Bad stuttering w/ 5870

T

Tyler_Durden

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Aug 19, 2009
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Hi all,

Just got my 5870 today and I'm getting some really bad stuttering in games. I had a 4890 in my system before this and while there was stuttering at times in certain games (Crysis, Stalker CS) it was nowhere near as bad as it is now. It seems like everytime something new happens in-game there's a slight pause. This is at 1280x720 on a 37 inch hdtv. I even turned all the settings down to high in Crysis and it seemed just as bad... I have no clue what's causing this to happen. My averages are alright. I think my score was around 13500 in 3D mark Vantage. Not sure if that's ok or not.

I think I did everything by the book. Uninstalled old driver, booted to safe mode, ran driver cleaner and installed new drivers.

Anyone else having these problems?

I was also wondering if performance decreases when the card is plugged into two display devices. I have one of them disabled.

My specs:

Phenom 2 X4 945
4 gigs ram @1600 8-8-8-24
WD AALS 640 gig
Windows 7 64
1920x 1024
 
I would repeat your steps again to uninstall the old drivers to install new drivers again.
 
Tyler_Durden said:
I was also wondering if performance decreases when the card is plugged into two display devices. I have one of them disabled.
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That doesn't affect performance.

Have you tried basic games (very low demanding games that aren't Crysis or Stalker) as opposed to just lowering the in game settings on Crysis / Stalker.

13500 is lowish... but I'm not sure how big of an effect your processor has on the vantage score. My i7 860 at stock gets 16200.
 
I know that there was an issue with gamebryo (in oblivion) where youd get stuttering in some cases where the max pre-render frames were set to anything higher than 1. Does CCC have this? Might be worth checking out
 
Make sure V-Sync isn't enabled in Catalyst Control Center. I can't remember if it comes enabled by default. In UT3, if V-sync was enabled, it would stutter every other second. It was the strangest issue that I ever had before.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
Make sure V-Sync isn't enabled in Catalyst Control Center. I can't remember if it comes enabled by default. In UT3, if V-sync was enabled, it would stutter every other second. It was the strangest issue that I ever had before.
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I don't think its enabled by default. I never changed it and saw over 200fps in COD4. I thought I noticed a stutter once in a while but could not figure out if it was internet lag or not. For the most part it runs smooth.
 
I made sure V-Sync was off. I'm gonna test it out with more games, try different drivers, and cross my fingers. I don't think the card is bad. I don't think the 945 should be holding me back much either. I wonder if my HDD or RAM is causing it.
 
Tyler_Durden said:
I made sure V-Sync was off. I'm gonna test it out with more games, try different drivers, and cross my fingers. I don't think the card is bad. I don't think the 945 should be holding me back much either. I wonder if my HDD or RAM is causing it.
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It would seem a slower CPU would just hold back the overall speed of the card and not create this stutter effect. Although I could be wrong. We really need some official drivers.
 
I would say your problem is your resolution. At 1280x720, you're not utilizing your 5870's power. Lower resolutions become cpu dependant. Higher resolutions, 1600x1200 & above, are gpu dependant.

I also suggest you create a signature of your complete system specs. It helps us help you.
 
Listen for HD noise during the stutters. I had a problem with the swap file paging while gaming and causing these kinds of pauses.
 
An Asus VW246H 24"

Well, I tried playing the train level in Crysis Warhead and it ran really good. Better than it did with the 4890 anyway. So far the problem seems to be with Crysis and Stalker CS. I did run the original Stalker earlier and it was really smooth but there was spots where it would stutter.
 
RMA it if you keep getting stuttering. Normal 5870's don't have stuttering. They might have flicker (which can be solved by more voltage), but not stutter, not with a single video card.
 
