Micro stutter.... Anybody annoyed?

[lavaheadache]

I've run a 7800 GT sli rig and a 8800gt sli rig. I definately enjoy the benefits of having 2 video cards but I've always noticed a little bit of stuttereing even when my frames were really high. Is there someting I can do about it(besides taking out a card) or will I always be plagued by this phenomena.

microstutter


*** holy bejesus, batman.....

I think I found the source to my microstutter problem. It seems as though it's sorta mouse related. Bear with me on this and also if you can perform these actions too and confirm what I have found that would be most help full.
OK, first off the easiest way to see the micro stutter for me in the most repeatable fashion was in COD4. I would start a new server and load Downpour(lots of foliage that caused the stuttering). Now run over to a very large bush usually on the border of the map. Now looking from side to side would cause lots of little hiccups, so the first thing to do was enable vsync. This actually made the problem much worse, or so I thought. I noticed that if I strafed from side to side the foliage was liquid smooth. The second I touch my mouse to look side to side hiccup city. so I mapped my keyboard to "look " functions and viaola, Every thing is smooth as hell. So I thought made my problem was the mouse itself(razer copperhead). No biggie I have lots of mice. I tried each one and none of them would make the stuttering go away. Yet keyboard looking and playing was as smooth as using a single GPU. ah yes, I can cofirm that single gpu doesn't have this problem, only SLi, and only SLi with a mouse!!
Anybody have any suggestions? My next guess is if something is going on with my usb ports, but I dont seem to think this is the problem either

 

[apoppin]

Switch to AMD?




sorry .. i haven't experienced it enough to notice it in games.

 

[CP5670]

Try to get vsync and triple buffering working (completely). That seems to somehow nullify the effect in my experience. If you're still getting the stutter, one or the other usually isn't working right. SFR mode is also worth a try, as that article suggests it's an inherent limitation with how AFR works.

As for the thread title, it annoyed me enough to get rid of my multi GPU setup, although this kind of thing depends a lot on what games you play.

 

[lavaheadache]

hmmm, I will try split frame rendering tonight. As far as vsync with triple buffering working how can I be sure they are working properly? As side from checking that my frames are locked @ refresh. I dual boot with Vista 64 and Xp, let me know if there is something out there that I can try

 

[BFG10K]

Switch to AMD?

AMD will have the same problem as it's inherent to AFR. Same as multichrome.

As far as vsync with triple buffering working how can I be sure they are working properly? As side from checking that my frames are locked @ refresh.

Raise the detail levels in your control panel and watch your framerate when it goes lower than your refresh rate.

For example, if you're on 60 Hz and you only see 60, 30 or 15 FPS then triple buffering is not working. If you get in-between values (e.g. 57 FPS or 32 FPS) then you're okay.

 

[Blacklash]

I had stuttering in "The Shivering Isles" and increasing the amount of information the game could put into my ram made it disappear. I have 4Gb on board and the game defaults to treating your system like you have 512Mb.

As far as SLi|Crossfire and Multi-gpu go, I am not currently a fan of any of them. Yes, I've use SLi|Crossfire and Multi-gpu. I've tried Multi-gpu as recently as the HD 3870 X2.

 

[Sylvanas]

I have the Crossfire system in sig (have forced Cat AI to 'Advanced' thus forcing AFR in all games) and I have not noticed this micro stuttering.

 

[lavaheadache]

just played for an for an hour or 2 using vista 64 and this seems to be farles an issue than xp. I wonder if being able to utilize all my ram has something to do about it. Could be that Cod 4 @ 4x AA 1920x1200 was too much for the 2.5 gig memory limitation I was getting. Maybe Sli support is better in vista 64 than xp

 

[lavaheadache]

*** holy bejesus, batman.....

I think I found the source to my microstutter problem. It seems as though it's sorta mouse related. Bear with me on this and also if you can perform these actions too and confirm what I have found that would be most help full.
OK, first off the easiest way to see the micro stutter for me in the most repeatable fashion was in COD4. I would start a new server and load Downpour(lots of foliage that caused the stuttering). Now run over to a very large bush usually on the border of the map. Now looking from side to side would cause lots of little hiccups, so the first thing to do was enable vsync. This actually made the problem much worse, or so I thought. I noticed that if I strafed from side to side the foliage was liquid smooth. The second I touch my mouse to look side to side hiccup city. so I mapped my keyboard to "look " functions and viaola, Every thing is smooth as hell. So I thought made my problem was the mouse itself(razer copperhead). No biggie I have lots of mice. I tried each one and none of them would make the stuttering go away. Yet keyboard looking and playing was as smooth as using a single GPU. ah yes, I can cofirm that single gpu doesn't have this problem, only SLi, and only SLi with a mouse!!
Anybody have any suggestions? My next guess is if something is going on with my usb ports, but I dont seem to think this is the problem either




I can confirm that both XP and vista 64 are suffering identically(i dual boot) so I know it cant be OS specific

 

[Sylvanas]

Hmmm I noticed Crysis ran a bit 'smoother' when I enabled 'smooth mouse' not sure if it's anything to do with this 'micro stuttering' but perhaps it is something you can try.

From Tweakguides.com:

Smooth Mouse: If ticked, this option smooths mouse movements, preventing jerkiness, especially at higher mouse sensitivity settings. Unfortunately it can also increase the feelings of 'mouse lag', so is best left disabled.

