ATI & NVIDIA Frame Rendering (weirdness?)

[Cerulean]

My computer specs are in my signature below. Only difference is that I setup a special 40GB partition for Vista Ultimate x64 and totally optimized it for only gaming so that I can get the most out of my system with DirectX10/11 support.

My brother's computer specs can be found at http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1331854, and he is using Windows XP Professional (x84) SP3.

This is what I noticed in The Sims 3 (and other games too) when the camera flies in to Sunset Valley from the ocean bay towards the town: although my framerate is above 60, it does not appear to be a smooth and constant gliding of the camera (even with VSync enabled), whereas my brother's 9600GT can render the whole thing perfectly smooth and constant. Why?

I notice this in other games too; it seems like ATI cannot properly render material smoothly with consistency or something. If you need me to produce a video recording, I am able to do so.

 

[shansoft]

my guess is you probably run into VRAM limit..

512VRAM is not a good choice for modern game, I feel the same way when I switch from 4870 512MB CF to 4870 1G CF, the games got a lot more smoother...

BTW, what resolution you have ?

 

[risqu3]

i dunno, sims 3 shouldn't need more then 512mb vram, make sure nothing was happening in the background? anti virus scan or something like that..

 

[Cerulean]

I always use 1024x768 for everything unless taking high quality beauty screenshots or renders for something.

i dunno, sims 3 shouldn't need more then 512mb vram, make sure nothing was happening in the background? anti virus scan or something like that..

Just to reiterate:

Only difference is that I setup a special 40GB partition for Vista Ultimate x64 and totally optimized it for only gaming so that I can get the most out of my system with DirectX10/11 support.

That means a plain installation of Vista Ultimate x64, some things stripped out after the install, optimization of what services should be running and what shouldn't, various other but similar tweaks, no anti-virus, etcetera and nothing more.

Also notice that my brother's 9600GT and my HD4850 both have the same amount of VRAM, but my brother has a slower processor and less RAM.

 

[shansoft]

I always use 1024x768 for everything unless taking high quality beauty screenshots or renders for something.

Just to reiterate:
That means a plain installation of Vista Ultimate x64, some things stripped out after the install, optimization of what services should be running and what shouldn't, various other but similar tweaks, no anti-virus, etcetera and nothing more.

Also notice that my brother's 9600GT and my HD4850 both have the same amount of VRAM, but my brother has a slower processor and less RAM.

then I am not too sure about it...

since your resolution is extremely low...

btw, did you turn on AA? try to turn it off if you did..

 

[KillaChaos]

My computer specs are in my signature below. Only difference is that I setup a special 40GB partition for Vista Ultimate x64 and totally optimized it for only gaming so that I can get the most out of my system with DirectX10/11 support.

My brother's computer specs can be found at http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1331854, and he is using Windows XP Professional (x84) SP3.

This is what I noticed in The Sims 3 (and other games too) when the camera flies in to Sunset Valley from the ocean bay towards the town: although my framerate is above 60, it does not appear to be a smooth and constant gliding of the camera (even with VSync enabled), whereas my brother's 9600GT can render the whole thing perfectly smooth and constant. Why?

I notice this in other games too; it seems like ATI cannot properly render material smoothly with consistency or something. If you need me to produce a video recording, I am able to do so.

Are you both using the same monitor?

 

[Cerulean]

Are you both using the same monitor?

Nope, but we're both using 1024x768 @ 75 Hz.

btw, did you turn on AA? try to turn it off if you did..

Will try that and (1) default graphics settings in CCC, and (2) lowest graphical quality / maximized performance settings in CCC.

EDIT :: Mirror's Edge produces the same problem, as I have just found, but only when I have anti-aliasing enabled. The greater the anti-aliasing quality, the greater the lag (even though the framerate is perfectly fine). I can do 2x with hardly noticeable lag, but with each step higher it becomes one step more noticeable.

And on top of some similar or other frustrations, I'm at aweshock to find that my card won't involve itself in the PhysX calculations (I experience a massive FPS drop if I have PhysX enabled in Mirror's Edge when it comes to shattering glass and stuff).

This is dumb. If it is the antialiasing that is causing this, then NVIDIA does it better in every single way: antialiasing without lag, built-in PhysX support, etcetera!

EDIT2 :: On the bright side, ATI has GPU support for Havoc physics and I can just buy a BFG PhysX card off of eBay to take care of the NVIDIA problem.

EDIT3 :: Or just buy an NVIDIA card.