AMD Frame Pacing Explored: Catalyst 13.8 Brings Consistency to Crossfire
by Ryan Smith on August 1, 2013 2:00 PM ESTFinal Words
Bringing things to a close, today’s driver release isn’t about any grand revelations for AMD, but rather about AMD following through on their plans and commitments to improve frame time consistency on their products. We’ve seen AMD get their house in order with respect to single-GPU cards earlier this year, and now the same is starting to happen for multi-GPU setups.
To be clear here AMD’s initial situation should never have happened. AMD should have been doing the appropriate competitive analysis from the start, never letting themselves fall behind like this. But we aren’t in the business of berating companies that make an honest effort to improve their products like AMD is doing, so while AMD could have done better in the past they are finally making the right moves in the present, and it’s the present that’s going to be the most important for AMD’s customers.
So what does AMD’s present look like? Quite frankly, it looks a lot better than it did yesterday. AMD set out to greatly improve on their frame pacing situation on their Crossfire setups and they have delivered just that. With just one driver revision we have seen the Radeon HD 7990’s frame pacing go from laughable to acceptable; delta percentages of over 100% have been reduced to 20% or lower in 5 of the 6 games we’ve tested. For those sensitive to micro-stutter and other matters of consistency the difference is at times going to be staggering. At the most basic level, AMD has achieved their objectives.
With that said, there’s still room for improvement, and this goes for both functionality and further improvements in frame consistency. AMD’s triage-like approach means that D3D9, OpenGL, and most importantly Eyefinity are still not capable of using frame metering. These will be covered in future phases of AMD’s rollout of their frame pacing technology, and they can’t come soon enough, but for the time being these are limitations that need to be kept in mind.
Similarly while AMD’s frame pacing has improved to the point where we find it acceptable, 20% deltas are still generally twice that of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 690, never mind the extreme consistency single-GPU setups offer. We never realistically expected AMD to match NVIDIA’s frame interval consistency overnight, but in time it would be nice to see them get close, and for both parties to further improve beyond that.
Moving on, while today’s driver release is primarily one part of AMD’s longer term plan to deal with frame interval consistency, AMD is trying hard to also use this moment as something of a second launch for the Radeon HD 7990. With the 7990 launching in April it had the poor timing of arriving shortly after the multi-GPU frame pacing issue came to a head, which is something that has hobbled the card since its launch. In terms of absolute performance (average frame rates) things have changed very little since the launch of the 7990 so we’re not going to get into the matter of performance.
What has changed since then for the 7990 is first and foremost its frame pacing improvements as we’ve seen today. To be very clear here the GTX 690 is still the better card for those users heavily concerned about consistency, but AMD’s improvements have brought the 7990 to the point where we find its frame consistency generally acceptable. This isn’t a rousing recommendation nor is it meant to be, but it’s a reflection of the fact that AMD has brought their consistency to the point where pairing up multiple Tahiti GPUs as is done in the 7990 is no longer fraught with the frame pacing problems it once was. For most users I believe we’re to the point where the consistency differences are greater on paper than they are on the eyes, but of course that is going to depend on the visual acuity of the user.
Moving on, the other thing that has changed for AMD is pricing and competitive positioning. Officially AMD hasn’t cut the price on the 7990, but the fact that XFX is now offering a reference 7990 for $799 after rebate is not a coincidence. With AMD’s Level Up with Never Settle Reloaded promotion still running, AMD is making a clear play for the value segment right now. I don’t believe it’s where AMD would like to be, but there’s no arguing that it’s effective. For users who have a reasonable level of faith in Crossfire scaling and are satisfied with AMD’s frame pacing improvements, a $799 7990 is a very good deal at the moment.
With that in mind, we do want to reiterate that our editorial position here on AFR setups isn’t changing. We still favor strong single-GPU setups over weaker multi-GPU setups, but this is a matter of valuing the lack of AFR profile requirements, coupled with the tendency for newly launched games to have immature AFR profiling, and of course the general consistency issues we’ve covered today. AFR is still the only way to further improve performance once the single-GPU route has been exhausted, and in AMD’s case it’s the only way to exceed the performance of a 7970 GHz Edition, so it does have its place.
