8600M GT Stuttering Fixes

Severely? Uhh... That, I have no idea. But it will definitely hurt your battery life since your HDD will be spinning a lot faster.

I haven't noticed too much noise increase, however .

 

Update:
Half Life 2
Alright, I noticed this game also shows the frame skip issue that some of us have been experiencing. I fixed the issue simply by disabling Vsync in the game and enabling it in the Nvidia control panel. (This is discussed in detail in the first page of this guide).

Portal
Portal also seems to exhibit this issue. I however have not found a fix for it. The above fix for HL2 did not work so I am still looking. If I find a fix I will let everyone know. If you find a fix before me please let me know.

 

I don't have Portal (or rather, The Orange Box in general), so I can't help you there .

I also have a "request" of my own to add:
Oddly enough, none of the fixes have managed to get rid of the skipping in Warcraft 3!

This is a highly time critical micro-management based RTS game... and the frame skipping is HIGHLY annoying and is actually causing me to lose some matches... Anyone have any clue on this one? The framerate is a rock solid 57-59FPS, one time I had it going over the max cap (of 60... I was hovering at 62FPS at one time... odd), yet when new units or heroes are built/appear on screen, it's as if the GPU has to load the data into the VRAM at that second... Which is not right since that's what the loading screen is supposed to do... isn't it?

Gah... this one is pissing me off XD.

 

I get the dreaded frame skipping with the new Call of Duty 4 demo. Tried the suggestions for fixing it, didn't work in my case. I'm on XP with drivers 163.71.

 

That's very false, and if you actually see a HUGE performance increase by doing this then you DO NOT understand what Vsync is, what it does, and it seems that enabling it in the control panel didn't work in game..

Now I can give you the full explaination of Vsync, but I think I'll say it in short.

Vsync locks the framerate to the refresh rate, if your refresh rate is 60Hz which is typical for most laptop LCD panels, your framerate can NOT go over 60fps, and may show as 59fps if your maximum fps ever goes over the refresh rate that your screen is currently set to, then Vsync is NOT on.
IF your already not getting above 60fps then it's pointless to enable it.

 

Yes that is the definition of v-sync but his tweak works. enabling it through the control panel has a much less hit on performance compared to enabling it in the game.

 

To fix my stutter I did the following:


Wiped my HDD clean and re-installed drivers (clean install includes no bloatware, yey!). Installed the .75 LV2Go drivers. System runs super smoothly, and in WoW I get 60 fps + everywhere (besides the occasional dip in AV or Orgrimmar). All my driver settings I left on default settings.

 

Under Windows XP, I received stuttering in ANY game that I played, no matter what. It was to the point that the games were unplayable.

I fixed my stuttering issue by lowering the hardware acceleration for the sound card. Cleared everything right up.

_____________
Dell Vostro 1500
T7500 2.2Ghz, 800Mhz FSB | 4GB DDR2 RAM (667Mhz)
160GB 7200RPM HDD | nVidia GeForce 8600M GT | 1280x800 LCD

 

Hmm, really? I gotta give that a try!

I assume you did it by going into dxdiag to do it? Also, how many sliders did you lower it by?

 

This was great, just one problem, cant dload the Vista Updates (I do have Genuine software)...

 

I actually did it by going into the Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Speaker Settings - Advanced - Performance. I only lowered the top slider for acceleration. As I lowered the acceleration, the stuttering decreased.

What made me think of this is was for me at least, whenever the stuttering/skipping would occur, it would always be at a point where there was a major shift in sound. (EX: Explosion, Glass breaking, Engine reving, etc...)

 

Hi all, new to the forums, but definitely not laptops. I own an Inspiron 1520 with the 8600m GT. I was having random framerate dips, and horrible video lag when starting up some games. I fixed SOME of my problems switching to 16-bit color mode.

