Micro-Stuttering And GPU Scaling In CrossFire And SLI

[nebun]

what they need to do now is develop a more efficient cooling...maybe a peltier cooling option....i am sure that it can be done...liquid and air cooling suck big time...my water pump just started leaking on me the other day, good thing i had the pump on the bottom of the case and no parts were harmed....thank goodness for thermal shutdown option.

 

[elbert]

I think you have stumbled on AMD's work on 6870 crossfire with their new bulldozer graphics part. I say this because its very unlikely the micro stuttering would have worked so well without AMD focusing on a quasi 3 way 6870 setup.

 

[elbert]

Guess I should have stated next years Trinity and Komodo 2-8 core bulldozers.

 

[raclimja]

this article is a fail

micro stuttering is not a drop in FPS then go back to very

the thing your talking about in this article is LAG not micro stuttering



micro stuttering is a very rapid jerky movement on the screen

i personally have micro stuttering on Dirt 3 on my GTX 460 768MB(single GPU)


to give you a clue what micro stuttering looks like, have a look at this video at 2:39 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPtbDz7xgE

 

[lradunovic77]

I never had MicroStutter, wtf is that?

 

[pirateboy]

oh yeah , and what about Bulldozer?

 

[lradunovic77]

If some people do experience it, problem can be fixed with 120Hz refresh rate.

 

[lradunovic77]

Meaning either play games on CRT or on new LCD 120Hz. Whoever came up with LCD 60Hz and thought it is a good idea to use it for gaming was an idiot.

 

[stingstang]

I've owned 2 4870s for about 2 years. During those years, I haven't been able to play a single game with crossfire, gaining any FPS. The first game that actually seemed compatable was Crysis 2, which had bloom problems on certain levels. I messed with the settings, but nothing stopped it. I went to a single card, and not only did that effect go away, but my framerate was way better... Disappoint.

 

[raclimja]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]If some people do experience it, problem can be fixed with 120Hz refresh rate.[/citation]

you should be careful on giving advices


manually setting your monitor to a much higher refresh rate could permanently damaged your monitor(as i experienced on my old CRT monitor)



fyi, i am using a 120hz monitor "Viewsonic VX2268wm" and i am using 1680x1050 @120hz on gaming and the micro-stuttering is still very apparent


same as my Dell 2007WFP S-IPS 60Hz monitor

 

[raclimja]

you did not specify that people need a 120hz monitor

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]If some people do experience it, problem can be fixed with 120Hz refresh rate.[/citation]


people on the internet has very high IQ so i wont be surprise if someone is raging because he broke his monitor


and to clarify

120Hz monitor DOES NOT SOLVE micro-stuttering

 

[lradunovic77]

My second post after

120Hz monitor DOES NOT SOLVE micro-stuttering

was

Meaning either play games on CRT or on new LCD 120Hz. Whoever came up with LCD 60Hz and thought it is a good idea to use it for gaming was an idiot.

 

[lradunovic77]

As I said even if someone tried to change refresh rate it wont be possible cause there not even an option to do so.

 

[bucknutty]

Great article!
I have been messing with SLI for years and have never gotten an acceptable experience. I often said the game does not play right but I could not describe it. Friends with similar systems to mine always said they were very happy with their SLI setups. I thought it was an issue with my mother board or something, now I think some people might just notice it more.
A few years back I built a Q6600 with 2x 8800gts in SLI. Although the frame rates with 2 cards went up I did not like it and could not explain it. Later I rebuilt with the same mother board and a Q9650 and 2 GTX470s in SLI. Again the frame rates in most games are high but it “feels” choppy. I thought the issue was all in my head.
Does this mean I’m not nuts?

