Beginning to hate my rig -- microstutter!

[Keysplayr]

ya. Still have multigpu issues. I haven't tried different drivers for the 290x's. Only the latest beta's. It seems foolish to even try other drivers at this point. In my eyes there are only 2 possible things left.

1- there is something wrong with my motherboard or cpu which causes the stutter.

or

2- multigpu just stinks and other people are blessed with the inability to see the problem in their own rigs.

IF anybody can try to replicate my issues it would be appreciated. All you have to do is create a scenario where you can pan around an object and have a somewhat lowish frame rate with mgpu. Something like 35-45 fps does the trick for me.

I've tried to replicate your issue with the last 3 sets of drivers. I cannot. Using two Titans and 680s. Even when frame rates drop lower with a lot of action I don't have anything near what you showed us in those videos and you would have to be darn near blind not to see it. You can send me your 290s if you want me to test them in my rig. You have a single 780 to hold you over.

 

[Deders]

What kind of motherboards are linked with the issues?

I had to replace an Asrock P55 board with my current MSI to eliminate stuttering.

 

[Keysplayr]

What kind of motherboards are linked with the issues?

I had to replace an Asrock P55 board with my current MSI to eliminate stuttering.

We are just blaming the mobo because there isnt much else to blame at this point.
He's tried two OS', multiple drivers, bios settings, etc etc.
Looking More and more like something gone awry with hardware on the mobo.
Lava, why don't you at least try another mobo. If it resolves your issue then RMA your original board.
You spend bazzillions on GPUs, why not another hundred on an sli/crossfire mobo.
I know. Stop spending your money.

 

[Deders]

We are just blaming the mobo because there isnt much else to blame at this point.
He's tried two OS', multiple drivers, bios settings, etc etc.
Looking More and more like something home awry with hardware on the mobo.
Lava, why dont you at least try another mobo. If it resolves your issue then RMA your original board.
You spend bazzillions on GPUs, why not another hundred on an sli/crossfire mobo.
I know. Stop spending your money.

I'm just wondering because I had PCIe issues with 2 Asrock boards that caused stuttering, one was P55, the other was AM2.

 

[Keysplayr]

Lava. Sorry if this has been suggested. But have you tried disabling any and all audio devices in device manager? If not please do and report back.

 

[lavaheadache]

Lava. Sorry if this has been suggested. But have you tried disabling any and all audio devices in device manager? If not please do and report back.

I have tried disabling all the audio devices.

Motherboard in question is an Msi Z87 GD65. I will try another one soon. I hope.

 

[blackened23]

Well if you happen to go that route...I love the Asus z87 boards, i've used asus for many years and have never been let down. Just throwing that out there if you happen to find one on sale at microcenter or wherever you go. Z87 pro is an excellent board, but i'm a bit biased. I've used asus boards for many years now. Asus GPUs are okay-ish I guess but I really do love their motherboards, I've definitely crossed the fanboy line when it comes to asus boards.

Oh yeah. Have had none of the SLI + microstutter issues you mention with 680s or 780s.

 

[Gikaseixas]

or if you really like MSI, try the Z87 MPower, best mobo i ever had and i've been around for a lonnnnng time.

 

[Rvenger]

Gigabyte Z87X UD4H has treated me very well.

 

[RaulF]

I dont have that gigabyte motherboard, but i had quite a few Gigabyte mobos in the past, and all have been reliable.

 

[justinone]

OP i get this exactly same problem and have been suffering from it for years now. I get the problem with a single 290x and had it with 2 different 6950's aswell.

here are my videos of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfioH6x1UQE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzwKdkK9hDs

I recently narrowed it down to being a vsync problem. turning vsync off will be fine but horrible tearing. I get this with 80% of games but not all. i also tried the 360 controller and it appears fine on screen. only the mouse movements while strafing show the microstutters.

i was able to fix bf3 using a frame cap to 59.95 and that seemed to eliminate it for me.

i brought titanfall on release and it was doing it badly on that. I played with some settings and managed to find that putting the game in borderless mode with vsync on in game stopped the microstutter for me. this is because the game starts to use windows aero vsync in the background i do believe. Another trick i tried was with modern warfare 2 which seems to be impossible to crack. since it doesnt have a borderless mode i had to alt+enter to get aero to kick in, then i had to frame cap to 59 aswell. that seemed to stop it alot less.

Like i say i am only using 1 card so i dont understand it. tried so many things in the past it seems impossible to stop. It seems to happen mostly in multiplayer for me also. single player works fine in most games which is very odd.

 

[lavaheadache]

Problem solved. Something is wrong with the old motherboard. I was in Microcenter a couple days ago so I picked up a new Asus Maximus VI Hero. Finally got around to making the swap. Instantly the problem vanished. I didn't even reinstall windows (though I will). I just swapped the board and let windows reconfigure itself. Very painless process.

