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Bizarre frame skipping issue

DAOWAce

DAOWAce

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
139
12/3/10 Edit: I have upgraded a GTX 460. I still experience frame skipping meaning it was not the video card.

12/15/10 Edit: I have added a second GTX 460 and went back to FFXIV. I am not experiencing frame skipping anymore. Wtf? You'd think that going multi-GPU would worsen problems like this. I am completely baffled. I have yet to test the other problematic games.

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Preface: Specs partially irrelevant but you can find them here. I also don't want to hear anybody mention Windows 7 (explained later in post). I could also describe it as frame dropping or microstuttering, though they don't seem as appropriate as 'skipping'.

This is a single card 9800GTX+ setup.


Issue: I started noticing frame skipping when I started playing FFXIV in closed beta 3 late August / early September. Whether or not I had it before that, I can't remember. It was an intermittent issue. Happened in some areas, some situations, but not in others. Usually only when the framerate was above 40, but sometimes FPS was irrelevant.

I thought it was specific to only FFXIV. I was wrong. Most any other game I've tried playing has experienced some frame skipping. I assumed it was due to my partially broken Vista install and/or video drivers. I tried going from 197.45 (due to nHancer) to a clean install of 260.63 and still experienced frame skipping.

I wound up getting a new hard drive and doing a fresh install of Vista x64 again. After I got the bare minimum installed (windows updates, drivers) I loaded up a game which saved its settings in a portable fashion. Surprisingly enough, there was frame skipping. That was a huge let down.

It was testing time. I booted to my XP x32 install (which is 4 years old loaded with tons of codecs for audio/video editing), loaded up the same game and... there was no frame skipping. I thought it was a fluke, so I played for 15 minutes, but there really was no frame skipping at all. This is what I believe ruled out my hardware as a culprit.

Immediately I booted back to my new Vista install and loaded up the game. Frame skipping within 5 seconds.

All three installs were using the same audio/video drivers and latest motherboard drivers.

From this, I now musk ask for help, even though I'm supposed to be the tech support guy. I have no idea what could possibly be the cause for frame skipping under Vista. I don't run DWM (as there's a bug which causes slowdowns in windowed 3D accelerated applications, which happened on 7 too) so Aero is out of the equation. Other than that, I really don't know what to troubleshoot. Whether windowed or fullscreen, minimum or maximum settings, it makes no difference. Running 20 background programs or running zero, no difference.

Here's some some self explanatory screenshots:

http://daow.net/images/processlist.png
http://daow.net/images/installedprograms.png
http://daow.net/images/installedprograms7.png

Off topic, but notice the ugly ass font change from Vista to 7? I can't turn that shit off. It's fucking awful looking at it with a CRT. This is one of the many reasons I do not use Windows 7. Damn I just cursed a lot, pardon, but it really angers me.

Demo video of 'microstuttering' which mimics my issue (not mine): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTfwhcQZphw Mine happens at about 1/3 the frequency. No real rhythm to it.


Edit: Trying to update post with things I've done.

Appears to only happen on D3D (DirectX) games but I've not completely verified it.
Can happen at very low (10-30) FPS or very high (60-120) FPS. Results are different depending on the game.
Does not seem to happen when I record video with FRAPS, though I've not multi-game tested this. (As such, I cannot record a video of the issue)
Seems to happen regardless of my NVIDIA control panel settings. (also with and without physx installed)
Happens regardless of resolution and refresh rate.
Seems to not happen on OpenGL games, but I've not completely verified it.
Does not happen on Source engine games.
Happens on both 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows Vista.
Does not happen on Windows 7 64bit or Windows XP 32bit. (Not tested other architectures, no real need to.)
Happens on a 2 year old bloated install or freshly installed version of Vista. (Stock SP2 tested, with and without any windows updates)
Happens with or without Aero running or the DWM service.
Happens regardless of video/motherboard/sound drivers. (Have not specifically tested any video driver version before 197.45 or motherboard drivers before the current WHQL)
Happens without any motherboard drivers installed.
Happens with or without a sound card installed.
Happens with or without optical drives installed.
Happens on multiple different hard drives. (IDE and SATA)
Happens with different monitors.
Happens with different monitor cables.
Happens with both DVI ports on the GPU.
Happens regardless of GPU temperture.
Happens with a different video card.

