6870 Performs Poorly While Playing WoW/Watching a Vid

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Tzunami

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I recently "upgraded" to a 6870 from a GTX 260. The problem I am having is anytime I am playing WoW and I try and watch a video, loaded from the Hard Drive or streaming, everything seems to slow to a crawl. WoW stutters, the video stutters and neither are even remotely playable/enjoyable. This wasn't a problem on the 260.

Both monitors are plugged into the DVI connectors on the card. The card is an ASUS EAH6870. I'm runing the 10.10e drivers.

Any ideas what the problem might be?
 
What kind of video? If it's a rip of a Blu-Ray encoded in H.264, the videocard is downclocking to UVD speeds since it's an encoding that its hardware accelerated. UVD clocks are given a higher priority than 3D clocks for some reason. This will also happen if you play a Flash video and have hardware acceleration turned on.
 
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This is why I manually control all of my 2D/3D clock settings and have audio alerts for all of them.
I do not understand why anyone (ATI or Nvidia) would not want to know, at all times, what mode their card is operating in.

As weird as that sounds.
Oh and if you're a WoW player, you need that kind of control more than anyone. ATI cards hate going into 3D mode for WoW.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
What kind of video? If it's a rip of a Blu-Ray encoded in H.264, the videocard is downclocking to UVD speeds since it's an encoding that its hardware accelerated. UVD clocks are given a higher priority than 3D clocks for some reason. This will also happen if you play a Flash video and have hardware acceleration turned on.
Click to expand...

yeah, i agree. Your clocks are downclocked, i used to have it happen until i locked the clocks.
 
I have the same card and everyone here is right. I personally haven't ever gotten any stuttering in wow, but Ill notice the framerate literally cut itself down to 30fps and just stay there. Turning off hardware acceleration in flash videos solved that for me though. I havent had any issues watching 1080p video and wow at the same time though.
 
Ok so it sounds like this is an issue thats happening when my card Downclocks for some reason for 2D? How do I lock my clock speeds?

And yeah, so what if I'm watching porn while playing WoW? :p Don't act like you don't all do it to. Nothing beats raiding ICC with some good dwarf tranny porn on the alt screen!
 
Download MSI Afterburner(works for any brand) and find the program directory. There is a config file there that you need to open. Look for a line about "Unofficial Overclocking" and change it from a 0 to 1. This will disable any PowerPlay features and force the card to stay at full 3D speeds all the time. Or you could go into your video player options and turn off any mention of "Hardware Acceleration". Either should work.
 
Tzunami said:
And yeah, so what if I'm watching porn while playing WoW? :p Don't act like you don't all do it to. Nothing beats raiding ICC with some good dwarf tranny porn on the alt screen!
Click to expand...

hahahah see that is what i miss from raiding! ;-)

Well, it goes as low as multimonitor speed i bet, which was between 300 and 450mhz for the core (single monitor 2d speed = 157 MHz).

And that is a "downclocked to" not a "downclocked by", so yeah that would explain the huge drop in fps, 9xx => ~450 ... :S nasty.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
Download MSI Afterburner(works for any brand) and find the program directory. There is a config file there that you need to open. Look for a line about "Unofficial Overclocking" and change it from a 0 to 1. This will disable any PowerPlay features and force the card to stay at full 3D speeds all the time. Or you could go into your video player options and turn off any mention of "Hardware Acceleration". Either should work.
Click to expand...

What are the collateral effect of doing this? Will my card run hotter than it does now if I make this change? I personally dont mind that the card spins down sometime (I just turned off hardware accel in flash) but if I could turn it off, with no ill effects to my card, I will.
 
Cipherr said:
What are the collateral effect of doing this? Will my card run hotter than it does now if I make this change? I personally dont mind that the card spins down sometime (I just turned off hardware accel in flash) but if I could turn it off, with no ill effects to my card, I will.
Click to expand...

If you disable the power saving features, then the card will idle with higher temps and power usage. During load, both will be the same as they are now. It shouldn't have any kind of effect on stability or the expected lifetime of the card though.
 
First off you play wOw your perception of reality is already a little warped. LOL
No really I get wierd perfomance on the 6870 runs good for a while then its like wTF was that.
 
As someone who plays WoW at 1920x1200 on my main display while watching blu-ray rips with VLC on my 19" secondary display I'm beginning to regret my decision to go with a 6870...
 
