MASSIVE lagg when 2nd GPU is inserted.

Z

zetas

Famous
Joined
Mar 25, 2009
Messages
417
I think I made a post about this before, but it died and there was a disturbing lack of help : (

Anyways, my problem is the following:

When I insert my 2nd graphics card, all games I try (except those running on the source engine) are REALLY laggy no matter what settings I try. I'm talking about 8-15 fps!

So far I've tried this:

Re-installing drivers after inserting 2nd GPU.
Switched between 1 and 2 Crossfire bridges.
Checked if the 2nd GPU is the problem by trying it alone.
Disconnected all unnecessary power-consuming parts from the PSU(fans, dvd-drive, 2nd HDD)
Under- and overclocking of both GPUs and the CPU.
Placed 1st GPU in 2nd PCI-E slot, 2nd GPU in 1st PCI-E slot and vice-versa.
Keeping drivers up to date.
Hours of googling.
Doing a clean install of drivers.

None of this has helped me, and hoped some tech-genious from eGO could help me :D

Throwing in system specs aswell:

CPU - AMD Athlong x2 6400+ @ 3.2ghz (Default clock)
RAM - Corsair TWIN2X PC6400C5DHX @ 800MHz (Default clock)
MB - Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4
GPU - HIS Radeon HD 4870 1GB version. I got two of them.
PSU - Corsair TX 750W PSU (SLI (and CrossFire) certified)
HDD - WDC 1TB, 32mb cache (Don't know if this is relevant)


Hope anyone here can help me. If more information is needed, tell me what you need!

*EDIT*

The problematic games are:
Audiosurf
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
The Settlers 7

These are the only ones I've tried with my 2nd GPU installed, and all works fine (no lagg!) when I take out the other GPU.

Also note that Far Cry 2, Crysis, Crysis Warhead and Bioshock 1&2 works with both GPUs installed. (Bioshock almost works well, but that's because of the bugs...)
 
Last edited:
Hey Zeta's, i did have a similar situation when i popped my bro's GTX 260 in my machine to match it for SLI. I was just doing this for kicks to see what kinda extra frames i would get from Fallout 3 , but it caused a horrible stutter/lag . And no i do not mean the microstutter Fallout 3 was infamous for, fixable by a small tweak. This was something very different. Could not get any answers myself, wish i could help ya. Bump for the guy, seems nobody cares to share some knowledge these days.
 
Thanks for bumping, dbee.

Yeah, that's the lagg I get. Really low framerate along with constant fps drops (read: Stuttering).
 
Last edited:
mattM_- said:
Well for starters, I hope you have been posting in an ATI site, http://forums.amd.com/game/categories.cfm?catid=260&forumid=11

BUT its very very well possible that your CPU can't handle the Crossfire and could be bottlenecking. I've never tried to Crossfire yet so I am not entirely sure.
Click to expand...

I thought about that, but during the googling hours I found alot of people using the same, even slower CPUs than mine without experiencing this kind of problem.
 
have you tried completely uninstalling all ATI-related drivers, than reinstalling the most up-to-date drivers?

You might give that a shot.

Also, I know in Nvidia control panel there is an option to change the type of rendering used in terms of SLI, whether one or both cards render the game, or if each card splits the rendering in half and shares.(alternate frame rendering)

I know I had possibly similar issues with Day of Defeat Source using the recent nvidia drivers until I forced the cards to render alternate frames.

I know you have ATI, but there must be similar crossfire settings to do a similar thing.

But again, do a clean reinstall of the latest video drivers first.

-Blue
 
i would try to run driver cleaners in safe mode after downloading the newest drivers and see if that works. Also your slot and or vid card could be bad but, that is a last resort. Most likely its a software issue. ATI is known to not "completly removing" there drivers so get a driver cleaner if i had a link i would give it too ya
 
Blue Stealth said:
Also, I know in Nvidia control panel there is an option to change the type of rendering used in terms of SLI, whether one or both cards render the game, or if each card splits the rendering in half and shares.(alternate frame rendering)

I know you have ATI, but there must be similar crossfire settings to do a similar thing.


-Blue
Click to expand...

The only CrossFire related option I can find is wether to enable or disable CrossFire. And it's awlays enabled (disabling doesn't help though..)
 
Uninstalled drivers, booted up in safe mode, ran a driver cleaner program, did a restart, installed newest drivers (10.5) and another restart.

The lagg is still here.. :(
 
Last edited:
Checking out some info about the motherboard, and found this: "2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 ( CrossFireX: x16, x8-mode )"


And started wondering, does this mean that running CF will make one GPU run on x16 and the other on x8? Or even both GPUs on x8? :/

I know that if both GPUs run on x8, everything gets slower, but would one GPU running x16 and other on x8 do the same?
 
Okay guys, it took me 7 constant hours of googling, reinstalling this and that, head scratching and sighs to figure out the problem. (Not to mention the countless days and nights ever since I tried BC2 with CF)

The motherboard GA-MA790X-DS4 is the simplest solution of the three, it is based on chipset AMD 790X (RD780). Two slots PCI Express x16 working in CrossFire at PCI Express x8 + PCI Express x8 .

Read something on the ATI forums that a x8 + x8 setup with the 4870s will cause a significantly reduced performance due to the lowered bandwith (or something like that) and something about the CPU being bottlenecked.
Guess I'll need a new MB, CPU and RAM now, which I can't afford :(

Just want to say thanks for your help guys!
 
This is when you may want to consider dumping those 4870's and move on to a 5850... Will save you the trouble of having to upgrade everything else, though you lose some SP's . 1600 total with your crossfire compared to the 5850's 1440. Not many, i would make the move considering you can get a 5850 for about 300, and sell those 4870's for at least $100 a piece.
 
dbee said:
This is when you may want to consider dumping those 4870's and move on to a 5850... Will save you the trouble of having to upgrade everything else, though you lose some SP's . 1600 total with your crossfire compared to the 5850's 1440. Not many, i would make the move considering you can get a 5850 for about 300, and sell those 4870's for at least $100 a piece.
Click to expand...

There was definitely a huge bottleneck between the OP's cpu and gpu. Also, as far as I can see, it would be an actual downgrade moving from 2 4870's to 1 5850. Though there would be less hassle and bugs with 1 card, the 2 4870's would be about as powerful as a single 5870 in most situations.
 
dudethatrocks said:
There was definitely a huge bottleneck between the OP's cpu and gpu. Also, as far as I can see, it would be an actual downgrade moving from 2 4870's to 1 5850. Though there would be less hassle and bugs with 1 card, the 2 4870's would be about as powerful as a single 5870 in most situations.
Click to expand...

Aye, that's what I though. No need buying a 5870 either, since everything else in my system will keep me from getting the performance it can give me.

Figured I'd buy some Crucial 2x2GB PC3-12800 kit (CL8) to get me a total of 8gigs of ram, a Phenom II 965 BE and the Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD7 (since it supports x16+x16 crossifre, x16+x16+x8 tripple crossfire etc.) to get me up to date. Also need a slight upgrade for Crysis 2 :)

Plus, it'll give me some room for overclocking :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top