Need Tech help...

Shy_Dave!

Hi guys, wasn't sure whether to make a new thread for this but here goes.
I'm at my wits end with Battlefield 3.
Will give my specs first:

P5Q Deluxe
Q6600 at 3.2ghz (for the game).
5850 x 2 in crossfire both at x8.
8GB RAM (55% used while playing).
Win 7 64bit

Let me start by saying I'm experienced enough in troubleshooting computer issues.
I've tried everything apart from using older drivers and this one has me stumped.

I can play the campaign with everthing on ULTRA, but this may be irrelevant.

Using crossfire no matter what settings I choose my fps will average between 30-45fps at 1920x1080 60mhz, even dropping resolution to 1680x1050 gives no noticable increase while looking worse.
Even with everything on LOW on the Seine map, 64-man server, looking across the river to the other side will get me 45fps.
I will get sudden dips in fps at times, from 29 back to 45, is this the micro stutter associated with crossfire?

Once I disable crossfire my fps average will INCREASE despite VRAM usage going from 1300 on LOW in crossfire to 700 single-card.
I've read today that the game will maximise VRAM use, so when I try playing on a mix of medium/high settings my VRAM will be using 1900 and my fps will still be 30-45 with the dips.
Usually this fps would be fine for me in other games but for some reason it feels worse in Battlefield 3.

GPU usage in crossfire is between 45-65% on the two cards.
GPU usage single-card is 90+%.

What I've tried off the top of my head:
Had been using stable OC of 3.0ghz, have used both 2.8 & 3.2 to get my fsb to 400 and memory 1:1.
No perceivable difference Battlefield wise.

All the usual performance steps, defragged, changed paging file location/size, cleaned up, closing unwanted proccesses, turned Win 7 appearance to best performance, different browser...

Have tried using 11.10 preview 3 drivers on their own and also with catalyst profile 4. Am now using 11.10 official with catalyst profile 4 official.
Every time doing a through clean with Atiman uninstaller and driver sweeper.

Fiddled with Catalyst Control Center settings.

Tried different sound drivers.

Tried using DVI instead of HDMI.

Repaired the game in Origin, deleted settings folder after new driver installs.

Punkbuster manual install and disabled UPNP.

Swapped around the crossfire bridge inside the computer.
Reseated both cards.

Disabled ULPS and PCIE link state management, no effect.

Using AVG in gamemode.

MSI Afterburner shows both cards using full clock speeds once in game.
3D Mark 11 shows a 100% increase in GPU score between single and crossfire.

Much more but I forget, they will come to me.
Sorry about the length, thought it would be good to be as detailed as I can!

Please guys, any ideas/help/suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

TheFairy

Running the game with an i5, one 5850 and 4 gb Ram and getting 60-70 and more FPS, with no issues at all. Settings at medium I think. Get rid of crossfire completely maybe?

moomooman

Very similar issues here. Stuttering in multiplayer and sudden frame rate drops make multiplayer unplayable.

Can play single player on Ultra, but sometimes the framrate (with nothing happening on screen other than walking down a corridor for example) will drop from 60+ to 16 and sit there for twenty seconds or so before jumping back up to 60+.

I7 920 @ 2.66
8GB Crucial DDR3 @ 1333
Club 3d 6870x2 2GB (latest official AMD drivers)
Raid 0 (Western Digital SATA2 500GB x2)

Removed overclock, Hyperthreading, Turbo, CIA2 as per troubleshooting advice, switched from Firefox 7.0.1 to Chrome.

Still cant finish a round, lag gets steadily worse until I have to quit.

Mantel

I'm going to go with driver issues atm. On the 28th they released CAP4 and

"The latest CAP is available here: http://bit.ly/9FDuCb We're still looking at other BF3 CF issues"

The 11.10 update is basicly the same as the preview version that came out awhile ago. I've got it running okay using one 5700 and will probably just wait it out for another update to the drivers or CAP.

Actually, the only server I've gotten a decent game on is the TIG server, not sure if it was the map or something else but at the moment I'll stick to the smaller maps and at 32 players at most.

