Anyone who has a SLI or Crossfire setup ( including the 5970..like me) will know what I'm talking about with flickering and HDR. ( known Gamebryo engine issue since Oblivion )
FO3 ran flawlessly on my 8800GTX..on my 5970...not so much.
FPS are fine ( 19x12,4AA,15AF,Ultra settings )..never budges from 60. So it runs fine but the HDR flickering makes it unplayable.

I just re-installed it this morning hoping that maybe a patch or the latest drivers would fix it....still there. Turning HDR off makes it go away...but who wants to play it in Bloom?

FO3 is the only game that has this problem ( Haven't reinstalled Oblivion so I don't know about that)

Have tried everything to make it stop....

Anyone know?

hard to say, on one hand Fallout: New Vegas is based on the same engine as Fallout 3, but of course they could have made tweaks to eliminate the problem *shrugs*

Yeah..guess we will wait and see.

I might just get a cheaper single ATI card and use that when playing New Vegas.

Specs shouldn't be any higher then FO3...and a single ATI card that can run the game should be pretty cheap. ( Cheaper then buying a 480 GTX for example )

Well I'm off to delete FO3...I was going to play it and get in the mood...but the flickering is just awful.

hmm well i have a 5970 so you're not alone... I never tried to play fo3 on it so i hope the problem doesn't come up in NV.

did you try going into CCC and turning off Catalyst AI (which disables one gpu and takes it out of crossfire)? Because that works for many games that have problems with the 5970 ( which is a lot ... lol)

Can you not just turn off Crossfire and run on one card? Thats what I use to do most of the time when I had Crossfire, it had that flicker on most games I tried to play and i would just run them on one card.

That seems like the way to go.

That said, I had an SLI setup once and decided that it wasn't really worth it. It was just too much fiddling to get some games to run well. Now I just buy the most powerful single-GPU card that's reasonably priced when it's time to upgrade and I've been happy ever since. At this point the only reason I see to use a multi-GPU setup is if you're going to do the multi-monitor gaming thing. That's just me, though.

It's a 5970...you can't just turn off or unplug one card. I wish it were that simple. ( 5970 is considered a Crossfire card..2x5870s sandwiched together) And there is no option to run it just on one card....just not physically possible .

And to above poster...turning off Catalyst AI does nothing. In fact turning it off lowers fps in FO3 and does nothing for the flickering..

I either might get a cheap ATI card to play just FO3 on or buy a 480 GTX and just sell my 5970.

FO3 is the " only" game ( out of my vast collection) where this problem occurs....again I haven't re-installed Oblivion to check that out.

Yeah that would be one way to go....but in most games I have no problems. Add to that fact the 5970 crushes any single GPU out there...even the 480 GTX lags. And once you start playing games like Metro 2033, 19x12,AAA,DX11,,the 480 GTX gets half the fps the 5970 can put out. It's hard to go back..

Ah, that's right...I forgot that AMD's dual-GPU cards don't just use a nested bridge like nVidia's do. Ouch...so that means any game that doesn't like AFR won't work properly. I feel for you, sir.


Yeah, being able to crank the settings to the max in any game is nice. I used to try to do that as well. I think in my old age (well, not that old) I'm willing to give up a bit of performance for reliability. I know that Xfire and SLI have gotten a lot better, but between the occasional issue and the power consumption I think I may have switched to single GPU for good...until something makes me change my mind.

I agree...the only reason I got the 5970 is that is was only a 200 upgrade on my build. And the 400s were not out yet. And even a single 480 GTX draws more power ( and gets hotter) then the 5970. I do have plenty of juice though ( 1200 watt PSU)

Yeah, the 480 is a beast...way too hot and power hungry. I was considering a 5870 at one point, but then I read about a lot of people having issues with 2D with dual monitors. I had problems running dual monitors in the past with ATI cards, so I kinda shied away from it.

I'm hoping we see a "tock" generation of cards that are improved versions of the 5870 and 480 designs like we did with the last generation. I'm still rocking my old (ish) GTX 285, which was a big improvement over the GTX 280. If they could do something similar and release a 485 with refinements over the 480 I might go for it.

I'm thinking of getting a cheap ATI card 5700 or better just to play FO3 ( If the flickering continues) That way I can just change them out real quick when I want to play something else...like Metro or something.

Of course..like FO3..I'm sure I'll be playing New Vegas non stop until I beat it.

