Yet Another HD 4870x2 Thread

(Yet Another) HD 4870x2 Crossfire Driver Question

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for giving this post a glance.

Simply put, I have a HD4870x2 and Windows 8 Pro x64. I'm running CCC 13.1 and driver version 8.970.100.7000 BETA.

All I want is to be able to have a stable system, and play Overwatch with both GPUs active in crossfire (which currently does not work, 0 load on GPU according to Afterburner on any game I play, even with the correct profiles set up).

I have been reading thread here and elsewhere ad nauseam for a month and I can't determine what the correct path is.

I am completely open to reinstalling Windows to another version (7, 8.1, 10...), cleaning and installing any driver, CCC, etc. I am pretty well versed with computers, so I don't mind if anything is heavily technical or tediously long.

I am just looking for answers. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks again.

 

Doubt you will see any new driver for hd 4xxx . The code for hd 4xxx and pre hd 4xxx is also removed from the driver files so not much can be done, even if you combine older drivers with newer drivers the files that handle dx9/10 will be from the older drivers. Maybe atiapfxx.blb from a newer driver (for GCN) might do something.

Crossfire has 101 issues with gpus that are still supported by current drivers...

 

I have already ruled out seeing any new drivers for legacy GPUs at this point. I am just interested to know if there is any legacy driver/CCC for a 4870x2 that actually enables crossfire in windows 7, 8, or 8.1. Surely there must be some combinations or process to getting crossfire to work in at least Windows 7. Right? Right.....? I hope.

 

The last Legacy driver was 13.9 and any game that came afterwards will probably not have working Crossfire.

 

So crossfire is game specific? I thought your could toggle AFR or Optimize 1x1 in CCC and have the driver just handle the crossfire rendering on its own without the game knowing.

 

^^ The post above. kevsamiga1974 posted a lot of info on CFX 4000 cards and best driver series, as the last ones seem broken.

 

Yea, I tried PM'ing kevsamiga1974, but I'm too noob on here to be allowed to do that. I have seen a lot of his posts, but I cannot pinpoint his latest comments/guide regarding the 4870x2. They are usually replies to others' questions and not 100% relevant to my context, so I am just trying to search for clear guidance.

 

Thanks for showing me this, I'll definitely try this out tonight!

 

Both my 4870x2 cards died and I switched over to GTX 580's, so i'm no longer not really active on the radeon forums anymore.

The best working drivers for this card at least under Windows 7 were found to be 10.2 hotfix/10.3a/b, or 9.6/9.8/9.10 (beta)

Anything after that is broken in multiple ways. If you collate my posts spanning over time, you'll discover why. 4K series started to get forgotten after 10.3 when the 5K series arrived. 10.12 fixed DXVA playback but totally busted supertile or scissors rendering which could be forced to gain a 15% speedup in crossfire using DX9 only using MVPUMode in the registry without the stuttering of AFR. So really yes it's russian roulette.

I know this doesn't help anything for Windows 8, but that driver was only an .inf change forcing a Windows 7 driver to work. It's still locked at WDDM 1.1 and further creates more problems than it solves.

There is nothing worth having after 11.2 for this card, and by now I think I've deleted most of my radeon folders to make room on the HD that's if there is any left at all so my notes are gone as well.

 

My friend upgraded his entire home gaming system and donated everything to me for the cost of a dinner. So effectively, I inherited this 4870x2, coming from someone who has never really been into PC gaming beyond RCT and AoE, and even older games. My gaming on this PC (and thus this 4870x2) is Overwatch, TF2, and Minecraft with photo-realistic mods.

The latest 13.4 Beta drivers work fine for single GPU, but I was hoping I'd get more (obviously) out of using both GPUs. When WhiteLightning pointed me to your hybrid drivers thread, I thought the search for how to enable both GPUs was over, and it was. However, I only really get 40-60% usage out of both GPUs, and always significantly lower frame-rates than just disabling CF going single GPU. However, I greatly appreciate the work you did Kev. Thanks to you, at least my GPU has a driver that makes the best use of it, on Windows 8 x64.

I wasn't aware that crossfire support was so bad, and I was even more shocked to find out that proper crossfire support is equally the responsibility of the game developers. I guess that's where CAPs come in. On other boards out there, many claim Overwatch didn't fully use each GPU on their crossfire setups, but with the very latest driver, it includes a profile that fixes the issue.

I wonder if there is a way to extract that profile from the latest driver, and apply it to my current setup (hybrid R13).

I also read your breakdown of the different crossfire modes, and wanted to try SuperTiling, Scissor, and especially SuperAA, since they weren't explicitly listed in CCC. Sadly, even forcing it with ATI CF Xtension does not produce a full utilisation. Not sure if any tool out there will (besides GPU-Z stress tests).

Anyway, thanks for the info, the drivers,a nd your community involvement. If you have any other info or tools I should be aware of as a new owner of a 4870x2, I'd love to hear it.

-Mike