Dublin_Gunner

Definitely seems like either a driver issue, or something is choking somewhere along the way.

Some would immediately chime in with 'CPU bottleneck' but I assume this doesn't happen with any other modern games?

Without a doubt the i7 @2.6Ghz is bottlenecking 6870's, definitely.

Most likely its a driver issue.

Have you tried switching to the 'BF3 beta' driver? (rather than the latest)

I know the latest is meant to have BF3 fixes incorporated, but you just never know when it comes to xfire drivers...

copeyhagen

forgive the hijack, but thought i would throw soemthing in here instead of starting a new thread.

q6600 clocked to 3.0
radeon 4870 512mb
4 gb ddr2 (another 4 gig en route)
windows 7 64bit
chrome for origin

i know my rig is dated, its about 3-4 years old now. i have found the system really struggling with the 64 man servers, so i have avoided them. have another 4gb ram on the way now, so that might help.

have settings set to low and medium (the auto settings had initially set them all to high)
oh, my cpu was at 2.4 till last night, so the jump to 3.0 might help too.


should i invest in a new card? every other modern game i run at full res no bother, but this game feels like its gonna need more.

TheFairy

Guys theres a way to draw a perf graph in game showing CPU and GPU usage etc. Would be a good way to start working out what has happened. Also with drivers go to control panel and uninstall the old drivers. Reboot machine and let win 7 install its generic drivers, then install the latest drivers. Sorted a load of probs for me way back.

Mantel

TheFairy wrote: »

Guys theres a way to draw a perf graph in game showing CPU and GPU usage etc. Would be a good way to start working out what has happened. Also with drivers go to control panel and uninstall the old drivers. Reboot machine and let win 7 install its generic drivers, then install the latest drivers. Sorted a load of probs for me way back.

There's the AMD systems monitor That has a logging freature as well. You could run the game and get it to log everything for comparison later.

copeyhagen

whats the command to show the fps?

Shy_Dave!

For fps: render.drawfps 1
For CPU graph I think render.perfoverlayenable 1
and maybe render.perfoverlaymethod 1?

Bottleneck wise I could run Metro 2033/Crysis 2 on high settings, Maxed Bad Company 2 with 8xAA although I know the games are uncomparable.

Think I might try going down to 11.9 driver and try with/without the catalyst profiles.
Will also try the BF3 'Beta' driver. Cheers for the suggestions guys, more are welcome!

[AK47][JONNYNEW

iv read on the battlefield 3 forums that SLI is causeing atlot of problems.

Dono about crossfire, but worth trying one cars on it own?

Shy_Dave!

I've tried one card and get equal if not better fps.
Been trying Caspian 64-man tonight, tried with both 11.9 and 11.10 drivers.
My Q6600 at 2.8ghz is 100% load on all 4 cores so I think I am facing a bottleneck problem.
Gonna try 3.2ghz which I have stable but I think I will need to overclock it more.
Sadly my processor stepping B3 has never been fond of working with OC's.

stephenmarr

@Shy_Dave!
My problem is that i have to disable crossfire in CCC to get the game to run in SP and MP
ive 11.10 with 11.9v4 caps fresh install
5850 in crossfire one is an

xfx 5850 xxx
xfx 5850 black

i5 750 @3.5ghz
ive ULPS set to 0

using msi afterburner

no problems in any other game but Battlefield 3
any ideas ppl?

Shy_Dave!

What happens when you start the game?

stephenmarr

with crossfire enabled it starts to load the map and then i get a black screen with multi coloured lines bunched at the top of the screen

with crossfire disabled no problem running the game

only happens with battlefield 3 no other game.

Shy_Dave!

Hmm, luckily I haven't had that issue myself.
Try deleting your battlefield 3 settings (my documents/battlefiled 3/settings)
Then in Origin right-click on the game and repair.
Worth a shot.

Mostly likely driver issues though I would think.

stephenmarr

will try that and post back tomorrow

ive tried other drivers still same problem

can runn other games with crossfire no porblems battlefield 3 is the only game that wont run