PCGH: Micro stuttering on multi GPU solutions

[L7R]

I think this is one of the most intresting threads in XS. Yes there are lots of others too, but for the first time; +1 Vote for a sticky. I think this is the first time when in english forums people talk about this issue ...and what could be better place than XS!

[L7R]

And for those who still don't know what this "micro-stuttering" is, here's one example how you will notice it immediately:

Try crysis with CF enabled and disabled. CF enabled you get awesome gains -say 40-60fps average, BUT it feels just like playing with one card at 25-35fps average. Or on CF, it stutters even more.

Using cf you can see (in integrated fps counter) your min fps could go as low as 10 and max as up as 70 or even 100 in a fraction of a second. Just stand still and then move a mouse and see how that fps meter goes wild. What is displayed in next to (....-...) is your average. That average doesn't mean nothing* if the MINIMUM fps drops under 10 inside a fraction of the second.
EDIT: But in single card your min fps stays in 25 and max about 35, and I think it feels more playable than on two cards.


*it means a lot for hardware reviewers, though.

[STaRGaZeR]

So anyone has this tool for reduce stuttering?

[saaya]

Slipknot, that rar file doesnt work, its corrupted...

[weeds]

Slipknot, that rar file doesnt work, its corrupted...

fpslimiter_0_2.zip
http://www.filesend.net/download.php...2cdfe7e2034947

[ChaosMinionX]

fpslimiter_0_2.zip
http://www.filesend.net/download.php...2cdfe7e2034947

Care to translate?

Zur Nutzung:

Archiv entpacken und mit der Konsole in das Verzeichnis wechseln (oder ggf. eine Batchdatei anlegen). Hier der Syntax:

fps_limiter /r: D3D8|D3D9|OGL "pfad zur spiele.exe" (ohne das Leerzeichen nach dem Doppelpunkt, das Forum macht aus : D ein Smiley)

Mit dem Schalter /r wird der Renderer Hook angegeben, wenn dieser Schalter nicht angegeben wird, wird automatisch D3D9 benutzt. Beispiel:

fps_limiter /r: OGL "c:\spiele\quake4\quake4.exe" <- Nutzt OGL, also explizit angeben
fps_limiter "c:\spiele\jade empire\jadeempire.exe" <- Nutzt D3D9, muss also nicht angegeben werden

Wenn der Pfad richtig ist, wird das Spiel gesta

[saaya]

thanks weeds!

Version 0.1, 11/12/2007
-----------------------
- Inital Release
You dont need to create batch files.
all you gotta do to play a game with fps limiter is create a new shortcut, to let the fpslimiter exe launch the game for you.
Simply create a shortcut to Limiter.exe and add the path to the game.exe, thats it.
create several shortcuts for all the games your playing and name them by the game.exe they lead to, that way you dont get any extra shortcuts.

How to::

unzip the files and use the console to change the directory. or create a batch file if you prefer...

fps_limiter /r: D3D8|D3D9|OGL "path to game.exe" (no empty space between "r:" and "D", i simply inserted it since the forum code turns it into a smiley = )

the command /r enables the hook, if you DONT use this command, D3D9 will be used by default. Example:

fps_limiter /r: OGL "c:\games\quake4\quake4.exe" <- uses OGL, so you should use the /r command
fps_limiter "c:\games\jade empire\jadeempire.exe" <- uses D3D9, so dont use the /r command

provided you used the right path to the game.exe the game will launch when you use the shortcut or batch file. as soon as the game launches you will fine a file called "limiter.log" in the game directory.

[r1ch]

It would hepl if both cards were actually entering 3D mode...currently on 8.2, alot of apps do not trigger second card to enter 3d mode, the card renders using 2D speeds.

This could be an explanation but I find it hard to believe. Any proof this is the case? Can someone test before and after having forced 3D clocks on both cards?

[ChaosMinionX]

How would one go about forcing 3d clocks on the 2nd card?

[r1ch]

flash bios, I personally use AMDGPUTOOL..have been since it first came out, and some XIP's were screaming that it didn't work for both cards . Of course, I'm in Vista, them XP...

Anyway, it's not like that for all apps...just some apps only clock second card. ATI lauded not needing a "profile" for crossfire, but they lied. Some apps work well, some do not...(8.1 works well in most instances, but ther eis still stutter in DX9).

I mean, the stutter is really noticible when you have 200+FPS...should be smooth visuals, right? I've started loading up some older titles..Bloodlines, GTA SA, all older titles seem to have worse visual performance when run with Crossfire VS. singlecard. It's really frustrating...I've totally lost interest in gaming as of late...spent top dollar on parts for a gaming pc...just to have stupid issues like this, that are totally out of my control, makes for alot of wasted money. there's no product, right now, from AMD, that offers a solution for decent 30-inch gaming.

that's all I'm looking for...but it seems as though I've got to buy myself a muc hsmalelr omnitor for gaming...22inch or less, it seems.