I have stuttering in Crysis too occasionally in Windows 7. It could be the catalyst drivers. I dual booted with fresh installs of 7 64 and Vista 64 and the same scenes where 7 would stutter in Crysis, it would be perfectly smooth in Vista. No idea what's going on there.
 
astrallite said:
I have stuttering in Crysis too occasionally in Windows 7. It could be the catalyst drivers. I dual booted with fresh installs of 7 64 and Vista 64 and the same scenes where 7 would stutter in Crysis, it would be perfectly smooth in Vista. No idea what's going on there.
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Interesting thought. Could be the drivers as well. When is Nvidia releasing their next WHQL certifieds? The betas have been out for a while now.
 
I play Crysis on Window 7 for about 2 hours and didn't notice any shutter. Which scene did the shuttering occur the most?
 
Tyler_Durden said:
I can't hear my HD at all. But, what did you do to fix it?
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Not necessarily "noise" but see if it's "working". Crysis and Stalker do a lot of texture-swapping. It could be driver-related but it's probably caching stuff in and out of your page file, causing slight pauses.

It could be any number of things...I have a list I use to troubleshoot but it involves shutting down most of Windows background processes, which I usually permanently disable anyway.

People don't like hearing it bc they love eye candy, but Windows has a lot background crap that ruins gaming. BlackViper has a good list of things to disable. Google for it. I even go as far as shutting off Windows indexing completely...
 
ganesh21 said:
I play Crysis on Window 7 for about 2 hours and didn't notice any shutter. Which scene did the shuttering occur the most?
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It happens prettty much everytime something new happens. It happens consistently when I aim using the iron sight (or reflex sight). If I turn quick to look at another area, it'll pause there too.

I have all settings maxed with no AA in Crysis.

I ran Warhead again maxed with full AA and I'm not experiencing any of this. It actually ran really good.

I think it has something to do with the drivers... I use the one recommended on ATI's site.

Ogilvy said:
Not necessarily "noise" but see if it's "working". Crysis and Stalker do a lot of texture-swapping. It could be driver-related but it's probably caching stuff in and out of your page file, causing slight pauses.

It could be any number of things...I have a list I use to troubleshoot but it involves shutting down most of Windows background processes, which I usually permanently disable anyway.

People don't like hearing it bc they love eye candy, but Windows has a lot background crap that ruins gaming. BlackViper has a good list of things to disable. Google for it. I even go as far as shutting off Windows indexing completely...
Click to expand...

The thing is, I didn't have this problem before. Not to this extent anyway. The stuttering was there, but nowhere near as bad as it is now.
 
Tyler_Durden said:
The thing is, I didn't have this problem before. Not to this extent anyway. The stuttering was there, but nowhere near as bad as it is now.
Click to expand...

:shrug: everyone's home build is different. just giving you ideas to experiment with. :)
 
Did up install patch 1.2 for Crysis? The original game had some pretty bad performance, especially where ever there was water.
 
I've had similar problems with my 5870 and I'm fairly sure they're driver related. I'm uninstalled and reinstalled a few times but I'm not in a position to reinstall windows so I haven't bothered doing that. I'm also using Win7 and the drivers posted on AMDs site.

I'm not seeing stuttering as much as momentary pauses that can last for a second or so. I'm also running an i7 920 and the problem is much more pronounced than what I've seen before. I can also crash the actual driver if I'm watching a HD movie and clicking away on my second monitor. Actually just crashed it with a movie playing and typing this post. The driver eventually restarts and the display comes back but it's rather annoying.

Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to try the card in a second system and see if the problem still exists. That might help narrow down our problem if yours is the same as mine.
 
I guess its a defective card..

I got my first one exactly like yours.

you can see my post several days ago, I was complaining exactly same thing as yours..

but after I bought another one, everything is smooth like butter ...

so I am pretty sure yours is defective card.. :p
 
Well, shit... I hope not. I'm not sure how long an RMA process would take, but I'll be without a card for at least a couple weeks. I'm gonna hold off for the next driver update, if that doesn't fix the problem, I'm gonna RMA it.

I took a screenshot of my 3DMark Vantage score. Does this score look normal?