CS:Source no longer gets the occasional hiccup I used to experience, and Diablo 2 (yea I still play this game) no longer runs HORRIBLY. Diablo 2 was the worst of the games, for the first ten seconds after entering a game, my framerate would be 5 fps, plus the additional dips while playing. However Unreal Tournament GOTY cannot run in either 32 or 16 bit mode with 3d acceleration, only in software mode.

 

What drivers are you using?

 

163.44 are working best for me since I've formatted.

 

I don't think your problem is with your video card setup. What are the full specs of your machine? (CPU, RAM, and OS mainly)

 

2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2gb ddr2, vista home premium 1280x800 screen resolution, i should be fine

 

This guide was written specifically for the frame skip issue not on getting better performance out of your card. The huge difference that I was speaking of was the difference I saw in the frame skipping. I noticed alot less frame skipping by performing the above fix. The huge diffence was in no way related to the fps that I was getting.

 

I have 4 gigs of ram

for paging file it says recommended is 5371... what should i set my min max size at??? thanks.

 

Check out the links in my previous post (#35) for information on the pagefile. With 4GB of RAM you definitely don't need to set your pagefile anywhere near that high.

 

Anyone else still getting this issue after trying everything listed here? Im on a G1S and have tried everything listed in this thread and one I created in the Asus section ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=187338)

 

Yup, still getting all the aforementioned problems.

After serious testing in UT 3 Demo I'm lead to think that it has something to do with the overall usage of the 8600M GT. Since the problem did not occur on 1024x768 with textures low/geometry low and not on 1024 with text high/geom low but on 1024x769 with both on medium and on any higher resolution with either text/geom at max, it seems quite obvious that it's somewhat load-dependant.

 

Negative LOD has worked great for me ^.^
Games run smoother

 

A little further research on how to tweak the nVidia drivers properly got me this little piece of info:

Seen here: http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html

So according to this, enabling triple buffering in the nVidia control panel won't do anything to Direct3D games.

Then I read further:

Seen here: http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_10.html

The sad thing, however, is this doesn't do anything for me.

 

hi all!

i have the mentioned problems for the game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. i have tried all the above methods, but problems are still there =[

my notebook is vostro 1500 with T7250, 8600mGT 256mb 169.01, 2GB ram and vista 32bit.

an error will occur whenever i try to run the game with D3Doverrider and had to close the program.

I noticed that i am not the only one having this problem, according to this post http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/kanelynchdeadmen/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-39619715&pid=934404 , giocare and GraigTNelson have the same problem.

Please help =[

 

What does
multi-display device-/mixed-GPU-acceleration mean in the nvidia configuration screen ???
It is set to Multi-Monitor-performance mode...
Is it better to keep using this option or change it to one of the two others?

Thanks

 

I have tried every remedy in this thread, but to no avail. I still drop frames, even with 163.44/163.69. I have tried all of the 169 series drivers, and I believe the only drivers that I have not tried recently are the 15x.xx series as I remember having the crash from a failure of the graphics driver. Also, I have the crash from failure of the graphics driver in the 163.xx drivers. That crash is gone in the 169.xx series drivers; however, I still (as in all other drivers) receive the frame rate dips and frame loss. I have tried all of the solutions here, separately and at the same time, but I still have no luck in getting rid of my problem. I have updated my bios, reformatted, done clean driver cleaner installs of drivers, and much more. What more can I do? BLAH!

Any help? I'm going to reformat to XP in three days and see if that fixes my problem...I will report back to here when I do.

p.s. Thanks for the great thread, it is quite comprehensive and has helped many people... just not me! haha.

 

If you've tried everything here, and still have stuttering, then I think you're stuck with it... like me . I've given up trying to find a solution to this stuttering problem.... Gah.

I've tried almost EVERYTHING, yet I still get stuttering in Warcraft 3 (Among a few other old RTS, like Homeworld 2)... And that's an OOOLLLLDDDD game!

 

It's just a thought, but have you tried using something like 3danalyze and forcing software shading? I would try that if it's only old games that are giving you stutters.

 

I reformatted and installed XP SP2 and now my stuttering is gone. Finally my laptop plays like it's supposed to... 169.21 drivers, XP SP2, dual core patch, windows update fully updated, nothing else added (powermizer off).

