CoX doesn't respect chosen GPU

[Chance_Fletcher]

Hi folks,

I'll begin with my unique setup. Running Windows 11. I have two discrete GPU's for reasons. I have an AMD Radeon 6800xt and a 6600. I have an ultra-wide Samsung Odyssey G9 monitor that has a 240hz refresh rate. I use the 6800xt as the "Default high performace GPU", but connect the 6600 to the monitor. The goal is to use any resolution upscaling, frame generation or other adjacent-to-the-main-proccessing on the 6600, while freeing up the 6800xt. This has given me a significant FPS boost and has reduced input lag. This works 100% of the time, even for CoX, until very recently. It continues to work for all other applications or games I want to use it for.

 

My issue is that CoX no longer respects the chosen high performance GPU and will only run on the 6600. I don't believe there have been any game updates since July 8th, maybe there was a small hotfix I don't remember.

 

Things that I have tried:

• Add both the launcher and cityofheroes executables to the graphics settings and setting them to use the 6800xt
• Deleted and reinstalled CoX completely
• Checked the registry entries to ensure that the settings are being saved correctly
• Updated the BIOS to the latest version.
• Checked the BIOS to ensure I didn't mess with a setting; iGPU is disabled for instance and still is.
• Have reinstalled GPU drivers several times, using DDU to do a full wipe in safe mode. In fact, there was an update today and it didn't change anything.

 

I've kind of run out of ideas. The only thing I can think to do is to try a previous version of the GPU driver. My only problem doing that is that driver updates are almost necessary at this point as everything GPU is pretty much bleeding edge and needs constant updates to handle new games.

 

I currently have the game running on my Linux partition and it's working great on the 6800xt. But, Linux doesn't currently have the ability to split the GPU workload. It also doesn't support my monitor's 240hz refresh rate and so I can only get 120 fps out of it.

 

I know, it seems like a ridiculous thing to complain about, but I'm a PC enthusiast and tinkering nerd and when this kind of thing happens it tweaks my brain in a bad way lol

 

If any other information is required, please let me know.

Thanks for any help.

 

EDIT: I can see in the client.log file that it sees both GPU's and all their ports, but I don't see any way for me to force it to use the 6800xt.

Edited September 9 by Chance_Fletcher

[Chance_Fletcher]

Just an update on this as I've tried a few other things. 

 

So, changing my setup by connecting the higher end 6800xt to the monitor and the game is still choosing the 6600. So, now I think this is less a problem with my setup and now more of an actual bug. 

 

Only when completely removing the 6600 does the game run on the 6800xt.

 

Next steps is a fresh install of the game, since that's all I can think of doing. 

 

Also tried putting the 6600 back in after running the game on the 6800xt to see if that somehow reset it. But no, it chooses the 6600 again. 

Edited Sunday at 09:49 PM by Chance_Fletcher
Forgot some information

[Rudra]

Maybe see if your computer is set to use the 6600 as primary. You're using different cards, the computer is going to default to one of them, so see if your hardware is defaulting to the 6600 as the computer's primary driver. That happened on old computers using different cards a lot.

[Chance_Fletcher]

Hi Rudra, thanks for the suggestion.

 

Windows 11 does see both cards and in Settings>System>Display>Graphics there is the ability to set the "High Performance" and the "Power Saving" GPUs. Windows 11 sees the 6600 as the power saving GPU and the 6800xt as the High Performance GPU. I should have mentioned this before, but I have set both the CoH launcher and the cityofheroes.exe files in the win64 version of the game to use the 6800xt as the primary. All the other games I play respect this setting, the only one that doesn't is CoH. I suspect it's because CoH is an OpenGL game and that these settings only apply to DirectX games, but I could be wrong.

 

What's strange about the entire thing is that it worked fine a few weeks ago. I don't know if the game is just arbitrarily selecting a GPU and it's just stuck on using the 6600, or if there is an actual reason it is selecting the 6600. I thought it was choosing to use the 6600 because it had the "Primary" label attached to it, as it was the GPU connected to the monitor, but switching the monitor to be connected to the 6800xt(and thus giving it the primary label) didn't make CoH use the 6800xt. It just seems to always want to run on the 6600 now.

[WanderingAries]

Reset GFX settings in the launcher next time? 

[Chance_Fletcher]

Thanks for the suggestion WanderingAries.

 

Your suggestion didn't fix the problem completely, but it did allow me to use the higher end card while it was the one plugged into the monitor. So, the game is now playable with both GPU's installed. So, thanks for that,