6900 CF and microstutter

[BababooeyHTJ]

I agree with this assessment based on my experience with crossfire. I've tried 2 x 5870s, a 5970, and more recently 2 x 6950s. If the frames get below 60 you might as well be on a single card with 30 to 40 fps as it feels more responsive despite the lower reported frames. This particularly applies to eyefinity configurations where frames below 60 are more common. Crossfire in single screen does perform very well.

I completely agree with you. I'm really debating trading my 6950s for a GTX580 due to the microstutter. I actually got a good deal on a 4870x2 a while back and ended up deciding to sell it and keep my GTX280 due to performance not feeling any better in games where I needed more performance (I didn't know that was microstutter at the time) and when crossfire didn't scale at all the 280 mopped the floor with the x2.

The decision to trade the 6950 setup is a bit harder since the difference with a single 6950 and GTX580 is much smaller than a 4870 and GTX280.

 

[evolucion8]

Microstuttering was very severe under the HD 4x00 series as I owned the HD 4870 1GB in CF and even on high FPS, it would be noticeable and annoying, using V-Sync fixed it. But trading a HD 6950 CF setup for a GTX 580 you will loose performance for sure, CF scaling is far more spectacular now than it was on previous generation of hardware. Microstuttering is an issue that affects all Multi-GPU solutions regardless of the GPU vendor due to the nature of AFR rendering.

 

[TwistedAegis]

Eyefinity is where my problem started. A single 6970 was enough for me on a single monitor to manhandle most games running 1920x1080. When I started running at 5760X1080 I felt the need for some extra horsepower to continue playing the same games with the same settings. In alot of games I see the same chuggy frames that others are talking about. I ran multiple FPS programs to check what I was seeing and never did my frames go below 50-60. The games I tried this on were New Vegas, Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2 w/ MOD10, Bound in Blood, and many others. I've been thinking about ditching the multi screen / multi-GPU setup and getting a 30' monitor and a single card like a GTX580.

I love my eyefinity setup but I also love eye candy.

Even with a 30", a single 580 / 6970 isn't enough to really go "all out" with optional IQ settings. Unfortunately.

 

[Raap]

Eyefinity is where my problem started. A single 6970 was enough for me on a single monitor to manhandle most games running 1920x1080. When I started running at 5760X1080 I felt the need for some extra horsepower to continue playing the same games with the same settings. In alot of games I see the same chuggy frames that others are talking about. I ran multiple FPS programs to check what I was seeing and never did my frames go below 50-60. The games I tried this on were New Vegas, Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2 w/ MOD10, Bound in Blood, and many others. I've been thinking about ditching the multi screen / multi-GPU setup and getting a 30' monitor and a single card like a GTX580.

I love my eyefinity setup but I also love eye candy.

Problem is, if you do that you'll have to lower your settings to get decent framerates anyway. You might as well just do that on your current setup, thus eliminating the signs of microstutter.

Anyway, one thing I'm curious about for you guys having microstutter problems, have you tried lowering the 'Frames to render ahead' option? I'm not sure how visible it is anymore, might need a third-party application to change it, but I used it on my 9800GX2 to good effect a few years ago. Setting it to just 1( I think 2 or 3 is the default?) will probably lower your fps a bit, but it'll also make it feel much smoother since everything will respond more quickly. Think it's called Flip-queue size for ATI.

 

[vulcZ]

I had gotten micro-stutter sometimes with my 5970, but alt-tabbing out of the game and back into the game fixed it for me on the few games I ever noticed it on.

No micro-stutter on my 6990 though.

 

[TwistedAegis]

I can't make out the microstutter, my games are flashing too much.

Seriously though, this flashing like a strobe light needs to get fixed.

 

[chinesepiratefood]

FYI, if a game is running below 30fps your going to see "micro-stutter" as you call it. I know the term and effect is real, but below 30fps in a fast moving game your going to see stuttering....its human physiology. You know how they talk about movies running at 24fps/1080p....thats cause the film industry records at 24fps...above that its hard for the human eye to distinguish a individual frames in film. Some people are more acutely aware of it then others and gaming situation dictates, but if you can hit 30fps in a game then its gonna look the same as 120fps.

I've been running CF 5870s for about a year (upgrading to 6970s when they come in the mail) and ive not had an issue that im aware of.

No, just no.

 

[Deleted member 222586]

Low framerate isn't much of a culprit as is framerate variation. What we're noticing is how the framerate changes. If it was a constant 25fps, no more no less, then playback wouldn't be jerky.

Nope, actually. As of now the FPS measure should be ditched, because it tells us nothing. The only thing that matters is the distribution of frames among a second: I don't want 200 frames on such second, I want all frames to be evenly distributed, to get me a smooth feeling.

Also to add to what your saying, James Cameron has been pushing to move films to 60fps..

Lets not mix stuff up, mate. 24fps theater technology has NOTHING to do with computer frames, except the name.

You see, when you look at 1 minute of footage @ 24fps you see exactly every single instant that happend there....but when we talk about "frames" then we don't. A computer frame is an scene that lasts no time: its static, there is no movement at all. Thats why we want to have as many as possible, because the more frames we have, the more "complete" that story (or whatever)

@ 24fps, though, we have movement: the shutter of the camera is kept open for 1/24 s. and thus EVERYTHING that happens on that moment gets captured. This is why you have blurr when you pause a movie (frames are blurry on their own), and that is what makes 24fps movies so attractive.

So, lets to mix stuff. Theater movies are fine as they are, we need more FPS on a computer game, not on a movie...

 

[Mr Mean]

I thought Micro-stutter was only "really" noticeable when you run at low frames to begin with, frames that you wouldn't play a game at ?

It is. When I was playing The witcher 2 and had it set to "uber" setting. The game stuttered like crazy because it wasn't even hitting 30 FPS in an intense fighting scene. Disable uber and turn it down a notch and the stuttering was somewhat gone. But it was later fixed in a hotfix (but I completed the game before I applied it ).

Micro-stuttering from my experience exist in both Crossfire and SLI and I've experienced it when it was below 30 FPS. I should benchmark heaven 2.0 to see if it was a driver related issue or was crossfire even enabled. The system load don't seem correct if both GPUs were properly utilized.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

I can see microstutter at a over 40fps in certain circumstances.