I have had extremely poor performance in World of Warcraft with my Radeon 5850. I put back in my 8800 GTS until I get my new Nvidia 460 in the mail. As for the Radeon? I sold it.

I really liked the card, but its poor video playback performance and atrocious WoW performance were deal-breakers for me.
 
Anand is shwoing 60fps average at 2560x1600 8xAA.
What problems did you have exactly?

I'm planning on a 6970 this December which includes playing Cataclysm on it... :eek:
 
Ugh, I hope this is not a problem with the 5870s. I just purchased one yesterday and I'm waiting on it to arrive. I bought it so I can play Cataclysm with full eyecandy at 1920x1080 since I can't currently play the game at max settings with two 512MB 4850s in CF :( I have noticed some dips in performance when watching videos (online/streaming/stored in my pc) and playing WoW, but it usually only lasts a few seconds (between 10-30 secs), it is annoying as hell though :mad:
 
The card is capable of very "high" framerates in WoW, but its performance is unstable. Areas with little vegetation and action will see framerates as high as 200. However, I am lucky to get over 30 FPS in ICC at 1920x1200 with everything at low. Ultra settings are simply a slideshow.

As a reference, my 8800 GTS tends to run circles around my 5850 in World of Warcraft, especially in intensive areas.
 
fishrule said:
However, I am lucky to get over 30 FPS in ICC at 1920x1200 with everything at low. Ultra settings are simply a slideshow.
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I've done dozens of ICC raids with my 4870 on the highest settings, 3 or 4 times on the new patches ("Ultra" settings) and I've never even come close to a slide show... Probably nothing less than 50fps if I had to guess, but I spend most fights staring at raid frames. Even with all the moving around during most encounters, I don't see any issues. I know what 30-40 fps looks and feels like, and I've certainly never seen that inside ICC. Maybe some of the insane extra AA settings might cause that (Box, edge detect, etc), I don't even know what most of them do, but some of them can turn 60fps into 20fps by themselves.

The environmental effects outside ICC, for example flying around Northrend, are a lot more taxing than the inside of an instance.
If you're getting 30fps with everything at low, then you have a bigger problem...
 
Switch hardware video acceleration the opposite of its current setting. I had a lot of problems with videos stuttering on my 6870 even when not playing games but I managed to get it gone by turning off hardware acceleration, if I remember right.
 
This is detailed in the AMD Driver Bug Thread, Issue #2, PowerPlay Downclocking.

Starting any kind of hardware accelerated video will cause the card to drop to 400MHz core, 900MHz RAM. Those clockspeeds are lower than normal 2D clocks, which obviously leads to a MASSIVE performance hit. The drivers ignore 3D applications while said video is open, preventing the card from going to 3D clocks.

Solutions are as follows:
1. Modify your graphics card's BIOS to correct the PowerPlay clockspeeds.
2. Disable ALL hardware acceleration for video playback.
3. Lock the card in 3D clocks at all times.
4. Wait for AMD to release a driver that fixes the issue.

The only one that actually fixes the problem and makes everything act as it should is solution #1 (until AMD fixes the driver, anyway). The others are just dirty hacks that only work around some of the problem (while disabling other functionality).
As far as I know, this bug effects everyone with a 5830, 5850, 5870, 6850, and 6870.
 
How long has this issue been around? It drove me crazy trying to play Civ V in a window while watching Yes, Minister.
 
I have an Acer H233H (23") main display @ 1920x1080 and an LG 226WT 22" secondary @ 1680x1050. I, too, used to have a 260 GTX and watch movies while playing WoW. Occasionally, my machine would lock and the sound would go in to an endless loop, forcing me to restart. I managed to get my hands on a 6870 a few weeks ago myself and I have had that issue only one time, so I am suspect of my OS. I post not because of that but because of this: I have noticed that if I have Internet Explorer open (netflix) at the same time I play wow, my core will drop to 300. I have to close IE, close wow, enable vpu recover, start wow, and disable vpu recove. That usually gives my clocks back. A friend mentioned hardware acceleration as well, so it sounds like he might be spot on.
 
I got a new Diamond 6870 for eyefinity and at 5760*1080 my FPS will shoot up and down, sometimes when I alt tab out it turns into a slide show forcing me to close WOW
 
UtopiA said:
This is why I manually control all of my 2D/3D clock settings and have audio alerts for all of them.
I do not understand why anyone (ATI or Nvidia) would not want to know, at all times, what mode their card is operating in.

