[pcper] frame metering review 690 vs. 7970 CF vs. Titan

[bystander36]

They touched on the topic a little in the article. Without v-sync on, the GPU's in crossfire have no metering technology to evenly space out frames. This results in frames being sent to the screen at uneven spaces at times. Sometimes badly uneven. This can cause micro stutter, and is what you experience in your worst case scenario.

However, even in single card configurations, when the graphics card is evenly spacing out frames, there can be occasional stutters. These can come from a number of sources, such as a delay forced by Windows, or the CPU is bottlenecked, or you are waiting on the harddrive to load information needed.

So frame metering helps a lot of microstutter in SLI and currently lacks in Crossfire, but is only affected without v-sync. Frame limiters force frames to wait and get evenly spaced out as well, so that too can help a lot. But no matter what you do, some stuttering happens for other reasons as well.

 

[Fx1]

You really show stop the "no lag" talk. There is no such thing as no lag, only reduced lag, or minimal lag.

It doesnt really matter because no one on this forum is good enough to take advantage of 16ms in any FPS online game.

So basically your living with screen tearing for no benefit or improvement in your game.

 

[omeds]

Oh good grief. Virtu MVP has been tried by many here including myself, and it is a piece of junk. It doesn't work with most games. It is by far one of the most broken pieces of software you can ever use.

Oh good grief. It's compatability is irrelevant. The concept of Virtual vsync is what I'm talking about. I thought that much would be obvious.

 

[bystander36]

It doesnt really matter because no one on this forum is good enough to take advantage of 16ms in any FPS online game.

So basically your living with screen tearing for no benefit or improvement in your game.

You are living under the idea that initiating a response to something you see is the same as tracking a target and stopping your mouse on a target that you see the location of. You can plan for the latter, which gives you far more precise control, and you do notice a bit of latency.

Will that latency translate into better play? That may be a bit subjective, and may depend on the person.

The difference between 16ms and 8ms in frame times, does change whether or not I get nauseated after a time.

 

[bystander36]

You should read this post: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2304959

The 1st and 3rd post might give you a bit of enlightening.

 

[omeds]

It doesnt really matter because no one on this forum is good enough to take advantage of 16ms in any FPS online game.

So basically your living with screen tearing for no benefit or improvement in your game.

You really do talk rubbish. It's already been explained to you 20 times, yet you continue down this path of ignorance.

People can feel input lag. It is there. Higher FPS improves responsiveness. This is a fact. High enough FPS also improves the apparent fluidity and reduces the appearance of tearing.

 

[railven]

They touched on the topic a little in the article. Without v-sync on, the GPU's in crossfire have no metering technology to evenly space out frames. This results in frames being sent to the screen at uneven spaces at times. Sometimes badly uneven. This can cause micro stutter, and is what you experience in your worst case scenario.

However, even in single card configurations, when the graphics card is evenly spacing out frames, there can be occasional stutters. These can come from a number of sources, such as a delay forced by Windows, or the CPU is bottlenecked, or you are waiting on the harddrive to load information needed.

So frame metering helps a lot of microstutter in SLI and currently lacks in Crossfire, but is only affected without v-sync. Frame limiters force frames to wait and get evenly spaced out as well, so that too can help a lot. But no matter what you do, some stuttering happens for other reasons as well.

I need to find the magic sauce/number/settings to rid myself of the stutter in Le WoWz, or just return to ignoring it as best as I can.

What baffles me is it was completely gone in a dungeon/raid/instance. It made me think, at least for le WoWz, it is more of an issue caused by a CPU bottleneck. In the world I'm calculating other players/NPC/Mobs. In a dungeon/instance it is capped to <=25 players barely any NPCs and a limited number of mobs.

I'm going to test by downclocking my CPU and see if it makes the suttering worse.

 

[bystander36]

I need to find the magic sauce/number/settings to rid myself of the stutter in Le WoWz, or just return to ignoring it as best as I can.

What baffles me is it was completely gone in a dungeon/raid/instance. It made me think, at least for le WoWz, it is more of an issue caused by a CPU bottleneck. In the world I'm calculating other players/NPC/Mobs. In a dungeon/instance it is capped to <=25 players barely any NPCs and a limited number of mobs.

I'm going to test by downclocking my CPU and see if it makes the suttering worse.

In the comments section, the author did mention that a CPU bottleneck may limit the crossfire microstutter. This is because the CPU is forcing the GPU's to wait for it to do its job, not allowing one or the other to get out of sync.

 

[omeds]

Yep CPU limitations help with microstutter. Its when GPU limited it becomes more apparent.

 

[railven]

In the comments section, the author did mention that a CPU bottleneck may limit the crossfire microstutter. This is because the CPU is forcing the GPU's to wait for it to do its job, not allowing one or the other to get out of sync.

That makes me wonder...is having a high OC causing the issue than? Haha. Oh what a world...

Since I spent majority of my WoW career in a dungeon or raid, I guess the issue isn't devastating enough for me to eat a 15% restocking fee, at least none of my other games (currently: Bio:I/TR/Crysis3) don't stutter or if they are I've yet to notice it.

 

[Fx1]

You really do talk rubbish. It's already been explained to you 20 times, yet you continue down this path of ignorance.

People can feel input lag. It is there. Higher FPS improves responsiveness. This is a fact. High enough FPS also improves the apparent fluidity and reduces the appearance of tearing.

But you cant get high FPS on modern 3D games without killing the quality down. So 60 FPS is the norm. Because 60 FPS is normal screen tearing is going to be bad unless you Vsync. Fact.

 

[bystander36]

That makes me wonder...is having a high OC causing the issue than? Haha. Oh what a world...

Since I spent majority of my WoW career in a dungeon or raid, I guess the issue isn't devastating enough for me to eat a 15% restocking fee, at least none of my other games (currently: Bio:I/TR/Crysis3) don't stutter or if they are I've yet to notice it.

With Crossfire that is an issue. Normally you want all the FPS you can get, but unfortunately, unless there is a form of bottleneck to hold back initiating frames, crossfire gets out of sync. A CPU bottleneck, FPS limiter and v-sync all limit the creation of frames. Now v-sync may not help when your GPU is still not able to generating your refresh rate in FPS. A FPS limiter would have the same issue.

 

[omeds]

But you cant get high FPS on modern 3D games without killing the quality down.

Maybe you can't, but I can.

 

[railven]

With Crossfire that is an issue. Normally you want all the FPS you can get, but unfortunately, unless there is a form of bottleneck to hold back initiating frames, crossfire gets out of sync. A CPU bottleneck, FPS limiter and v-sync all limit the creation of frames. Now v-sync may not help when your GPU is still not able to generating your refresh rate in FPS. A FPS limiter would have the same issue.

That might explain why I have no stuttering in dungeons. My FPS is mostly pegged at 60 FPS (do to v-sync) and when it is not, it is due to many spells/effects which is already dropping my FPS and the action detracts from any perceivable stuttering.

In the world, my FPS is usually below 60 due to all the AA I'm forcing and CPU bottlenecks.

I'm just glad I'm not seeing stuttering across multiple games, so far it's focal to WoWz.