Crossfire / AMD duel GPU settings in bootcamp

[DrLemur]

I'm running windows 8.1 (mostly because it appears to be impossible to run Windows 7 on this machine.. grr.. ) on a 6-core Mac Pro with duel 3GB AMD firepro graphics cards using bootcamp.

Now bootcamp seems to have preinstalled the AMD Firepro Control centre which was quite nice of it and everything is running fine. I was just wondering what can I.. do I need to change in these control centre settings to get the most out of the graphics cards in my machine. Is it better for example to keep things at "use application settings" or override them? I see anti-aliasing options I've never seen before or understand if I should use ... "super sampling?" Then there is the option to either enable crossfire or disable or force enable for apps without an associated profile. I understand very little about when to and when not to use these settings.

The machine will be used mainly for 3D graphics work within 3dsMax, Mudbox, Maya etc.. and to play games on. Any help or just any ideas on how to best set up these settings would be incredible. For now I will leave them alone until I know more. Thanks in advance.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

The machine will be used mainly for 3D graphics work within 3dsMax, Mudbox, Maya etc.. and to play games on. Any help or just any ideas on how to best set up these settings would be incredible. For now I will leave them alone until I know more. Thanks in advance.

If you're going to be using professional apps leave it as. Someone reported a while go that after installing Radeon Catalyst drivers their 3DSMax fps dropped from over 100fps to around 3fps.

The Catalyst drivers will give you the latest XFIRE profiles for games, but are for Radeon cards and will mangle FirePro performance.

 

[iBug2]

If you're going to be using professional apps leave it as. Someone reported a while go that after installing Radeon Catalyst drivers their 3DSMax fps dropped from over 100fps to around 3fps.

The Catalyst drivers will give you the latest XFIRE profiles for games, but are for Radeon cards and will mangle FirePro performance.

Can you link this thread if you can please? I was wondering if there are differences between bootcamp and catalyst drivers for pro apps.

 

[DrLemur]

Thanks for the tip. Weirdly enough I'm running cry engine right now and the max fps I can get out of it even with regular settings is still only 28.8.. and throw it enough polygons at a high resolution and it goes all jerky.. which seems odd to me. These are pretty powerful cards in this mac pro, even if only one is being utilised I feel like I should be getting better performance out of them than I have been.

The other thing is I'm not using catalyst I'm using the actual AMD fire pro control centre which assumedly is precisely for these cards. I'm not really inclined to change any settings, especially after your comment.. but it does seem silly having duel GPU's and not getting any use out of one of them and having crossfire off by default. I've noticed when I turn crossfire on though certain games (Skyrim for example) utterly crap themselves and become unplayable. It's almost as if no one has built these apps with duel GPU's / multi-cores in mind.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Can you link this thread if you can please? I was wondering if there are differences between bootcamp and catalyst drivers for pro apps.

Gah, just spent far too much trying trying to search for that post. Either it, and the thread pertaining to it ( it was about crossfire drivers and gaming ) are gone/deleted, or somehow my brain imprinted that post and it's make believe.

Maybe the OP can test it out. I know for fact the latest Catalyst drivers are awesome for gaming in Windows. He can install those, and see if his gaming improves, but before that check his 3dsMax performance to see if there's a drop afterwards from switching from FirePro to Catalyst drivers.

 

[ghislain]

I'm running windows 8.1 (mostly because it appears to be impossible to run Windows 7 on this machine.. grr.. ) on a 6-core Mac Pro with duel 3GB AMD firepro graphics cards using bootcamp.

Now bootcamp seems to have preinstalled the AMD Firepro Control centre which was quite nice of it and everything is running fine. I was just wondering what can I.. do I need to change in these control centre settings to get the most out of the graphics cards in my machine. Is it better for example to keep things at "use application settings" or override them? I see anti-aliasing options I've never seen before or understand if I should use ... "super sampling?" Then there is the option to either enable crossfire or disable or force enable for apps without an associated profile. I understand very little about when to and when not to use these settings.

The machine will be used mainly for 3D graphics work within 3dsMax, Mudbox, Maya etc.. and to play games on. Any help or just any ideas on how to best set up these settings would be incredible. For now I will leave them alone until I know more. Thanks in advance.

For 3D applications and 3D games, it is certainly better to activate crossfire and also enable crossfire for apps without associated profile, so that both GPUs are used for computation. Otherwise, only one GPU will be used, which is rather odd for such an expensive machine...I activated crossfire on my nMP and it works flawessly with great performances in GPU tests such as Heaven...