Fluctuating clockspeeds Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X

[wilds]

Why does the R9 290(x) do this? on 2d mode or 3d mode, it will fluctuate its core clock by a lot!

In some games, it is causing stuttering. To fix this, I downloaded RadeonPro, and checked the box to enable maximum performance in the overdrive tab. Now the clockspeeds remain at 1000 Mhz, and the frametimes are much more consistent.

The only annoying thing is, I have to add a profile for each game to enable the fixed clockspeed.

It seems that clockspeeds fluctuate more in games that are very heavy on CPU such as Watch_Dogs, and GTA IV. On GPU bound games, the clockspeed will still adjust non-stop, but with a smaller margin of difference. I wouldn't have noticed this if I didn't play games that are pretty unoptimized. Watch_Dogs is kind of a mess...

I can see how it could be a power saving feature, but smooth gameplay is a lot more important to me...

 

[PliotronX]

The same kind of ridiculous clock/voltage regulation my 7850 has. Because of the random violent clock and voltage regulation, my 7850 would corrupt the screen when a light load was on the GPU such as Youtube videos at anything over a 4% overclock. Rock solid at stock so an RMA wouldn't fix a design flaw (which I think was mostly particular to a batch of 2GB Gigabytes 7850's). I nearly bought a Vapor-X but am glad I went with the 780... ugh. Apparently there is a seldom talked about black screen issue that is related to this clockspeed tomfoolery.

 

[wilds]

Violent is a good way of describing it. Some of the clockspeed changes are insane, especially when there will be scenes that will bottleneck the GPU at full tilt; and it cuts its clockspeed in half when looking in another direction.

Its an easy software fix, fortunately.

 

[Silverforce11]

Hawaii has an built dynamic clock rate, if your GPU isn't max loaded it will downclock to save power.

It doesn't cause stutter in my games.

Watch dog stutter on some rigs for many reasons.

 

[Bateluer]

Hawaii has an built dynamic clock rate, if your GPU isn't max loaded it will downclock to save power.

It doesn't cause stutter in my games.

Watch dog stutter on some rigs for many reasons.

This is what it should do. But if its causing stuttering, then its not working properly. What are your cards temps and fan speeds, OP, when its fluctuating its clock speeds?

 

[mindbomb]

afterburner has a disable powerplay option in the settings.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Are you using Vsync?

 

[wilds]

I let the GPU automatically adjust its clocks most of the time. During specific parts in games that will saturate 1 or more CPU cores, the GPU will downclock itself even when it can be bottlenecked in the same scene as well.

GTA IV, Watch_Dogs, Assassin's Creed IV, ARMA 3, and Metro: Last Light are games that can high have extremely high CPU usage during intensive scenes, and the GPU downclocking itself only adds latency to these scenes.

Its easily reproducible and RadeonPro lets me enable and disable the dynamic clockspeeds on the fly just by Alt-Tabbing the game.

In games that are multithreaded well, I will not notice any hitching, stuttering, or lag even if the GPU is downclocking itself down to 600 MHz or lower in fast-paced games like Titanfall.

Watch_Dogs has specific areas that can really stress the GPU. However, CPU core 0 can also be in the upper 80's, 90's % usage. During this period, the GPU downclocks itself, but if I disable dynamic clockspeeds and go through the scene again, my minimum frame rates will be higher.

I think this really has to do with poor CPU management and not the fault of the GPU. Again, this is not a big issue, and is really easy to fix. I can see a lot of specific scenarios in games that could be hurting people's performance due to the violent clockspeed fluctuations.

@Bateluer: Temperatures are very low thanks to the Tri-X cooler. I got VRM's to spike in the 90's using Furmark, but was with the default fan profile and is pretty hard to reproduce in games. With dynamic clockspeeds, temps are usually in the 50-60's.

@mindbomb: Thanks! RadeonPro can now be uninstalled!

@VulgarDisplay: Yes. Its just during the parts that are CPU heavy that the GPU will underclock itself a little too much and cause lower fps compared to a fixed clockspeed.

