BFG 6800nu and Doom III stuttering

[CU]

Originally posted by: wpenhall

I have a 6800GT and am getting the same stuttering problem you all are describing. The fastwrites on/off option is greyed out for me with rivatuner. Any idea why?

I am trying to play at 1600x1200, high quality (0 AA/ 0 AF) with a 2200+ XP and 512 MB ram. I got 41 fps with the timedemo, and I get around the same just walking around. However, I drop down to 5 or so when imps spawn or I go into a new room. I've ordered a second stick of 512 MB RAM to see if that's the bottleneck. If that doesn't help, I was going to build a new machine based on an A64, 3200+. But I'm always willing to try less expensive solutions first But - I've gotta play at 1600x1200... it just looks too darn nice at that setting!

Oh - when I displayed mem usage during the timedemo, it was going up to 1.4 GB. That's what made me suspect the RAM - AT's article notwithstanding.

Click on the Customize button under target adapter not drivers settings.

 

[caz67]

Fast writes enabled uses up resources and it can cause instability.. If you disable it will improve performance and stability in most situations..If you benchmark, its always advisable to diable fast writes for the stated reasons.

It cleared up the problem for me on my 6800 Ultra.. I have no issues at all now..

 

[oLLie]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: CU
Even at 800x600 High Quality I get the stuttering. Not everyone seems to have stuttering with 6800's but does seem to be a problem. There is a thread in the general forum here about it and on futuremark's forum. I found them after I posted this. I know high quality is suppose to be for 256meg cards, but people do play it with 128meg cards. For me 1280x1024@4AA medium quality is alot smoother game play than 800x600 (AA not set by me) high quality. I don't think high quality turns AA just AF. I will have to look. A stutter in high quality drops fps down to single digits and happens almost everytime I round a corner, enemy appears, or I open a door. It is really unplayable at high quality. I figure it is either a driver problem, bios setting, or lack of system or video ram. I need to play some other games to see if it happens else where. I tried farcry everything on very high at 1024x768 and it stuttered but turning texture detail down to high seemed to fix that. I should problem turn most things down though. What do other people with 6800nu run farcry at?

Your cpu is really slow for Doom3. ATs tests show 512 vs 1GB system RAM doesn't matter for Doom 3, my own testing with a 6800NU shows it runs smooth in many settings at High Quality on a 6800NU.
You're not trying to use vsynch are you?

I haven't seen the tests but I'm almost sure they show that frames/sec do not suffer much going from 1 GB to 512 MB. Do the tests actually show that there is no stutter when opening a door (opening up a new area) with 512 MB?

 

[CU]

I don't think the timedemo of Doom III is very representative of how Doom III plays.

 

[wraith3k]

Well you are getting closer then; Doom3 high quality sets it to 8xAF, not 4xAF.

If high quality is the same as 8x, but I have my nvidia control panel set to 4x, is the 4x overriding doom's setting? I heard somewhere else that things on the control panel take precedence over settings in games. I'm wondering if by leaving it this way I'm actually reducing the quality of the textures.

 

[lament]

create a profile for Doom 3 and set AA and AF accordingly, so that when it runs - it will look for that profile and load it.

 

[reallyscrued]

AHHHHH I FIXED IT, THANK GOD I FIXED IT. NO MORE STUTTERING in doom3!!! i clocked my card, 385/770 (for sync) NORE MORE STUTTERING! smoooooooooooooth, at high 10*7 at 2xQ. ahhh thank god, now i dont feel as bad going with this instead of a 9800pro. timedemo with cache at those setttings : 60.7 frames....how AWESOME is that!!!??? (i removed the framerate cap for benching and it was precached). i used to get around the 40's. screw unlocking 4 extra pipes, now it feels like it works like its supposed to. i now realized that the HardOCP review had the 6800OC which was factory clocked at 10% higher (770 memory) which is why there was no frame rate dips on the review they did. 6800NU is THE card for doom3, not the 6600GT. (lets pretent the GT and ultras dont exist.)

 

[wpenhall]

Originally posted by: oLLie

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: CU
Even at 800x600 High Quality I get the stuttering. Not everyone seems to have stuttering with 6800's but does seem to be a problem. There is a thread in the general forum here about it and on futuremark's forum. I found them after I posted this. I know high quality is suppose to be for 256meg cards, but people do play it with 128meg cards. For me 1280x1024@4AA medium quality is alot smoother game play than 800x600 (AA not set by me) high quality. I don't think high quality turns AA just AF. I will have to look. A stutter in high quality drops fps down to single digits and happens almost everytime I round a corner, enemy appears, or I open a door. It is really unplayable at high quality. I figure it is either a driver problem, bios setting, or lack of system or video ram. I need to play some other games to see if it happens else where. I tried farcry everything on very high at 1024x768 and it stuttered but turning texture detail down to high seemed to fix that. I should problem turn most things down though. What do other people with 6800nu run farcry at?

Your cpu is really slow for Doom3. ATs tests show 512 vs 1GB system RAM doesn't matter for Doom 3, my own testing with a 6800NU shows it runs smooth in many settings at High Quality on a 6800NU.
You're not trying to use vsynch are you?

I haven't seen the tests but I'm almost sure they show that frames/sec do not suffer much going from 1 GB to 512 MB. Do the tests actually show that there is no stutter when opening a door (opening up a new area) with 512 MB?

Well, my own experience runs counter to the "tests." I'm running D3 on a 2200+ XP @ 1600x1200, high quality, with a Gainward 6800GT using 61.77.

It looked great, but always paused momentarily when I was about to go into a new area. I tried all the tweaks, o/c'd to 400/1100, and turned AA/AF off, but nothing worked. Then I doubled my RAM from 512 to 1024 (PC2700) and that made the difference! Transitioning areas is now smooth as silk! I still get a severe framerate drop when several baddies spawn and the action gets intense, but I think that's a function of my older proc and having vsync enabled. I'm definitely taking a frame rate hit (~5-8 fps) with vsync, but it's worth it for the dramatic visual improvement on my 2001fp. No longer does the scene look like it's tearing in half when I do quick pans.

But anyway, I can say that increasing my RAM solved the door stutter problem for me.

The game is reasonably playable for me now, and I'm struggling with trying to justify building a new machine based on an A64. I want to, but now I need it a whole lot less than I did before. Much harder now to justify to the wife...

 

[petem222]

Originally posted by: CU


Click on the Customize button under target adapter not drivers settings.

Ok, so I'm using RivaTuner trying to fix the problem everyone else seems to be having with their 6800's in Doom 3- mine is a BFG 6800 GT OC- and I unchecked fastwrites, and it seemed to have no effect on the gameplay. I also tried a trick I read in another forum whereby I checked those first two boxes (having to do with 'blit') under D3D tweaks in Riva- also with seemingly no results.

Now here's a dumb question- did I have to restart to put these changes into effect? It was really late last night and I just never tried it...

Plus the election was on.

 

[Schmide]

Video Settings/Advanced/Troubleshoot/

Uncheck Enable write Combinging