AMD Frame Pacing Explored: Catalyst 13.8 Brings Consistency to Crossfire
by Ryan Smith on August 1, 2013 2:00 PM ESTSleeping Dogs
Another Square Enix game, Sleeping Dogs is one of the few open world games to be released with any kind of benchmark, giving us a unique opportunity to benchmark an open world game. Like most console ports, Sleeping Dogs’ base assets are not extremely demanding, but it makes up for it with its interesting anti-aliasing implementation, a mix of FXAA and SSAA that at its highest settings does an impeccable job of removing jaggies. However by effectively rendering the game world multiple times over, it can also require a very powerful video card to drive these high AA modes.
Once more the tables turn with frame rates, and we see the 7990 hold on to a very small lead over the GTX 690.
Sleeping Dogs is another title where AMD has greatly improved on their frame consistency. With Catalyst 13.6 the 7990 had deltas over 100% (the variability was larger than the average frame time) which has since been heavily reduced with frame pacing. The end result eliminated AMD’s runt frames in this benchmark, and pushing them down to the 20% range. Still, this pales in comparison to the GTX 690. Though we do see the 6990 doing rather well for itself due to its lower frame rate, even with this metric compensating for that factor. It’s clearly a lot easier to schedule frames when you have more time to do it.
This is another case of where AMD’s massive improvements on frame pacing have led to an improvement in frame times at the 95th percentile. Here they shave off 7ms, and not unlike their frame rate are slightly ahead of the 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?