ATI and Nvidia

SCampbell

It seems like thus far in the development stage, many users on this forum have been very happy with the Nvidia as a change over the AMD cards. I myself am a die hard AMD fan and I have to wonder if anyone has had good luck with the newer AMD cards and rF2. I'm on two 6870s which perform solid, but I get some of the framerate dips that some have been talking about. I can run most of the settings up high and get around 60 fps or so, but I still get dips into the 40s when I get in traffic. Also, the animations do not seem nearly as smooth as RF1, everything seems pretty jerky.

Any thoughts?
 
I was an nVidia fanboy. I then moved from nVidia to ATI after I bought The Sims. ATI at that time had better image quality than nVidia, and The Sims at that time really shows major flaw of nVidia: non transparent water in a pool. The very same pool could be rendered in perfect transparency with ATI card.

Today, I really dislike the way AMD treat their (ATI's?) older cards. With the latest driver I saw no improvement at all for my HD5770. It seems the latest driver concentrate too much on HD79xx series card only. The last driver from AMD that gave my HD5770 some kick was the v12.4, I think.

According to Tim (or someone else from ISI? can't remember exactly), ISI at the moment is having better support from nVidia developers, and unfortunately almost no help at all from AMD devs. nVidia also already officially support rF2 (even though rF2 is still a WIP) in their list of games.

Well, you could also read my post (about nVidia GTX6xx) in this forum or in the general section forum. :)

However, now I have a plan of buying an HD7970, maybe some time next year.
 
I have no problems running AMD in any game but I never run SLI/Crossfire because that still seems like more trouble than it is worth (specially for rF2 currently).
 
i have a 7970 and in eyefinity in some track are so low fps..and when i look on the Afterburner i see that the cards only works between 60 to 80% usage on that tracks..
for one monitor it works so close as a gtx 680, with max options, the frames are more or less the same, and that is a problem because in so many others games, the 7970 X-edition give at least a 10% more frames than the gtx 680, thats witouht OC..
I run mine at 1225 core /1625 memory voltage 1.176 v....That give me some uppper frames than a GTx590 and so many more than gtx680, but in rfactor 2 is the case that brokes the rule....

And in crossfire, have some troubles, one of my team member are running it, and depends on the track he has less fps than me that i run only one 7970...and in other tracks he has near twice fps on some zones, and same fps on other parts of the track...
 
SCampbell said:
It seems like thus far in the development stage, many users on this forum have been very happy with the Nvidia as a change over the AMD cards. I myself am a die hard AMD fan and I have to wonder if anyone has had good luck with the newer AMD cards and rF2. I'm on two 6870s which perform solid, but I get some of the framerate dips that some have been talking about. I can run most of the settings up high and get around 60 fps or so, but I still get dips into the 40s when I get in traffic. Also, the animations do not seem nearly as smooth as RF1, everything seems pretty jerky.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Yeah rF2 runs well after the 134 build, not sure what was done, or if it is the 12.11 beta drivers? but my CrossfireX gives a good 75-80% boost in fps and run very smooth if v-sync is on, without v-sync it can be a little choppy at times?

One HD6950 with everything on MAX and running MSAAx3 at spa running one car in practice from the cockpit view gives upto 100fps
turn on crossfire and she jump as high as 178fps with everything at MAX

Turning on SSAAx3 drop the fps down a bit, but still keep it all well above the fps to run v-sync and its all as smooth as silk

Thanks

ISI or ATI or both lol ;)
 
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I was once a ATI fanboy but because of the AA problems in many games I've turned to nVidia. Switched my CF 6870's for a single 670gtx and now I am very pleased with the result. Decent AA (not the heavy duty ati catalist option) no stutters anymore and much better driver support. For almost evey new game or patch nVidia comes up with new drivers. Mind that I play with 3 monitors. So surround video was a must for me.
 
I think I'll try downloading the 12.11 beta drivers and see if I get better results. Actually, I was wrong in my original post. Turns out I get about 10 extra frames with RF2 in crossfire with my current drivers, which turns out to be about 30 percent. Still not exactly the best, but I'll see when I get back if the 12.11 drivers help at all. I feel like I have a lot more graphics power than RF2 is really utilizing.

I get 300 plus frames in RF1 with everything maxed out and big fields, so I don't think 100 fps is unrealistic if I can get it optimized.

I might give Nvidia a try but only if I get a higher end single card because I really don't have the money to get two cards and run SLI. I'd like to wait a while too and see as AMD revises their drivers. I have seen noticeable results on my 6870 based on the different driver updates that have been released recently.

