Configuring 5870 and MIS Afterburner

[avelle]

So I bought a 5870 this week and everything has been great, runs ffxi like a dream. I noticed the clock speeds were bouncing up and down during gameplay so I used afterburner to force the clock speeds to stay constant while in 3d mode but looking at the graph it still looks like it's dropping every so often. Is that fine? Is there something I can do about this?

Spoiler: show

http://www.risen-guild.com/avelle/ffxi/radeon.jpg

edit: Was sitting in the moghouse and this is what the clock speeds were doing. I wouldn't think the card would continuously try to underclock itself while in a 3d application.

Spoiler: show

http://www.risen-guild.com/avelle/ffxi/radeonwtf.jpg

[shidobu]

you should be able to turn it off. I just dont know how to do it in afterburner. Theres a way in the normal catalyst drivers.
But question are you having noticeable slow downs? If not then i wouldn't worry about it.

[avelle]

you should be able to turn it off. I just dont know how to do it in afterburner. Theres a way in the normal catalyst drivers.
But question are you having noticeable slow downs? If not then i wouldn't worry about it.

How do you do it in catalyst? I don't think I'm seeing a slowdown currently but I definitely was before I forced the 3d clock speed.

[Purrrfect]

If it's dropping it's speed from being hardly used, there isn't really a problem? Having it run at a faster speed would just result in more idle time, could drop the power requirement and still process everything at a slower speed?

edit: My 4870 also does this in XI, it just isn't demanding.

[avelle]

It's bouncing repeatedly between 157 and 600 for the core clock right now while in FFXI. Don't know what the fuck is going on.

edit: It settled down once I had other people on the screen but it still seems noticeable and weird that the clock bounces up and down repeatedly while running down to KB. Don't think my nvidia card did this at all.

edit2: It's definitely noticeable when its constantly bouncing up and down like every second. Really need to find a way to stop this from happening. Happy with the card other than this small annoyance.

[Purrrfect]

Turn off the afterburner display.

[sruon]

My nvidia does the same, GPU load is like 4% top while playing FFXI.

[Egon]

FFXI does a really crappy job at using any video card. My 5770 stays at 0% if I'm not running anything else.

[avelle]

Spoiler: show

http://www.risen-guild.com/avelle/ffxi/radeonwtf2.jpg

Look what it does while sitting in the moghouse, pretty silly. There has to be a way to get this thing to stop spazzing out like that.

[Boyiee]

Try a different game?

[avelle]

Try a different game?

What kind of advice is that?

Found the solution I was looking for finally. Create a catalyst profile and go into the XML and force it to maintain the proper clock speed and turn it off when you don't need it. Kind of a hassle but it works.

[Boyiee]

It's great advice?

Considering everyone in this thread was pretty much telling you "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" and you are for the most part ignoring them, why not see if the card runs correctly on other games?

If it does the same thing on other games, RMA/Return and try a different card. If it doesn't, well then it's what everyone said it was. GPU isn't going to do much to ffxi, you aren't going to get this major fps or graphical increase. Like others said, it's only going to use <10% of the gpu, which means your gpu isn't going to want to stay clocked up all the time.

Yes, the stuttering is weird, which is why you should try running a different game. One thats more gpu intensive to see if it does it there as well. You shouldn't have to do that solution you came to, I never had to do anything like that with any ati card.

[avelle]

It's great advice?

Considering everyone in this thread was pretty much telling you "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" "its ffxi" and you are for the most part ignoring them, why not see if the card runs correctly on other games?

If it does the same thing on other games, RMA/Return and try a different card. If it doesn't, well then it's what everyone said it was. GPU isn't going to do much to ffxi, you aren't going to get this major fps or graphical increase. Like others said, it's only going to use <10% of the gpu, which means your gpu isn't going to want to stay clocked up all the time.

Yes, the stuttering is weird, which is why you should try running a different game. One thats more gpu intensive to see if it does it there as well.

I guess I never mentioned I tried other games. WoW pretty much forces the clock speeds to stay maxed but there are periodic downspikes(similar to the abyssea screenshot in my OP) for whatever reason. This isn't a problem with the video card per se, it's powerplay underclocking the card because as you said it isn't stressed enough. It only happens in FFXI when not much is on the screen (ie: running through boyahda tunnels) but it is noticeable and annoying. I can actually tell when the clock speeds are running at max speed and tab over to check afterburner and confirm this. It's hard to accurately describe it as the FPS isn't fluctuating but it is definitely there.

The solution was actually found here if anyone else has this problem and is looking for a solution.

edit: And this is the result

Spoiler: show

http://www.risen-guild.com/avelle/ffxi/radeonfix.jpg

[Boyiee]

Stop lying on BG and things like this wont happen!

Glad you found a fix, that's not something I'd want to deal with.

Was having a fun issue last week, decided to bump my cpu OC a littler higher, from 3.8 to 4.16, and after I did it, my GPU would downclock to 405core. Couldn't find a work around lol. Put cpu back to 3.8 and bam, can sit at 850/2200 np.

[avelle]

Stop lying on BG and things like this wont happen!

Glad you found a fix, that's not something I'd want to deal with.

Was having a fun issue last week, decided to bump my cpu OC a littler higher, from 3.8 to 4.16, and after I did it, my GPU would downclock to 405core. Couldn't find a work around lol. Put cpu back to 3.8 and bam, can sit at 850/2200 np.

Haha, he was talking about me saying I would fulltime mbody for the rest of the week.

That's a really weird issue with your cpu/gpu. I'm happy I found a solution also and I don't see a negative to doing this so I think it's a good fix. The only downside I can see is that it will always be sucking down max power while I'm gaming but I don't see this as a bad thing really.