Overclocking my vid card - challenges and issues

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Hey there - recently, I've been attempting to OC my gfx card...a Sapphire ATI 5970 2gb. It has been a learning experience, mostly of frustration, and was looking for any hints and tips people may have.

Being an ATI guy (mostly out of habit, haven't owned nvidia for a few years), I chose to start with the OC tools provided by ATI. The Overdrive program was a place to start, since I'd seen some reviewers have some success with its simplicity. However, for the life of me I couldn't get the stand-alone Overdrive program to work...I installed, reinstalled, ran in admin mode - everything. I'm not the only one...the AMD forums are littered with complaints about even getting it running on some machines. There is a Overdrive mini feature in the CCC, but it is unable to tweak the voltages. So, I tried to find the Overvolt program AMD used to make available...but this seems impossible to find anymore, and is out of date. Frustration. I played with the mini Overdrive in CCC for a while, but without voltage tweaks, it was difficult to OC without crashing my games. Any gain were too small to notice, using fps during FRAPS recording as the measuring tool. Overall, I've found trying to tweak performance with the CCC to be awkward, and have simply abandoned it.

So I have found some refuge in the MSI Afterburner program...it has more comprehensive features such as detailed fan control, and good monitoring. I had to play around to find the sweet-spot for performance against stability. I've had moderate success...the card is well within safe temps when I am running NTW and recording with FRAPS, but the loads sometimes max out. While stable, my fps recording gains are very modest...about 4 frames per second (again, while recording...more just playing).

Perhaps I am not yet experienced enough at this, or perhaps my expectations were too high...I feel like I should be able to do more with this.

At the same time, I've got a very good air cooler for my CPU, and am overclocking that a conservative amount (i7 930 2.8 oc'd to 3.6). I found no stable gains in oc'ing the RAM, so that remains stock.

Does anybody here have any insight, tips, or things I should be looking for? I know OC'ing is system specific, but any insights/experiences with Afterburner vs Overdrive, how to get Overdrive working, or suggestion would be most welcome.

cheers!

Nanny

[mrcrusty]

MSI Afterburner is the superior program.

Now regarding your overclock, Furmark or MSI's own Kombustor program (which IIRC is bundled with the Afterburner download) should be used to stress test any overclocks before you run them in your games. Running it for 15 minutes or so without any errors should confirm full time stability.

As for overclocking results, well how far have you gotten? What is your core clock and memory clock at?

Also, the bump in performance tends to be relative to the overclock. A 10% increase in clock speeds would net approximately a 10% increase in performance. 30 -> 33 fps, or 80 -> 88 fps. It's not a set 5 or 10 fps gain. I mean, essentially you're telling the graphics card to run 10% faster than normal. Hence your performance will be around 10% faster than normal.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

MSI Afterburner is the superior program.

Now regarding your overclock, Furmark or MSI's own Kombustor program (which IIRC is bundled with the Afterburner download) should be used to stress test any overclocks before you run them in your games. Running it for 15 minutes or so without any errors should confirm full time stability.

As for overclocking results, well how far have you gotten? What is your core clock and memory clock at?

Also, the bump in performance tends to be relative to the overclock. A 10% increase in clock speeds would net approximately a 10% increase in performance. 30 -> 33 fps, or 80 -> 88 fps. It's not a set 5 or 10 fps gain. I mean, essentially you're telling the graphics card to run 10% faster than normal. Hence your performance will be around 10% faster than normal.

I've been using Kombustor for the stress tests.

Here are the gfx oc settings:
1200 (mV) core voltage (stock is 1049)
900 (mhz) core clock (stock is 725)
1200 (mhz) memory clock (stock is 1000)

Also, a little hiccup I've found with afterburner...my profiles won't last. I can save them when its open, but next time I boot or launch the program, the pre-sets are gone, so I have to enter these numbers each time...not a big deal, but a minor annoyance.

I've also seen things I've haven't expected...the 5970 is essentially 2x5800 series cards in one big card. I am able to monitor each one (like a cross-fire, but not), and I see that the 2nd one is carrying most of the load, and the 1st one only works when there is spillover.
cheers!

[mrcrusty]

It's all about context I suppose, 4 frames... what's that moving up from? If you mean to say only 4 frames when your average is 50, then I'd happen to agree. But if your average is only 20 or so, 4 fps is right on target.

That overclock looks good considering you're using the stock cooler. If you had an aftermarket cooler, or were on water, I'd consider a 1.3v / 1000 core / 1300 memory overclock. Though, all things considered, that may only add an extra 2 fps.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

I'd sell my mother for 2 fps.

Thanks crusty, what you are saying makes me feel better...that I'm doing just about all I can with current equipment and getting the appropriately results. cheers mate!

[mrcrusty]

You can probably go higher. Adjust the voltage to 1.25v and see where that takes you. You still have plenty of space on the memory imo. With luck, maybe 950/1300. Maybe. And with luck, but there's still plenty of tank left in the gas unless you got a bum card. Temperatures will not be pretty though.