Very happy guy over here. Gotta figure out what I'm gonna do for graphics cards now. I have 3 290x's currently but only have desire to run 2.

1- Msi gaming
1- Msi Lightning
1- Asus DCU II

Wish I had a maching pair. =(

 

[Gloomy]

Sell the two "mainstream" models and buy another Lightning?

That's what I'd do, mostly because I have a windowed panel on my PC and the lightning looks pretty fly... that'd probably set you back a bit extra though.

 

[blackened23]

Which motherboard was it? I'll be sure to avoid that brand going forward. Although to be honest, I've used nothing but asus in terms of motherboards for quite some time. Don't see that changing anytime soon, I love their stuff.

 

[UaVaj]

Problem solved. Something is wrong with the old motherboard.

did not want to tear my rig apart, however with your good news. might be worth doing so. do have an asrock z77 extreme4 collecting dust. this will isolate the motherboard being the culprit.

as for those three 290x. keep them all. at 4k. you will need at least 3 to keep the eye candy maxed up.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Problem solved. Something is wrong with the old motherboard. I was in Microcenter a couple days ago so I picked up a new Asus Maximus VI Hero. Finally got around to making the swap. Instantly the problem vanished. I didn't even reinstall windows (though I will). I just swapped the board and let windows reconfigure itself. Very painless process.

Very happy guy over here. Gotta figure out what I'm gonna do for graphics cards now. I have 3 290x's currently but only have desire to run 2.

1- Msi gaming
1- Msi Lightning
1- Asus DCU II

Wish I had a maching pair. =(

In the 295x2 review thread I said someone should start testing motherboards for SLi/Crossfire results because of the differing results we saw from PCper (295x2 was awesome in that review) and Anandtech(still showed some issues with frame pacing).

The general consensus was that I should stop trying to explain away the issues in the bad reviews. I think there is something to this, and your thread shows it. I wish a site like anandtech who could get access to a bunch of motherboards would test this out so people looking to go multicard could avoid bad sli/xfire motherboards. If they exist, and your thread kinda indicates that they do.

 

[lavaheadache]

The other board is an MSi Gaming Z87 GD65. I doubt it is a widespread issue with the board. Way too noticeable of a problem.

 

[railven]

In the 295x2 review thread I said someone should start testing motherboards for SLi/Crossfire results because of the differing results we saw from PCper (295x2 was awesome in that review) and Anandtech(still showed some issues with frame pacing).

The general consensus was that I should stop trying to explain away the issues in the bad reviews. I think there is something to this, and your thread shows it. I wish a site like anandtech who could get access to a bunch of motherboards would test this out so people looking to go multicard could avoid bad sli/xfire motherboards. If they exist, and your thread kinda indicates that they do.

Didn't something similar happen to Mark from ABT with the HD 6990? If I recall that what was broke poor guy when people here kept saying it was a MoBo issue and he insisted it wasn't and AMD was sending out defective units for review.

EDIT: Hmmm...I had a poor experience with CFX and SLI, perhaps it is my MoBo that is the culprit. I did pick the cheap one from the Microcenter bundle deals since when I built that system I had zero intention of mGPU.

Great, more crap to factor in haha.

 

[Rvenger]

Problem solved. Something is wrong with the old motherboard. I was in Microcenter a couple days ago so I picked up a new Asus Maximus VI Hero. Finally got around to making the swap. Instantly the problem vanished. I didn't even reinstall windows (though I will). I just swapped the board and let windows reconfigure itself. Very painless process.

Very happy guy over here. Gotta figure out what I'm gonna do for graphics cards now. I have 3 290x's currently but only have desire to run 2.

1- Msi gaming
1- Msi Lightning
1- Asus DCU II

Wish I had a maching pair. =(

Maximus VI Hero is an awesome board for the price. I would keep the MSI lightning hands down, maybe see if the lightning and gaming play well together.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I would sell all three and then buy 3 used reference cards and some parts for water cooling with the extra money.

 

[lavaheadache]

I swap video cards more often than a lot of people change their underwear. Water cooling is not gonna happen

 

[justinone]

I might have to consider buying a new board in that case. Hope to god it fixes the problem like yours has. Any recommendations?

 

[lavaheadache]

I would even recommend my old board that had the issues since I believe my particular board had a defect. I will no when I gett one back form RMA land.

I will say that this Asus Maximus hero is nice though

 

[futurefields]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etKR_a97S50 hopefully you guys can tell from this video

My mouse does that too right now, i thought it was because it was a cheap kensington 8 dollar mouse though with 125 hz input

When I was using gaming mice with 1000 hz input it was smooth, no stutter. I noticed it most on COD4 and Bad COmpany 2.

Is your Deathadder set to 1000 hz? And make sure your windows settings are stock 6/11 with Enhanced Pointer precision disabled

 

[futurefields]

damn Crysis 3 looks beautiful at 4k