[TECH Report] As the second turns: the web digests our game testing methods

[SirPauly]

Was the stuttering discussed by a reviewer? I've noticed around here, it takes a reviewer (or someone claiming to be one) to get any traction for discussion.

I personally don't recall any reviews addressing the stuttering of le Fermi. Perhaps nVidia paid some monies to keep it on the down low

Tin foil hats aside, does it really matter? Are we back at defending the wrongs of one by pointing out the wrongs of another? Awesome.

At times, but there was a stutter bug with Kepler early on that reviewers may of missed.

On the GeForce GTX 670, 680 and 690, some users identified an occasional micro-stutter when gaming with VSync or Adaptive VSync enabled. For most this wasn’t noticeable, but we take any issue that detracts from a user’s enjoyment of our products very seriously, and have introduced a fix that will improve the smoothness of VSync gaming.

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-304-48-beta-drivers-released

 

[railven]

At times, but there was a stutter bug with Kepler early on that reviewers may of missed.



http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-304-48-beta-drivers-released

I remember that issue, and if I had to guess why reviews may have missed it is because they don't use v-sync when benching.

 

[SirPauly]

Indeed!

 

[ICDP]

Yeah, the stutter fix was a big problem for me in some games when I got my GTX 680. It wasn't a serious problem for me because I just used NvidiaInspector to add an FPS cap instead. The fix took a while coming and caused some serious angst on some forums.

Sometimes bugs or problems occur that take a while to fix. ATI, AMD and Nvidia have all had their share of WTF drivers, especially when new hardware is released.

Thankfully any stutter issues on both were/are fixable with game profiles and updated drivers. It isn't like either company introduces bugs in their drivers on purpose. Though to read some posts you would think both company's are/have/will conduct massive conspiracy's and cover ups

NowI'm off to my weekly devil worship service at the local Church of Nvidia

 

[Rikard]

The reason I underclocked the card was to attain a level close to the 7950 at 950/1250 in the TR review. When I run it at stock or overclocked the result was the same zero micro stutter but much higher FPS.

I know why you did it and I appreciate it. I am just saying that peoples experiences are all over the place. For me, I have no microstuttering in any other game I tried, but I do have it in Hitman Absolution which you do not.

 

[Homeles]

You are missing the point. While there is measurable latency, and it's far worse with Fermi, nobody has ever complained about stuttering during gameplay. "Mountains out of mole hills".

Besides, if there was a problem, I would expect nVidia to fix it. There are still Fermi cards being sold today. They are still under warranty, and people have a right to expect them to do the task they were designed for.

What? People have been complaining about stutter for a long time. Many people just don't know what to look for, and are too absorbed in their gaming to notice.

It's very application specific though. I don't think anyone's claiming that the 7970 is a stuttering mess in every single game ever made.

And they can expect and demand all that they want, but that doesn't change the fact that neither vendor is going to listen to their pleas.

 

[Lonbjerg]

What? People have been complaining about stutter for a long time. Many people just don't know what to look for, and are too absorbed in their gaming to notice.

It's very application specific though. I don't think anyone's claiming that the 7970 is a stuttering mess in every single game ever made.

And they can expect and demand all that they want, but that doesn't change the fact that neither vendor is going to listen to their pleas.

Same thing happend with shimmering in games.
Some people dismissed that too.

 

[3DVagabond]

Was the stuttering discussed by a reviewer? I've noticed around here, it takes a reviewer (or someone claiming to be one) to get any traction for discussion.

I personally don't recall any reviews addressing the stuttering of le Fermi. Perhaps nVidia paid some monies to keep it on the down low

Tin foil hats aside, does it really matter? Are we back at defending the wrongs of one by pointing out the wrongs of another? Awesome.

I'm not pointing this out to defend or accuse anyone of anything wrong. All I'm saying is that if this is an issue with current gen cards? Why wasn't it noticed or an issue with the previous generation when it was a much larger problem? Just because something is in the realm of test instruments to measure doesn't mean it's within the limits of human perception.

I go back to Total harmonic distortion (THD) measurements for audio equipment (or dynamic range, or channel separation, etc.), just because one device measures better in any of these doesn't mean it will sound better. As a matter of fact you can inject distortion into the audio path to reduce THD and introduce other types of signal degradation that are far more detrimental to the fidelity of the sound. Companies do that to win the THD wars because it's a specification that must be disclosed. All I'm saying is that before this frame latency was quantified nobody noticed a visual effect. We still need blind testing in real world conditions.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's very application specific though. I don't think anyone's claiming that the 7970 is a stuttering mess in every single game ever made.

There are people who would like you to believe that every single 7000 series card stutters in every single game and it's because AMD gave up smoothness to increase frame rates just to win the FPS battle with their drivers that made them faster than nVidia cards.

 

[Homeles]

There are people who would like you to believe that every single 7000 series card stutters in every single game and it's because AMD gave up smoothness to increase frame rates just to win the FPS battle with their drivers that made them faster than nVidia cards.

Yeah, I've heard that idea tossed around — the assertion that AMD threw latency out the window in blind pursuit of frame rates. There's no proof of this, though.

 

[AdamK47]

OK, I keep seeing the title of this thread and of the article. Could someone please explain what "As the second turns" means?

 

[Homeles]

OK, I keep seeing the title of this thread and of the article. Could someone please explain what "As the second turns" means?

It's meant to be an allusion to his original frame latency article, "Inside the second: a new look at game benchmarking."

 

[SirPauly]

Same thing happend with shimmering in games.
Some people dismissed that too.

