15 replies to this topic

[Brandorf]

TL;DR - MWO will crash my GPU driver if it's overclocked at all, and it seems to be the only game that does this, why?

Relevant System Stats:
Intel I7-4790K @ 4.6Ghz
AMD Radeon Fury X

So I've been goofing around with overclocking my graphics card, not because I need to, I just want to, this Fury X has a watercooler for a reason, damn it! After a significant amount of tweaking/testing, I'd settled on a modest 5% overclock on the GPU, bumping the clock from 1050mhz to 1100mhz. I can run any benchmark I'd like, for as along as I like, Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, any other game I've tried is completely stable.

In Mechwarrior Online, I dropped into testing grounds on Vitric Forge and ran around for 10 minutes, no issues. However, once I drop into a live match, my GPU drivers will crash within 60 seconds or so, and this usually is not recoverable, and I'm forced to restart. So what's so different about MWO that's making it so sensitive?

[Tarl Cabot]

One major variable not included PSU and what drivers are being used. I would gander that once in game and dropping into a match, the CPU/system workload increases since just about everything is server-side authenticated causing voltage issue somewhere.
There are other sites...

http://wccftech.com/...ocker-marketed/

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Overall, for just a 5% increase in performance with overclocking, you can witness the power draw go up from 420W on stock usage up to 600W with overclocked frequencies and voltage adjustments. This does show that the card is not as effectively a great clocker as it was marketed as. The competition on the other hand is busy breaking overclocking numbers with great custom cards and performance that is faster than dual chip cards with the same price as Fury X.

[Goose]

Back when I was trying to OC a GTX 770, I'd decided this view was the acid test:



Things I'd been told to watch out for in FurMark would happen in the pavement: Starbursts mean too much core clock; Black or white artifacts meant too much RAM Hz.

Back then, you had to not go off half-cocked 'bout the ashes this version of River doen't have any more, but you do have to recognize when the games shader cache is updating …

[Wintersdark]

AMD crimson drivers cause the display driver crashes. If you revert to the last catalyst drivers from November 2015, no crashes.

[Wintersdark]

I'm a very experienced overclocker, and have absolutely quantifiable, repeatable results here. Even at the maximum driver based overclock, my 7850 is rock solid stable in everything including MWO. The moment the crimson drivers dropped, I started having that problem.. I've tried each crimson version and the hotfixes, none of which helped.

Reverting to Catalyst immediately fixes it.

[Brandorf]

True, but I can torture test my current overclocking settings with OCCT, which will but a 100% load on both the GPU and CPU, I don't seem to be overloading my Power Supply.

Here's the detailed list of all parts in the machine. https://pcpartpicker...ed/#view=RTL8TW

I'm not getting any kind of artifacing in MWO or any other game that I've tried. I am currently redownloading Crysis 3 so I can see if it's a Cryengine thing.

Wintersdark, on 28 February 2016 - 12:44 PM, said:

Reverting to Catalyst immediately fixes it.

Ugh, damned if you do, damned if you don't. If it comes to that, I'll just set up a profile that doesn't overclock just for MWO.

[Wintersdark]

Brandorf, on 28 February 2016 - 12:49 PM, said:

Ugh, damned if you do, damned if you don't. If it comes to that, I'll just set up a profile that doesn't overclock just for MWO.

for me, that helps but doesn't fix it. I still get display driver crashes in probably 1 of 4 matches even at stock clocks. I can't run Crimson drivers with MWO at all.

[Brandorf]

Wintersdark, on 28 February 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

for me, that helps but doesn't fix it. I still get display driver crashes in probably 1 of 4 matches even at stock clocks. I can't run Crimson drivers with MWO at all.

Interesting, I've never had a display driver crash at stock settings, even when I was previously using dual 7970s (which ran terribly in MWO).

[Wintersdark]

Brandorf, on 28 February 2016 - 01:10 PM, said:

Interesting, I've never had a display driver crash at stock settings, even when I was previously using dual 7970s (which ran terribly in MWO).

You had stock settings on Crimson drivers? Not the older 2015 Catalyst drivers?

For me, it's totally reproducable (I know, because every new version I test anew). I install Crimson drivers, revert to fully stock clocks, and I get crashes in MWO. If I overclock, those crashes become severe (almost every match) rather than frequent (every 4-5)

And yeah, Crossfire and SLI both perform terribly badly in MWO I formerly ran a pair of GTX 460's, which were pretty much indistinguishable in MWO to just one... when they didn't run worse

[Brandorf]

Wintersdark, on 28 February 2016 - 01:27 PM, said:

You had stock settings on Crimson drivers? Not the older 2015 Catalyst drivers?

The 7970s were under Catalyst, I had the Fury during the Catalyst -> Crimson transition. I've been running stock on the Fury that whole time, as it wasn't until relatively recently that you could adjust the core voltage on the Fury, making overclocking more feasible.

[Brandorf]

I should mention that this is all happening on a brand new installation of windows 10, with very little currently installed except for steam, and again, my overclocking seems to only have issues with MWO.

[Wintersdark]

Brandorf, on 28 February 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

I should mention that this is all happening on a brand new installation of windows 10, with very little currently installed except for steam, and again, my overclocking seems to only have issues with MWO.

Yeah, win10 for me too. And yes, for me the overclocking makes it MUCH worse, but *only* in MWO. Rock solid in evreything else. It could be that my other driver crashes are separate and the overclocking related ones are wholly because of the overclock.

But yeah, Catalyst drivers with a heavy overclock, fully stable (the 7850, while no powerhouse, really overclocks like a champ - best performance per dollar I've ever had), add Crimson drivers with no overclocks, some driver crashes. Overclock it at all, horrifically severe crashes.

MWO crashes with D3D device removed, and Windows pops up a "AMD Device Driver has crashed and restarted" notification.

But it's a frustrating thing to discuss, because ever helpful people always point to the overclock itself first, and it's very definitely not an overclock stability issue in this case.

[Brandorf]

Wintersdark, on 28 February 2016 - 04:46 PM, said:

MWO crashes with D3D device removed, and Windows pops up a "AMD Device Driver has crashed and restarted" notification.

This is what I'm seeing as well, but the driver crash usually makes the display link fail as well, so the monitor shuts off. Hence why I usually have to restart as well.

So what we could potentially deduce here is that MWO has an inherent instability with AMD cards, which is greatly exacerbated by overclocking? I'd really like to hear if more people are having similar issues.

[Wintersdark]

Brandorf, on 28 February 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

This is what I'm seeing as well, but the driver crash usually makes the display link fail as well, so the monitor shuts off. Hence why I usually have to restart as well.

Yeah, my display powers off too, but it recovers when the driver restarts.

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So what we could potentially deduce here is that MWO has an inherent instability with AMD cards, which is greatly exacerbated by overclocking? I'd really like to hear if more people are having similar issues.

Only with Crimson drivers, though, not the Catalyst drivers. It's a driver issue, not an AMD GPU issue. I've been talking to support about it with each driver update; I'd recommend you mail them as well so they can better see it's not just me. They know there's Crimson driver issues, mind you - they're the ones who first recommended going back to Catalyst for me with the crashing.

[Brandorf]

Wintersdark, on 28 February 2016 - 05:54 PM, said:

I've been talking to support about it with each driver update; I'd recommend you mail them as well so they can better see it's not just me.

You talking to PGI support, or AMD?

[Wintersdark]

Brandorf, on 29 February 2016 - 06:41 AM, said:

You talking to PGI support, or AMD?

PGI support. It never occurred to me to contact AMD. Should give that a go.