So with 8.2's there's more stutter because of a clock difference between the two cards? That's not good.

Anyone got an actual fix for the original micro-stutter problem yet? Does the frame limiter help?

/Off topic
Why buy another monitor? Why not just drop down the resolution? And if you're one that complains about it not being native, then just set the monitor so it doesn't stretch the image. Viola, 1680x1050 resolution as a 20" image in a 30" monitor. No need to buy another monitor? Or am I missing something?

[ChaosMinionX]

So I would assume ATI is working on fixing this problem?

[strange|ife]

why I use one card. Less stress

ran sli 7800GTX, was more trouble than it was worth

[realsmasher]

cadaveca, what you tell is simply impossible.

you can't bring 200fps to stuttering in cf/sli.

If you have 200fps with CF, even in the WORST situation, means when both cards pump out 1 image each at the exacly same time, it would feel like 100fps.

But that's not possible, as the cpu can't "prepare" for 2 images at the same time.

So even if your cpu is capable of 1000fps, it would mean there is at least 1ms between the frames, making 200fps@CF feel at least like 111fps.

If you feel that, you must be god.

[saaya]

Any results, Saaya? From the info there, seems only works for XP?

i didnt try the app...

it seems as though I've got to buy myself a muc hsmalelr omnitor for gaming...22inch or less, it seems.

unless your display has a completely fcked up u/d scaling process then running half the native res should pretty decent. id do that and then wait for a new videocard rather than selling a 30" and buying a 22" and then later buying a 30" again

hmmmm about nvidia having less issues, i wouldnt say that...
why do you think so?

in the thread on 3dcenter.de several people reported that with sli this stuttering issue is actually worse than with xfire.

[STaRGaZeR]

If you feel that, you must be god.

If your statement was correct, then it would be hundreds of gods out there... including myself.

[Jaivan]

I notice that one of the games that i play that stutter the most is Need for Speed Prostreet which have made it virually unplayable with CF on.
The stuttering doesn't seem as bad in Crysis and i don't notice any stuttering in World In Conflict though.

[Eastcoasthandle]

I notice that one of the games that i play that stutter the most is Need for Speed Prostreet which have made it virually unplayable with CF on.
The stuttering doesn't seem as bad in Crysis and i don't notice any stuttering in World In Conflict though.

It's the game

[L7R]

I was already afraid this topic is could go wrong direction when many will report "strange stuttering issues" thinking "yeah, that's that micro-stuttering. If you're gaming 200fps there no way it could be micro-stuttering. Check your systems people! As far as I know there's no crossfire support in NFS Pro Street so it's not correct way to analyze anything related to this issue. Please check this with Crysis. It's good example because game plays just like on single card, even framerate looks very good. If you can't notice it, then you cannot notice it any other game. I really think when playing Crysis, my minimum framerate is actually current framerate (1680x1050&noAA/AF). At least that's how it feels.

Here's list of crossfire supported games in catalyst 8.1:

*Stranglehold.exe
3DMark03.exe
3DMark05.exe
3DMark06*.exe
3DMark2001.exe
3DMark2001SE.exe
3dsmax*.exe
AcroRd32.exe
ACTOFWAR*.exe
AFR-FriendlyD3D.exe
aquamark.exe
ARX.exe
Battlefront.exe
BattlefrontII.exe
battleofthegods.exe
BF2.exe
BF2142*.exe
JustCause*.exe
BfVietnam.exe
Biademo.exe
Tiger 2004.exe
Bioshock.exe
BOS.exe
Breed.exe
BreedSPD.exe
cccprev.exe
chess.exe
CoD2?P_s.exe
CoJ.exe
FEARXP.exe
Condemned.exe
Crysis*.exe
CT3.exe
DFX.exe Bia.exe
Driv3r.exe
DungeonSiege2.exe
Dwm.exe
legends.exe
Ehshell.exe
EiB.exe
episode.exe
EverQuest2.exe
Fable.exe
FarCry.exe
FEAR.exe
FEARspdemo.exe
FFXiBench.exe
FFXiWinBench.exe
fifa07*.exe
fsx.exe
FlatOutdemo.exe
CMR5.exe
FreeCell.exe
fs9.exe
game.dat
GodFather.exe
graw*.exe
gt.exe
GW.exe
gwdev.exe
H5_Game.exe
halo.exe
Hearts.exe
hellgate*.exe
HitmanBloodMoney.exe
hl.exe
hl2.exe
InkBall.exe
Inventor.exe
iw3mp.exe
iw3sp.exe
KingKong*.exe
KingKongDemo*.exe
LegoStarWarsII.exe
Lithtech.exe
LockOn.exe
LostPlanet*.exe
Mahjong.exe
Matrix.exe
MaxPayne2.exe
MaxPayne2Demo.exe
Minesweeper.exe
mm.exe
Gothic3.exe
mohpa.exe
Morrowind.exe
narnia.exe
nba2005.exe
nbalive06.exe
NFSC.exe
NFSC_demo.exe
nhl06.exe
nhl2007.exe
NWN2*.exe
oblivion.exe
PainGame.exe
Painkiller.exe
PandoraMultiPlayerDemo.exe
Pariah.exe
patriots.exe
pc_matador.exe
PCMark04.exe
PCMark05.exe
pol.exe
pop.exe
pop2.exe
pop3.exe
primarysurf.exe
PurblePlace.exe
R6Vegas_Launcher.exe
RaceDriver.exe
RD2.exe
RD2D.exe
RD3.exe Age3.exe
RelicCOH.exe
RomeTW*.exe
Sam2.exe
Scarface.exe
ShadowVault.exe
sims.icd
Sims2.exe
Sims2EP1.exe
Sims2EP2.exe
SinEpisodes.exe
Snowblind.exe
Snowblind-Demo.exe
Solitaire.exe
speed.exe
Speed2.exe
Speed2demo.exe
speedDemo.exe
SpiderSolitaire.exe
SplinterCell.exe
SplinterCell2.exe
SplinterCell3.exe
SplinterCell4.exe
starwars_pc.exe
Suffering2*.exe
SupremeCommander.exe
Swat4.exe
Swat4SPDemo.exe
sweaw.exe
SwgClient_r.exe
TechDemo.exe
TestDriveUnlimited.exe
thrones.exe
Timeshift*.exe
TRAOD*.exe
tribesv_?pdemo_en.exe
trl.exe
TV_CD_DVD.exe
TW2004.exe
TW2005.exe
TW2007.exe
USM.exe
UT2003.exe
UT2004.exe
UT3*.exe
w40k.exe
Wargame-g4wlive.exe
white.exe
wic*.exe
WoW.exe
X2.exe
X2-Demo.exe
x3*.exe
XPANDRALLY.exe
XR_3DA.exe