Sometimes it actually happens on youtube videos I'm watching. I'm not sure if it's related to this issue, but sometimes after having Firefox up for a while and a few tabs up of videos, they will start to perform the same frame skipping action. I've verified the video recordings are not actually skipping by downloading them and playing them through my media player. I must restart Firefox to fix it. I'm blaming the new plugin container.

DirectX always updated to the latest version + SDK installed. (Testing done without upgrading, still suffered)


What's currently left to test is to pull out RAM sticks, change the GPU's PCI-E slot (if possible), lower clock speeds, reset BIOS, downflash BIOS, try IDE instead of ACHI.. Other that than, I am completely out of ideas.


Games I've tested (that I remember):

Final Fantasy XIV - Severe skipping..
World of Warcraft - Skips unless capped at 60FPS.
ArcaniA: Gothic 4 - Severe skipping.
Random UDK developed games - Skip.
Portal - No issue.
Vindictus - No issue.
Tribes 2 - No issue.
Killing Floor - No issue.
Diablo 2 - No issue.
Starcraft - No issue.
Warcraft 3 - Minor issue, can't tell if it's frame skipping or not.
Starcraft 2 - Moderate skipping.
Minecraft - No issue.
Dark Space - No issue.
Ys Oath - No issue.
Ys 1 - No issue.
Ys 2 - No issue.
Resident Evil 5 DX10 - No issue.
CoD7: - No issue.
Red Faction: Guerrilla - You know what? I remember back when the 1.2 patch was released that I had frame skipping which was very obvious when driving around, but it didn't happen all the time, just really in a few key areas. I have not gone back and tested it again in present time, but I'm going to say that it had skipping. This was 4 months before I tried FFXIV.

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As I said above, I don't want to hear about Windows 7. Telling me "Vista sucks, upgrade to 7" doesn't help me. Sure, I could test on it, but that would be rather pointless as I will not use the OS aside from testing, not to mention I don't even own it or have access to a copy.

If this is the wrong forum section for this post, please move it. If anyone could recommend me a better forum to ask on, please do.
 
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What temps is your 9800GTX+ card getting while gaming? What kind of GPU utilization are you getting when playing the games. Oh and windows 7.. Just kidding. :)

If your card is stable have you tried overclocking the card to see if the problem happens more or less. Are all your drivers updated for your creative xfi card? Have you tried the xfi in another pci slot?
 
Most of your questions have to do with my hardware which would be worth troubleshooting had the games running under Windows XP also experienced frame skipping, which they did not.

Nevertheless, I will answer anyway..

The temperature depends on what game and whether they have an FPS cap or not. It can hit 90°C on something like Starcraft 2 at 80% fan speed depending on the weather. For less strenuous games, it gets to around 65°C at 75% fan speed. As for utilization, it also varies based on the above variables. Some can be 20%, some can be 100%. I cannot overclock this card more than 15MHz at the core or else it becomes unstable.

X-fi drivers haven't been updated in ages (at least not for anything but Windows 7). There's supposed to be a new driver release this month, though I installed a newer driver pack this time vs my old. As for the slot, I've never moved it since I got it a bit over 2 years ago. Maybe I'll try changing it over when the new drivers are released.


Again, I can't remember noticing this prior to September. I'm wondering if it's possible some Windows update started causing this issue. I may partition this new drive and install an RTM version of Vista to see if it experiences this skipping.
 
evilsofa said:
Are you using EVGA Precision, by any chance?
Click to expand...
To control fan and clock speeds, yes, but I never use OSD's of any program, nor does it run in the background, so it wouldn't affect me. I'll use GPU-Z if I want to do background monitoring anyway..
 
After doing some testing it appears OpenGL games aren't affected, or at least not as bad. I loaded up Tribes 2 and at 300 FPS there was no skipping (and of course no tearing since I don't use an LCD)

For that DirectX game I was testing I capped FPS at 60 and the skipping went away, which was really odd. Increased to 85 (my refresh rate) and it skipped, but not as severe as my 120 cap. And remember, FFXIV was around 40FPS and skipping. (Most noticable at 60FPS however.)


Also, I just clenched my teeth and installed an unlicensed Windows 7 x64 to test. So far, with nothing installed but the what setup installs (not even updates), I didn't really notice frame skipping. It happened maybe 3 times out of my 2 minute test. (vs 50 times)

I'll start installing my software and seeing if it skips after that.
 
DAOWAce said:
From this, I now musk ask for help, even though I'm supposed to be the tech support guy. I have no idea what could possibly be the cause for frame skipping under Vista. I don't run DWM (as there's a bug which causes slowdowns in windowed 3D accelerated applications, which happened on 7 too) so Aero is out of the equation. Other than that, I really don't know what to troubleshoot. Whether windowed or fullscreen, minimum or maximum settings, it makes no difference. Running 20 background programs or running zero, no difference.
Click to expand...

I'd leave DWM running if I were you, switch to aero basic, but leave that manager running. If you've disabled the daemon directly this would be my the first thing I'd look into.

I've got a Phenom (I) running a 9800GT and Vista 64 with no problems, so there must be a way to get this resolved.

and "a clean install of 260.63" was a re-installation of the OS?

and it works under XP...

Thats a tough one. Maybe one of the DLLs on your install media has some bad-bits? Its a long shot but I mean, we're fishing so wth.
Try downloading the latest Direct X. Its worked as a magical fix for me on one issue with a game a while back.
 
Mostly all the software in that screenshot is now installed. Still no apparent frameskipping, although Windows 7 is grinding my hard drive for some reason. Things load a lot slower than on Vista, sometimes by a great deal. I'm actually experiencing loading skips in the game I was testing when it never happened under XP/Vista. Then again, this is a plain old bloated default install, not an n/vLited one.


@Wizard: In all my tests of DWM since 2007 it's shown just to be a compatibility and performance problem causer. I use full Aero, which I think drops down to Basic when DWM is off and kicks back to full when DWM is on. Regardless, it doesn't matter if it's on or off, there's still skipping.

It happened under 197.45, still happened under 258.96, 260.63 and now 260.89, meaning driver releases are probably irrelevant.

I updated my motherboard drivers with some modded pack, no change, however I now get 1Gbps network speed in Vista, yay!

I always install the latest DirectX SDK, meaning it installs the latest redistributable and to finish off I run the web installer just in case (which of course never sees anything to install).

I re-create my install DVD every single time I go to install my OS (from a different source every time), so bad bits is out.


The last thing I can try now is doing another fresh install of Vista, but this time a non customized version. If I still frame skip then the only thing I can think of is it being some hidden hardware compatibility issue with Vista x64 and no other OS, or some Windows update which started causing this. I'll get around to it tomorrow.
 
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Brand new default Vista x64 SP2 install. Nothing but motherboard and video drivers. Frame skipping.

/wrists

I don't want to test SP1 or RTM. Something's completely screwed. I'm getting sick of computers.
 
DAOWAce said:
Brand new default Vista x64 SP2 install. Nothing but motherboard and video drivers. Frame skipping.

/wrists

I don't want to test SP1 or RTM. Something's completely screwed. I'm getting sick of computers.
Click to expand...

Try a different monitor refresh rate or another monitor and dvi/hdmi cable if possible. I know your fixed on it being a software issue but nothing adds up on either side as it being either hardware or software so your only remedy would be to troubleshoot everything left.

See if you can force 75hz on the lcd, if your already doing that reduce to 60hz. If using a dual link dvi cable try another or try another monitor all together. If that fails it could be the videocard and how it is working on vista in that case get a warranty exchange if possible or call a buddy and have him/her bring over their card to test. You'll owe a 6 pack for that kind of favor as that's risking things for them but I'd do it for a good friend.

Oh and finally if all of this doesn't work remember to minimize the pain and effecetively complete the job dont / writst. Go down the street instead of across the street, if you know what I mean.:D
 
yeah that could be the problem...

I've heard the guys over at PC perspective talking about cabling and port contact causing issues they described as being very much like this. Its strange then that it would work under XP, but its definitely worth a shot since the issues sound so similar. Maybe try changing the cables?

I would definitely start looking back into hardware at this point. Tinker with refresh rates, lower the output resolution and more importantly lower the output refresh rate (keeping in mind its standard practice for the video driver to override the selected refresh rate in the typical windows resolution manager GUI) try multiple cables, try analog instead of DVI, try a different screen if you have access to it, stuff like that.

but what do you mean by "customized" and "try SP1 or RTM". You're not running the beta are you?
edit: oh you were running vlite version of vista. Yeah I'd... well I'll put it this way: these boards don't take too kindly to that stuff.
 
@Exodia: I use a CRT, you must have gotten confused by what I said earlier.

This happened on my old CRT (some 17" Compaq shadow mask), and now my replacement CRT, a Dell P1130. Both used different VGA cables. In fact, this used two cables; one being brand new (came with a really junky LCD which I will NEVER use), the other being old but double the size, so data transmission or amount of bandwidth shouldn't be a problem

Trying to RMA this card would knock me off of gaming for 3 weeks as XFX does not do advance RMAs. They didn't 2 years ago and still don't today. I don't have a replacement and I have no local friends who could loan me a card. Cutting me from gaming is like cutting my off my blood flow, can't happen!

@Wizard: I've vLited and nLited all my installs. My XP works fine nLited, and I never tried a default aka non customized aka right from the DVD from Microsoft, until last night, which debunked my theory that it may be my vLite customization. I don't use betas of OS's unless I'm testing them prior to their release.

Almost out of things to try.
 
DAOWAce said:
@Exodia: I use a CRT, you must have gotten confused by what I said earlier.

This happened on my old CRT (some 17" Compaq shadow mask), and now my replacement CRT, a Dell P1130. Both used different VGA cables. In fact, this used two cables; one being brand new (came with a really junky LCD which I will NEVER use), the other being old but double the size, so data transmission or amount of bandwidth shouldn't be a problem

Trying to RMA this card would knock me off of gaming for 3 weeks as XFX does not do advance RMAs. They didn't 2 years ago and still don't today. I don't have a replacement and I have no local friends who could loan me a card. Cutting me from gaming is like cutting my off my blood flow, can't happen!

@Wizard: I've vLited and nLited all my installs. My XP works fine nLited, and I never tried a default aka non customized aka right from the DVD from Microsoft, until last night, which debunked my theory that it may be my vLite customization. I don't use betas of OS's unless I'm testing them prior to their release.

Almost out of things to try.
Click to expand...

Sorry bout that I'm following so many threads right now I got confused. Are you running your refresh rate at 85hz? Higher is good if you can handle it with the res your using.

As far as XFX they officially announced that they are no longer making and selling nvidia cards. Who knows how long you'll be able to RMA your card with them. Most of the time a lifetime warranty is how long the company has a product in it's production life cycle. They may upgrade you to a similar product but if the bus dies or they no longer sell/make the product at all it is considered End of life. Maybe you will get a AMD/ATI card as a replacement but that would be the best case scenario.

Again you should be fine right now but if you wait a month or 2 you may be SOL with XFX. Tread carefully.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "frame skipping". I've noticed stuttering framerates in various games in various OS's and it can be a multitude of benign issues such as a pegged cpu, pegged gpu, design flaw in the game engine (usually coupled with a pegged cpu but not always), or v-sync.
 
Yes, 85Hz. I cannot go any lower or else my eyes detect it too much and I can't really look at the screen unless it's displaying something dark. Above 85Hz is actually too blurry to use.

Frame skipping, like.. a few frames seem to have been completely dropped. I could possibly be mislabeling it for all I know. It may actually be microstuttering which happens with dual GPUs, an issue I was proud not to have with my single card setup, but I felt it was more accurate to say frame skipping since that's what it felt like.

For example, this video shows microstutter which looks like the frame skipping I talk about, but is extremely severe whereas in my case it's minor 1-2 frame skips, not 10+.

Edit: This one is more accurate to my issue, but still is heavier at times than mine.

Edit2: Actually, the skipping is severe like that (second video) in really intensive games like Gothic 4. Was experiencing that bad skipping almost the entire time playing, so much so I did not enjoy the experience at all. (just the demo)

But.. I can't record it, because it completely stops when I record videos with FRAPS (even if my framerate is 60 during the record). As far as I know, that doesn't happen with microstuttering.

Another piece to the puzzle.

Must test Vista x32 to see if it's something with the 64bit architecture only in Vista, but I RMA'd the hard drive due to it making some pulsating mechanical whine and only have 25GB free space left. Maybe I'll try backing something up.
 
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Microstuttering is just the result of an uneven framerate, it can happen on dual or single card setups. If your problem is like in the second video then I think there is

A) a problem with your video driver
B) a problem with your audio driver
C) a problem with your chipset driver
D) a problem with some other hardware in your system (failing HD/CDROM can often cause whole-system hiccups like this while failed operations are retried)

Since the problem doesn't happen in some OS's then it's most likely a driver issue. You could isolate the sound card driver by removing it from the system and seeing if the problem still occurs.
 
Stock Vista x32 SP2 installed. Chipset/Video drivers (latest official as of 10-28-10). Still experienced frame skipping.

Changing OS architecture would've exposed any issues too..

It has to be some soft of compatibility issue with my system and only Vista.

I have not tried removing the sound card yet, so that's my last hope. I got the replacement hard drive but it still has an issue, so I can't use it. I'm going to have to wait even longer to test again and get the final verdict.


PS: Seagate's recent drives are obnoxious. I'm going to have to go Western Digital from now on.
 
Okay, final test done.

Removed sound card and optical drives, installed Vista x64 SP2 with the 260.99 drivers and only my ethernet driver so I could download the display drivers, then disabled the NIC so it wouldn't interfere with testing. Tested a single game which used to show insane frame skipping and..

Still had frame skipping, to a slightly lesser extent, though it may have just been an illusion since I haven't tested in a while.

I am now completely out of ideas. Short of trying to use incredibly old drivers (which would not allow me to play recent games), I have no idea what to try. I also still have no idea why I didn't notice it until testing FFXIV. I need better memory retention.

For more bizarrity, this does not affect source games.
 
Is it possible that you have some bad sticks of ram? You mention that you have no issues with 32-bit XP (3GB ram limit), yet problems with Vista 64bit. Not only was it a totaly memory hog to start with, FFXIV is a total beast to all aspects of your system.
 
Ruoh said:
Is it possible that you have some bad sticks of ram? You mention that you have no issues with 32-bit XP (3GB ram limit), yet problems with Vista 64bit. Not only was it a totaly memory hog to start with, FFXIV is a total beast to all aspects of your system.
Click to expand...

Quick thread skim? I mentioned other DirectX powered games has the issue and I tested Vista x32 and Windows 7 x64, of which both architectures of Vista experience the issue but neither XP nor 7 experience the issue.

I'll try an update the OP for new readers since the thread is quite a beast.

Regardless, that is the last thing I could ever try with this system (unless I could shift the PCI-E port of the GPU) just for completion's sake. I suppose I will try it within a few hours..
 
DAOWAce said:
Quick thread skim? I mentioned other DirectX powered games has the issue and I tested Vista x32 and Windows 7 x64, of which both architectures of Vista experience the issue but neither XP nor 7 experience the issue.
Click to expand...

Guilty as charged. It's worth checking out just for shits and grins though, you know?
 
Updated OP again..

As I said in the edit, I'm so completely baffled I can't even fathom any logical thoughts as to what's going on.
 
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