Single 6950 2GB "Micro Stuttering" / Jittery Rendering (Video example)

[pickle965]

Swapped out my aging GTX260 for a shiny new Sapphire 6950 2GB yesterday and I'm about ready to swap back to old faithful. The best way I can describe it would be a lack of "interpolation" between frames. So far I've been able to confirm this issue in HL2 and Skyrim (don't have a whole lot of titles installed at the moment). The effect is not as prominent after video compression but this (shitacular) capture should convey the gist of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0IG0HX7FVQ.

Enabling "cl_showfps 1" in HL2 doesn't reveal any unusual frame rate hits from what I can tell (pegged at 60 w/vsync or atleast 260+ w/o). Regardless of the indicated FPS it never appears fluid as the NVIDIA would at the same frame rate.

-Running the stock BIOS, clocks and shaders
-Installed and reinstalled both Catalyst 11.12 and 12.1
-Tried various combinations of rendering options within CCC and in-game: vsync, triple buffering, AA, AF, etc.

Hoping someone will chime in here with some suggestions; any input would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Windows 7 Pro x64
OCZ700MXSP 700W
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R
i7 920
Tri-channel 4x2GB DDR3-1333
OCZ Solid 3 120
Sapphire Radeon HD6950 2GB 100312-3SR

 

[spinejam]

In CCC set "power control setting" to +20% and see if it helps.

 

[MrK6]

Did you run Driver Sweeper or re-install Windows? If not do so, NVIDIA drivers are a PITA to get rid of and screw up everything.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Yeah sounds like old drivers might be screwing around with things. Driver Sweeper and clean it all out.

 

[Arkadrel]

video just looks laggy... what kinda fps are you getting?

 

[Via]

It's not microstutter in HL2. Your fps should be way too high to notice it.

I've seen this presented as microstutter in the past but I don't think it is.

 

[Ben90]

I had the same problem on CS:S a while back before the orange box engine ruined the game. It was pretty annoying bunny hopping with those frame skips despite rendering 600+fps.

I never found a fix although the problem did seem to go away a few months into the orange box engine updates.

 

[pickle965]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I tried everything recommended here short of reinstalling Win7 with no luck so far. I can say that the stuttering is more noticeable during mouse-look movement which seems to be consistent with most other threads I've seen regarding this issue.

Someone else posted a video demonstrating stutter vs. stutter-free BF3 on TriFire 6950s and SLI 275s respectively: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5QZ6NvkIU. This is the same difference I'm seeing coming from the GTX260. Currently at a loss and starting to wish I just stuck with NVIDIA.

 

[MrK6]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I tried everything recommended here short of reinstalling Win7 with no luck so far. I can say that the stuttering is more noticeable during mouse-look movement which seems to be consistent with most other threads I've seen regarding this issue.

Someone else posted a video demonstrating stutter vs. stutter-free BF3 on TriFire 6950s and SLI 275s respectively: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5QZ6NvkIU. This is the same difference I'm seeing coming from the GTX260. Currently at a loss and starting to wish I just stuck with NVIDIA.

Wouldn't be the first time there's some odd mobo/video card incompatibility. There's always the Windows reinstall (or set up a small partition to do a quick install to check). If not, what are the chances you can return the 6950 and try a GTX 560 or 570?