CrossFireX Arrives: First Look at 3 and 4 GPUs in 2 Card Setups
by Derek Wilson on March 7, 2008 12:05 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Setting it Up …
We Had Issues
Our experience with the new 8.3 drivers and CrossFireX were not seamless. AMD has been working very to try and reproduce the install issues we had with no success so far. Multiple other AnandTech editors had no installation problems, but we feel that it's at least worth mentioning. We can also advise some steps to follow to avoid the issue. This may be an isolated incident, but here are some things you can do to never find out.
It does need to be noted that we only experienced major issues on the Skulltrail platform that we've been using for our graphics benchmarking lately. We've had multiple hardware and drivers installed and uninstalled over the past month or so. These factors certainly could have contributed to the problem and would also make finding the issue tough for AMD. It's always easier to start from a fresh install, but our readers (especially the ones interested in actually running CrossFireX and Skulltrail) will very likely be the ones who install and uninstall hardware and drivers most frequently. We think our usage model for this system could be fairly representative in this case.
The specific problem we ran into was a timeout during attempts to install the driver either through the Catalyst Install Manager or manually. Additionally, once we got the driver installed on one 3870X2, plugging in the second would cause a hard lock when windows tried to automatically find the driver for the second card. We suspect that this occurred because we had previously installed two 3870X2 cards and then removed one before installing the 8.3 catalyst driver. We aren't exactly sure of the cause and neither is AMD, but we can say that the fix for us was removing some non-present including display adapters (along with driver files) in safe mode. After rebooting a few times to let windows do its thing, we installed the driver and all was well.
How to Not Have Issues
To make sure this doesn't happen, when installing CrossFireX, here is what we suggest:
- Install Vista SP1 (this is easier/better than installing the required hotfixes)
- Uninstall old drivers first
- Reboot and let windows install a standard VGA adapter (or cancel if prompted for drivers)
- Power down and install the second (or additional two or three) cards
- Boot and let windows finish finding new hardware
- Reboot and let windows finish finding new hardware (if it needs to)
- Install Catalyst 8.3 or higher
That should keep you safe, in our experience. It's a serious headache to fix the problems once they start, as simply uninstalling doesn't fix the issue.
How to Fix It (Spring Cleaning)
Just in case, here's what you'd need to do if you find the driver times out on install. Please be cautious with this procedure and do not remove any software devices, as they can be difficult to reinstall without reinstalling the OS.
- Start up with only one card in the system
- Uninstall ATI drivers through the control panel -> add/remove programs
- Reboot into safe mode (press F8 at boot)
- Open a command window with admin privileges
- Run these commands
from a command prompt:
- set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
- start devmgmt.msc
- Enable show hidden devices
- Uninstall all display adapters listed (present or non-present/hidden - they appear slightly faded); make sure to check the box to remove driver files if possible
- Uninstall any non-present/hidden "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge" devices from system devices. It may also help to uninstall other non-present hardware, but be careful about software and non plug-and-play devices (don't remove them).
- Reboot normally
- Let windows finish finding new hardware
- Power down and plug in all new hardware
- Boot and let windows finish finding new hardware
- Reboot and let windows finish finding new hardware (if it needs to)
- Install Catalyst 8.3 or higher
As we said, it's best to follow the first set of directions as it's quite a bit less involved. If all goes wrong, however, this lengthier repair/install process should help you get yourself out of a hole.
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mmntech - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
I'm running an HD 3850 256mb and I get 40fps average in low density areas, 12.4fps in London. Ultra quality of course with no AA and in game AF at 1440x900. That's DirectX 9.0 performance, which is all I could test since I don't run Vista. Flight Simulator has always been very CPU dependent, particularly concerning autogen scenery, and AI traffic along with the complex physics engine. Since FSX with SP1 can take advantage of up to four CPU cores, it might be worth starting off there. I did my tests using an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, everything at stock speeds with 2gb PC3200. If I were you, I'd go with the single 3870 X2 card. Cheaper than buying two separate 3870s. For nVidia, maybe two 8800GTS 640mb cards in SLI or better if you want the best performance. I'd wait for nVidia to release the 9800GX2 first though to see what cards offer the best performance per dollar.As for the article, I really wonder if using more than two cards is really practical. You can get almost the same performance with two 9600GTs as with three or four HD 3750s but the two 9600GTs are far cheaper. This begs the question, is spending the extra $400 really worth it for such minimal gains? I know for some it is but then why buy mid-range cards when a couple 8800GTXs will cost the same in the end. Plus there's also the increased heat and power consumption from using four cards instead of two. I'd like to see more info on that.
Incisal flyer - Monday, March 10, 2008 - link
Thanks for the replies derek anm mmntech. Mmntech, yes my feelings exactly about quad (basically) crossfire. I'm no computer geek (more like a newbie really - I don't understand understand most of what I read in the forums and couldn't overclock a toaster if you held my mother hostage). Multiple crossfire sounds just too exotic at this point and would be more headache than it is worth. Thanks for your feedback and happy flying.The Flyer
DerekWilson - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
i'm looking at fsx acceleration for future graphics articles ...no promises, but i've been testing it internally.
Sundox - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
isn't multi GPU the cheap way to go?I'm asking this because I can't figure a car race won by two slower cars, against the faster car, or two knifes cutting my steak smoother.
to me, it looks like the problem is,... coping with the problem, the companies just want to have the most powerful GPU, not the most efficiant.
I might be totaly wrong.
coldpower27 - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
It's more like a delivery race rather then a car race, who can deliver the total shipment fastest?Two smaller trucks pulling half the load each, or a single truck pulling a larger load, the larger truck's engine is more complex, and hence more difficult to build, vs the smaller trucks which have smaller engines which are easier.
Griswold - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
Analogies like that do not always work just like that.Besides that, the car race example isnt that simple anyhow. Imagine a 24h race which could easily be won by even one slower car, as long as it is more reliable than the faster one. Remember, in order to finish first, one must first finish. This, of course, has little to nothing to do with video cards, hence, analogies dont always work.
legoman666 - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
analogies almost never work.DerekWilson - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
"Like a balloon, and... something bad happens!"Simon128D - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
I love the reviews and benchmarks here, I really do but I'm getting sick and tired of seeing the test system being only a super high end machine with hardware that the average person can't afford and I think benchmarking with skull trail on its own is silly. Tis applies to other site as well.Don't get me wrong, I enjoy seeing benchmarks from a high end system like skull trail but how many people actually have or can afford a system like that. I'd like to see more of a mid range setup inculded in graphics benchmarks - that will give a more realistic view point. A system say with a 780i or X38 chipset with a Q6600 and 4GB DDR2 800Mhz etc.
Just my thoughts.
DigitalFreak - Saturday, March 8, 2008 - link
It's really the only way to make sure the games they're testing with aren't CPU limited.