Video stuttering - EXPERT help needed here

Skyguy

Senior member
Oct 7, 2006
202
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Simple problem, hopefully simple answer, but I simply CANNOT find it.

When running CoD2 and 3DMark05/06, my video display "stutters". I DON'T MEAN LAG. I mean "stutter". It runs smoother, then stutters REGULARLY approximately every 5 seconds for 1.5 seconds, then continues, then stutters. It keeps going like this without end. This doesn't seem to affect my benchmark scores though, which is weird.

System specs:
-6300 OC'd to 3.0 (but I tried stock speeds)
-Zalman 9500
-2x1024 OCZ Platinum @ 4-5-4-15
-Gigabyte 965P-DS3
-EVGA 8800GTS
-Seasonic Energy Plus 650w
-3 Seagate/WD hard drives

Info on what I've tried:
-temps on CPU are good
-temps on 8800GTS top out in the low 70's celcius
-My OC is STABLE, dual Prime 95's for 24 hours no errors
-drivers are current
-BIOS is current
-DX9 updated
-game updated
-no RAID
-tried 4 different NVIDIA cards (7600GT, another 7600GT, 7900GTX, 8800GTS), still stutters on ALL of them
-tried a new mobo, still stutters
-tried 2 other PSUs, still stutters
-tried 2 different hard drives, still stutters
-tried one RAM stick, then tried the other, each in separate DIMM slots, 1 at a time.
-ran memtest, no errors (but how LONG/passes should I let it run???)
-checked virtual memory settings, seem fine
-tried running CoD2 on Affinity set just to CPU0, then just CPU 1, then both
-write combining on and off (I'm positive I did this and no fix)

So I've proven it's not the game. It's not the mobo, PSU, vid card, CPU temp, hard drive, OC, BIOS.

So either:
-CPU is problematic (doubt it, no issues with all benchies/stress tests I can find)
-RAM is problematic (and haven't let Memtest run long enough to find possible errors)
-system setup is problematic......no idea where though
-driver issue (but I've tried 4 diff vid cards, so it would be a setup thing I would hypothesize)
-all the cards or CPU/system is throttling, but I can't tell if it is, or what would be causing it. Or how to fix it.


I think I've covered all my bases. Weak points (RAM, setting, etc) noted above.

Has ANYONE got any ideas? Serious replies only, this is very frustrating and I've gone through the gamut of things and done lots of reading and research to try to nail this problem down.

Cookie and bragging rights to the person who can figure this out LOL.

Thanks.
 

giantpinkbunnyhead

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2005
3,251
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That's odd... seems like you covered about everything.. except one. (Or maybe you didn't list it). What happens when you set your CPU back to stock speeds? I think that just because it benches well, doesn't mean your real-world performance will match. It's really all I can think of, since you've swapped about everything else.

edit: didn't see your note saying you tried stock speeds. Do you have another CPU to try?
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
12,974
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71
Disable VSync and triple buffering. Set display to 60 Hz.

Run NT performance monitor (perfmon.msc from start menu run) and identify the bottleneck by any spikes that occur. I recommend adding counters (always use _Total) for:

Processor\% Interrupt Time (hardware CPU use)
Memory\Page Faults/sec (amount of times it had to read from page file)
Memory\Pages/sec (amount of time memory was accessed)
LogicalDisk\% Disk Time (hard disk access)
Process\% Privileged Time (driver/kernel CPU use)
Process\% User Time (program/game CPU use)

This should help you limit it down. Remember, look for any spikes. Also take a screenshot of the results. (And obviously, run the game while you're recording the performance.)
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
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Do you know if you're using hardware acceleration (overlay mode or DXVA) in your playback? Does it stutter if you use a pure software player?
 

Skyguy

Senior member
Oct 7, 2006
202
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0
giant: no spare CPU laying around, that's about the only thing I don't have extra kicking around here.....unless I "borrow" the P4 from my office workstation for the night ;)

xtknight: vsync is off. NT monitor? You talking about this?
http://www.shareup.com/NT_Monitor-download-27659.html
If so, I'll have to read up on it more, am leaving the office right now.

mmm: no out-of-the-ordinary background processes. Disabled non-necessary ones, closed all programs too.

mathias: I believe hard acceleration is on (can't check now, am not at home). But no stutter issues in DVD playback, etc....just 3D stuff.


