Frustrated AMD Owner

[nforce4max]

Skyrim stutters whether you have crossfire, AMD, Nvidia, or not

That is true
I have seen it on a few of my single gpu machines, a A8 3530mx laptop, GTX460, and my AM3+ rig that has two gtx280. The game is also very memory sensitive that it will lag sometime even though the gpu isn't at fault such as being sensitive to virtual memory performance (hard drive) and the system memory controller producing some latency. AMD in other games isn't bad at all but personally I am expecting hobbyists working on driver related projects for AMD/ATI cards in the future. Nvidia isn't perfect and already found a bug in one of their recent physx drivers.

 

[exia989]

Tried borderless windowed mode, skyrim now runs like a champ! and according to my little gpu monitoring widget on my secondary monitor, im no longer apparently going over 2gb of vram usage (which never made sense to me before as it was since these are 2gb cards)

 

[taltamir]

Tried borderless windowed mode, skyrim now runs like a champ! and according to my little gpu monitoring widget on my secondary monitor, im no longer apparently going over 2gb of vram usage (which never made sense to me before as it was since these are 2gb cards)

if it goes over what your card actually has (2gb) then it starts caching vram using regular system ram, which causes significant slowdowns (the stuttering) as data has to be shuffled back and forth with system ram.

How many mods do you have?

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Yeah it probably is, but do dual GPU setups ever get you a little depressed? I mean its like this. I buy two beautiful GTX570's and I can feel the power emanating from the case. My mind is totally at ease knowing that I have the fastest possible setup within reason, meaning buying two 580's would have been not worth the cost to me.
I have confidence knowing that no game could challenge my rig. Instead, game after game buckled at the knees and fell to worship my god-like rig for months and months. Then it happened. BF3 came out and I couldn't max it due to a lack of Vram. I was crushed. My self esteem plummeted and my heart began to fracture right down the center, and out of it poured my love and adoration for my eleet dual card setup.
I took notice of the newer, cheaper single card solutions on the market and how they ran BF3 better on max settings, despite lacking the same raw GPU power of my 570's which had suddenly fell from grace. I looked at my bank account and came to realize that maybe, just maybe I could have been alright with a single high end card until the next gen came around. But no, I had to splurge on the dual card setup to satisfy my unquenchable thirst for overkill computing power, and now I was paying the price in terms of lost money and a frayed ego.
There was only one solution for me. I had to have two GTX 670's to make up for the mistake I had just made. I had lacked foresight when purchasing the two 570's, but things would be different this time. Nvidia had learned their lessons about not including enough Vram on their upper end cards, and I had learned my lesson too, or so I thought.
Now I sit here, pondering my addiction and consequent actions as they continue to spin their sticky, inescapable web of deceit and prideful trickery; a trap for those like me. Maybe next gen I will learn. Maybe I can start anew and do things right this time. Maybe, just maybe I can settle for a single GTX780...that is unless Crysis 3 doesn't pull 60fps. Or maybe Far Cry 3 has dips in the 50's....what then? What then are my options? Perhaps two 770's. That should do it. I'll probably be OK with dual 770's next time, because next time will be different.

Well said, well said.