AMD RADEON R7 360 safe overclock.

The AMD RADEON R7 360 comes in many forms. There is no official reference.

Pretty standard form:
GPU clock: 1000Mhz
RAM clock: 6400Mhz

So let us see what is out there.

Gigabyte GV-R736OC-2GD
GPU clock: 1200Mhz
RAM clock: 6500Mhz

All good, now, we will take ASUS AMD R7 360 as an example, as they have 2 revisions of the same model.

R1:
ASUS R7360-OC-2GD5
GPU clock: 1070Mhz
RAM clock: 6500Mhz

R2: (R2 must be better right?)
ASUS R7360-OC-2GD5-V2
GPU clock: 1070Mhz – 1090MhzOC
RAM clock: 6000Mhz – 6020MhzOC

What happened to the RAM clock on the R2?

Hmm,.

We can see some manufacturers feel confident supplying 1200Mhz GPU’s, and 6500Mhz RAM using the same parts.

Checking the ASUS GPU Tweak tool I could take the RAM to 7500Mhz and GPU to 1250Mhz on a R2 card.

Looks like the R2 card was made so the tweak tool could have more perceived impact. Or with the R1 card over clocking was much more dangerous and needed headroom?

OK, on to the safe overclocking.

This GPU will run all day 1100Mhz 1.225V
Ram will run all day at 6200Mhz with stock cooler.

No voltage overclock needed and not beyond any specification of the GPU or RAM.

Always put power target at 110%. even at stock.

If you want to push it,
GPU 1150Mhz 1.255v
RAM 6400Mhz

Your temps will increase, depending on your card and cooler. Make sure the temps stay below 90C

Anyone with a stock 1200Mhz GPU clock card, please do let me know the GPU Voltage for addition and reference to this article.

Note the GDDR 5 RAM chips are rated at higher frequencies without voltage increase. Simply current and heat is the limit here.

Enjoy
BaDboD

Kingston Hyper-X Blu 1600 1.5v safe overclock. Perfomance boost without overclock

Kingston Hyper-X Blu 1600 1,5v RAM come with very conservative settings.

You can safely over clock this RAM without going outside the frequency and voltage specifications.

First off, you need to make sure the RAM is getting the 1.5v it is supposed to be. My MB reported 1.47v when left at auto. The max rating for this RAM is 1.575v, the correct operating voltage is 1.5v. We do not want to increase the voltage above the correct operating voltage, just make it correct.

Let us fix that.

find your tool of choice to show the actual voltage, even the MB status will show actual v set.

Increase or reduce RAM voltage in your Advanced Voltage settings until you see the reports matching 1.5v. I have set 1.53v (+0.03v) and shows 1.50 in sensor readings. This is still well below the 1.575v max rating, so even in error of the sensors I am safe the RAM is now getting the correct voltage and maybe even a little extra.

For safety, make sure you never add more than .05v in case your sensors are way off.

Disable XMP profile, then increase RAM multiplier. Your target is the rated 1600Mhz.

change RAM timings from 10,10,10,35 to 9,9,9,24

your done, 8% ram speed increase without any frequency or voltage overclock.

Enjoy
BaDboD

AMD FX 6350 safe overclocking. Performance boost without overclocking.

How to get better performance without going outside specifications

CPU:
AMD 6350

Vcore=VID

STOCK:
Under load: 3.9Ghz Vcore=1.3875
Idle: 1.4Ghz Vcore 0.8750v
Idle Boost: 4.2Ghz Vcore=1.425v

Note that under load the CPU does not use boost. Only from idle for short durations will you ever get 4.2Ghz clock.

Let us fix that.

In your BIOS,
Disable ‘Core Performance Boost’
Change your CPU clock ratio to 21 = 4.2Ghz
Set CPU Vcore to ‘normal’
Set Dynamic Vcore to +0.0125

Now your running at 4.2Ghz with Vcore 1.404v, under load, with lower voltage and temperatures than stock 4.2Ghz Vcore 1.425v on rare boost. On idle you still get 1.4Ghz clock at a slightly increased 0.880v Vcore. A non issue.

