ccc doesnt help identifying the modified ones, as the modder seems to be in a different time zone than the place AMD devs are in when writing the drivers, so each file's dates differ from those of the same reference ccc downloaded from AMD.

 

Did help utilization somewhat in World of Tanks, but also added a stutter, every 10-15 seconds the game freezes up for about a half of a second.

 

This "Update" gives me very high GPU utilization on Dead Space 3 -> very good FPS AND FRAME TIMES!
(GPU temp max 83 C, room temp 26 C, maxxed out settings on FHD, stock 7970m clocks)

 

Competitive FPS games like Counter-Strike need the highest FPS possible because the input responsiveness greatly relies on it. That's why you see "Pro gamers" still run CS:S at 1024x768 and getting 1000 fps.

As for which files does the application modify? No files per se. It changes previously hidden driver settings that allow certain bottlenecks to be alleviated from the IGP<->DGPU process.

In testing, the modification seemed to improve DirectX 9 games the most drastically, DirectX 10 somewhat (3DMark Vantage), DirectX 11 not much at all. This is the reasoning for explicitly stating DirectX 9 in the title.

 

yes, but driver settings are coded inside the files that the ccc contains. even registry settings that get set upon installing drivers are written inside the cfg files. i suppose its the cfg files, as for the hard-coded ones one would have to modify the dlls and this is quite difficult without the source code. nb: by modifying the dlls one could even change the flip queue size (pre-rendered frames), which is user controllable for nvidia gpus inside the nvidia cp..

would be great to know which ones were modified as this could be applied for some other needs as well.

 

I must confess I'm really curious about the long term effects of using this fix. Even in the screenshots, you can see that temperature does rise very quickly. This time, I guess I wont be an early adopter Will wait for further feedback. Nevertheless, great job!

 

The temperature increase is caused by the fact that the GPU utilization increased. Of course with increased hardware utilization will come increased temperatures, but this is how AMD intended you to use the GPU you paid for. The way they designed and balanced it.

For me, the GPU tops out at about 75-80*C, and doesn't get any higher than that.

 

This should work on the 13.5 beta 3 drivers right?

A little off topic: how does the hp envy 17 in your sig have an 8870m? Did you flash a 8870m vBIOS onto your 7850m or something crazy like that?

 

Yes. It works on any Catalyst driver 13.2 or newer (provided that it supports mobile cards).

Nope. Just a simple driver rename and an overclock. As you can see from my 3DMark scores, it beats the "real" 8870M.

#EDIT:
A little off topic as well: if anyone has installed 13.5CAP1 (Catalyst Application Profiles), remove it. That CAP actually introduces a bunch of issues, as reported by countless users on this and other forums.

 

I just tested fc3 dx9 mode. I did not notice much more FPS but it felt much more fluid. Something with frame times? Really cool. Thank you.

Wow nicely done

Generic VGA video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3635QM,SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. NP770Z5E-S01FR score: P3933 3DMarks

 

Glad it helped!

Nice overclock you got there. My GPU struggles above 820 MHz core clock so I just left it at 815 MHz. Already beats a stock "real" 8870M so I'm happy

 

I used this on 13.5 beta 3 so that definitely works.

3400+ is actually really impressive, the 8870m with the older drivers barely reached 3300.

I'll do a 3Dmark vantage run to see if that made a difference.

 

Why do you compare with two different graphic settings. Its pretty obvious that the first picture have higher more demanding graphic setting than the last, just by comparing them. Or is it what this "fix" does? Lower settings?

 

Exactly the same settings. Exactly the same spot. Smartphone camera is the inconsistency.

You can try it out for yourself, I have all the settings I used in the first post.

 

The stuff on the top of the building doesn`t match. You got a shack of some sort + more plants in the first picture. The light effects in the picture isn`t the same.

 

You can use fraps for making screenshots.

 

The viewing angles of the screenshots are different. Thus, why the shack doesn't show up on the second screenshot.

 

Was this question answered?

 

Waiting for this too.. =)

I have the modified drivers installed. Wanted to see if I could use this one on top of that..


