Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 (DirectX 11)
Battlefield 3™ leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite 2, DICE's new cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and character animation utilizing ANT technology as seen in the latest EA SPORTS™ games.
Frostbite 2 now enables deferred shading, dynamic global illumination and new streaming architecture. Sounds like tech talk? Play the game and experience the difference!
Our Settings for Battlefield 3
Here is our testing run through the game, for your reference.
Under our FRAPS data you see that the HD 7950s in CrossFire appear to be faster than the GTX 660 Tis in SLI, but after taking out runts our observed average frame rates are much lower, more in line with the single Radeon HD 7950.
Our now familiar frame time plot data demonstrates the problem with AMD's CrossFire technology and runt frames – frames taking up such a small area of the screen that they adversely affecting animation performance. While both single GPU results look pretty good the HD 7950s running in parallel produce the mass of orange alternating long/short frames. NVIDIA's GTX 660 Tis in SLI are definitely slightly more variant than the single GPU options but appear to be within reason.
The minimum FPS data shows the GTX 660 Tis in SLI running well ahead of any other option with average frame rate of about 122 FPS while the rest hoever in the 70 FPS range.
The GTX 660 Ti cards in SLI definitely exhibit some more frame time variance than the single GPUs but the Radeon HD 7950s in CrossFire definitely skew things dramatically. While this doesn't definitely detect stutter it is a good indication that you will see some with results like this.
The Radeon HD 7950 combo actually looks worse at 2560×1440 with more variance on a frame to frame comparison where as the NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti cards appear to be tighter, resulting in a better multi-GPU environment.
Our minimum FPS percentile data shows great results from both the single GeForce GTX 660 Ti and the Radeon HD 7950 but adding a second HD 7950 doesn't change much for AMD. Only the GTX 660 Ti is scaling.
Again at 2560×1440 we see the frame variance ratings are much higher with the HD 7950s in CrossFire.
Eyefinity with CrossFire continues to be an even worse problem for AMD as we can see here there are tons of not only runts, but flat out dropped (never shown at all) frames that bring the observed frame rate down considerably.
Ech, a mess of color here. The blue lines are telling us that the 2GB version of the GTX 660 Ti are struggling with 5760×1080 in SLI mode though they are reliably showing frames to the gamer. Single GPU results (though kind of cut off at the top, sorry!) are much smoother but are definitely faster on the single HD 7950 than the single GTX 660 Ti.
The minimum FPS chart shows the single HD 7950 ahead of the GTX 660 Ti, as we expected based on the plot of frame times above (22 FPS average against 27 FPS average). But while CrossFire sees basically no observed frame rate increases the SLI result jumps up to 38 FPS or so at the 50th percentile. Note though that SLI in this case does follow a curve that brings the frame rates back down in line with a single HD 7950 at the tail end.
I can’t believe the amount of
I can’t believe the amount of trolling over this article. I consider myself loosely an AMD fanboy when it comes to video cards. I don’t really have an issue recomending nVidia cards to friends if that is where their pricing falls but I, personally run AMD. I don’t see anything malicious about these articles and I find them very interesting and detailed. It’s not going to stop me from buying a 7950 within the next month to replace my 5850 (Which let’s be honest is still pretty darn good for today’s games). I will just be happy that AMD knows about the issue and is working on a solution so I can get a nice fully functional Crossfire set-up later when they drop in price.
OK, AMD admits a issue then
OK, AMD admits a issue then stop showing the comparisons with crossfire. What is the point is reviewing the same issues time and time again like something is suddenly going to change as we hit a different price point. This isn’t a comparison at this point. If what you say is true then post this as a buyer beware when reviewing AMD cards about crossfire. What your doing here is the same as reviewing a nVidia card nad every article mentioning AMD crossfire is broken.
If you want a single GPU card no issue. If you want multi GPU go with nVidia at this point or move up to the next higher single GPU AMD. But remember with crossfire X when this fix is in place you can continue to boost your performance buy adding the next gen AMD. All nVidia offers is physx.
I agree with all of that and
I agree with all of that and would also like to suggest PCper explores the 3rd party apps like radeon pro that fix a lot of these issues. Much more useful than telling us Xfire is broken over and over again
I agree with all of that and
I agree with all of that and would also like to suggest PCper explores the 3rd party apps like radeon pro that fix a lot of these issues. Much more useful than telling us Xfire is broken over and over again
I wouldn’t mind seeing 3-way
I wouldn’t mind seeing 3-way CF/SLI, as an article a while back by THG found 3-way CF helped a while back.
I would like seeing RadeonPro, but realize that the fixes all include FPS limiting, which obviously isn’t ideal.
I would also like to see different ranges of runt frames. 20 pixels high is 2% of your screen. That is really small. You could fairly increase that number some.
The exposure of Crossfire
The exposure of Crossfire problems will force AMD to fix it. HOW IS THIS A BAD THING?