[Ishan]

Radeon HD 5970 Overclocking Guide.
& use Afterburner it's the only one that i liked.

[♔KillZoneGB♔]

hold off selling your mother, how many services do you have running?

also shutting off ports via bios, IE com port, printer ports, fire wire, network card (if you use wireless,warning tho wireless has to be set up/installed before disabling the network card)

windows7 Desktop use hide desktop icon`s, or better still get into the habit of not installing desktop icons, saves on video ram.

Its the little things in life that all add up to one big result.



by doing this, i`m 99.9% sure your fps will rise even more?

One Single N 275 stock settings

Settings added to the user.script.txt gfx_first_run false; gfx_video_memory 0; gfx_fullscreen true; gfx_vsync false; gfx_hdr true; gfx_shadermodel 1; gfx_aa 3; gfx_texture_filtering 5; gfx_texture_quality 3; gfx_volumetric_effect false; gfx_ssao true; gfx_distortion false; gfx_depth_of_field true; gfx_sky_quality 3; gfx_unit_quality 3; gfx_ship_quality 2; gfx_building_quality 3; gfx_water_quality 3; gfx_unit_scale 3; gfx_shadow_quality 4; gfx_tree_quality 4; gfx_grass_quality 4; gfx_terrain_quality 1; gfx_gamma_setting 1.7; gfx_hardware_shadows true; gfx_disable_terrain_ao_gpu true; gfx_effects_quality 3; gfx_vignette true; campaign_unit_multiplier 1; sound_channels 128;

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Ishan...mrcrusty...Killzone...Wow, guys, did I come to the right place. Ishan that guide is awesome, Killzone I've never even considered most of those things! reppage all

[Ishan]

Ishan...mrcrusty...Killzone...Wow, guys, did I come to the right place. Ishan that guide is awesome, Killzone I've never even considered most of those things! reppage all

Yes Basement is quite an addiction if one is a hardware junkie.
Crusty and Killzone have taught me a lot and then there is BigBoss, Mr.MM, ChaobSiroc and Freddie that really know there stuff.

You should read Killzone's posts in the ETW\NTW technical sections also if have the time.

And you should try Gamebooster as well a good program it will help further and when launching your game you can select disable visual themes under the properties of the game's .exe icon. I tried this program as well it helps.

[mrcrusty]

I'm not a junkie!

I can quit anytime I want!

[♔KillZoneGB♔]

I'm not a junkie!

I can quit anytime I want!

i dabble a bit now and then, my next hit should be in 2yrs time, a GPU

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

I've been running gamebooster for quite some time, I love it...although I'm sticking with 2.0 Beta because the latest release no longer has all features unless you pay.

With the suggestions and links you guys gave me, I got 4 more recording fps!!!! That is HUGE. Thanks guys

[Saturn]

You need to OC with a card that good?

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

You need to OC with a card that good?

Since recording with FRAPS has such a high FPS hit, even with this card I am unable to record with every setting maxed and still maintain optimal FPS. With normal gameplay, I can max out fine and keep high framerates. Therefore, I need to OC if I wish to use as many gfx goodies as possible.

[Ishan]

You need to OC with a card that good?

Also fps dramatically reduces on huge screens so one might have problems in maxing out and then recording his\her games at 2560x1600 resolution.

[♔KillZoneGB♔]

Also fps dramatically reduces on huge screens so one might have problems in maxing out and then recording his\her games at 2560x1600 resolution.

Wish my plasma tv could go that high, so i settled for a skinny diet of rice and beans.
you might want to create a custom res.

you can shave a few bandwidths here and there, you will get some performance.

Anyhoo, my little benchmark test of today.............................(LG 42inch plasma)

1920X768=Diet plan,hhmmmm might use this for dirt2

Individual monitor aspect ratio = 5 : 2 or 2.5 Video bitrate = 2.12Gbit/s Video bandwidth = 88.47MHz

---------------

768X576=pal

Individual monitor aspect ratio = 4 : 3 or 1.333333 Video bitrate = 0.64Gbit/s Video bandwidth = 26.54MHz

standard 1080p (1920X1080)

Individual monitor aspect ratio = 16 : 9 or 1.777778
Video bitrate = 2.99Gbit/s
Video bandwidth = 124.42MHz

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

Killzone...you are miles ahead of me on this How are you manipulating video bandwidth?

[♔KillZoneGB♔]

How to manipulate video bandwidth,

its just a matter of creating a new Resolution, or overclocking you gpu core clock,

Lets say my default 275 (633 core clock) has bandwidth off 127.0 GB/sec.
now if i overclock it to 700 (core clock), my bandwidth for this card will be 134GB/sec of bandwidth.

To reduce bandwidth consumption, use a lower res/Custom.
(if desperate use 16bit colour.)