[DefStar]

Well your wrong and it is noticable.

[Maxym]

Am I the only one tired of "multi billion dollar" companies releasing products that are nowhere near ready or tested?!. Seriously I'm obviously biased with "idealistic" views, but damn, the amount of BS products released lately. Like to see the car industry adopt this method to improve profits.

Haven't majority of these new gen PC products been delayed by large amounts of time in the first place?! Only to come out shoddy anyway?! meh........Maybe i should just blame the "media" department for getting carried away and never learning from its mistakes.

[MMhardKy]

Unbelieveable statement by AMD/ATI!!!:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,63...MD_und_Nvidia/


Its in german, but basicaly they say they know about it, bit crossfire users are aiming for high frame rates and they (users) know how to achieve them, and micro-stuttering is almost not noticable there (so there is nothing to worry about...)

So they no about it and it sounds as it absolutely does not bother them!



Nvidia said it has to further investigate into the problem.

[realsmasher]

hes fully right, it's the same thing as i wanted to say, but well i didn't realised that many don't look at the thread title before posting.

Of course you can have some CF stutters even with 1000fps, but these are not micro stuttering, which is ONLY some kind of unfluent frametimes.

If you want to talk about other CF issues you better open another thread.

[L7R]

I really want to apologize what I said. I didn't mean to upset or offense anybody. It's very hard to write in english and it is this language barrier which cause my sentences become too strict or even offensive.

That list is from rage3d.com forum and it's said to be taken from leaked 8.1 driver (before WHQL 8.1 was not released yet). I really don't know how they dig it from the "driver-code" but anyway it seems to be real. Only game in that list is WiC which didn''t work when I checked. And of course crysis works only for bechmarking purposes because of this stuttering. I'm using 32bit XP so it can't be caused by DX10 which ati has said causes big problems with their driver team (Crysis+DX10).

So, in short only game in that list is wic which doesn't work. And crysis which get "choked" by unusually low minimum framerate -which I think caused by this micro-stuttering.
btw, I'm not ati emplyee. You should check what I've been wrote about CF and you can figure it out pretty clear.

btw2 =)
This maybe obvious, but seems that when you use high resolutions and/or AA+AF so your fps isn't very fast or steady anymore, this problem become more evident. I like to play my games so the MINIMUM fps never goes under 30 so I can't use 4xAA 16AF in almost any game. For example seeing people play CoD4 with 4xAA+16AF in high resolutions will look like there's something wrong in my system. I use 2xAA and thats max for 30-40fps/minimum throughout the game. But I became accustomed to 60fps using arcades way back in 90's.
And wipeout! ...and my Sega Dreamcast!

[KoHaN69]

OK, so does anyone have a high-speed camera?

We need to film this shiet, I wanna see it inaction

[L7R]

I tried with my crappy camera which has 60fps mode. But it seems camera still smooth it out, so it isn't easy to see. Best if you could feel it like moving your mouse and watch what happens. I try to convert this 60fps movie to slow-motion.

Crysis chokes up because of the vidram usage,

Why it doesn't choke when using single card? Why min and max fps gets wild only when using CF/SLI. I don't know, but that doesn't seem plausable explanation.