This has been very interesting lately.. Thank you guys!

 

The difference is, my GUI application can be used to apply the fix for any Catalyst driver 13.2 or newer (including future driver releases) and only targets relevant areas that improves performance. LeeKM's release is a pre-modified driver which requires complex steps such as disabling driver signing to install, which is a hassle for many people. A side effect of using LeeKM's driver is that ULPS was half-disabled in it, which results in BSoD after install and reboot 50% of the time.

If you already have LeeKM's modified driver installed and working, you will not need to run my application.

 

Here's a noob question..

So I have LeekM's driver running. And It's working fine. In case I update my driver in the future, I could just install your fix? This is assuming that I have uninstalled LeekM's driver.

Or will the fix from the previous driver carry over to the new driver and not need your script?

Thanks =)

 

Installing a driver update will most likely require re-installing the fix.

 

Someone with an HD 5000 Mobility / 6000M + Intel Sandy Bridge platform (PowerXpress 3.x/4.x a.k.a BACON a.k.a Dynamic Switchable Graphics) system should try and see if this fix improves performance for them. There's a good chance that it will.

 

Full resolution screen shots for those who would like to inspect image quality in detail:

Before Enduro Fix:


After Enduro Fix:

 

Your work is really Great!
I have modified the driver being deployed. (ULPS enable)

 

I appriciate your work guys, and have no doubt, that the fix works on older dx9 games. But I can report no boost or better utilization in dx11 games such as battlefield 3. After more than year I'm still unable to enjoy the game at fluid 60 fps no matter what settings. Game in dense areas jumps from 60 to 25, with ussage going down to less tha 40%... As the release of battlefield 4 is closer I'll probably have no other choice than save some money and buy a nvidia card..

I'll give it another two or three months to see if anything changes with the launch of 8000m cards.. Or maybe it will be somebody like you guys that will make those drivers work also in dx11... If not 680/780 -your going inti my laptop

Keep up the good work :thumbsup:

 

It also doesn't work for me.

@LeeKM and AppleHater
I'm still very interested in which "hidden" settings are changed.

 

You need to be more specific than that. For example, which games/applications you are testing, which driver version, which CAP (if any) installed, etc.

 

Playing Rift maxed, I can only get utilization to about 80% with or without this fix. FPS is around 22-30 unfortunately. on 13.6 beta with intel 2932.

And yes Rift is dx9.

 

Found "the holy grail". xD

The "Enduro Performance Fix" program adds three entries to the registry:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\amdkmdap\KMD_APlusISharedMiniSegmentOptions - REG_DWORD - 7
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\amdkmdap\KMD_APlusISharedMiniSegmentSize - REG_DWORD - 4000000 (Hex)
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\amdkmdap\KMD_PXForceVideoPlaybackToIntegrated - REG_DWORD - 0

That's all.

 

Can you explaine, what those lines actually do to the functionality of the GPU??

 

Don't know if they "do" something. I only explored what the small program from MacHater changes. So LeeKM or MacHater should know what it does.

PS: Anyway, the "fix" doesn't work for me. Any DX9 game that I've tested was as fast as before but not faster.

 

13.5 beta 3.
Also not working. 7970m at Win7 x64

tested:
1. World of warplanes
2. World of Tanks
3. 3DMark06
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
same performance before and after.

 

No change in League of Legends or Planetside 2

 

13.4 WHQL no change in Skyrim.

 

I can't vouch for World Of ____ games, but I'm sure 3DMark06 and MW2 both get performance gains.

3DMark06 is a very CPU bound application (relative to the powerful 7970M) so Enduro is not the issue at this point for that. Someone with an Alienware M17X w/ Enduro disabled can verify that, or someone with a Desktop 7870 and underclocked 3770K.

MW2 frame caps at 91 fps by default. You can use some workarounds to remove the caps, but some of those workarounds may be frowned upon via Steam ToS. Once the frame caps are removed, the game performance behaves like it did in CoD4 (tremendous performance increase, GPU utilization increase).

Do you have Vsync enabled?