I'll take a deeper look into these suggestions tonight and report back. In the meantime, keep the ideas coming, I'm willing to try anything. The only hardware I haven't swapped is RAM and CPU, and don't have spares :( I might have to come up with a plan for that......work system is DDR I believe, not DDR2 so that won't work. And I don't wanna buy RAM since I can't return it :(
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
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mathias: I believe hard acceleration is on (can't check now, am not at home). But no stutter issues in DVD playback, etc....just 3D stuff.

Ah. I misunderstood your question; I thought you were trying to play a video on a second monitor while playing a game and the video was skipping (your usage of the term "video display" is... interesting.)

What I would suggest is using Driver Cleaner to strip out your MB/GPU drivers, then:

1) Reinstall your MB/chipset drivers.
2) Reinstall the latest DirectX.
3) Reinstall the latest (non-beta) GPU drivers.

I also second running your hardware at stock. It's possible it is affecting the video card or its interface somehow.
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
12,974
0
71
Originally posted by: Skyguy
giant: no spare CPU laying around, that's about the only thing I don't have extra kicking around here.....unless I "borrow" the P4 from my office workstation for the night ;)

xtknight: vsync is off. NT monitor? You talking about this?
http://www.shareup.com/NT_Monitor-download-27659.html
If so, I'll have to read up on it more, am leaving the office right now.

No, type "perfmon.msc" in start menu run. It's a built-in XP program.
 

Skyguy

Senior member
Oct 7, 2006
202
0
0
OK, xtknight, I did the Perf Mon like you suggested. Here are my results:
http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=perfmonresultstx8.jpg

VERY INTERESTING THING:
Notice the red boxes I've used to highlight the blue spikes. Those spikes occur approximately every 5 seconds (notice the consistent spacing on the graph) and coincide with every stutter. Now, I don't know how to interpret the graph, or how to use it to correct the problem, I'm merely observing the trend. And the trend is that the stutter and spike coincides. Consistently.

So, any idea what this means and how to correct it? From my reading, the blue line refers to page faults/sec. Is this indicative of what might cause a stutter?


Also, a ran Memtest for over an hour....is that long enough? It found 2 errors in the first 14 minutes, then none after that. That was not at stock CPU or RAM settings. I will go to stock in BIOS then re-run Memtest and see what happens.

Might that be related, something to worry about, etc?
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
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Also, a ran Memtest for over an hour....is that long enough? It found 2 errors in the first 14 minutes, then none after that. That was not at stock CPU or RAM settings. I will go to stock in BIOS then re-run Memtest and see what happens.

Might that be related, something to worry about, etc?

ANY errors in memtest indicate some kind of instability. I'd let it run overnight (8-12 hours).

Based on those graphs... it looks like some process is waking up every five seconds and forcing context switches. If you look in Task Manager, and sort by CPU time used, is there anything that is jumping to the top every now and then?
 

akshayt

Banned
Feb 13, 2004
2,227
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This is what somebody in thread said to do:
Uncheck Write Combining
Defrag HDD

I have also noticed that sometimes image tearing can be perceived as stutters, try the max possible Hz rate of your monitor.
 

Skyguy

Senior member
Oct 7, 2006
202
0
0
SUCCESS!!!!!

Matthias, you are DA MAN.

Sorting by processes and watching the CPU time used (helps to have 2 monitors, I could watch game stutter and processes simultaneously), there was a process called GUI.exe that would spike with every game stutter.

Taking a closer look, it appears that GUI.exe is EasyTune 5. Piece of @$%@@ $HIT. Figures. Not like I even use it, I OC in BIOS, and use SpeedFan and CoreTemp for monitoring.

So, we can now kiss EasyTune GOODBYE!!


I want to thank everyone for such great help, this has been bugging me for a LONG time, and you people solved it within 2 days. DAYUM, that is amazing. Thanks so much!

Mattias, here's that cookie promised in the topic line: [edit: img won't post so here's the link LOL]
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6779/cookievr5.jpg