Over 12 hours at 100% CPU usage gave CPU temp 49C, with MB VRM of 72C. ~2C higher than stock settings at 3.9Ghz for the same 12 hours.

Simply setting multiplier to 4.2Ghz would have the CPU running at 4.2Ghz at 1.425v and temps approach 55C MB/85C VRM fast, due to the 1.425v auto setting.

If you do want to go over specification then with this method you could raise to 4.3Ghz or 4.4Ghz while only raising Dynamic Vcore up to the rated 1.425V. I will leave that to you, but keep an eye on CPU temp and MB VRM temps. CPU should not go more than 60C and MB VRM no more than ~90C.

MB=MotherBoard.
MAX VRM temp for my MB is rated at 110C before throttling.

Enjoy
BaDboD

Linux Mint 18, Ubuntu 16.04 AMD Radeon open source video problem, vainfo error

Getting poor video playback or video problems using Linux Mint 18 or Ubuntu 16.04 and the open source AMD Radeon driver?

You will probably notice your vainfo shows an error:

#vainfo
libva: VA-API version 0.32.0
libva: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva: Trying to open /usr/lib/dri/r600_drv_video.so
libva: va_openDriver() returns -1

install vdpau-va-driver
sudo apt install vdpau-va-driver

Now add LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=vdpau to /etc/environment and reoot.

now all should be good and vainfo should show something like
#vainfo
libva info: VA-API version 0.39.0
libva info: va_getDriverName() returns 0
libva info: User requested driver 'vdpau'
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/vdpau_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_0_39
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 0.39 (libva 1.7.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Splitted-Desktop Systems VDPAU backend for VA-API - 0.7.4
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG4Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG4AdvancedSimple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Baseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD

[update]This does not work with Radeon R7 360 and is not needed[/update]

Creativerse on Linux using Wine

This has took me a little while to get working due to missing fonts etc and Steam and Creativerse not agreeing about them.

Already installed under Wine but text/fonts missing from buttons and other areas in Creativerse using Wine on Linux? No problem.

While there is no official Linux support for Creativerse as yet, it does work well under Wine. So here goes.

install wine-staging, Instructions for various distros here. You could use the Wine supplied by your distro but for better performance I am using wine-staging.

Make sure your windows version is set to Windows XP in the applications tab of winecfg

wine-staging-tb1

install steam using the official windows installer from the Steam website.

install corefonts
winetricks corefonts

Run Steam with the following commands
cd ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Steam"
wine Steam.exe -no-cef-sandbox -no-dwrite

change the path on the first line to match where your Wine install of steam is.

install creativerse

Play.

For better performance go to the staging tab in winecfg and enable the first two options.

wine-staging-tb

Notes
Creativerse occasionally bugs out during the initial loading screen. Just fire it up again and all good.
The windows version must be Windows XP for now or Steam wont run.
Don’t forget the corefonts as you won’t get any text on the buttons and messages etc in game.
The -no-cef-sandbox option prevents Steam crashing out due to a Chrome problem.
The -no-dwrite option is needed as without it you will get no text in Steam after installing corefonts.
As you might notice I am using a 64 bit Wine prefix. It works fine in a 32 bit prefix, some might suggest faster and more reliably. Just change the path in the Steam run commands to suit. I don’t really see much difference during testing so rather than messing about with prefixes etc, I stick with the defaults for my OS as long as it works and is playable.

Testing done with:
Linux Mint 18
AMD FX-6350
AMD Radeon HD 6670 / AMD Radeon R7 360
16 GiB DDR-3 1600 RAM Kingston Hyper-V (Blue)
Open Source drivers (out of the box Linux Mint provided)

Creativerse runs and looks great with visual settings at medium but my graphics card is ancient. You should be able to set everything to max on a newer R7 series card. (works fine with everything max on R7 360)

As usual, please use comments and I will try to answer any problems, also any useful hints ‘n tips you send in comments I will add/update this post with full credits.

Enjoy 🙂

[update]testing under newer R7 series video card (30/10/2016)[/update]