Also, it might be an Intel thing too because I've seen a lot of people having good results using the i7. My AMD Phenom II is a little dated and lacks the punch of the i7.
 
Tried out the new 12.11 beta drivers, some improvements, maybe 5 fps or so...

For those who are wondering my current build is:

Home Built
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 3.0gHZ (6 Core)
Motherboard: MSI 890FXA-GD65
Memory: 4GB DDR 3 1600mHZ
OS: 7 Home Premium x64
Video: 2X MSI Hawk ATI 6870HD 1GB GDDR5 in CrossFire
Audio: Onboard Realtek
Internet Connection: Comcast 30Mbit dn/1Mbit up
Steering Wheel: Logitech G25
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 226BW

Trouble is most of the newer graphics cards are PCI Express version 3.0 which means I really won't be able to get the most out of them since my board is a PCI-E version 2.0.. I'm still wondering if I could get good performance even though my board is version 2.0..
 
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diference in cards from PCI Express 3.0 vs PCI Express 2.0 is null, only will found a 1 or 2% increase in performance in tri-crossfire or tri-SLI configs...(with actual cards)

dont worry for that..
 
The big thing I'm seeing now is that the new ATI cards have the 384 bit memory interface. The largest upgrade I would recieve for my card if I went to a single 680GTX would be 5 times faster memory, and twice the memory (1GB to 2GB). Also, 50 percent more cores. I really think the number of cores has the biggest impact on the performance FPS wise over any other factor. ATI calls theirs "stream processors" but really when you switch cards, I've found the biggest difference in the stream processes/cuda cores.

Not sure how much of an impact the memory size and bandwith would have. The big thing is that at the moment, ISI is getting better support and feedback with Nvidia, which could make a big difference.

I'll have to see what happens as the beta progresses and gets closer to a full release. At that point in time, I may consider switching to Nvidia or getting a more powerful ATI setup. The past 6 months or so since I put this build together have had major changes in technology. Moore's law I guess.
 
I would not sweat PCI-e 3.0 unless you use triple or quad card setup.

SLi GTX680 wont bottleneck on PCie-2.0

Typical single card setup may yield 1% so a motherboard upgrade is def. not worth it.
 
@OP like I advised others on this forum. Phenom series are practicly made for OC. And for the rF2 enigine this is key. Since I clocked my phenom x4 3,2 ghz to 4,0 ghz alot of performance was gained. No stutters at al anymore. I've OC my phenom for months and no problems or instability occured. I bought a offmarket cheap cooler cost me like 20 euro's. Also do u OC the 6780? When I owned 2 6780 in CF I espacialy clocked their memory to 1200mhz. Mind you have to manual operate the cooler to the max. I've had almost the same setup as you so if you need any advise just PM or ask me in this topic.
 
I've got a 680GTX in the mail now so I'll give that a shot and see if there is any difference.

I'm gonna play the role of Guinea Pig and see how the two stack up side by side. I have a feeling the GTX card will work much better with RF2. If it makes a big difference, then I'm gonna EBay my two 6870's. We'll see.
 
So I finally got the new 680GTX and all I have to say is WOW! The frame rate stutter is gone. AND, I got an extra 50 FPS plus, the frame rates rarely now dip below 100. All I have to say, is for those on ATI/AMD cards, you really need to try the new cards from Nvidia because you are missing out! This is coming from a big AMD fan boy. I honestly believe that RF2 works much better with Nvidia cards than it does with AMD. We now have 3 people who have switched, all with better results.
 
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SCampbell said:
So I finally got the new 680GTX and all I have to say is WOW! The frame rate stutter is gone. AND, I got an extra 50 FPS plus, the frame rates rarely now dip below 100. All I have to say, is for those on ATI/AMD cards, you really need to try the new cards from Nvidia because you are missing out! This is coming from a big AMD fan boy. I honestly believe that RF2 works much better with Nvidia cards than it does with AMD. We now have 3 people who have switched, all with better results.
Click to expand...

Are you comparing your HD 6850 crossfire experience to a single GTX 680? I can think of a few reasons that the assertion "RF2 works much better with Nvidia cards than it does with AMD" maybe a possible confirmation bias and "We now have 3 people who have switched, all with better results" as further evidence of this. If i sound like i'm having a go at you, that's not my intention, please let me explain...

