ATI HD 5970 experiences (microstutter)

[gambla 10]

Hi,

i like to ask all users with a HD5970 about their experience with this card.

You often read about this microstuttering with that card, but for some people Arma runs very well ? Isn't that strange ? What's the reason ? Do some Users only have the wrong settings ? Please let us get some facts...

thanks

[Shadow NX 1]

These micro stutters you read about come from Crossfire combinations with two cards, some say they dont notice it while others cant stand it at all.

A single card should run ArmA2 very well and fluid with offcourse a hickups here and there when there is heavy load but that will happen with all cards.

[Sintacks 10]

Hi,

i like to ask all users with a HD5970 about their experience with this card.

You often read about this microstuttering with that card, but for some people Arma runs very well ? Isn't that strange ? What's the reason ? Do some Users only have the wrong settings ? Please let us get some facts...

thanks

I recently tried a 5970 and ended up throwing out the window. I would get micro stutter, textures unloading behind me, crappy frame rates and just poor performance overall. I went to a 5970 from 2 GTX280s in SLI thinking that I was going to get a performance boost and a little better FPS but that wasn't the case at all. I tried so many different driver versions, configurations and tweaks and nothing helped. I even reinstalled my OS to no avail. The best drivers were the 10.5s but then it was tricky to get xfire working. Even when xfire was working, I would get worse performance. I fixed it by getting back on the Nvidia way of doing things. Now running 2 GTX480s in SLI. SLI worked right away, no tweaks tricks or renaming exes etc. I get good FPS even in the toughest situations and beautiful looking graphics even in Cherno. Check the spoiler for my specs. It wasn't my rig that was the issue, it was the 5970.

[Rich_R 1087]

Sintacks

Seems you and I are in simliar boats and have very similar systems. When I built my latest gaming computer, I decided on two 5870's (5970's were out of stock everywhere) but have had issues with Crossfire, of course the drivers and disappointed by the performance of ARMA 2 compared to the video card muscle under the hood.

I have managed to get Crossfire to work and can see a difference with the heavy lifting needed by this amazing game, but still have issues with overall performance and my expectations.

Heres my question to you. Will be most likely upgrading to a 580 next month (much prefer Nvidia), do you see a marked difference between a single nvidia card (your 480) and the SLI config?

I'm wondering if the investment of a second 580 is going to give me the marked improvement I'm hoping for.

[bangtail 0]

SLI makes a big difference. The only place it doesn't shine is in built up areas but that is a limitation of ArmA 2 and not SLI.

As I said in another thread, the 5970 is an awful card - AVOID

[Sintacks 10]

Sintacks

Seems you and I are in simliar boats and have very similar systems. When I built my latest gaming computer, I decided on two 5870's (5970's were out of stock everywhere) but have had issues with Crossfire, of course the drivers and disappointed by the performance of ARMA 2 compared to the video card muscle under the hood.

I have managed to get Crossfire to work and can see a difference with the heavy lifting needed by this amazing game, but still have issues with overall performance and my expectations.

Heres my question to you. Will be most likely upgrading to a 580 next month (much prefer Nvidia), do you see a marked difference between a single nvidia card (your 480) and the SLI config?

I'm wondering if the investment of a second 580 is going to give me the marked improvement I'm hoping for.

Yes a single 580 would run Arma 2/OA very well. A second one to run SLI would be even better. Just make sure your power supply can handle it. I would recommend at least a 1000W. Right now I have only an 850W powering everything in my rig and it's just barely enough with 2 GTX480s. I will be upgrading to a 1200W very soon just for peace of mind and if I wanted to get a 3rd 480, nothing would be holding me back.

What Bangtail said is correct as well. If you are in Cherno or any built up area, you won't get awesome FPS with any card or rig. It's the way the game is but 2 580's would handle pretty much anything you can throw at it. (plus it would make me a little jealous :D)

[rfc 10]

Seems I'm one of the few lucky ones with the 5970, no idea what I did right. It just works very well for me; any game, not just Arma2.

[bangtail 0]

There is nothing for you to "do right".

I could link you to loads of examples but I can't be bothered. It may be that you don't monitor and you're not even aware that CF doesn't work all the time but the FPS is OK so you've never questioned it.

There was some guy on Rage bragging that his 5970 never went over 65C under load. We found out later that it was because the 2nd GPU wasn't kicking in.

As far as A2 goes, I guess we have differing opinions on what 'works very well' means.

Edited December 20, 2010 by BangTail

[lao fei mao 21]

@gambla,

You can now give up the idea of buying a HD5970. At the same price and a better performance, maybe a GTX580 is worth your considering.

[gambla 10]

Thank you for your comments. With your input and what i've read so far, the HD5970 doesn't seem to be a good choice for A2. I think, i do believe the people which say that it works very well but it looks like that all "parameters" have to be perfect. Again i guess it's more a driver issue than a hardware problem.

I'm indeed planning a new rig, still running with a AGP HD3850. The challenge i see is, that the performance of the latest cards significantly vary with the game. So the most powerfull card doesn't need to be the best choice for Arma. If i do remember right, i've seen a benchmark that showed the HD5870 beating the GTX480. I'll now wait for some more ArmA benchmarks.

[bangtail 0]

That was certainly not my experience. While 5870CF was markedly better than the 5970, 480 SLI was better than both of them.

[someboy 0]

Does anyone know any of the latest 6900 series reviews include a benchmark of Arma2?