 

[raclimja]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]As I said even if someone tried to change refresh rate it wont be possible cause there not even an option to do so.[/citation]


if "John" read what you posted and took your advice and bought a shinny new 120Hz to fix his micro stuttering only to be greeted that his micro stuttering is still apparent


120Hz aren't cheap


you should stop giving advices unless you tried and tested that it works or alteast have a data to backup your "claims"

 

[lradunovic77]

One thing you never did and that's to replace monitor. I found Samsung LCD Monitor absolute crap for gaming (feels choppy). My good experience was with LG and ASUS here and there.

 

[lradunovic77]

Forgot to mention Acer as well!

 

[upgrade_1977]

I just want to say that I had severe micro-stuttering in most of my games (Black ops, Farcry 2, Metro 2033, Gtaiv, ect. ect.) when I upgraded from a single gtx 480 to dual gtx 480's in sli. I really thought it was the graphics cards that caused it, as with a single card it was gone. I tried so many things to fix it, including purchasing a new sli bridge. I was to the point I gave up on the problem and just dealt with it. I had micro-stuttering at all frame rates even 100+ fps in some games, and in every game it went away if I turned off SLI.

Skip a few weeks later after buying my second card, I decided to upgrade my ram. I was running Corsair 3GB (3 x 1GB) DDR3 1333, and even though my ram never went above 90% in any game I still decided to upgrade my ram because I do alot of multi-tasking. Anyways, I purchased a Corsair Vengeance 8GB kit, (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600. After I installed the new ram, my microstuttering in all my games disappeared. I was sure it wasn't my ram, because I still had stuttering even when ram usage was below 60% in some games. I don't know if it was because I went from tri-channel to dual-channel, or if it was the speed, or the timings, or the amount of ram... ??? Not sure.

I read a lot of forums to try and fix my problem and they all failed. I was sure it was my graphics cards. I had a few people say I didn't have micro-stuttering, but by all definitions of micro-stuttering that i've read, that is what I had. And my problem, while it appeared to be graphic card related, it wasn't. Maybe the ram threw off the card timing, or maybe it was something else. I dunno..

I just want to say this was a very well written article, and it covered a lot, but it was lacking in one area, and that is what exactly causes micro-stuttering. I think to many people are too quick to blame the graphics cards. I mean, yeah that probably is the reason in a lot of systems, but i'm sure there are a lot of micro-stuttering that isn't caused by the gpu's.

 

[fausto]

I would love for AMD and NVIDIA to focus on quality more. fps doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[Guest]

EXCELLENT FREAKING ARTICLE! Wow, and to think I was shopping just today for a second AMD card. I will avoid this dual card nonsense like the plague until Tom's follows-up and gives the all clear. I will stick to single card configurations until that day.

This is a basic STATISTICS problem folks. It's called "VARIANCE". You remember those FPS graphs in those articles? They should be STRAIGHT HORIZONTAL LINES, not ups and downs. UP + DOWN = MICROSTUTTER.

Too much in computing (and in life) focuses on QUANTITY (FPS!) but not enough testing goes into evaluating QUALITY (reduced variance!).

BRAVO TOM'S HARDWARE! The emperor has no clothes!

 

[genghiskron]

i personally havent noticed any microstuttering with my hd6870's but this article certainly makes me feel like a jerk, especially for recommending the setup to anyone. also a little sad because tom's has been recommending hd6850's and hd6870's in crossfire for what, 8 consecutive months? ruined my day.

 

[Hellbound]

Perhaps with articles like this one, Nvidia and AMD will take notice.

 

[impulse89]

I used to get crazy tearing with my 2 GTX 275's.
The latest drivers seem to have killed off most of the problems but I still cant help but want to move to the latest generation of cards. (Itching for a GTX580 or 2) But the prices on these cards are still a bit unrealistic in my opinion. Im wondering if it would be beneficial, after reading this article to dig up an old 275 from ebay or something and go 3 way sli.

Great article!

 

[mcd023]

wait... the cpu is at 5GHz!? ddaaaaaannnnnngggggg

 

[silverblue]

edubz9

You know, I'm going to give you a thumbs-up because I can't quite figure out what you're smoking and I'd like some, please.