 

[blackened23]

I really feel like something is wrong with your setup. Perhaps driver, registry, or windows install related? I don't know, but generally speaking:

Power management with dynamic clockspeeds should kick in with clockspeed adjustments in non demanding situations and non demanding situations ONLY. If we're ignoring thermal issues (which you say isn't an issue) that's something else entirely. But when temps are in line and this is happening, it should not happen in games that you list. For instance, If I play darksiders 2 on a GTX 780, dynamic power management will kick in because frankly, only 20-30% of the GPU is needed to maintain a 60 fps locked framerate. So you can expect the clockspeed in that game to lower to base clock and still maintain full vsync'ed framerate. However if I play crysis 3 I can expect, and you should expect, the clockspeed to stick at full boost the entire time because crysis 3 can utilize it regardless of the CPU situation.

What's going on in your case should not be happening IMO. I have seen a friends setup with a 290X and in demanding games, it should run at full clockspeeds the entire time. I have not seen a situation on that setup of clockspeed variance in a game like metro:LL...should not happen!. Dynamic clockspeeds should happen in non-demanding situations, not demanding situations, regardless of the CPU situation. Aside from this, PCPer has published clockspeed over time of that very card IIRC and the clockspeed doesn't vary like that in games that push the limit. It should stick at full boost when temp throtting isn't an issue (and it shouldn't be with the Tri-X). It should only happen, again (to repeat) in cheesy non demanding titles.

I don't know how to fix what's going on your end, but you may want to do a complete driver uninstall if not a windows re-install. What you're describing should never happen in a game like Metro last light. It should happen in a cheesy game like darksiders or legend of grimrock. But not the games you list.

 

[f1sherman]

people blamed dynamic GPU clocks since GTX 680.
(though early Keplers did have few driver bugs that had contributed to stuttering)

sure anything is possible, but as a rule of thumb - you should looks elsewhere 1st

Watch_Dogs has specific areas that can really stress the GPU. However, CPU core 0 can also be in the upper 80's, 90's % usage. During this period, the GPU downclocks itself, but if I disable dynamic clockspeeds and go through the scene again, my minimum frame rates will be higher.

you should really look at the frame-times to make sure

 

[wilds]

On Metro Last Light I am choosing the first side mission, Heavy Squad, as it places the player into heavy combat which is pretty heavy on the GPU.

Disabled Advanced Physx as I don't have a Physx card.

With normal settings, the GPU is clocking itself at around 980-1015 Mhz while maintaining 1550 Mhz memory.

With ULPS disabled, the clockspeed ranges from 1070-1100 during the same scene.
I am 100% GPU bottlenecked but am getting about 2fps higher with ULPS disabled. I made my max core clock 1115 Mhz.

On Watch_Dogs, my clock speed is a rock solid 1115 MHz at 60fps with Vsync, but disabling vsync causes my clock speeds to drop in the mid 1000's.

This is my first AMD card and I think I'm just new to the architecture and not used to the dynamics of this card. I'm getting excellent performance in normal mode, but with fixed clockspeeds, I am getting a very very small increase in performance.

Overall, I think the dynamic clock speeds make sense with the stock AMD coolers, but I am simply not worried about temperatures with the Tri-X cooler.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Your clocks are fluctuating because of vsync. There is no reason for the cards to run full speed when you are capped at 60 fps. Its operating as designed.

 

[Silverforce11]

And because you run into CPU bottlenecks in those scenes, in particular WD, it would dip below 60 fps, and if you game with vsync when that happens, you get stutter because the frame time becomes as if 30 fps due to vsync.

In Radeon Pro, turn on dynamic vsync (essentially same as NV's adaptive vsync), it disables vsync when fps drop below 60 or what your monitor refresh is. Your stutter problem will be fixed.

 

[wilds]

Is there a way to enable this somewhere else? I was happy to uninstall RadeonPro because of an annoying bug it was causing with some games.

