Crysis 2 with CrossfireX

Writer: DGLee
Contact: leedaeguen [at] kaist.ac.kr


I played Crysis 2 on my Radeon HD 5970. Note that I've tried both single player beta (which is leaked a few weeks ago) and "official" MP demo and the results presented below was tested on the former one. (I got both prereleased versions just for test purpose only)
Despite the presence of leaked version in my hard drive, I'll buy the genuine copy as soon as it is launched.

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First to enjoy the full capability of internally-CFed VGA (such as 5970) we need to enable CF on that game forcibly since Crysis 2 has not supported CF officially. There are two ways to get CFed, and their respective performances also vary.
The first method is to change the name of executable of the game "crysis2.exe" to "bioshock.exe". Only by changing the executable's name, the framerate virtually grows up though the ratio over CF-disabled fps is about x1.6~x1.7, which is still far less than x2.0 (ideal ratio over CF-diabled).

The second method is actually more complicated and has some severe problems on graphics quality (including massive flickering, outshining, microstuttering, etc) so that "playing" the game on that setting is nearly impossible though short-run for checking framerate is still available. I insert the results on this setting only for comparing purpose. The thing is to force AFR -Alternate Frame Rendering- via RadeonPro utility. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Install RadeonPro and add profile for Crysis 2 executable

Step 2: Click "Tweaks" and select "AFR-Friendly D3D" in Force CrossfireX Profile

Step 3: Select "Alternate Frame Rendering" as MVPU Mode

Again, forcing AFR is not a suitable option for "playing" game. It's just for checking fps.
(unless you don't care about massive flickering/outshining/blooming/stuttering/etc...)

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After we dealt with CF, however, there's still one more problem remaining: we need to get rid off the frame limiter in the game. There are -again- two ways to deal with that problem. The first way is to type some commands in in-game console prompt.

In main menu, press [`] (next to [1] key): then in-game console appears.

Type commands as below:
con_restricted 0
sys_maxfps ## (## = any number you want to set as upper bound)

Above shows the max framerate fixed at 200 instead of initial 62.5.

Another way to alter max framerate is to edit system.cfg file directly: open the file via notepad, insert sys_maxfps ## and then save. How easy!

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After solving two problems above, the benchmark shall begin.

First, I checked CF scalability: CF disabled/CF enabled (by changing executable name to bioshock.exe)/CF enabled (by forcing AFR via RadeonPro) modes are tested. Note that non-overclocked 5970 without internal CF (namely single 725MHz GPU) performs similarly to 5850 or slightly above. (due to the number of streaming processors within GPU: original 5850 has single 1440sp GPU while 5970 has 2 GPUs with 1600sp respectively)

As you can see, CF scale varies (roughly) from x1.6 to x2.0 depending on what method is chosen. Remind that under forced-AFR mode the game is literally "unplayable" due to some severe graphics quality problems.

Next is varying-option test: I alter the resolution between 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 and graphics quality among Gamer/Advanced/Hardcore. (in Crysis 2 there's no individual graphics variable such as shader/texture quality level or API version, but only 3 presets present.

Well... that's the end of the test.

Have a nice day!