ATI R9 270 switches to 2D mode while gaming

Vahraan

Hopefully you guys can help me out with my latest problem.

I bought an r9 270 ati card a couple of days ago and threw it into my system. Uninstalled the drivers using Catalyst Control Center, then reinstalled the latest version of CCC and the appropriate drivers for my new card.

Everything hums along nicely, I pop into Wildstar and start getting 40+ fps pretty much all the time. Great!

However, if I switch to my desktop/chrome and do something there, switching back I notice my fps drops to 10-20 and stays there. I investigated a bit and it seems that the cards clocks switch from 955/1400MHz (advertised) to 300/150MHz (idle, or somewhere around there) sometimes when I switch focus. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if they'd spin back up while Wildstar is on the screen, but they do not. The card seems to stick in low performance mode until I restart my computer.

Is there any way to force the clocks up? Or a way to force it into high performance mode? I understand that I don't want to be getting full speed ALL the time, since then I'd have heat management issues. But while I'm gaming it's rather bothersome to have paid for a new card which refuses to deliver it's full potential.


Thanks!

Dratatoo

This issue seems to occur in combination with certain AMD hardware / GPU driver versions and HW accelerated Flash content. (It's also an issue which appears and disappears every few driver versions)Try disabling HW acceleration for Flash (right click a Flash applet or YouTube video -> Properties -> General). This shouldn't affect the performance of Flash if you have a newish PC (made in the last 5 years). Otherwise you can also close your browser before switching back to Wildstar.

You can also try switching between fullscreen and borderless window modes in Wildstar, and check if the problem remains.