The GTX 680 is inherently much faster than a HD 6850, roughly twice the performance. Stutter happens when one of the components of the graphics card(s) is bottlenecking the entire system (this is something i have noticed with my own GTX 460's with only 1GB of vram on each card which stutters with certain VRAM dependent graphics settings). The simple fact that you no longer experience stuttering could be skewing your perception that the rf2 runs better on Nvidia cards, despite the fact that a) your AMD cards were in crossfire and crossfire is currently performing badly in rf2 (from what i've heared/read), b) the HD 6850's have lower spec which makes them more likely to bottleneck that could be the reason for stutter and c) the cards are not being compared apples for apples because of the simple fact that they are two very different worlds apart in performance, after all you are getting what you seriously paid a lot of $$$ for with a GTX680.

My point is this, I wonder if you would have had the same level of impressiveness had you of gone to a HD 7970.
 
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I didn't have a 6850, I had 2 6870s. The 6850 and 6870 aren't even in the same ballpark...

But, the 7970 is a solid card. I'm just not confident at this point that AMD has their smoothing figured out just yet. Its much more of a driver issue than anything as far as I can see. The VRAM could have also been a big difference because my 680 has 4 gigs of memory versus the 1 gig my 6870s had.

There are a good handful of people who have had issues with AMD and frame rate stutters, even with their higher end cards. To be honest, I feel like the top of the line hardware out there far exceeds what most games can even throw at them. The driver optimization seems to be playing a bigger role in RF2 land.
 
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SCampbell said:
I didn't have a 6850, I had 2 6870s. The 6850 and 6870 aren't even in the same ballpark...
Click to expand...

Ah my mistake, i read it wrong. But my point remains the same, i question if the crossfire experience put a larger dent in the experience that makes you make such a statement, despite whatever further performance smoothness is gained by using an nvidia card over amd in general (if true).

I almost purchased a HD 7970 myself but found an even better deal with the GTX 670 (brilliant price-to-performance ratio bargin). But i would be lieing if i said that was the only reason, i have found myself questioning whether the risk of switching back to amd cards is too soon but would like to know definitively if for rf2 it is because of crossfire alone or also because of the general performance/smoothness between amd and nvidia cards. To test this well would require someone with two comparable cards from amd and nvidia and testing them both in rf2 to see if the same holds true as in other games and to also observe the smoothness of each.

I am aware of taufikp's thread on "GeForce vs Radeon, Captured Using High Speed Video" observing a smoothness difference between two comparble cards in Skyrim, but that was only a single game.

I too notice some stutter when my fps is not insanely higher than my refresh rate with my GTX 460 SLI setup and so i have ordered the GTX 670 to see if there is any change in smoothness when running a single card with higher graphics settings that lower the fps to the range the caused stutter in SLI.
 
AMD has released 13.1 WHQL driver. It fixes the ugly frame-time high latency for their Radeon cards.

Full report: http://techreport.com/news/24231/catalyst-13-1-graphics-drivers-are-out

Change Log (number based on AMD tests for HD7000 series cards):
Enhanced performance in Far Cry 3 (up to 25% with 8xMSAA, SSAO enabled @ 1600p, and up to 15% with 8xMSAA, HDAO enabled @1600p) (AMD Catalyst 12.11 CAP2 must also be installed)
Enhanced AMD CrossFire™ scaling performance in Call of Duty Black Ops 2
Up to 10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
Up to 10% more performance in DiRT Showdown
Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2
Up to 5% more performance in Max Payne 3
 
taufikp said:
AMD has released 13.1 WHQL driver. It fixes the ugly frame-time high latency for their Radeon cards.

Full report: http://techreport.com/news/24231/catalyst-13-1-graphics-drivers-are-out

Change Log (number based on AMD tests for HD7000 series cards):
Enhanced performance in Far Cry 3 (up to 25% with 8xMSAA, SSAO enabled @ 1600p, and up to 15% with 8xMSAA, HDAO enabled @1600p) (AMD Catalyst 12.11 CAP2 must also be installed)
Enhanced AMD CrossFire™ scaling performance in Call of Duty Black Ops 2
Up to 10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
Up to 10% more performance in DiRT Showdown
Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2
Up to 5% more performance in Max Payne 3
Click to expand...

Holy ****.....

Is this ON-TOP of the performance gains we have seen from the 12.11 beta drivers? or just that 13.1 is the "made official" drivers of 12.11 beta?
 