The way this is a bad
The way this is a bad thing:
1. I own a 7950 Crossfire setup which looks perfect to me (I use RadeonPro), and my initial reaction was that I should sell them and buy Nvidia, imagine how this could impact sales of people just considering AMD. I think the results, while quite accurate in and of themselves, should be better quantified in the real world (lets be honest can anyone at PCPer in a blind test really tell the difference between AMD and Nvidia)?
2. The graphs completely misrepresent what is happening on the screen. If you look at these graphs you imagine this stuttering mess on the screen, the truth is nothing close to that (as I said I can watch my rig in the real world).
3. It is completely beating a dead horse, we get it, the Crossfire has “major issues” when you enhance and slow down the frames to a crawl (which has zero bearing on how it looks in the real world), no reason to post the same results for each Crossfire compatible card, we already know what they are.
I am no AMD fanboy, I want all of the info I can get so next time I drop $1,000.00 on video cards I have all of the available info, I just think the info should be presented in a more realistic form, to me this is all quite inconsequential to real world gaming performance.
The problem isn’t that you
The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire. When choosing between Crossfire and SLI, what will help you more so you can plan ahead.
And if you use v-sync, the limited testing has shown it helps or fixes the issue (only tested on 2 games so far, it could be the FPS limiting aspect that helps, and not v-sync itself).
“The problem isn’t that you
“The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire.”
That right there to me is an accurate and thoughtful representation of what is going on here. That would have been a much more accurate way to present this information instead of the current “AMD Crossfire is a stuttering mess” message.
I have been on every review
I have been on every review website there is and was for well over a decade, and argued with every fanboy of every type – and NEVER has a single amd fan or otherwise EVER MENTIONED “radeon pro”…
So who cares if NOW, you use it. For YEARS not a single amd fanboy CF user was using it, and if they were THEY LIED AND KEPT IT A SECRET BECAUSE THEY KNEW AMD SUCKS WITHOUT IT.
So who really cares at this point what lying hidden crutch amd needs for a “quicky bandaid patch” for it’s crapster crap crossfire epic failure ?
It’s a big fat excuse for YEARS of total loserville and lies.
I’ll also mention once v-sync and radeon pro hack the frame rate down to 30 or 60, YOU MIGHT AS WELL NOT USE AN AMD CROSSFIRE SOLUTION AT ALL BECAUSE YOU CANNOT USE FRAME RATE POTENTIAL ON IT FULLY, YOU HAVE TO CRIPPLE IT FOR IT TO WORK.
What we need now is a 30fps chart and 60 fps chart with crap amd cards listed running vsync and radeon pro and the chart can tell us which pieces of crap can do 30 and 60 fps and we can THROW OUT EVERY OTHER FRAME RATE EVER LISTED FOR THE CRAP AMD CARDS.
“The problem isn’t that you
“The problem isn’t that you don’t get playable frames in crossfire. It is that you aren’t gaining full benefit from crossfire.”
That right there to me is an accurate and thoughtful representation of what is going on here. That would have been a much more accurate way to present this information instead of the current “AMD Crossfire is a stuttering mess” message.
Interesting test, if what you
Interesting test, if what you have tested is valid, AMD is in deep-sh*t once again. If not, there is some kind of money transaction going on…
Nonetheless, thanks for all your efforts.
Quick Google “geforce frame
Quick Google “geforce frame metering” and you will find out why the nVi cards rarely have runt frames. In fact, nVi cards DO have them. They just delays those frames a bit to match with other good frames’ speed, therefore the frame time chart looks good miraculously. And you, the user, will have to deal with input delay.
For me, an AMD cards and a 3rd party FPS cap software is the best. No input lag, no stuttering. And the image quality from AMD is always superior.
wow, it’s spot on data, tough
wow, it’s spot on data, tough to take in, especially if you purchased Radeon’s since the begining but it is true.
but GOD People – stop with the flaming!!!.
AMD will have to do a hardware re-do to fix this, i don’t really expect anything to come out for a year. i don’t really think that anyone misled on purpose – this is all new testing data.
AMD still makes an ok card- but the issue is with multiple cards.
answer- don’t buy multiple lower cost cards with AMD
I wish you’d start testing
I wish you’d start testing with newer drivers. They have 314.22’s out, had 314.21 out, and even a 314.07 all in WHQL, but you’re still on beta .07’s? I think they even had a 314.14 whql in there.
Many games have been optimized since then. Great data, just want later Nv drivers as you’re a few behind at best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ3U2P8ZLz4
15% for 314.07 vs. 314.21 in tomb raider, others show basically the same and in some cases more and this was on an old 9600GT card…LOL. Who knew?
Sorry for the huge review,
Sorry for the huge review, computer repair in schaumburg but I’m really loving the new Zune, and hope this, as well as the excellent reviews some other people have written, will help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.