Ultimately we have to give AMD the kudos they deserve. They have come forward about their issues, set out a plan to fix them, and have begun delivering on those plans. There’s still room for further improvement within AMD’s drivers, so AMD’s job is far from done, but today they have taken the first step needed to settle the frame pacing problems that have been dogging their products.
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anubis44 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
TheJian, you seem to be suffering from verbal diarrea. You might want to take some immodium for that.What you could have said in about 1/10th the space is: you harbour an inexplicable hatred for Ryan Smith, because he's ever said anything positive about an AMD product, and that you think that despite AMD's huge stride forward in one driver revision to address and fix a problem with multi-GPU crossfire smoothness (let's face it, a fairly obscure problem, too), nothing AMD will ever do will be good enough for you, because you harbour an inexplicable hatred of AMD, too.
There, I summarized your entire rant in one sentence. Short and sweet. Concision is bliss.
TheJian - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominemPlease review the chart from Graham, then come back with something at the top of his pyramid instead of the bottom :)
You seem to be suffering from the inability to make a coherent response to a valid argument, thus attack me instead :) It's always amusing to see fanboys flounder when faced with the facts (no matter if I argue for or against a company, it happens on both sides).
I own a radeon 5850...ROFL. I don't care about NV and will state they suck when or if they do. There is a reason I bought the 5850 :) The only thing I hate about AMD is management taking a total dump on one of my favorite companies (probably mostly due to spending all the R&D on consoles, thus screwing my PC choices and driving them directly into the ground). Having said that, I'll buy maxwell next unless something is terribly wrong with it if only for money backing the drivers. You can google my posts here and see I've been begging people to STOP asking AMD for price cuts and free games so they will start making money. I have done this MANY times. I'm not looking forward to NV owning the gpu world and making it too expensive for me to upgrade as much as I please.
No fan of Ryan or Anandtech these days. I'd hope their alexa traffic numbers forces them to start acting like they did pre Sept last year (which are off by half, as people see the points I and others make). People are not being fooled.
transphasic - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Excellent points, and well said!The AMD fanboy sure is a grumpy one when their feelings get hurt at the fact that their beloved company has DROPPED the ball AGAIN for the hundredth time.
The loudly proclaim to the world that they finally recognize a problem with their CF setup, and have supplied a minor tweak here and there to get a few games fixed, and that we as AMD owners should start cheering loudly for all through the night.
LOL. It has taken them forever to finally see a problem, and then they take forever to fix it after all this time, even when it hasn't been fixed.
AMD reminds of me Kramer from Seinfeld, who tells Jerry that he will give back to him the pliers he borrowed (that he also broke into pieces and destroyed) but only when Jerry does what he wants him to do, and in so doing, makes Jerry feel like he should be happy about it.
Like Kramer, AMD tries in vain to make us very happy about something that should already had been fixed long ago- just like their Enduro nightmare which STILL after 18 months has not be fixed, and when they do come out with a PARTIAL and incomplete fix- as is THEIR obligation after these many years, we are told to feel happy that we at least got SOMETHING.
They took almost 2 1/2 months to come up with a minor fix for some games, and it's still only Beta, and those with single CPU setups got nothing, all the while Nvidia keeps cranking out the WHQLs, and improved Drivers for a wide variety of games- including AMD-based games.
There's a REASON why AMD is so much cheaper, and far less expensive than Nvida GPU's and Intel CPU's, and we all know why- crappy drivers that are slow to come out, poor attention to detail, weak performance across the board on all their product lines, and a lack of motivation about fixing the problems in a timely manner that they chose to ignore in the first place.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for...
TheJian - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
"Ultimately we have to give AMD the kudos they deserve. They have come forward about their issues"No we don't have to give kudos to a company with a beta product who hasn't even fully fixed it yet today. It's like shipping cars with 3 tires. Kudos to the company for putting on a 4th tire for the users today...Seriously? NO WAY. And since it doesn't fix everything (XP users see nothing, eyefinity again nothing), it's really just a 4th tire that is FLAT still...ROFL. They didn't come forward either. They were FORCED INTO THE LIGHT. See PCper's comments in my previous post. They told them he was wrong 1/2 dozen times...ROFL. That isn't coming forward, it's denying you have issues.
