[Fix] Having stuttering issues?

[Literacy 0]

WARNING: Changing your clocking settings can cause overheating and general wear on your video card. Although this workaround is pretty easy on your hardware, its good to be cautious.

For reference I'm using Windows XP and the nVidia 7950GT card.

I've updated to the latest Forceware drivers which you can find HERE.

I'm also using Riviatuner, which can be found HERE.

The problem seems to be that the video card stops rendering for varying amounts of time - then just continues normal operation. This translates into sudden drops in FPS and lots and lots of annoying "stuttering". You can fix this by "underclocking". This will prevent the software from throttling your card and causing those slowdowns. NOTE: Your card will run at full speed. Dont panic.

The fix involves disabling clockspeed throttling at the driver level.

1)Update to the latest Forceware drivers. Note: This may not be necessary but its what I did and it worked for me.

2)Download and install Rivatuner.

3)Set EnablePerfLevelForcing function to 1 under the power user tab.

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/8366/enableperflevelforcingli7.jpg

4a)Customize > System Settings

4b)Set the "force constant performance level" to "performance3d" and set Rivatuner to set the speeds at startup.

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/7674/systemteakslp8.jpg

5)Restart.

That should do it. Everything seems to work fine for me.

[FritzDaKat 0]

Sounds like a plan but just curious, have you enabled the temperature monitor to see what effect having it locked in "performance mode" is?

[Literacy 0]

Yeah I always have that enabled. It doesnt seem to have any real effect on that. If it does get hot you can always use rivatuner to turn up your fan speed.

I'll have more solid information on performance after Saturday.

[FritzDaKat 0]

It does seem to reduce the video "lag spikes" a bit, but the overall performance drops a hair while underclocked.

Very strange to note the fact that when underclocked and locked in like that, my card actually runs hotter than normal, still quite safe (According to manufacturer anyway) at around 60c. (+/- 7c) (Vantec Iceberq 6 cooler )

[Literacy 0]

You're not necessarily underclocked - just locked in place. You can experiment with adjusting your speed and find that sweet spot.

[oChaos.DNJ 0]

Just fyi, atleast on the 8800 (G80s), I dont believe the cards use other perf levels just 3d. They always run at the same speeds.

Well atleast for my 8800GTS 640MB.........

[FritzDaKat 0]

You're not necessarily underclocked - just locked in place.  You can experiment with adjusting your speed and find that sweet spot.

Yep, but I was by 50% on gpu & ram. Dunno why. Seems best in my case to cut Ram by about 14% and leave Gpu alone. Cleared up all the funny artifacts I was getting since the SP1 update.

Thanks for reminding me of Rivatuner, I missed it

[Literacy 0]

You're not necessarily underclocked - just locked in place. You can experiment with adjusting your speed and find that sweet spot.

Yep, but I was by 50% on gpu & ram. Dunno why. Seems best in my case to cut Ram by about 14% and leave Gpu alone. Cleared up all the funny artifacts I was getting since the SP1 update.

Thanks for reminding me of Rivatuner, I missed it

Yeah, this is just a very basic fix. Just a bandaid until whenever they decide to fix the drivers.

[FritzDaKat 0]

Would be nice to get input from others, make it sticky, change [FIX] to {Workaround] perhaps, really did help a fair amount.

Of course there is the risk of ppl causing serious damage to their hardware if not careful

Still, used properly, it's a handy tool

[Literacy 0]

I agree. I also added a little warning at the top of my post.

[cross 1]

Stuttering may also be related to prerendering & triple buffering...The following helped my case.

I suggest you also do;

-enable vsync

-enable tripple buffering

-set prerender frames to 3

Setting prerender frames to 1 may cause stuttering as well. so keep it at 3. You may even increase it to 4 but you may have a very slight slowmo effect, your mouse motion stopping a fraction of a second after.

[FritzDaKat 0]

Stuttering may also be related to prerendering & triple buffering...The following helped my case.

I suggest you also do;-enable vsync -enable tripple buffering -set prerender frames to 3

And another reason why Rivatuner is just so useful as some versions of the forceware driver have certain adjustments disabled.

On my box, theres nowhere in the control panel to adjust pre-render settings whereas inivatuner gives me the ability to. And best of all, in many cases Rivatuner will roll itself back a step if a setting you've changed is incompatible with the Application. It's also got a nice Hardware monitoring feature which will let you keep an eye on your FPS, GPU core temp's, and all sorts of other hardware info while ingame without the same performance hit some people get from running Fraps.

