I got crossfire working in FSX

[PingPong 60]

Hey allI bought a computer of some dude on ebay and it came with two 5870s, now these are very powerful cards but they are pretty bad when it comes to FSX, also there is no FSX crossfire application profile included with FSX so one card was going unused.Well Bufferpools = 0 enables the use of two cards in SLI, and I got it running great with my two older nvidia cards in SLI, but no dice with the ATI cards. This really irked me so I started tinkering and reading online and here's what I discovered. There are two ways to do itMethod 11) copy and rename your FSX.exe to an application that does use crossfire ex. Crysis.exe2) Boot up the game and close it.3) go to your fsx.cfg folder and there will now be a crysis.cfg. Simply copy and paste your fsx.cfg text into crysis.cfg. Crysis.cfg is now you FSX configuration file, make all of you tweaks there.---------------------Method 21) get an application called "crossfire xtension" by AgentGod, his original website is down so you have to do some sleuthing to find it. I am using the 1.4 version2) load the app, find your FSX.exe, set your AA and AF levels. in the little window for predefined profile DONOT select fsx, you must select a game that has a crossfire profile, I selected crysis. There are multiple game profiles here and some may offer better performance than others, but again the FSX profile does not allow crossfire3) Load the game and close it,4) go to your fsx.cfg folder and there will now be a crysis.cfg. Simply copy and paste your fsx.cfg text into crysis.cfg(or whatever you chose), this is now your FSX configuration file, make all tweaks there.--------------------here's a pic of the crossfire logo on my FSX in the default flight, also I checked with GPU-Z and both cards are being used, which was not the case before.As of right now I am flying over the default Friday harbor at 45-60 fps with all sliders to the right(x/c water at mid). Let me be clear here, I am not saying this will improve performance, I have to test it a bunch more, but this just shows that FSX can run in crossfire.Also I don't know if this has been posted before, I couldn't find anything about it when I searched, so I hope it helps some of you guys out there with ATI cards.

[JSkorna 137]

I may be crazy here but I always thought that FSX would run under Crossfire/SLI, but would not benefit from either. What have I missed in regards to this?

[PingPong 60]

As to whether it increases performance or not, I can't say yet.The fsx profile included with ATI cards does not activate crossfire, so you have to force it somehow.I will say that crossfire has reduced my artifacts with the BP=0 tweak, no more texture spikes or flashes.

[Hirgab 9]

I have the HD5970 card, which is basically 2 HD5980s.. do I have to to do something to utilize the HD5970 to the fullest (the internal cross-fire)?

[PingPong 60]

I have the HD5970 card, which is basically 2 HD5980s.. do I have to to do something to utilize the HD5970 to the fullest (the internal cross-fire)?

I can't say for sure, you might want to get GPU-Z and see if both processors are being utilized. If one is not then you may want to try the above. When you run other games does the crossfire logo show up?You can enable it by putting a check next to "Show CrossfireX Status Icon(where applicable)", under the CCC in the notifications taskbar.If it doesn't show up in FSX then you are not in crossfire.If you are using the bufferpools tweak, then you may see a drop in artifacts..I did.

[Hirgab 9]

PingPong, I downloaded CPU-Z, under graphics, it says I have 1024 mb of memory. However, the HD5970 has 2 gigs of memory. Hmm. What do you suggest I do/check further?PingPong, I downloaded CPU-Z, under graphics, it says I have 1024 mb of memory. However, the HD5970 has 2 gigs of memory. Hmm. What do you suggest I do/check further?

[PingPong 60]

PingPong, I downloaded CPU-Z, under graphics, it says I have 1024 mb of memory. However, the HD5970 has 2 gigs of memory. Hmm. What do you suggest I do/check further?PingPong, I downloaded CPU-Z, under graphics, it says I have 1024 mb of memory. However, the HD5970 has 2 gigs of memory. Hmm. What do you suggest I do/check further?

This is okay.Each processor has 1gb of video memory, you have two processors making a total of 2 GB. GPUz is only looking at the processors in your card, it sees two, if you look in the bottom left corner there is a drop down box that says 5800 series, if you click it you will see two entries for your two processors.If you want to see if both are being used you have to go to sensors, check "GPU load" then select the other processor and check GPU Load again. You have to do this while the sim is running and if both processors are being utilized you will know it then. If one GPU load is 0 then you are not using both.

[Hirgab 9]

Thanks PingPong, there are indeed two entries there for HD5970. I can't seem to find "Sensors" or "GPU Load" though.

[BIGSKY 316]

Thanks for the info! I noticed this on the GPU-Z popup. I wonder if my GTX-295 can be tweeked?

[Guest TomOOO]

I may be crazy here but I always thought that FSX would run under Crossfire/SLI, but would not benefit from either. What have I missed in regards to this?

In answer to this question you need to find out what part of your system is limiting the fps,1) CPU : how fast can things be calculated2) GPU : how fast things can be rendered3) memory speed and FSB : how fast can things be moved around (textures)4) how much memory : how much can the program remember - before it has to get stuff off disk.I hope I am not being simplistic. So you see that from the original post the CPU is an i7 9xxseries chip - so it is quite likely the CPU is not limiting. It does not quote the bus or memory speed, but from his system it is likely to have a memory speed of 1600Mhz - really fast,So getting the system to use cross-fire dual graphics card is probably going to help withall those textures which is probably limiting the show. So does getting dual graphics cardsworking improve FSX - only if you already have the fastes i7 + fast, large memory.As for the quote that FSX will not benefit with cross-fire - that is because it has notbeen registered to use cross-fire, so using this setup will not by default help - it willnot be used. Is it worth getting it to work - depends on your system.Nice work PingPong.

[PingPong 60]

Thanks for the info! I noticed this on the GPU-Z popup. I wonder if my GTX-295 can be tweeked?

It's actually MUCH easier to get SLI working on Nvidia cards, just use nhancer and select SLI mode --> AFR.If you use the BP=0 tweaks then you should see some changes.

[Guest rmk80]

Great find! I tried as well by renaming to arma2.exe and it works indeed!No gain in framerate, but i does seem to load textures faster, especially while panning and in busy areas (building/traffic textures)!Have to try a couple of flights to see if this is stable

[KevinLee251 0]

HD5970 CF now,I tried renaming to arma2.exe too，but no ATI logo in my FSX screen.FPS still very low，about 20-28 fps ,all sliders to the rightIs there anything wrong?

[Guest rmk80]

HD5970 CF now,I tried renaming to arma2.exe too，but no ATI logo in my FSX screen.FPS still very low，about 20-28 fps ,all sliders to the rightIs there anything wrong?

- Did you turn on the "show crossfire option"? right click on ATI CCC > YOUR CARD > Crossfire settings > Show crossfire icon- I noticed this only works in fullscreen, so you have to play a while to see the temperature rise on you 2nd card

[KevinLee251 0]

- Did you turn on the "show crossfire option"? right click on ATI CCC > YOUR CARD > Crossfire settings > Show crossfire icon- I noticed this only works in fullscreen, so you have to play a while to see the temperature rise on you 2nd card

thanks,and now,logo shows up……fps still very low