Anyone playing ED with crossfire R9 280 and DK2?

[Dr Roly]

I'm looking for a cheap upgrade and have decided the only viable option is to get a second R9 280. Anything more than that will work out much more expensive and I don't want to spend a lot of money on PC stuff until the CV1 is released and we know what hardware it needs.
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If anyone here uses crossfire R9 280s (or any similar card; 270, 290x etc) I'd be very interested to know how it works for you. I know crossfire and SLI is not recommended for the DK2, but I've seen a few posts on reddit saying it works well in practice (however none specifically commenting on ED).

 

[Dooguk]

Tried it with 2 Asus R9 290's. Performance is worse than a single card. AMD drivers don't have a Crossfire profile yet for ED. I have tried to do a custom one but to no avail. There are rumoured to be new drivers coming this month. AMD don't seem to mention ED much when talking Crossfire, maybe they can't get it work. We live in hope.

 

[duckduckgoose]

If your set on AMD, take a look at the current 290x.

For reference, I have three monitors and four water cooled 290x's in my machine. Performance is awesome when you enable crossfire and create a profile in CCC specifically for EliteDangerous32.exe. Usually only use this when playing on a 3x 2560x1440 resolution displays. Lets you run the game at maximum settings with high frame rates. A single card is more then enough for a single display.

When using the Oculus, no matter what profile I create, Crossfire just does not work at the moment with the Oculus without creating noticeable lag/judder. Disabling crossfire, a single stock clocked 290x is enough for 100% smooth 75fps presence if you set AA off (no noticeable difference with the oculus on for me) and shadows lowered from Ultra to High. Everything else is left in its "Ultra" preset.

Normally the worst judder experienced is in a station while inside the hangar (not on top of it) and in an asteroid belt. With AA off and shadows set to high, I experience none with one card active and the oculus.

Hope this helps.

 

[Trinium42]

I play with the R9 280X at max settings and never had a single instance where lag was an issue. works perfectly as long as you at least 8gbs of ram and a good CPU. Plus later on you can add a second. IF you look on ebay youll see people sometimes confuse the 280 for the 280X and the 280X will sell for like $130! Cant beat that.....I paid $368 for mine. BTW I recommend the Sapphire flavor. It drives 3 25" monitors at 1920 x 1080 while running the rift at 75 FPS.

 

[Mazhurg]

If your set on AMD, take a look at the current 290x.

When using the Oculus, no matter what profile I create, Crossfire just does not work at the moment with the Oculus without creating noticeable lag/judder. Disabling crossfire, a single stock clocked 290x is enough for 100% smooth 75fps presence if you set AA off (no noticeable difference with the oculus on for me) and shadows lowered from Ultra to High. Everything else is left in its "Ultra" preset.

I play with the R9 280X at max settings and never had a single instance where lag was an issue. works perfectly as long as you at least 8gbs of ram and a good CPU.

My results (I74790/290 X2/24GB) are more akin to Duckgoose than Trinium42. So my question here is how do you (Trinium42) get a perfect viewplay with a single 280X when even a 290x can't? - And I am not including Crossfire in this discussion.

 

[Trinium42]

My results (I74790/290 X2/24GB) are more akin to Duckgoose than Trinium42. So my question here is how do you (Trinium42) get a perfect viewplay with a single 280X when even a 290x can't? - And I am not including Crossfire in this discussion.

Go to your catalyst control center where it says information, then click in hardware and post a screen shot

 

[Mazhurg]

Go to your catalyst control center where it says information, then click in hardware and post a screen shot

Missing info at the bottom is as the other card. I do fail to see why you would want this as I already described the cards above - In any case, Crossfire is disabled in Elite as it really does not play well with it.

Spoiler

 

[Trinium42]

You should be able to overclock it to match mine without a problem. Also pick up and OCZ SSD. That makes a WORLD of difference. I bought mine when 128GB was $350 but you can get an nice OCZ now for $130 that is 256GB. I'm going to pick up 2 and put them in a raid array since even though I have a storage drive, Space is becoming an issue with all the CAD programs, Steam, and ED. You can get one for $89 Amazon....but this one will knock your socks off!