[Graphics] X-Fire or bigger card for "Highest Settings"

[christian20]

Hi

I'm a pretty big TS2013 fan, been playing since the early days of 'Railworks' .

Towards the latter end of last year, I invested in upgrading my Graphic Design rig to such an extent that I could actually play games properly and enable scenery / long-distance viewing on routes...and of course enable TSX.

So, here's my current setup:

CPU: Intel i5 3570K (cooled by Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO)
PSU: Corsair 550w
Mobo: Asus P8Z77-V LX, Intel Z77
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Storage: 250GB Samsung SSD [TS2013 is installed on this] + 1TB Seagate HDD
Graphics Card: 2GB XFX Radeon HD 7850
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

The SSD was only installed yesterday which has removed the HDD bottleneck I was experiencing.

Using that setup, I am able to play with graphics set to "High Detail" and achieve anywhere from 75fps - 125fps with no lag, no stutter and no bottleneck. Stress tested using FRAPS and running a Class 390 down the WCML on a dark, wet evening at 125mph with TSX enabled. Tried several viewing positions including inside cab, outside cab, passenger view and the F4 'flyby'. No problems.

In light of the fact that TS2013 automatically put me onto "High" detail as opposed to "Highest", I had an inkling that further upgrade may be required to unleash the full glory of the TS2013 graphics.

So I switched over to "Highest quality", reset the game and loaded up Class 66 v2 on Edinburgh to Glasgow, see how it performed on a fairly gentle [in terms of scenery] route. I was only able to reach 30fps on a calm summer's day at 45 mph with noticeable lag.

I've got a couple of options:

1) Do I buy another HD 7850 card and link them with X-fire?
2) Do I buy a bigger, single card and ditch the 7850 completely?

So you're probably thinking "125fps on 'High quality'....why upgrade?" . Well, there are couple of cases where you can just tell it's not set to highest. For example on some units where the sun reflects off the livery you can see the individual squares that go into making up the reflective texture.

Secondly, I'm about to upgrade my monitor setup from a single 19" VGA monitor to a dual-screen 24" setup. This means higher resolution, a larger viewport and more stuff for the screen to render at once.

Finally, who wouldn't want to play on highest graphics?

Money is not really an issue, but of course if I can be responsible then that's money left in the bank for new routes.

The bottom line is, I'm trying to maximise FPS to have stutter-free gameplay on Highest quality.

Thank you.

Christian

[styckx]

Crossfire will do you no bit of good. It's not true Crossfire.. It's only good to split the workload between two GPUs so one of your GPUs isn't a heater for your room.. The same amount of work is being done just split down the middle in Crossfire.

I owned a 6990 overclocked to 920/1375 and the GPUs are more powerful than your card. (mind you I use 2x2 SSAA. Hence lower framerates than you)

Crossfire disabled. 21FPS / 93% load on a single GPU




Crossfire enabled. 21FPS . 46% load on each GPU = 92% total GPU load.. Same as above.




As you see w/ Crossfire enabled it's splitting the same workload over two GPUS as it's not a true Crossfire compatible game. RSC did some work under the hood to enable the second GPU as it's really not native and more of a hack to have two GPUs work.

[styckx]

Hmm.. Strange.. Tested on another route that I crammed full of the new 3D trees and bushes.. And for the first time I'm actually seeing Crossfire have an impact.

Disabled: 38fps 99% Load




Enabled: 47fps 62%/61% loads




Looks as though something changed since the last time I went through the paces of Crossfire testing.. Interesting..

[styckx]

Ok.. More testing.. Slight mistake on my part with the previous post (not the WCML one.. Just the previous post) but a good mistake anyway. Had nothing to do with the 3D trees as I guessed. Interesting.. The Above comparisons were FXAA 8X MSAA not SSAA 2X2 (turned it on by mistake)..

Switched it back to 2X2 SSAA and.

Disabled. 20FPS




Enabled. 14FPS




So it seems. Crossfire benefits you if you don't use SSAA at all (makes no sense but whatever) and is a disadvantage or no advantage if you use SSAA

[christian20]

Intriguing

Crossfire game compatibility was something they mentioned on Tom's Hardware when I asked about increasing FPS over there. Essentially they said it largely depends on how the game has been programmed, which is something you've also picked up on.

Would be interested to hear the experiences of any others with crossfire.

[styckx]

Yeah. See I normally ran with it disabled as I always generally felt it degraded performance but when I pulled up WCML to do some comparisons shots for you I didn't mention it because the degradation wasn't showing itself in those shots. It did though on the second comparison with it enabled. I just always put up with my 6990s fan noise. Sounds like a microjet taking off at 99% load... Best card I've ever owned though.. Bought it at launch and the old dog still crunches polys with the best of em.

Maybe I will lower my standards and ego and just use FXAA / MSAA 8X instead of SSAA 2x2...

[PaulH2]

I don't have any numbers to hand, and its been 12 months or so since I upgraded, but I used to have a Radeon HD4870x2 and my results were somewhat similar to styckx's, i.e. at least with my settings (I also run SSAA 2x2) Crossfire made little to no difference and sometimes even made the frame rate worse (not substantially worse).

When my 4870x2 expired, I upgraded to an HD7970 and my frame rates jumped up by 30% to 50% across the board (no other changes to the machine).

So, in general (and admittedly my results are a little outdated now) my experience seems to show that you're better of with a single faster card than two slower cards in Crossfire.

Paul

[styckx]

Just for any that this may interest.

Decided to spontaneously abandon the AMD boat and plopped a GTX 680 MSI Twin Frozr III in my rig. The difference is disgusting..

15FPS boost immediately.. Higher in other situations.. Nice knowing you AMD.

35FPS FXAA 2x2 SSAA / Linear / 16X AF / 1920x1080

[lemberg]

Yes but look at the price of that bad boy, way out of reach of most on here, I'll stick with my amd 7850 runs every thing turned up at a fixed frame rate of 28.

Keith