Indeed! However, when dealing with subjective, tastes and tolerances differ -- some feel it is important; some don't care; some believe it is mountains out of mole hills. However, the constructive awareness may help improve products!

 

[3DVagabond]

OK, I keep seeing the title of this thread and of the article. Could someone please explain what "As the second turns" means?

Play on "As the World Turns", which is a daytime drama show, for those not familiar with US Soap operas. Which is very interesting since it seems to me that the drama is the most important aspect.

 

[Will Robinson]

TR's tests with the new driver show virtually no frame rate loss and decreased latency.
That basically kicks sand in the face of the whole "AMD musta cheated" campaigners who will now need another excuse as to why Kepler is just, plain, slower.

 

[raghu78]

http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times

AMD catalyst 13.2 beta should be out next week. this driver has driver parameter tweaks to improve frame latency in DX9 games like skyrim, guild wars 2 and borderlands 2.

the new memory manager driver should be out in a few weeks. that will benefit DX11 / DX10 games in general. my guess is we can expect this driver sometime in Feb.

AMD has also said that going forward their internal testing will include frametime tests. :thumbsup:

 

[Keysplayr]

TR's tests with the new driver show virtually no frame rate loss and decreased latency.
That basically kicks sand in the face of the whole "AMD musta cheated" campaigners who will now need another excuse as to why Kepler is just, plain, slower.

Interesting interpretation.

While AMD impressed me with this improvement, they are still behind Nvidia in overall frame latency. Now that AMD is focused on this and pledged to keep this in their sites, they should improve more and maybe even surpass Nvidia. It looks like all the thread, and all the articles are serving their purpose. Very good news for AMD users.
And William, it would be cool if you could get it through that head of yours that this wasn't about fps. It's about gaming smoothness.
You recall seeing it written that Nvidia felt smoother with far less fps in some cases? I know I'm talking to an AMD wall, but hope springs eternal.

 

[NIGELG]

Nvidia wall talking to AMD walls????

Anyhow I am enjoying my new 7970.No stuttering seen yet but I hope the 13.1 drivers can help those who suffer from this issue.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nvidia wall talking to AMD walls????

Anyhow I am enjoying my new 7970.No stuttering seen yet but I hope the 13.1 drivers can help those who suffer from this issue.

At least I'm open to new information. Consider me a firewall with ports to let non-BS through and block FUD.

And you are probably one of those people who cannot detect Microstutter, which is fortunate for you.

 

[NIGELG]

At least I'm open to new information. Consider me a firewall with ports to let non-BS through and block FUD.

And you are probably one of those people who cannot detect Microstutter, which is fortunate for you.

Only in Oblivion which I played on both an Nvidia 8800GTS and an Ati Radeon 4850.

I haven't played Skyrim but I can imagine how that might go.

 

[railven]

I'm not pointing this out to defend or accuse anyone of anything wrong. All I'm saying is that if this is an issue with current gen cards? Why wasn't it noticed or an issue with the previous generation when it was a much larger problem? Just because something is in the realm of test instruments to measure doesn't mean it's within the limits of human perception.

Re-read this, just one more time. Maybe a third. They are your own words:

"All I'm saying is that if this is an issue with current gen cards? Why wasn't it noticed or an issue with the previous when it was a much larger problem?"

If it was such an issue, did you raise a stink? Why not?

 

[ArchAngel777]

Where the "F" is the fix for this crap. Seriously. Not that I am playing anything right now that is exhibiting noticeable stuttering right now but, It's just annoying that over a month ago was AMD's admission and I recall them saying they were working to address it. How lond does it take a team of people who's sole job is to work out kinks like this. It's just annoying. Like I stated in a thread not too long ago and got crap about it, AMD's biggest drawback is their shoddy driver team

Your post was made on the 14th. According to the TR forums, that admission wasn't until January 2nd. I don't think 13 days is a month, on any calendar.

It's not just a month. According to Baumann and some others here, the rewrite was already well underway. So, it takes longer than a month.

So 13+X = Over a month? I suppose if you know the value of X that might be true, but the only thing we know is that it was reported to be in-progress on the 2nd. It could have been in progress an hour, week, month, etc… before the 2nd of January - But we don't know and therefore don't know it was over a month. It was presumptuous to even state such a thing.

TR may have reported the issue before January 2nd. But AMD didn't acknowledge it until the 2nd of January. To me, it sounds like they have some decent turn around time.

With that said, we don't have the final results yet. We know that 13.2 fixes most of the issues regarding it, but more testing needs to be done and we need to make sure AMD continues with the low latancy priority.

 

[railven]

New TR article shows about a 8% drop in FPS for GW2.

However, it showed no stutter compared to Beta 11. That's a fair trade off in my opinion. Other games showed no FPS drop, and decent stutter reduction, seems Borderlands 2 is still a weak spot.

 

[Lonbjerg]

This is funny:

http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times

Hmm. Where to begin? Probably early last month, when we discovered some performance problems with the Radeon HD 7950 in recent games using our newfangled testing methods, which focus on frame rendering times rather than simple FPS averages. Eventually, AMD acknowledged the problem and pledged to address the issues of high-latency frames in a series of driver updates.

Now it's only a lot of people in this thread that needs to do the same

Instead of being mad a Keys because AMD's driver got issues ^^

Unless peple think the driver did nothing:

 

[BrightCandle]

Its great to see they are beginning to address the problem. AMD has had superior hardware this generation, clearly has the better platform for triple screen gaming and yet I have been unable to use the cards due to severe microstutter. I think soon the time will come when I can switch back to the 7970's, see the performance I expect from them and sell the 680's, which have at least produced reliable performance if not stellar performance especially at high resolutions.