Most likely it will give you smoother animation (and possibly higher FPS as well), since the high frame-time latency is fixed now. As reported in my thread GeForce vs Radeon Captured In High Speed Video. :)

Edit:
Oops sorry, this version (13.1 WHQL) does not include the latency fix yet. Get the 13.2 beta version instead, it contains the more important frame-time latency fix.
 
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taufikp said:
Most likely it will give you smoother animation (and possibly higher FPS as well), since the high frame-time latency is fixed now. As reported in my thread GeForce vs Radeon Captured In High Speed Video. :)

Edit:
Oops sorry, this version (13.1 WHQL) does not include the latency fix yet. Get the 13.2 beta version instead, it contains the more important frame-time latency fix.
Click to expand...

The so called 'latency fix' in the 13.2 beta only applies to the 3 DX9 based games that gave trouble in the TR test, the tweaks seem to be on a per application basis. There was already a rewrite of the software memory manager in the pipeline which was also going to address issues for DX10/11 games, seems it'll only apply to the 7000 series though.
 
If I recalled my memory correctly, AMD does planning to release CAP updates after fixing its driver's basic problem, to fix the frame-time latency per application. If this really is the case, then rFactor 2 will be in trouble, IMO, since AMD has no support for rF2 yet.
 
Tim has mentioned in the past that AMD has told them that rF2 was responsible for making things work with their drivers, not the other way around. This might change in the future, but we will have to wait and see.
 
Hi guys, need a hand, I was thinking about change my 6870 ... and don't know if I will buy AMD or Nvidia. I was always a user of Nvidia but I've decided to change sometime ago to AMD, I'm happy with the gfx performance but I heard a lot about the poor support of driver and the sttutering problems with AMD, is this going to change in future? :p
Now this is my question, which has better price/performance AMD or Nvidia... and which is the best model?. Money is not a problem, but if I can spend less and have a better relation price/performance I'll go for it...
What do you think?, 670?, 680?, 7870?, 7970?, 7990? ...
 
Stuttering is already solved with the beta 13.2 driver, there is already a thread about this in these forums.
7870 is pretty good in the price/performance and so is 660 TI. But since you already got a 6870 I don't think it is worth to replace it with cards that are not that much faster. But if you say money is not a problem then why not go for the best?
 
When it comes to best bang for the buck, I always refer folks to toms hardware. They do unbiased reviews and the information that they provide is invaluable when it comes time to start shopping around.

In that regard, here is a link to what you are asking: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-6.html

BTW, if you actually read the review you will see that the monster GTX 690 performs like a pair of GTX 680's at about twice the cost. Given that information, if you have the slots available, it would be less expensive to get a pair of HD 7970's running in crossfire and you would have the same performance or more.
 
MJP said:
The so called 'latency fix' in the 13.2 beta only applies to the 3 DX9 based games that gave trouble in the TR test, the tweaks seem to be on a per application basis. There was already a rewrite of the software memory manager in the pipeline which was also going to address issues for DX10/11 games, seems it'll only apply to the 7000 series though.
Click to expand...

13.2 is just the beginning of this latency thing, AMD also said that improvements are coming to the drivers so that they will generally affect games all around rather than game specific. Plus, I always see improvements in games that AMD have never said they worked on improving, these driver fixes usually have a knock on affect and affect many games, not just the specific games themselves.

Ppl have already reported smoother gameplay with games other than the 3 that were specifically targeted by AMD with the 13.2 beta.
 
Abriel Nei said:
I don't think it is worth to replace it with cards that are not that much faster. But if you say money is not a problem then why not go for the best?
Click to expand...

Totally agree, so I'm thinking right. I see only worth going for a 690 or two 7970 (as Gearjammer said is the best option), but I have only one slot for gfx card, then the CF with the 7970s is out.
And the 690 seems too expensive right now, I have the money but don't want to burn it lol
I think I'll wait and see what happens to the market in a few months.
Thanks for the information guys!.
 
No way, 2 7950/gtx 660 ti/gtx 670 is a wayyyyyy better deal than 2 7970/gtx 680s. You pay such a premium because they are the top models.

Get a new motherboard you won't regret it :)

I guess with only 1 slot you can get the gtx 690 or there are 2 or 3 versions of the "7990" you can check out, but both of em are horribly overpriced compared to 2 7950s/660 tis/670s
 
If you have money to burn you could always wait for ivy bridge-e to come out, should be soon.
 
I was about to call you out on that Spinelli until I noticed the e at the end, whew, glad I caught that at the last minute, hehe. The Ivy Bridge-E should be a nice addition to the CPU market, especially if you hold out for the 12 core ones. ;)
 
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