"For users who have a reasonable level of faith in Crossfire scaling and are satisfied with AMD’s frame pacing improvements, a $799 7990 is a very good deal at the moment."
If you're stupid enough to still believe BEFORE seeing, well you get what you deserve ;) He keeps printing stuff like this. We're not talking Jesus Christ here (whom I guess you need faith in forever right?), this is a company who can't seem to fix problems that have been dogging them for years (not just since april - they've been claiming they had no problem as hardocp shows this is why NV created FCAT to prove AMD wasn't stutter free for years). They still wouldn't discuss the issues with PCper that are ongoing.
"When I asked AMD for more details on WHY Eyefinity wasn't fixed with this release and why it technically was presenting more of a problem, they didn't want to get into it."
Shouldn't they be coming forward with what is going on? Still hiding:
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-...
" My theory still revolves around the compositing engine that AMD is using for CrossFire and the amount of bandwidth it can handle. Moving a fame of 2560x1600 pixels 60 times a second is taxing but 5760x1080 uses about 50% more pixels is where things seem to break down for AMD."
Of course 4K won't help this situation as he notes later (I pasted that previously). Be careful if you're just reading anandtech people. Read other sites when AMD vs. NV/Intel is the topic being discussed here. You should NOT buy a A8-5600 as Ian suggests in the 1440p articles for single gpu cards, over Intel. It is foolish as I pointed out in the comments on those articles (and I wasn't alone). I can't believe anyone would recommend AMD over Intel for all but extremely poor people. To recommend it for all single gpu people though is just ridiculous (Titan with a $100 cpu? 780, 7970 etc all show Intel running away BELOW 1440p). I listed the games and links to the articles showing this in the 1440p comments sections. GO LOOK then judge anandtech yourself. I'm not sure what they get promoting AMD, and giving them kudos but I hope it's a LOT of $$. Destroying your reputation isn't worth it IMHO.
DeviousOrange - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.... yeah you are like a broken record.TheJian - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
But always right :) Thanks for verifying it.gi_ty - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Whoa there fella, you shouldn't go out on the internet with your stupidity showing like that.TheJian - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Personal attacks instead of anything about the data. Shocker.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Might want to read that and look in the mirror when done. I don't think you made it out of the pink or orange bar in graham's chart ;)
Come back when you can at least crack the top 3. Then we can talk ;) I'm guessing none of you people took debate class (note I didn't just call you stupid, I'm insinuating you're ignorant) :) It's ok to throw in junk from the bottom of the chart (I'd ignore it anyway most likely) but at least give me something to think about. You know, a valid counterpoint backed by something...Otherwise why bother?
Slugbait - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Remember back in the day, when the ideal video setup was a Matrox card paired with a couple of Voodoo2 cards? We were all bashing ATi for their drivers back then.Remember when ATi released the Rage, and it didn't come close to the performance that was advertised? (well...Tom's loved it). ATi said it was because they shipped with beta drivers, because their customers really, really, REALLY wanted the hardware NOW. But every subsequent driver release was "beta", and then they cancelled driver development so they could concentrate on a new line called "Radeon". A lot of people here at Anand's (and FiringSquad, Rage3D, AGN3D, etc) were quite peeved.
Remember when you bought any ATi consumer card for your NT Server machine, only to find out that ATi has never written drivers for NT Server, and you had to use Windows generic drivers (no dual-monitor, etc). Want NT Server support? Buy a FireGL or FirePro.
Remember when your CAD program consistently crashed, but everything was perfectly fine after replacing your ATi card with a card from any other company?
"Catalyst" is often used as a dirty word on the forums here.
They have always known that they write poor drivers. This is not some revelation...this is a public spanking by one of their competitors.
Will they finally wake up and turn things around with their drivers? My confidence is...well, it's kinda low.
boozed - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
If there're two things I've learned from the internet, it's that Nvidia drivers are terrible, and also ATi drivers are terrible.Meanwhile I've had little trouble with either. Am I doing something wrong?