Optimising 2 cores in OpenGL

Hi guys,

I've mentioned this in the Big Benchmark thread, but basically, I recently discovered that my dual gpu card (the Asus Ares) is only using one core when Xonotic is using OpenGL. The only time the game uses both is when it is running in Directx 9, but for some reason texture compression isn't supported and the game crashes a lot.

This 'one core' problem occurs with many OS games - benchmarks and full games (that you have to pay for) utilise both cores.

Is there an easy fix for this, or are you devs going to wait for the driver peoples to add profiles?

Quick update: a guy on the Asus Rog forums says: "If the game is missing a required library or coding method then it can only be fixed there. If the coders have done everything right and it still fails then that is an AMD issue."

Can anyone comment on this?

Your two GPUs are connected via Crossfire, AMDs variant of Nvidia's SLI. The distribution of workload between Crossfire-connected GPUs is done by the driver.

For both Crossfire and SLI the driver has to choose a fitting work distribution model. To accomplish this the drivers from AMD and Nvidia contain Crossfire/SLI "profiles" (basically a set of well-working settings for a specific game) for popular games.

Given that AMD apparently does not ship a Crossfire profile for Xonotic you may have to create your own one. In the past there was no way for users to create such profiles, but I think current drivers allow this.

Well my cores aren't really connected with crossfire because it's a single card with 2 gpus inside. I've experimented with different profiles in Radeon Pro, but to no avail. If anyone else has a dual-gpu single card like mine, perhaps they could also try messing around with the settings?

I will keep trying to experiment and I will update my drivers, but for now, nothing seems to work for Xonotic.

Xonotic seems to use both cores in DirectX mode though. Unfortunately, the game crashes and the tells me that 'texture compression is required but not supported'.

Well my cores aren't really connected with crossfire because it's a single card with 2 gpus inside.

Even though both GPUs are on the same board they are of course still connected via CrossfireX technology. It's just a more compact solution.

Even though both GPUs are on the same board they are of course still connected via CrossfireX technology. It's just a more compact solution.

Well, I suppose they are, but I always thought it was handled differently.

Anyway... I've done some tests, and I discovered that running the game in OpenGL (even with one core active) gave me much higher fps.
When the game ran in Dx9, it utilised both cores, but the fps was lower. This might be down to the texture compression issue, but it's an interesting discovery.

Please see attached my custom timedemo results.