As weird as that sounds.
Oh and if you're a WoW player, you need that kind of control more than anyone. ATI cards hate going into 3D mode for WoW.
Click to expand...

^ This.

Thats the best solution. You can also set msi afterburner to display gpu temperature, clock speed, memory speed, fps, and fan speed on your LCD display if you have a Logitech G15/G19.

I have my 5850 set to a 2D profile of 570mhz core, 1200mhz mem, and 20% fan speed. and a 3D Profile of 850mhz, 1200mhz mem and a 50% fan speed.

When you launch a 3d application with msi afterburner setup like I have, and you alt-tab, your card will stay at 3d clock speeds.


ValeX said:
My XFX 5870 XXX edition does this as well. I have dual monitors, and when I start a youtube video up on my left screen and play WoW on my right screen, they both stutter like crazy and are unbearable. Currently using 10.10 I think...

I'm just going to wait for a driver update.
Click to expand...


Your going to be waiting a while I think. That issue has been a problem since 5870 launch last year, believe it was a problem with the 4800's too.


Poquito said:
I got a new Diamond 6870 for eyefinity and at 5760*1080 my FPS will shoot up and down, sometimes when I alt tab out it turns into a slide show forcing me to close WOW
Click to expand...

Whats happening is the card is going into 2d low power mode when you alt-tab and then when u alt-tab its not going back into full power 3d mode.

ATi drivers really are a joke to be honest. I dont even install CCC anymore. Just install the main driver software and then use RadeonPro to set individual application profiles and use MSI Afterburner to control clock speeds/fan speed.
 
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Do you guys think that at 5760*1080 res wow is running out of video memory? When I get to really wide open areas it slows down so much. I wish crossfire was supported but I guess I will just wait a few more weeks for the 6900 series
 
Poquito said:
Do you guys think that at 5760*1080 res wow is running out of video memory? When I get to really wide open areas it slows down so much. I wish crossfire was supported but I guess I will just wait a few more weeks for the 6900 series
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it's not. I've got the same problem with my 5870 and I'm betting it's your 1055t being clocked so low. WoW likes 3 cores or more and lots of speed. When I had my 1055t sitting at 3600 it helped out alot. I'm hoping to go to a q9550 and OC it close to 3.8 and help clear some of that up.
 
Ill try overclocking my 1055 more but for whatever reason it refuses to get above 3.2
 
Sorry to ask this in here but I am having a odd problem while playing WoW and watching TV on my other screen. I keep getting white lines only on the secondary screen watching TV with WMP. Ever happen to have that issue?

Also, how do you keep the 6870 from going into low power mode?
 
The last patch made it almost impossible for me to run WoW maxed out on Ultra with 4xAA. I run it at 1920x1080 and if I have leave shadows maxed out, I go down to about 15fps in dalaran. Inside an instance I'm always vsynced at 60fps, but in the big cities i have to leave my shadow settings one notch below ultra. I don't know if this is because of my older cpu or because I need more video ram. I'm gonna grab me a 6970 as soon as they come out, as long as they offer a 2gb version.
 
Unknown-One said:
This is detailed in the AMD Driver Bug Thread, Issue #2, PowerPlay Downclocking.

Starting any kind of hardware accelerated video will cause the card to drop to 400MHz core, 900MHz RAM. Those clockspeeds are lower than normal 2D clocks, which obviously leads to a MASSIVE performance hit. The drivers ignore 3D applications while said video is open, preventing the card from going to 3D clocks.

Solutions are as follows:
1. Modify your graphics card's BIOS to correct the PowerPlay clockspeeds.
2. Disable ALL hardware acceleration for video playback.
3. Lock the card in 3D clocks at all times.
4. Wait for AMD to release a driver that fixes the issue.

The only one that actually fixes the problem and makes everything act as it should is solution #1 (until AMD fixes the driver, anyway). The others are just dirty hacks that only work around some of the problem (while disabling other functionality).
As far as I know, this bug effects everyone with a 5830, 5850, 5870, 6850, and 6870.
Click to expand...

I did just this as far back as the Catalyst 9.12 drivers since PowerPlay issues caused the video card drivers to black screened or freeze the computer.

The problem lies with ATI/AMD's driver when it switches from one power state to another. I've posted this solution twice on AMD's forum back then when people were having issues with black/gray screens and freezing for their new Radeon 5000-series, and posted it once here. All you do is keep the clockspeeds for GPU and RAM the same across all 4 power states. You can immediately tell it's the drivers when you check Event Viewer and see "atikmdiag" has caused an error or crashed.