Since posting, I've fine-tuned my overclock and am getting higher clock speeds in all games without adjusting the dynamic clock setting. I'm seeing 1000-1100 MHz in all GPU heavy games and temperatures remain in the upper 60's C.

Crysis 3 was a fun test as it pushed my i5 to the limit, but clock speeds remained at their maximum. I do find vsync do be detrimental to a smooth experience in some games. AC4 will clamp your game down to 30fps if you dip in the 40's. Having vsync off keeps everything smooth. On WD, vsync is a must.

I remain skeptical of adaptive clock speeds. It was broken on my 650m based notebook; but was an easy software fix. I am leaving adaptive clocks enabled and letting it do its thing as it doesn't seem to get in the way of a smooth experience. Perhaps my GPU was craving a little more voltage than it had earlier... It's all good now

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Its far more likely you just convinced yourself there was a problem because of the fluctuations in clock speed. I know on my gtx780 I was convinced there was something wrong with gameplay because of the fluctuating clocks.

 

[wilds]

Its far more likely you just convinced yourself there was a problem because of the fluctuations in clock speed. I know on my gtx780 I was convinced there was something wrong with gameplay because of the fluctuating clocks.

I probably was. Since posting, I have a much more stable overclock at 4.6 GHz and the GPU is also more fine-tuned.

I noticed clockspeeds ranged in the mid 900's before, but now I see them in the mid 1000's often hitting 1100 MHz on GPU heavy games. With more CPU power at my disposal, I will be seeing my GPU throttling itself down less frequently when the CPU becomes the bottleneck.

When I first posted, I didn't yet adjust and test the voltage and power limit thoroughly. Afterwards, I saw higher and far less fluctuating clockspeeds. Voltage fluctuates rapidly, but I believe that to be normal.

 

[mindbomb]

don't disable ulps, theres an option specifically says "without powerplay support" for unofficial overclocking mode. You have to have an overclock, but you can do just 1 mhz overclock.

 

[wilds]

Yep. This is what I have for my settings:

Without powerplay or ULPS, I would be consuming a lot more power.
The GPU idles at 300 Mhz most of the time; except when gaming of course.

 

[wilds]

Bumping this as I am stumped with GTA IV performance. I am getting great performance then massive stuttering begins and will not stop until I alt-tab the game.

This occurs on stock speeds and at max fan settings. Before this happens, frame times are in the 20ms area and then spike up to the 90's. GPU clocks drop to around 600 MHz core and memory speeds keep dropping to idle.

A simple alt-tab fixes this, but only temporarily.

Disabling powerplay and ULPS fixes this permanently and keeps smooth frame times. I like having ULPS and powerplay enabled and I have not been having performance issues with any other games.

The stuttering is extremely noticeable and I cannot figure out why this is happening. I have a pretty ENB mod with DoF enabled which taxes the GPU quite a bit.

The power limit is also + 50% for maximum performance.
I have reinstalled the game, and tried vanilla GTA IV, but no fix.

I know this is an old DX9 game riddled with bugs, but idk if I should blame the driver or the game

tl;dr: Disabling powerplay and ULPS fixes high frame time variance.

 

[Kenmitch]

Bumping this as I am stumped with GTA IV performance. I am getting great performance then massive stuttering begins and will not stop until I alt-tab the game.

This occurs on stock speeds and at max fan settings. Before this happens, frame times are in the 20ms area and then spike up to the 90's. GPU clocks drop to around 600 MHz core and memory speeds keep dropping to idle.

A simple alt-tab fixes this, but only temporarily.

Disabling powerplay and ULPS fixes this permanently and keeps smooth frame times. I like having ULPS and powerplay enabled and I have not been having performance issues with any other games.

The stuttering is extremely noticeable and I cannot figure out why this is happening. I have a pretty ENB mod with DoF enabled which taxes the GPU quite a bit.

The power limit is also + 50% for maximum performance.
I have reinstalled the game, and tried vanilla GTA IV, but no fix.

