AMD Frame Pacing Explored: Catalyst 13.8 Brings Consistency to Crossfire
by Ryan Smith on August 1, 2013 2:00 PM ESTBattlefield 3
Our multiplayer action game of our benchmark suite is Battlefield 3, DICE’s 2011 multiplayer military shooter. Its ability to pose a significant challenge to GPUs has been dulled some by time and drivers, but it’s still a challenge if you want to hit the highest settings at the highest resolutions at the highest anti-aliasing levels. Furthermore while we can crack 60fps in single player mode, our rule of thumb here is that multiplayer framerates will dip to half our single player framerates, so hitting high framerates here may not be high enough.
BF3 typically favors NVIDIA cards, so it comes as no great shock that performance has once again flipped in advantage of the GTX 690.
Looking at our delta percentages this is another game where AMD has made massive gains; previously they’d be so unbalanced that every other frame for a long stretch of the benchmark would be a runt frame. 12.6% is the single best showing for the 7990 and much closer to where we would like AMD to be. They still have more than twice the variability of the GTX 690, but if every game were like this AMD would in a better position than where they’re going to be with this first phase of frame pacing.
The graphical representation of our FCAT data neatly matches our numeric analysis, once again showcasing AMD’s improved frame pacing, while showing how much farther they have to go to catch NVIDIA.
Finally this is another case where improving on the frame pacing situation by so much has greatly improved on 95th percentile times. Though 7990 still trails GTX 690, as you’d expect given the latter’s general performance lead.
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chizow - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
Written on the walls at AMD Driver HQ I'm sure, quickly referenced when questioned about microstutter being worst on CF.krutou - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
BUT, BUT, BUT, RADEON PRO?!?LordOfTheBoired - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
Took them by the hand? Looks more to me like "waited until people cared, then released a benchmark to prove they didn't have the problem, while offering no constructive commentary."And the hell of it is... AMD's stance makes sense. This IS a market that hates VSync because ZOMG LAG. "The market" has made it ABUNDANTLY clear that they have no interest whatsoever in technologies that improve the visual experience at the (real or imagined) cost of responsiveness.
But apparently that's only true when there's the visual equivalent of a record skip on your screen and not when it's a subtle frame rate fluctuation. The former is a good thing because it means you "aren't lagged", the latter is a horrible thing because it means you "aren't lagged".
chizow - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - link
@LordOfTheBoired - this is the type of indignant attitude that got AMD and their fans in this predicament to begin with.mikato - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - link
Well one result of Nvidia releasing the software was to allow tech journalists to shine a bright spotlight on a problem of their competitor's products. Your "holding AMD by the hand" idea is pretty amusing.novastar78 - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - link
What's sad is that AMD has ripped ATi to shreds to the point where they are spread pretty thin. Just getting a working product out the door is a task. You are being waaay too hard on them.They were using traditional methods to test and frankly it's not so unimaginable that they were caught by this. Granted, maybe it should have been caught sooner, but to demonize them or put them down for it seems a bit harsh.
They know now that it's a big problem are definitely committed to fixing it. You can clearly see that they are trying to stabilize the company and there is lots of turmoil. The moves they are making and the people being brought on board are a good sign. There is definitely a process change that needs to happen but when the tree is being shaken so many times too many apples can fall.
Give it some time, I think we will see great things form them over the next few years.
Wreckage - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
It did not help that certain people were claiming that AMD does not have a stutter problem.DanNeely - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - link
The problem is that AMD didn't think they had a stutter problem; or more precisely, until 3rd parties shoved the reality in their face they assumed (without testing) that they and nVidia had equal amounts of the problem.I suspect at one point in the past they were right; and that the genesis of nVidia's "years in the making" tool to measure the problem dates back to when they discovered it was a problem internally and began working on fixes so that they could announce the same tool at the same time that their drivers had a negligible impact from it. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if someone tested SLI card/driver configurations from a few years ago to see how well nVidia did at the time.
BrightCandle - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
NVidia has had this fixed for a lot longer than that. The 680's were noticeably smoother on their release day compared to the 7970 crossfire. NVidia has claimed they have been fixing this since the 8800 and there is no reason not to believe them as HardOCP and other review sites have been noting the difference for years.HisDivineOrder - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Exactly. This has been a problem for as long as there has been Crossfire. I think a lot of people are so shocked by this fact (because some of them owned Crossfire and just dealt with it and didn't realize they were getting shafted) they can't accept it.Yes, you got reamed. Yes, for years, you were using Crossfire and suffering from microstutter when you needn't have to. Yes, AMD took you for a ride. It's so infuriating it drives people not to want to believe it because to believe it would be so horrible as to suddenly be intolerable.
Do what most people do. Just stick with nVidia since you know they do proper testing. Boycott AMD for a five year period and come back once you're sure AMD's got their act together.