AMD Frame Pacing Explored: Catalyst 13.8 Brings Consistency to Crossfire
by Ryan Smith on August 1, 2013 2:00 PM ESTCrysis 3
Our final benchmark in our suite needs no introduction. With Crysis 3, Crytek has gone back to trying to kill computers, taking back the “most punishing game” title in our benchmark suite. Only in a handful of setups can we even run Crysis 3 at its highest (Very High) settings, and that’s still without AA. Crysis 1 was an excellent template for the kind of performance required to driver games for the next few years, and Crysis 3 looks to be much the same for 2013.
Our last game and our last flip. AMD and NVIDIA exchange places one final time, with the GTX 690 and 7990 swapping out so that the GTX 690 takes the lead.
Crysis 3 is another game where AMD’s initial position wasn’t quite as bad, and consequently the improvements aren’t as great. 19% gets them to the acceptable range on the 7990, while at the same time with only 4 percentage points separating the 7990 and GTX 690 means that this is the closest the two cards have ever come to matching each other in frame time consistency.
Graphically we can see that both AMD and NVIDIA still struggle with consistency to some extent. GTX 690 in particular has a short run of very high variability about 10 seconds in that AMD doesn’t experience, likely due to their hard cap on minimum frame times.
Finally on the matter of 95th percentile times, our data here mirrors what we’ve seen earlier. AMD shows a smaller gain, with their final value of 20.7ms still leaving them a couple of milliseconds behind the faster GTX 690.
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Feellia - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Not aimed at anyone, but flat out in any competitive game play the kind that has tourneys and pays out cash, Mostly fps such as quake..etc everyone has vsync off it flat out adds input lag...all the pros turn it off no matter what monitor is used, but no one is running a SLI/CrossfFire set up during these events.The pros typically lower settings quite damn low so they can push a steady 125fps and screen tearing is absolutely no concern. And if i have vsync on my aim % takes a nearly 25% dip
Anyway this is review is about duel+ cards, and kudos to AMD even though they still need a bit of work before going on a official non beta release = )
piwo - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
can you check a10- 5750m with hd6670?dew111 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
I just got a second HD 7950, and this driver makes a HUGE difference! They should have done this earlier, but their timing was great for my first CrossFire setup :PJamesWoods - Sunday, August 4, 2013 - link
It's a crying shame they won't jump back to HD 4000 series or even HD 3000 series and fix these problems. I'm sure there is still quite a large loyal fanbase using these cards. I happen to own several systems with HD 4850's in them, and they can still set pace on a lot of modern games. Crossfire is another story. They never really felt optimized running in X fire.medi02 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Is it me, or does nVidia have much lower min fps on a number of charts? =)transphasic - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Well done, AMD! You didn't bother to do anything about creating fixes for the single GPU setup, and basically ignored those w/o CF setups.You had 2 1/2 months without any new driver fixes, and THIS is the BEST you can do?
Major fail once again.
Thanks for nothing....
medi02 - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - link
Exactly which single GPU setup is giving you micro stuttering problem?usrevenge - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - link
Basically, AMD did a lot to fix the problems, but still leaves a lot of work to be done. I call these drivers a success.Nearox - Monday, August 26, 2013 - link
Does this technology also apply to the HD6000 series (and in particular the HD6950)? Could anyone say if this will also work for Skyrim? Thinking about getting a 2nd hand hd6950 to go xfire with this, seeing the good results from this AnandTech test.lopper - Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - link
A question: Does this driver fix stuttering on dual graphics configurations like A10 +6670?