I know this is an old DX9 game riddled with bugs, but idk if I should blame the driver or the game

tl;dr: Disabling powerplay and ULPS fixes high frame time variance.

Looking online it looks like many suffer from the same issue with all makes and models of gpus.

Is it a steam version?

If so I found the following that seemed to fix it for many.

I have got the game to work without the annoying skipping/stutter by going to the folder in Program Files (x86)/steam/steamapps/common/Grand Theft Auto IV and making a shortcut of 'LaunchGTAIV.exe' on desktop.

I launch the game through the shortcut and the game fires up without steam. That is the only way to play the game stutter free in my case, steam can not be running along with the game. For some reason there seems to be conflict between the two. I verified it on both computers. The game works fine, just steam can't be running at the same time, now it makes sense why retail version works perfectly fine.

The post was from mid April so not sure if steam has fixed the issue that causes it or not. Worth a try I guess to see if it works.

There's also the memory issue. http://steamcommunity.com/app/12210/discussions/0/558750985910076728/

 

[wilds]

Thanks for the reply. I already have GTA IV configured to see 3GB of VRAM. It hardly ever goes over 1gb anyways.

I was looking at the stuttering problem some more, and noticed it was skipping every other frame causing the long frame times. Definitely not a hardware issue.

Forcing the game into an ugly windowed mode fixes the stuttering and provides low frame times with PowerPlay and ULPS enabled.

This game has so many performance issues that googling the problem is pretty daunting... but running in Windowed mode is super smooth.

Edit: Stuttering issue is on regular GTA IV 1.0.4.0-1.0.7.0 and EFLC on Windows 8 with Steam

 

[Attic]

Hawaii has an built dynamic clock rate, if your GPU isn't max loaded it will downclock to save power.

It doesn't cause stutter in my games.

Watch dog stutter on some rigs for many reasons.

I notice the downclocking when running with vsync. without vsync the core speed stays, for the most part, at it's max clock.


With crossfire both my 290s would stay pegged at max clock at all times during games, even if load wasn't 100%. I was surprised to see the clock behavior when it removed one of them.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I've had the same thing happen on FSX. It was back on 13.2 drivers and with a i7 870 and hd 7770 so it's a bit outdated but it sounds like the GTA issue. FSX just wouldn't need the power the 7770 had so it would drop the clocks down to ~900Mhz instead of 1300. It would stutter bad and not come back up to normal clocks. Also had this problem with KSP and a fairly recent steam beta with my 7970 and 14.7 drivers.

 

[wilds]

Maybe its an AMD DX9 bug? I'm still trying to get a fullscreen fix. When stuttering begins, toggling vsync on or off will make the game smooth again. Whether vsync is on or off, stuttering will begin at random times and will not stop until the game is minimized or toggling vsync.

Even D3DOverrider or lowering in-game settings/resolution have no effect. The game will seem like a stuttering slideshow even at 90+fps until I alt-tab or toggle vsync. Disabling Steam overlay and Rivatuner overlay have no change. I think I may retire this game and just wait for GTA V!

When the game runs smooth, frametimes are all low and consistent around 18-25ms; even at max settings. When stuttering begins, GPU clockspeeds and usage plummet, and frametimes become sporadic. If I lock the clockspeeds to 1100/1500 the game will run just fine, but I would lose the ability to have idle clockspeed/voltage when not in use.

 

[MTDEW]

Thanks for the reply. I already have GTA IV configured to see 3GB of VRAM. It hardly ever goes over 1gb anyways.

I was looking at the stuttering problem some more, and noticed it was skipping every other frame causing the long frame times. Definitely not a hardware issue.

Forcing the game into an ugly windowed mode fixes the stuttering and provides low frame times with PowerPlay and ULPS enabled.

This game has so many performance issues that googling the problem is pretty daunting... but running in Windowed mode is super smooth.

Edit: Stuttering issue is on regular GTA IV 1.0.4.0-1.0.7.0 and EFLC on Windows 8 with Steam

Have you tried just running it in Borderless Window mode then?
It will look/play just like you're in fullscreen.