FPS Issues with 5870

[Bartok]

Just built my PC the other day and i'm having problems with CoD4. I have max FPS set at 125, for the most part my FPS is a rock solid 125 but every few minutes, it's pretty darn random, my fps will drop down to a random number between 60-81. It's an immediate drop and then shoots right back up to 125. It all happens within like a second. Problem is that when it drops my game kinda stutters, almost like a real quick hang and then comes back fine. Tried plugging in my old 8800GT but my FPS is much lower obviously so it's hard to tell, FPS is stable with it but it's in like the 50's. I'm assuming it's a driver issue but this crap is bugging the hell out of me. Installed CoD:WaW last night, will run that when I get home to see if I get the same problem. Card is also using HDMI for my primary monitor and then DVI for secondary.

Specs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131365 - Mother Board
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819115202 - CPU
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125299 - Video Card
GIGABYTE GV-R587D5-1GD-B Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145235 - Memory
CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139009 - Power Supply
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112066 - Case

Any input would be appreciated.
Oh and i'm using Win7 64-bit.

 

[Grooveriding]

Try a defrag of your hard drive or reinstall of the game, sometimes that sort of stutter is hard drive related.

It's quite likely nothing to do with your videocard, whatever the problem is. Unless you are getting artifacts or crashing, or have steadily low fps.

 

[Bartok]

I'll try that when I get home from work, thanks.
And to add, the HDD i'm using is the HDD from my old PC. Reformatted it of course when I put this PC together but same one none the less, with no problems. But like I said, i'll try that when I get home from work.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Another possibility is processor related, such that the CPU speed is throttling down mid-game?

 

[yh125d]

Maybe hitching as it loads map or textures or something from HD?

 

[Bartok]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Another possibility is processor related, such that the CPU speed is throttling down mid-game?

How would I check that?
Just through CPU-Z? And if that is the case, how would I go about fixing that? Thanks for the input.
Edit: Also, if that were to be true, why would the CPU slow itself down like that for a split second and then go right back to normal?

 

[bryanW1995]

if you drop from 125 down to 80 and back up then you're not likely to notice that it all. it sounds more like a cpu-related issue. what monitor do you have, what are your system specs?

 

[Bartok]

This is the monitor i'm currently using;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16824005126
Hooked up via HDMI.
Specs are all listed in my original post. Everything is stock, no overclocking or anything at the moment.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: Bartok

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Another possibility is processor related, such that the CPU speed is throttling down mid-game?

How would I check that?
Just through CPU-Z? And if that is the case, how would I go about fixing that? Thanks for the input.
Edit: Also, if that were to be true, why would the CPU slow itself down like that for a split second and then go right back to normal?

It's not supposed to, but it's still a possibility.

I think the best way to test is to turn off, temporarily, the power saving features in the BIOS, which are what throttles the CPU in order to reduce clock speed and power consumption.

Maybe you can also try setting the core affinity for CoD. I haven't heard of this happening on Intel machines, but the game could be jumping from a fast core to a slow core, and the slowdown you notice is the time it takes for that core to wakeup to full speed. But I believe Core i7 is supposed to be fast enough for this switching to be unnoticeable, so this may or may not be the problem.

 

[v8envy]

Could it be a virus checker or malware or other background utilities waking up and soaking resources? Is this a fresh OS install or an OS install from a previous machine with different hardware?

 

[Bartok]

Fresh OS. Built the computer, put in my HDD I was previously using and then did a fresh install of Win7 65-bit. Don't really have any programs running in the backround but that shouldn't be a problem anyway. Only programs running are Trillian and Xfire. No Virus software is installed. Haven't really gone anywhere online that'd give me any type of malware. Been on it a total of like 8ish hours and most of the time it was just installing software, patching, troubleshooting and playing CoD4.

 

[Bartok]

I think the best way to test is to turn off, temporarily, the power saving features in the BIOS, which are what throttles the CPU in order to reduce clock speed and power consumption.

I could be wrong but I believe I already did that. Not really too familiar with these settings but a friend of mine checked my Core Voltage through CPU-Z, was jumping around a little bit and it was reading something like 0.964 so he had me go into my BIOS and disable a few features and now it's a steady 1.264 (something like that, at office PC at the moment).

Maybe you can also try setting the core affinity for CoD.

Not sure what this is. Could you go into a little more detail if you don't mind. More specificly, how would I make these changes.

 

[OCGuy]

You shouldnt have to be setting anything like that to get your card to work properly.

See if it is COD4 only that does this.

 

[alcoholbob]

If you are a gamer-first, turn off the power saving features on the CPU for sure.

 

[dreddfunk]

I'm not much of a guru when it comes to troubleshooting problems like this, but I do recall hearing about the funky effects of using vsync.

IIRC, you can get droped to a more easily managable fraction of the monitor's refresh rate. So if you can run a game at 120, it does just fine, until you hit an area where you'd normally only get 95-100, then it wants to drop the frames down to the 60's range because it's easier to sync them with the monitor.

Have you tried turning off vsync and seeing what happens?

 

[Bartok]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If you are a gamer-first, turn off the power saving features on the CPU for sure.

I believe I have already done this but maybe i'm missing something. What exactly am I looking for, assuming everything is in the BIOS.

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
I'm not much of a guru when it comes to troubleshooting problems like this, but I do recall hearing about the funky effects of using vsync.

IIRC, you can get droped to a more easily managable fraction of the monitor's refresh rate. So if you can run a game at 120, it does just fine, until you hit an area where you'd normally only get 95-100, then it wants to drop the frames down to the 60's range because it's easier to sync them with the monitor.

Have you tried turning off vsync and seeing what happens?

It's been off in CoD's .cfg, not sure if there's somewhere else that I have to go to disable it.