Rivatuner also has a handy users forum over at guru3d.com for those that would otherwise be totaly lost with it.

Downside? It still wont uinlock my fanspeed, s'ok thou I've got the Iceberq

[cross 1]

whats your card?

I rememer that there was a workaround for the fan unlock thru advanced settings.

edit..lol just saw your specs as sig.

[NeMeSiS 11]

The problem seems to be that the video card stops rendering for varying amounts of time - then just continues normal operation.  This translates into sudden drops in FPS and lots and lots of annoying "stuttering".

Forcing vsync off fixed that for me. (On a 7600GS since my x1600XT died)

[FritzDaKat 0]

whats your card?

I rememer that there was a workaround for the fan unlock thru advanced settings.

edit..lol just saw your specs as sig.

It's an eGeForce unfortunatly and the stock fan speed is locked by hardware (fixed voltage regulator to feed the motor, I'd need to replace a SMT resistor to change the voltage. )

So I bought the Vantec Iceberq, really easy to install. Since which, this card hasn't reached 70c under any condition (Well aside for the time I forgot to plug it back in while cleaning out dust bunnies one day ) and the manufacturer states that under load temp. averages should be expected to be in the 70-90c range. Not bad for $30 USD.

[PuFu 4599]

for custom fan profiles have a look at this: http://www.guru3d.com/article/article/449/3/

anyway, not that i needed that, but well (using att atm)

i only got the low-level option whe it should be the performance 3d. I think that is because i do have an ATI x1950xtx, and not a nvidia card. Am i right? can the same thing be done for an ATI card like mine (although i do not suffer from sever stuttering.

[KeyCat 131]

Stuttering may also be related to prerendering & triple buffering...The following helped my case.

I suggest you also do;

-enable vsync

-enable tripple buffering

-set prerender frames to 3

Unfortunately tripple buffering have no effect in most DirectX games (incl. ArmA) on nVidia cards even if it's enabled in the control panel, AFAIK it only works as intended in OpenGL games.

Also note that enabling Vsync without tripple buffering may decrease your framerate quite a bit, in my case it's -13 FPS.

/KC

[Dwarden 1125]

triple buffering ofcourse works in D3D games :

- if game support it directly (unreal engine game for example)

- forced TB via e.g. Ati Tray Tools

for Armed Assault it's NOT needed and it will cause most likely some weird sideeffects

that's because ArmA use BIS own buffering 'way'

so there is not normal double/triple buffer

(Suma explained is somewhere on this forum long time ago)

you can clearly see there is no difference between ArmA with&w/o vsync (except max cap ofcourse)

ArmA with Vsync w/o forced TB my framerate (in fullscreen) is smoothly changing + or - so it works similar like TB

if there was normal Vsync and normal DB/TB then

with DB+vsync it would be in 1:1 (if 100 then 100), 1:2 (if 50to100 then 50), 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 etc. steps

while TB+vsync values always are 1:1

[KeyCat 131]

you can clearly see there is no difference between ArmA with&w/o vsync (except max cap ofcourse)

Thats not the case for me, as I said I loose ~10+ FPS if I turn on Vsync.

I would like to run with Vsync enabled since my TrackIR goes nuts if the framerate goes above 85 (that can happen when looking strait up in sky) which is my monitors refresh rate. But loosing ~10 FPS on the average is to much in other situations so I guess I have to live with it.

/KC

[Dwarden 1125]

tried mess with frames rendered ahead ? (ATI users known it as Flip Queue size)

tho not sure if it works w/o TB ...

[KeyCat 131]

tried mess with frames rendered ahead ? (ATI users known it as Flip Queue size)

tho not sure if it works w/o TB ...

Yes, I've tried FRA between 0-3 and no changes.

/KC

[Dwarden 1125]

that's quite weird loosing lot of frames just because of V-sync ...

wish someone from BIS could explain that ...

btw ~10 frames from what max frames ?

[NeMeSiS 11]

that's quite weird loosing lot of frames just because of V-sync ...

wish someone from BIS could explain that ...

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_9.html

[KeyCat 131]

Nice find ofpforum and a good read!

/KC

[Dwarden 1125]

that's quite weird loosing lot of frames just because of V-sync ...

wish someone from BIS could explain that ...

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_9.html

ugh i know how Vsync work

but keycat claims he looses frames not in way 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 etc...

or he expressed himself incorrectly ...