It worked for me and I'm sure it'll work for those with these issues. My MSI 5770 Hawk is 825 GPU and 1125 Mem on all 4 power states now. Hasn't freezed at all or black/gray screened on me since I've done it as far back as the 9.12 drivers.

(Of course, it'll defeat the purpose of PowerPlay and power saving modes. But, stability > power saving issues are more important.)

EDIT: I used Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE) to lock the clockspeeds for 3D and 2D and the other 2 power states listed. Think one was idle and the other for Movie mode or something.
 
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I have not had this issue with my 5870 so I can't test this, but I would think just enabling Overdrive even if you do not overclock your card to lock the clock rates high? (Or Afterburner I guess).


Y.
 
octoberasian said:
IAll you do is keep the clockspeeds for GPU and RAM the same across all 4 power states.
Click to expand...

Really, all you need to do is change the power state used for hardware accelerated video from default (400MHz core, 900MHz RAM) to full 3D clocks. The other power states are currently working normally and can be left alone.

Also note, scaling the core clock doesn't really appear to cause any issues. Scaling the memory clock is where all the problems come from (screen flickering, Gray Screen of Death, etc). That's why, shortly after launch, ATi attempted to correct the issue in their drivers by locking memory at full 3D clocks at all times. Apparently, they missed a spot...

Those stellar power saving numbers that were shown in reviews at launch also aren't so great anymore. Keeping the RAM at full 3D clocks to keep the card stable results in noticeably higher idle power usage. That's a pretty poor work-around for a hardware defect (I suppose it's better than recalling all those cards, but anyone who purchased these for their power usage characteristics should be pissed)

Yakk said:
I would think just enabling Overdrive even if you do not overclock your card to lock the clock rates high?.
Click to expand...
The drivers ignore Overdrive and drop clockspeeds below 2D clocks anyway.

While Afterburner can override ATi's clockspeed scaling, it introduces a host of new problems. Certain games don't get detected by it (meaning it won't set the card to 3D clocks) unless you enable aggressive detection (which some anti-cheat systems don't like and will boot you from online games). More trouble than it's worth IMHO.
 
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*EDIT* - Due to the way the profiles are writting in 11.11, this doesn't work for me anymore. I have to force the clocks using Afterburner. If you use like 10.10e, this method still works.

My problems are resolved! The fix for me was creating a catalyst profile then manually editing it to suit my needs. I activate the custom profile before playing WoW and I can watch video or netflix for hours while gaming.

This is NOT my fix. I got this from somewhere but I forgot where (sorry original poster)

1.) Open the profile manager -> Choose composition tab -> check "the following settings" -> tick both boxes at the bottom.
2.) Type in a name and click save. (Note, you might want to save 2 copies. This way you can load the default profile when you're done playign WoW!)
3.) you need to browse to the saved profile -> I am on Win7 so its here:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles
4.) Right click on the saved profile and choose Edit with - Wordpad (notepad may not retain the formatting)
5.) In each section, you need to modify the values so that they are identical to the other values in that section.

Code: 
        <Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="10000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="90000" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="97000" />
        </Feature>

becomes this:

Code: 
        <Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0">
          <Property name="Want_0" value="97000" />
          <Property name="Want_1" value="97000" />
          <Property name="Want_2" value="97000" />
        </Feature>

You want to do that for Coreclock, Memoryclock, and Corevolt. This has been working for like 3 weeks now with no issues at all.

On a side note: It seemed like my browser was taking prescedence over my game. When that happened, the clocks were reduced. As troubleshooting technique, I reduced the priorety of the browser to below normal and increased the game to above normal. That had some success.
 
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I have a weird bug where if I have a video going on my second monitor and a game on the first it forces my 6950 to downclock to 500mhz core and 1000 memory. But if I don't run video of any kind it stays at the 3D clocks.

I downloaded MSI Afterburner and setup profiles for 2D/3D and even forced voltages.
 
Well known driver bug, has gone unresolved for over a year. You'll need to mod your video card's BIOS to work-around the issue.

Match UVD Core clock, Memory clock, and voltage to 3D Core clock, Memory clock, and voltage, then re-flash.
 
Hmm... mine doesn't do that. I have WOW up on one screen, and I'm playing a vid on Media Player Classic just fine. I'm doing this with a single XFX 6870 and 3 monitors on 11.1a.
 
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