 

[Hauk]

You said you noticed less stuttering using keyboard with same side to side movements. When you first start a map then pan around, isn't it buffering for the first time whereas the same scenes would be smoother after buffering? What I'm getting at is, were the scenes already buffered from trying with mouse, and you remapped keyboard keys afterwards?

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Switch to AMD?

AMD will have the same problem as it's inherent to AFR. Same as multichrome.

As far as vsync with triple buffering working how can I be sure they are working properly? As side from checking that my frames are locked @ refresh.

Raise the detail levels in your control panel and watch your framerate when it goes lower than your refresh rate.

For example, if you're on 60 Hz and you only see 60, 30 or 15 FPS then triple buffering is not working. If you get in-between values (e.g. 57 FPS or 32 FPS) then you're okay.

That's interesting.

When I did the "triple buffering/vsynch with SLi" tests in that other thread, I noticed that sometimes it would drop 2-3fps below 60, and if I used the jumppad in the "Sanctuary" level of UT3 it would plummet 15-20fps for a second as the character flew through the sky. (then lock on 60 again)

I wondered what was up with that as I've only seen vsynch halve fps and I thought triple buffer had to lock on a stable rate at the refresh rate. (but I've never really just watched the counter like I did for that test either)

Since it wasn't halving it, I assumed the triple buffering was working, but did think the occasional variations were odd.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Switch to AMD?

AMD will have the same problem as it's inherent to AFR. Same as multichrome.

really?

i simply haven't seen it ... for more than a second or two - on startup of a game

and i look for these things

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

this may be a dumb question but what about the response time from the LCD's then i was hearing something about 'Input lag' which i know even less about..

 

[lavaheadache]

omg, enabling smooth mouse fixed the problem in xp now I will try in vista. Before I had Sli smooth mouse just seemed to cause lag, with Sli there is no percievable lag and my micro stuttering that has gave me a sour outlook on Sli has vanished. Thanks Sylvanas for the idea!!

 

[apoppin]

But does it now affect the lag with "smooth mouse" enabled?
---i can't enable it without it lagging now
:roll:
[not that i needed to enable it in the first place .. but ... don't you have a very noticeable lag now?]

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: apoppin
But does it now affect the lag with "smooth mouse" enabled?


i can't enable it without it lagging now
[not that i needed to]

hmm , not sure what you are asking. Are you asking if I'm getting mouse lag now?Or are you asking if the micro stuttering is gone?

1. no the mouse is not lagging, and I play on a 24 incher with 3 inch of mouse travel will cross he screen

2. Micro stuttering confirmed gone in XP, just logged into vista now to check.

Mind you in single GPU mode I have zero problems with said "micro stuttering"

 

[apoppin]

yes, if i enable mouse smoothing .. i get a noticeable mouse lag

i never noticed micro stutter with Crossfire so i never needed to try mouse smoothing
- but if it is a solution for you .. awesome!

 

[lavaheadache]

Ok back from testing again. In Vista the fix isn't quite perfect. There seems to be some minor lag but I will not be able to tolerate it, and secondly it isn't 100% smooth like in XP.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Ok back from testing again. In Vista the fix isn't quite perfect. There seems to be some minor lag but I will not be able to tolerate it, and secondly it isn't 100% smooth like in XP.

that bad? ... the lag in Vista

i only use Vista now ... i only have XP for ... for ... for ...
--WtF DO i have XP anymore?

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Ok back from testing again. In Vista the fix isn't quite perfect. There seems to be some minor lag but I will not be able to tolerate it, and secondly it isn't 100% smooth like in XP.

that bad? ... the lag in Vista

i only use Vista now ... i only have XP for ... for ... for ...
--WtF DO i have XP anymore?

I don't know why these companies can't just make this shit work. If i performed at my job like these clowns do, I'm sure I'd be fired.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
Ok back from testing again. In Vista the fix isn't quite perfect. There seems to be some minor lag but I will not be able to tolerate it, and secondly it isn't 100% smooth like in XP.

that bad? ... the lag in Vista

i only use Vista now ... i only have XP for ... for ... for ...
--WtF DO i have XP anymore?

I don't know why these companies can't just make this shit work. If i performed at my job like these clowns do, I'm sure I'd be fired.

Man- you hold yourself to a high standard. You're talking about the worldwide leader in their field- undisputed.

If you do your job that well, you get things like named the number one big company in America by Forbes, record profits quarter after quarter, and huge marketshare- not fired.

If this stuff was easy to do better, someone else would so they could earn the billions instead of nV.

 

[CP5670]

Nice advertisement. :roll:

OP, it's interesting that this only happens with mouse control. Is it only in COD4 or are you getting it in other games too?

I was getting this effect in some games that I play with keyboard only though (mainly racing games and space sims), so I don't think it's necessarily limited to mouse controlled games. I generally don't like mouse smoothing settings in games since they tend to introduce input lag.

 

[lopri]

I experience micro-stutter all the time. Be it a single-GPU system or multi-GPU system. G80 was pretty bad but G92 seems a lot better with the latest drivers. And I do think AMD has a very slight upper hand in this regard, but not to the point that it actually matters. I just deal with it for now.

 

[CP5670]

It's worth noting that certain games have their own frame skipping issues that occur on any hardware. This typically happens when the physics engine runs at a fixed rate, which makes it go out of sync with the (rendering) framerate all the time. I find it very noticeable in the Doom 3 based games, and to a lesser extent in NFS: Most Wanted. I don't remember seeing anything in COD4 on a single card, although it's been a while since I played it.