It shows I have a 5850 btw..
newbitmapimage.jpg
 
Try running GPU-Z and make sure all PCI-Express lanes are in use/enabled. Also check your motherboard's BIOS settings. Especially the PCI-E and graphics related ones.

Also make sure your motherboard isn't clocking down like an energy-saving feature.

Use task manager while your games are running to check CPU utilization. If you are at or near %100 then you know it's CPU and not GPU related. Also use a program like Rivatuner to check your GPU temperatures that it isn't too hot (over about 95c).

Run a program like Crap Cleaner. Also disable any background tasks that show they are using CPU cycles. Use Task Manager to see what, if any, background apps are eating CPU cycles.

It might be a bad card or it might be your BIOS settings or it might be driver issues, I don't know. Tried Vista32? Try Vista32 if you can and see if the card still does it.
 
Your Vantage score seems a little low, but that can be from your CPU being at stock. Vantage puts a lot of emphasis on CPU, and the Phenom II doesn't score very well in it. Re-run your test, and just look at the GPU score. You should be around 15000-16000 at stock speeds. My OC'd card socre a little over 18000.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
Your Vantage score seems a little low, but that can be from your CPU being at stock. Vantage puts a lot of emphasis on CPU, and the Phenom II doesn't score very well in it. Re-run your test, and just look at the GPU score. You should be around 15000-16000 at stock speeds. My OC'd card socre a little over 18000.
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His screenshot shows his gpu vantage score which is 15473.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
His screenshot shows his gpu vantage score which is 15473.
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Hmm, looked right over it. Haven't used 3DMark in ages, since 03 was released. Just installed Vantage last night to help in another thread. Forgive my ineptitude.

Back to topic, your GPU scores are in the normal range, so the hardware is good. Most likely a compatibility issue with the games and driver. Can't wait till 9.10 is released and starts fixing all these issues. And, according to Brent, it should also give us a performance boost.
 
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I have problems in Crysis that I don't see in warhead as well. White spots on certain textures, and slowdowns when i look through the sights etc like you mentioned. Hopefully the drivers fix these types of issues.
 
Score looks pretty normal to me. I get a little over 16K on the gpu with a 4ghz Q9650. Did you happen to notice any stuttering during the vantage test other then the normal places where it tends to bog a bit?
 
FranklyShankly said:
I have problems in Crysis that I don't see in warhead as well. White spots on certain textures, and slowdowns when i look through the sights etc like you mentioned. Hopefully the drivers fix these types of issues.
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I was playing Crysis Warhead and notice some spots on the tree. Only happening in Crysis, so i believe it can be a driver issue. This is on a 4870x2.
 
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Strange stuttering? I say PSU is weak. Try another one. Moving to a 5870 only made the stress on it worse.
 
The stuttering issue is only in two particular games. If his PSU was the problem, it would show up in other games. In fact, I believe he's said Crysis Warhead is ok, and that game stresses systems more than most. I had a stuttering issue in UT3 with the first 9.10 beta, and it went away with a newer leak that I found over at Guru3D. But I've never had a bad PSU, so I can't really say with confidence that it's not the issue. I still think he should wait for some official drivers, since I would hate to see him buy new hardware that doesn't fix the issue. It seems that alot of people are having various issues such as this with the 5870. I'm starting to think that AMD released this card before the driver team had enough time to work out the kinks.
 
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Just curious...are these actual pauses or "jitters" ?
I have games that seem to have little jitters when I use mouselook. At first I was blaming my bluetooth keyboard/mouse, but since nobody else seems to have that issue...I wonder if it's my card or the drivers?
 
ganesh21 said:
I was playing Crysis Warhead and notice some spots on the tree. Only happening in Crysis, so i believe it can be a driver issue. This is on a 4870x2.
Click to expand...

no, those are black dots on tree in warhead..

in Crysis, I have experience some white line on some certain texture, which it never happen before for me when using 4870CF/4890CF..

guess this is a driver issue.

but stuttering issue I previously had is defective card....
 
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