Or I could get 2x460s for the price of a 480 GTX and just sell my 5970. ( 5970 I can sell on E-Bay for 400 easy..add another 50 bucks and that is 2x460s right there..which easily beat a 480 GTX and come closer to the 5970)

It's just hard not maxing everything anymore....

Games like Metro are simply amazing fully maxed !!!

Well I'm just going to toke some medicine and watch movies the rest of the day...my head hurts from all the benchmark comparisons and flickering from FO3 ( Yes it's bad enough to cause headaches and nausea) Kinda glad I didn't D/L all the DLCs. I'm just going to uninstall it and wait and see.

I did finish the game before on my 8800 GTX..so it's not a total waste.

Peace...ahh...I mean War !

later

Seeing that not even Nvidia or AMD/ATI have managed to fix the problems with multi-GPU-setups I don't see the point in OE doing so :>

Actually the fault lies in the Gambryo engine...not in Nvidia or ATI.

This issue has been known about since Oblivion.

It's a coding / engine problem....not a driver / video card issue.

All my other games work fine in Crossfire.....just not FO3.

yup my latest computer's just going to have a 260 or a 5770 in it nothing to great but good benchmarks and can still do the dual moniter when im working on something http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

and how much do we pc gamers spend on computer a year mainly graphics

My last computer I bought 2-3 years ago and spent maybe $1,200-1,300 on it total, had at first a Nvidia 3XX aplha dog edition, switched to a 4870 for $120 and the Pc was fine for the whole time.

Now I just spent $1,6XX on a new PC and fully expect to last 2-3 years with no upgrades and likely 3-4 years with just a video card change as I got the 6-core AMD o.c to 3.2 and 8gigs of 1066 DDR3.

Sure I likely can't max M.2033 or even Crisis, but I bet I can max the games I play, ME-1/2 DAO, FO-1-2-3, N.V and tactics, so it doesn't matter much to me.

I've spent $275 on a video card in the past 2 years...probably won't upgrade again until Q2 of 2011 at earliest. Before that I hadn't upgraded since 2006. Dropped about $300 on hard drives for my RAID-5 in my HTPC, but that's for media/DVR storage and has nothing to do with gaming. It's been more than 2 years since I've upgraded anything else. I build my own systems, so it's cheap for me. I don't have to buy a new computer to upgrade...I just buy what needs to upgrade and that's it.

I have a 480 and FOIII runs beautifully.

I was talking about micro stutters

It should ! For that kind of money...but my old 8800 GTX ran FO3 beautifully too. 19x12, 4AA,V-sync Ultra etc..

But the 5970 still crushes the 480 in most benchmarks....and the 480 runs hotter , louder and draws more power then my 5970

I'm just going to wait and see..I already ordered the Collectors Edition...and if the flickering hasn't stopped I'll just buy a 5770 and switch out the cards when playing FO3 ( Newegg 134 bucks for a 5770 ...have it shipped overnight )

It's not the performance...it's the flickering that drives me crazy !

But again I'll wait and see....of course if I get the money I want from my 5970 ( it's on E-Bay ) all bets are off. I would do it now ( buy new card ) but I just wasted 250 bucks on a SSD....useless!

What does that have to do with HDR and the flickering ?

I have no micro stuttering going on in any game...

Isn't the 5970 a dual GPU? Did the benchmark include dual 480s? or a single GPU?

Both..480 GTX single and SLI...of course the SLI version did better then the 5970. But you also have to consider the cost...the 480 GTX goes for 500 a pop..while the 5970 is 570.

2 x480 GTXs is a thousand...( Newegg )
1x 5970 is 570...(Newegg )

In the benchmarks..a 5970 crushed the 480 GTX in most benchamrks...while 2 480 GTXs did better then the 5970. Not enough to justify the cost though. ( and the heat, noise and power consumption....as even one 480 draws more power, runs hotter and noisier then a 5970 )

I got my 5970 as a 200 dollar upgrade on rig....the only reason I got it as I've never owned an ATI card in my 20 years of gaming.

I'm sure the 5970 is a very nice card. I have a EVGA 480 GTX myself and for a single GPU it's the best one I've ever owned, well worth the money I payed in my opinion, and all those reviews don't mention that it comes with EVGA Precision which is software that allows you to over-clock/under-clock everything including the fan. So, it can run cool and quiet, or you can tweak it to the max and crank the fan up which is of course gonna be noisy and draw more power.

Anyway, what ever card you decide on let me know how it goes :tops: