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Digital vs. Analog strain?

G

GJSNeptune

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
12,372
Is outputting through the digital port more strenuous for a video card (AGP in my case) than from the analog port?

Ever since I reinstalled Windows several months ago, I've noticed that games are jerky no matter what the settings are. This was also the point at which I changed my 19" monitor over to the digital port so I could run my old 15" from the analog.

Before the reinstallation, when I was running just the 19" on the analog, games seemed smooth enough not to bother me. This was also on an AthlonXP 3000+ and Abit NF7-S v2, and Windows was on one hard drive, with C: being Windows and D: being Program Files.

Now I'm running a Pentium D on a fresh installation and no partition, and games are still a bit jerky. I'm thinking it isn't exactly my video card, but that something is also interfering in some way. I've been messing with my network adapter's connection type, as I read that taking it off of Auto may help, but FEARCombat hasn't improved. My analog cable is in my monitor box, which is below my speakers box, case box, and other boxes. I figured I'd ask if it'd make a difference before I venture to get it.

My x800 GTO isn't exactly a stellar card, but I know it can do better.
 
I had a pentium D box that played video's of any kind jerky also but when I upgraded to AM2 and a C2D it disappeared and that's using the same video card. It may be time that you did a good ovehaul of your system and get a little more up-to-date.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Is outputting through the digital port more strenuous for a video card (AGP in my case) than from the analog port?

Ever since I reinstalled Windows several months ago, I've noticed that games are jerky no matter what the settings are. This was also the point at which I changed my 19" monitor over to the digital port so I could run my old 15" from the analog.

Before the reinstallation, when I was running just the 19" on the analog, games seemed smooth enough not to bother me. This was also on an AthlonXP 3000+ and Abit NF7-S v2, and Windows was on one hard drive, with C: being Windows and D: being Program Files.

Now I'm running a Pentium D on a fresh installation and no partition, and games are still a bit jerky. I'm thinking it isn't exactly my video card, but that something is also interfering in some way. I've been messing with my network adapter's connection type, as I read that taking it off of Auto may help, but FEARCombat hasn't improved. My analog cable is in my monitor box, which is below my speakers box, case box, and other boxes. I figured I'd ask if it'd make a difference before I venture to get it.

My x800 GTO isn't exactly a stellar card, but I know it can do better.
Click to expand...


I guess your card is being taxed to run dual monitors also.
 
It's not running dual right now.

This was a small upgrade because I don't have the money to build a new system. I wouldn't be asking if games were jerky no matter what, but they were smooth at one time.

I haven't tried a single player game. Just FEARCombat. Another thing I noticed is that the left-click button isn't as responsive. When I click, I don't always fire right away and I have to keep clicking. Sometimes my gun won't stop firing even with my finger off the button, and I'll have to click a couple times for it to stop.
 
GJSNeptune said:
It's not running dual right now.

This was a small upgrade because I don't have the money to build a new system. I wouldn't be asking if games were jerky no matter what, but they were smooth at one time.

I haven't tried a single player game. Just FEARCombat. Another thing I noticed is that the left-click button isn't as responsive. When I click, I don't always fire right away and I have to keep clicking. Sometimes my gun won't stop firing even with my finger off the button, and I'll have to click a couple times for it to stop.
Click to expand...


From my own experience running a PD video playback was rough like you are finding out. And I also had the hesitiation of the system to register commands from the mouse and keyboard. I just deemed the PD as the problem and when I went AM2 the problem disappeared. IMO the PD just was a peice of crap.
 
Does anyone have something to say to help my problem that doesn't involve ripping on my hardware?
 
OK, the jerky COULD be because you have a machine that can not keep up, when you started talking about unresponsive mouse, you got my attention. I would be willing to bet it has nothing to do with your processor or video card as both of those could explain choppy video, neither would explain an unresponsive mouse. The first thing I would check would be programs running in the background, even if it was a clean install. The biggest culprit I have seen doing this is antivirus, especially Norton. I would completely uninstall your AV and see what happens. Failing that, if you were to run in dual monitor mode you could run your task manager on one monitor and the game on another, then watch what happens to your processes when you play the game.

Good luck!

Allan
 
I'm using NOD32, so that can't be it.

I'm running WAMP5 now, which I didn't have back when games ran smoothly. I'll disable it and see if things improve.
 
GJSNeptune said:
I think you should refrain from useless replies and be a little more understanding for people not as wealthy as you.
Click to expand...

1. I saved one year to get the hardware I have now I don't have money to just blow. Saving gets you what you want when you don't have money that grows on trees.
2. You did a clean install, you could try re installing your drivers.
3. I didn't rip on your hardware I just told you how my experience was with the same hardware.
4. IF clean installs of the OS and reinstalls of drivers don't help then check for software incompatibilites and hardware incompatibilties you might have made by the upgrade.
5. If the problem can't be found you revert to the previous installation of hardware to find out what cause the issues.
6. If the above fails see step 1.
 
I disabled WAMP5 and ran FEAR Combat. Gameplay was pushing CPU usage to around 50% average, with around 300MB of RAM.

Still a slight jerk, and mouse response was a little sticky.
 
1) Just because you run NOD32 does not mean that something didn't go wrong with the installation or that it does not like some other piece of software that is installed. I have seen virtually every AV out there have a problem at one time or another.
2) Since you are running AGP make sure that there is not a PCI card installed right next to your AGP slot, that is a no no.
3) Check to make sure your hard drive is not in PIO mode, also make sure that your CD/DVD drives are not in PIO mode.
4) I assume that your hard drive is not installed on the same cable as your CD/DVD drive.
5) Check your IRQs and see what is sharing what IRQs, some things just will not share.
6) If you have any extra cards (Modem, TV, Etc) remove them.
7) Since you are running Vista, as a LAST resort you may try using another NIC, I have seen Vista have strange problems with NICs, especially onboard ones.
8) Of course if your last build was XP and this is Vista, try increasing your RAM to see what that may do. (hail mary here)

HTH

Allan
 
Some games (World of Warcraft) do a really shitty job of handling multiple monitors / display adapters. It's not the analog vs. digital (that is most likely handled by a DAC of some sort after the GPU has done most of its work), but it could easly be Port 1 vs Port 2. Do you have any DVI <-> D-Sub adapters handy?

By "still a slight jerk" - did it improve?

Updating video / chipset drivers is good...but probably this is one of the first things you tried.
 
This may not help but the Pentium D is the shittiest processor ever. On a clean install with a Pentium D and 1GB of RAM took a whopping 3 minutes to shut down, the Socket 754 AMD 64 right next to it shut down in about 30 seconds with half a gig of RAM.

I had a 7900GT and a Pentium D and my games were running crapily, all along I thought it was the graphics card chugging, but nope. I switched to C2D and everything ran so much better. IMO, the Pentium D was just practice for the C2D for Intel :p.
 
Flea77 said:
2) Since you are running AGP make sure that there is not a PCI card installed right next to your AGP slot, that is a no no. Ha. I must've been tired last night. I put my Audigy 2 ZS right below the video card. I'll lower it after this post.
3) Check to make sure your hard drive is not in PIO mode, also make sure that your CD/DVD drives are not in PIO mode. Both IDE controllers are DMA.
4) I assume that your hard drive is not installed on the same cable as your CD/DVD drive. Nope. SATA hard drive.
5) Check your IRQs and see what is sharing what IRQs, some things just will not share. Is there a way to check IRQs without checking each device? So far, the ones I've checked have no conflicts.
6) If you have any extra cards (Modem, TV, Etc) remove them.
7) Since you are running Vista, as a LAST resort you may try using another NIC, I have seen Vista have strange problems with NICs, especially onboard ones. Still XP Pro, not Vista.
8) Of course if your last build was XP and this is Vista, try increasing your RAM to see what that may do. (hail mary here) I only have two DDR slots, and I only have 512MB sticks.
Click to expand...

ashmedai said:
Some games (World of Warcraft) do a really shitty job of handling multiple monitors / display adapters. It's not the analog vs. digital (that is most likely handled by a DAC of some sort after the GPU has done most of its work), but it could easly be Port 1 vs Port 2. Do you have any DVI <-> D-Sub adapters handy?

By "still a slight jerk" - did it improve?

Updating video / chipset drivers is good...but probably this is one of the first things you tried.
Click to expand...

I've already flashed the BIOS to the newest version. I'm running Catalyst 7.4 display drivers. The video card is also up-to-date.

It sort of improved, but it's not a graphics issue. There's something interfering. I'm using an MX700 Duo (been using it since before I even built this system a few years ago), and I don't remember my mouse being unresponsive at times.
 
Whether you're on VGA (analog) or DVI (digital) for the video, will NOT affect your game performance.

You should update all your drivers, update windows, make sure you have the latest DirectX 9 version, defragment your hard drive, etc. Also, make sure you don't have the graphics settings in your game turned up too high, that will cause jerkiness too. Double check and make sure that you only have one monitor enabled in your video card drivers control panel, even if only one monitor is physically hooked up. Also, you might just be getting bad lag (high latency) in the game.
 
This is sort of a cheat. If the CPU is busy, it can cause mice connected by USB to lag. Try to find the process belonging to the mouse driver (mouse.exe would be a giveaway, but it varies by brand and I haven't used a Logitech mouse recently) and bump its priority up a notch or two.
 
GJSNeptune said:
It doesn't. Thank you.


For anyone else itching to bash my hardware, either don't post or donate.
Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to bash your hardware at all, I just had a horrible experience with the Pentium D, but I DID own one and it served me well but it just wasn't up to the task. I'm sorry if I offended, I my self am in no way wealthy, I know how hard it can be to get what you want when you can only afford something that you don't want. (Does that make sense?)
 
Yes you can check IRQs easily, in device manager select View > Resources By Type, then click the + next to Interrupt Request (IRQ) and look at what all is sharing. Some things you can not do anything about, some you can. But the absolute first thing I would do is move that 2ZS card to another slot!

Sorry about the Vista confusion, was looking at the wrong sig, oops!

Allan
 
Whaddya think?

IRQ.png


Three 'things' are using 21, and two are using 23. Are those actually separate things though? None of them show a conflict.
 
Actually those look good. Most of your shared are shared by the same chipset, which is fine. Did moving the 2ZS help any? Did you try uninstalling your AV? You might also look at not only the CPU when the game is running, but the hard drive activity, CDROM activity and network activity to see if you can pinpoint where the problem is. Also, if the mouse stuttering is the big deal try installing/uninstalling the software for it. Most mice can run just fine with no software installed, some work better with it installed. I would be interested to know if there was any difference between it installed and uninstalled.

Allan

PS. I assume when you said that during the game your CPU was around 50% that you meant that all processes running were using 50%, not just the game. The reason I ask is that if your game is using 50% and something else, such as AV is using 45% then it would definitely point towards your AV in that example.
 
Flea77 said:
Actually those look good. Most of your shared are shared by the same chipset, which is fine. Did moving the 2ZS help any? Did you try uninstalling your AV? You might also look at not only the CPU when the game is running, but the hard drive activity, CDROM activity and network activity to see if you can pinpoint where the problem is. Also, if the mouse stuttering is the big deal try installing/uninstalling the software for it. Most mice can run just fine with no software installed, some work better with it installed. I would be interested to know if there was any difference between it installed and uninstalled.

Allan

PS. I assume when you said that during the game your CPU was around 50&#37; that you meant that all processes running were using 50%, not just the game. The reason I ask is that if your game is using 50% and something else, such as AV is using 45% then it would definitely point towards your AV in that example.
Click to expand...

Good points, but I think they're common factors. I've been using most of this hardware since before the new video card even. The only thing I can think of regarding them is older versions of drivers work better, perhaps, but I'm really not up to digging into that pile. I don't game that much with the girlfriend around. She's gone this weekend so I thought I'd tinker with the computer a bit, see if I can improve game performance. Guess I'll just wait for a new system someday to game.
 
Catalyst 7.4 sucks donkey balls in FEAR - I got a persistent 60% frame rate drop (180FPS > 60FPS) when switching from 7.3 to 7.4. 7.5 made it even worse. Try Cat 7.3.
 
marcusj3000 said:
From my own experience running a PD video playback was rough like you are finding out. And I also had the hesitiation of the system to register commands from the mouse and keyboard. I just deemed the PD as the problem and when I went AM2 the problem disappeared. IMO the PD just was a peice of crap.
Click to expand...

My brother runs a Pentium D 950 with 2 gb and a Radeon X1900XTX, and it runs smooth as silk.
It certainly isn't more 'jerky' or whatever than my E6600. In games and video editing it's actually better, partly because he has a better videocard than I do.
But there certainly is not some kind of fundamental problem in the Pentium D that makes it run slowly or anything.
 
Scali2 said:
My brother runs a Pentium D 950 with 2 gb and a Radeon X1900XTX, and it runs smooth as silk.
It certainly isn't more 'jerky' or whatever than my E6600. In games and video editing it's actually better, partly because he has a better videocard than I do.
But there certainly is not some kind of fundamental problem in the Pentium D that makes it run slowly or anything.
Click to expand...

Your right certain configurations yeild better performance. The x1900XTX should handle most of the work done for your brothers computer graphic wise. But the Op has either a software or hardware problem. If the problems persisit on a bare windows install then sure enough he has created hardware compatibility problems or bottle necks in his system. Believe it or not some hardware setups just don't get along with other parts of the system. But as I do more research the OP had software problems getting the board to install windows when he first got it. As I see it his new motherboard and processor doesn't seem to play well with his parts he is using from his last AthlonXP setup.
 
marcusj3000 said:
Your right certain configurations yeild better performance. The x1900XTX should handle most of the work done for your brothers computer graphic wise. But the Op has either a software or hardware problem. If the problems persisit on a bare windows install then sure enough he has created hardware compatibility problems or bottle necks in his system. Believe it or not some hardware setups just don't get along with other parts of the system. But as I do more research the OP had software problems getting the board to install windows when he first got it. As I see it his new motherboard and processor doesn't seem to play well with his parts he is using from his last AthlonXP setup.
Click to expand...

Good points, but it was jerky recently on the old board as well, especially in Far Cry.

October 2004, I built the new system, brand new hard drive, fresh Windows installation. For a couple years I had to use my Geforce4 MX440. Games were smooth as long as my settings were low enough.

February 2005, I got my 19" LG display. A couple months later I got the x800 GTO, installed it, and games were smooth still.

Several months ago I got a new hard drive to install Windows on because I was running out of space, and it was very cluttered as well. I installed Windows, moved my monitor to digital, put my old 15" to analog, and games were jerky. The hardware was exactly the same, just a fresh installation. Like I said previously, another difference was that the old hard drive was partitioned. About 10GB for Windows, and the rest for program files. I asked djnes if separating Windows from program files would make a difference (for me, at least), and he said not really.

Couple weeks ago, I swap out the Athlon for the Pentium D. Game jerkiness carries over, which leads me to believe it's not hardware. I'm thinking maybe older drivers worked better in my case, but who knows.
 
GJSNeptune said:
Good points, but it was jerky recently on the old board as well, especially in Far Cry.

October 2004, I built the new system, brand new hard drive, fresh Windows installation. For a couple years I had to use my Geforce4 MX440. Games were smooth as long as my settings were low enough.

February 2005, I got my 19" LG display. A couple months later I got the x800 GTO, installed it, and games were smooth still.

Several months ago I got a new hard drive to install Windows on because I was running out of space, and it was very cluttered as well. I installed Windows, moved my monitor to digital, put my old 15" to analog, and games were jerky. The hardware was exactly the same, just a fresh installation. Like I said previously, another difference was that the old hard drive was partitioned. About 10GB for Windows, and the rest for program files. I asked djnes if separating Windows from program files would make a difference (for me, at least), and he said not really.

Couple weeks ago, I swap out the Athlon for the Pentium D. Game jerkiness carries over, which leads me to believe it's not hardware. I'm thinking maybe older drivers worked better in my case, but who knows.
Click to expand...

If it's the same on the old setup with a clean install you may have to keep using the older drivers that gave you the best performance. If you had your files partition then it might benefit your unique system to stay partitioned. Try the older drivers out for you setup and see. One note is your configuration changed when you added the new hard drive and moved your display to the digital port and added back your old 15" to analog. And if your monitors have drivers for windows i suggest you install tham as well.
Your computer should not say you just have a generic monitor under device manager.
I have more than one drive and keep my swap file either on another partition or drive other than the windows partition or drive.
One thing to remeber even though your hardware doesn't change if you move things from one port to the other windows see's this as a configuration change believe it or not.
Install Windows on the old hard drive and new one and compare the two might not yeild anything be it can come as a surprise sometimes the results.
 
I just tried my monitor on analog and it's as smooth as I remember. The mouse is perfectly responsive as well. Yay grainy. :(
 
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