 

I have stuttering too, really annoying. FPS is finally good but still everything seems to like jump around all the time.

 

W0000t ! just stumbled across an exellent thing ! and it works

This works for WoW, the reason why we get the stuttering is when the fps swings too much from like 40-80fps up and down, the 8600m for some reason dont like that :/ but ! in wow i have set my MAX fps to 50 (tried 30 a bit too low for my monitor) and everything is 100% smooth. No more stuttering in wow, ever! my fps is between 45-50 now constantly instead of 30-220fps with alot of stuttering.

This "fix" problerly works with other games too that let you limit the max fps. Im going to test out cod4 soon.

 

Hmm, you're right, it is somewhat related to Hardware T&L.

I forced WC3 to run in Software T&L mode (it has a built in -swtnl command), and the stuttering seemed to have decreased to an almost unnoticeable amount (there's still a split-second stutter, but hardly noticeable).

Thanks for the tip, I guess I'll try 3D Analyzer and see if that fixes my Homeworld 2 stutter .

EDIT: Grrr, Homeworld 2 crashes.

Oh, just a question, is there a reason why doing software T&L is actually faster than hardware T&L? Because there's no way in heck the 8600M GT doesn't support hardware T&L, right?

 

I can confirm limiting your max fps to "50" (its set at 85 as standard) in COD4 works like a charm aswell, runs smooth as a baby's butt.

 

The "Threaded Optimization" fix:
Can you please tell me under or above what function it is located? (because i have a dutch version of nvidia control panel)

Like is it located above the negative LOD function... ?

 

I didn't notice having any screen tearing until recently while playing counter-stike. Maybe I just never noticed before. The simple solution is enabling vsync.
For optimal performance I utilize DXTweaker. Forcing triple buffering in the nvidia control panel is only for openGL games. I’d rather not use vsync do to the restraints on FPS (I know we can debate whether a frame rate over 60FPS really is a waste anyway on my monitor… The thing is I don’t remember having this issue before maybe I just never notice the stuttering/tearing and once I did I couldn’t help but notice.
All of this information on these subjects are well cover on the tweakguides.com website. (The Paging file recommended settings as well as a complete guide to Forceware control panel settings as well a rivatuner settings.)

HP Pavilion 9500t
196.04 Forceware
Rivatuner 600/1200/450

 

Um, what post are you referring to with that reply?

 

Uh nevermind. It still does it. What am I supposed to do? This sucks owning a product that I know can perform very well. My games all run VERY smoothly for awhile, and then the stutter shows up and occurs progressively more and more. This is maddening... My buddy has an 8800GTS and his has the same stuttering, although it does not bother him as much. WHYYYYYYYYY does this happen? I don't think drivers will fix this, and if they will, it seems like that will be a LONG time from now...

I think my only hope is a bios update...But there are no newer updates available.

Eat me nvidia

 

how and where do you limit the FPS in games?
I mostly play
TF2 and COD4

Thanks

 

Yes !!! finally someone who is just as annoyed as I am! I have the exact same problems as you do! 3dmark runs great, games run perfectly smooth at good settings with all drivers, but only for about 5-10minutes, then hell starts to kick in... and the slowdowns and stuttering becomes so bad you cant play at all. and %"%/"¤#%& im sick of it ;-)

 

Ive had this problem before too...first thought it was a zepto issue.

Have no idea what i did to fix this, took me atleast a week to get this **** sorted.

try changing display mode to single display mode in nvidia control panel instead of the default multiple

 

Im not sure I know where you mean in nvidia control panel ? my comp is set to use only 1 monitor, since I have no other connected?

*edit*

I found it, thanks.. havnt done any tests yet but i sure will. Ill report back!

 

What do you guys mean by stuttering?

Try using the games console or using fraps to monitor your fps. See if your framerates are dipping and spiking.

