Hello, this is my first post.
When I tried an MSI Gaming 290X I used a very simple piece of software called "MSI Gaming App". It's just a window pane with 4 buttons on it. When you click the "OC Mode" or the "Gaming Mode" button, what it does is force the GPU clock to full speed and it makes it stay there. It's absolutely brilliant.
Well, apparently MSI are the only wizards to create such a thing. You can do the same thing with MSI Afterburner, but I dislike that software and it uses some questionable methods that have side effects.
I now have a Sapphire Vapor-X 290X and I need this functionality. I have gone back and forth with their tech support, but to no avail. I am baffled as to why MSI are the only ones clever enough to create this simple solution.
It's very aggravating that AMD have chosen to make this so difficult. What happened to the good old days when there were just two speeds - 2D and 3D. When you switch to 3D mode, the GPU clock should go to max speed and stay there. This "Powertune" stuff is annoying. The Card clocks down at the wrong moments. This especially happens with older games like Far Cry 3.
What I have noticed is that, if you run a benchmark such as 3DMark 11 or Heaven 3.0/4.0, the clocks go to full speed and stay there. I have confirmed this with GPU-Z. So whatever "magic" causes the R9 cards to reach their full clock and stay there, these benchmarks are triggering this effect, but games are not.
I should also mention that this behavior is present when V-Sync is enabled. If I disable V-Sync the clocks are full blast. But I don't like screen tearing, so I always enable V-Sync. Nvidia provides the ability to lock the clocks at their max speed via a simple option in their driver. Why is AMD not allowing us to do the same?
What magic is MSI doing? How are they doing it so simply? Is there a way to duplicate what they have done with some code?