 

Why has this thread never been "pinned" or a "sticky" it could and can help alot of people, since these problems is far from over for the majority.

 

To clarify, by stuttering are you guys referring to tearing?

 

nope, tearing is sorted out by enabling vsync

stuttering is when the game slows down and speeds up and slows down....weird lag rendering games unplayable at times

 

Very precisly put by blackbird, that is EXACTLY what most of us suffer with right now.

 

anyone else experiencing problems with call of duty 4 ? Game runs like butter on all low settings, but when i want to change items like smoke smoothing and perspective ( when you're aiming down the sight it gives you a blur around the area) the game goes nuts and things turn ugly.

im on x86 vista- 8600 gt with 169.25 drivers

 

Alright, I reckon I might have a fix that should work in theory for everyone.

Well the stuttering has been narrowed down to powermizer doing all weird sorts of **** in the new drivers, or the bios reading and reporting the wrong temperatures causing the systems to lower their clocks to reduce temperature and thus cause stuttering. OR it could be powermizer interpreting the temperatures incorrectly

Some people here have noted this behavior as when the stuttering occurs the rivatuner monitor shows the gpu clocks decrease.

Anyway the toshiba folks got this fixed by a bios update (hinting towards incorrect temp reading)

Before you attempt these, just try turning powermizer completely off in the nvidia control panel upon new driver install and see if that helps.

Also do the standard procedure stuff as well like, defrag harddrive, check to see if it is indeed a temperature problem(not incorrect reading but realy high temps causing overheating), if it is please do NOT atttempt solution 2.

For the rest there are two solutions that I suggest (Follow at your own risk, I wont be held responsible for any damage done)


Solution 1

• Install 158.XX series of drivers as the stuttering started to show more and more in the newer drivers due to the coding of powermizer.
  
• Install preferably 158.22 on XP and 158.45 on Vista.
  
• After installation go into nvidia control panel by right clicking and selecting nvidia control panel, navigate to manage 3d settings.
  
• Change multi-display/mixed.... to single display instead of the default multiple
  
• Change LOD bios to clamp
  
• Save and exit the control panel.

Try your games out now, hopefully they should work without trouble.


Solution 2

This is for those who want the optimizations of the newer drivers and still have no stuttering

First off dont apply this tweak if you dont know what your doing and dont apply it upon every new driver install if it works for you, as maybe in the newer drivers the stuttering wont be a problem (as its the case for me in 169.28 for xp 32bit).

• Anyway install rivatuner 2.06
  
• Run rivatuner and go to power user
  
• Expand Rivatuner / Nvidia / Overclocking
  
• Select EnableLowPower3dControl and type in 1 (you should see 1 next to it and a yellow light bulb appear)
  
• Expand Rivatuner / Nvidia / Overclocking / Global
  
• Select MaxClockLimit and enter in a large value lik 800
  
• Now go to system settings (where the overclocking is done and all that)
  
• Tick the box to enable overclocking
  
• Note down your clock speeds for performance 3d
  
• Now select low power 3d and change the clocks to match those of your performance 3d.
  
• Do the same for standard 2d
  
• Now all three, standard 2d / low power 3d / performance 3d / should have the same clock speeds.
  
• Apply these settings and exit rivatuner

Go ahead and try your games....this should stop stuttering if its due to powermizer as when powermizer goes into powersaving it will be the same clocks as your performance 3d.

This solution could potentially be dangerous if your cause for powermizer dipping into powersaving mode is in reality due to high temperatures, so please be carefull and monitor your temps.


Well hope these help, and giving credit where its due, thx to theforreunner and nealyblue, as their thoughts led me to my conclusion.

 

I've been observing this issue ever since and I must say I did not notice any decrease in GPU clocks when the stuttering occured. I used RivaTuner to observe the clocks and there was no observeable decrease. So I guess the "powermizer/manually setting default clocks"-thing is still not ultimate workaround- thanks anyway

 

yeah.... I don't like the idea of disabling powermizer... I like the idea that my clock stays at a low clock unless I'm playing a game.