Nvidia ignoring 8600m problem?

I still dont get why niether Nvidia or any of the laptop producent have come up with a solution to the worldwide HUGE problem with the 8600m gfxcards and their stuttering problems? I don't buy the stuff about that it is a driver issue, because this only happens on these cards (some 8800 has been reported too i think, but the 8xxx series), and the drivers all around run just fine on other cards, like my older 7600 go.

It's quite silly if you ask me, i have multi thousand dollar laptop which in games are completely useless at the moment because even though the gfxcard can produce fine speeds, games just stutter/lag/jump-around call it what you want so much its unplayable. The only game ive been able to mostly fix is WoW by limiting the game to go over 50 fps max. that works as long the game is between 45-50 fps, when it goes to 41 the stuttering gets back.

For me it seems like even small fps changes over a short time makes the 8600 stutter like HELL. Which only happens on other series with huge fps changes over short time. like from 100 to 30fps.

So whats the damn deal anyway ?!? Do we need a 8600m BIOS update ?! or when will this stupid malfunction end.... It cant only be me who's annoyed by having a supposedly great laptop, which at the end of the day, cant run anything enjoyable ??

I have send Nvidia a Vista gpu-troubleshoot thing also.

 

did you do the critical updates for vista? There make huge differences instability.

 

Ofcause I did.. everything is updated, newest drivers, games updated and all that. That is not the problem.

 

I profiled the game I'm working on just last week... saw no issues on my laptop... will do some further profiling when I get back to work and see what I can find out.

 

can you specify what this "huge" problem with stuttering is (like with what games and what system specs)? I haven't seem a lot of posts about stuttering.

 

its probably just your drivers

 

Sure I can, you can see my system specs in my posts but people have different specs and different laptop brands all with the same problems.

But start by readin this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=172717&highlight=8600+stuttering

It's supposed to fix or atleast help a bit, but thats only a sall desperate try to fix this problem. however you can see a huge debate there about this issue.

Also i just stumbled across a simular problem with hit people earlier this year with the geforce 7900 laptops from toshiba and Alienware.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=30162

Its a long post, and alot of people having problems. The 8600 is experiencing the same problems for alot of people as it is right now.

Short version:
It's seems back then people found it that it all somehow was related to Powermizer and laptop bios versions, and by degrading to an older bios some got their problems fixed.

This all makes it alot harder though, i know Zepto is working on a new bios for the 6xx4 series to be released in Janurary and hopefully that will do something about the stuttering.

@wilsonywx

If you dont know what stuttering is, imagine running a game at 100 fps, and then in a split-second limiting it to run at 15fps. The screen wont be able to update fast enough and you get some sort of screan tearing and mostly a kind of bump or lag when rototating you view. This happens on the 8600m ALL the time even at small fps changes, like from 50 to 40 which normally wouldnt be notiable at all. In UT3 if i stand still before an item spinning 360 degrees, like a weapon or so, the rotation is nowhere near smooth even though the fps is quite good, it sort of changes speed constantly while rotating.

Now imagine that while running, shooting... trying to enjoy the game? It just cant be done.

 

@polsta

It's not the drivers, ive tested around 35 different drivers both in xp and vista, same sad story.

Im beginning to think it might be a (sadly) common manufactor error when making new bioses. But yet again, Niether Nvidia or (for me) Zepto has commented or done anything public to fix this.

 

I remember I had the stuttering problem for the first few driver releases. I also still continued to have the occasional stutter on Vista, but I then did a format and installed XP and that solved the problem. This may be too extreme as I did not bother to look into what was causing my stuttering in Vista, but its always a recommendation.

 

The only time I've had stuttering problems was in Company Of Heroes, and I think that was due to my CPU overheating.

Solved that issue with cooling

 

The stuttering on the 8600m GT is very likely NOT a hardware problem. I had stuttering in Oblivion months ago. Solved it by moving to XP and reinstalling the game. Did that magically fix my supposedly broken videocard? Of course not, because it was not broken in the first place.

Try reinstalling Windows and the latest driver from laptopvideo2go.com, if you haven't already. There could be dozens of factors that could make your games stutter, and none of them necessarily have to do with your hardware. If nothing wil fix the stuttering for you, than you need to take that laptop of yours back to the store and exchange it for another one.

 

Here's a tip, use windows XP

 

sometimes, while playing need for speed most wanted, the game slows down to become almost unplayable?! even the sound becomes somewhat messed up...returns to normal by itself in a couple of seconds, sometimes more than that. anyone with the similar problems?(happens on every single driver)

 

These stuttering issues have been there both in xp and vista 32bit and now in vista 64bit. the reinstall thing just seems too random to be the real fix.

 

I had all sorts of stuttering issues with my desktop 8800 GTS with Vista X64. Installed XP and all went away. Whether an issue with drivers or Vista or BIOS, I don't care, it's another Vista bork for me.

 

@htwingnut

Thanks for the info, and cool that you managed to fix your problem.

What borthers me though is that noone seem to have a real-all-around fix which makes it kinda hard to determine what really causes this problem.

It seems i have to give winXP another go some day... though i do like my 4gb ram and 64bit applications.

 

I am really disappointed.. I reinstalled winXP sp2 and what do I get? WoW is running even SLOWER than vista x64 fps wise. both 169.04 and 169.28 runs alot slower. Now why is that?

 

While it is possible that you specifically are experiencing are a hardware problem, that is not the case for everyone.

I've finally tweaked Vista that the issue is non existent .. but under XP it was much better. Like any hardware, sometimes you get a lemon - if that's the case, send it back.

 

Kinda sucks.. wierd thing is though.. it runs fine in 3dmark06 tests.. score 3800+ at stock clock with 169.28.

But as soon i start a game, things are different.

 

try eliminating every program you possibly can running in the background. Could be something interfering.

 

It's a totally fresh install, less than 1h old. Only win-update and driver installation has been done. There are no programs to interfer really :/

 

you should run a batch of resolution tests.

don't change the options at all and run in each mode checking the fps in like for like situations.

based on what you're saying I think it likely there is an issue OTHER than the gfx card. Especially given the 3dMark scores.

post the results of your test.

If the resolution of the game does NOT change the speeds you see then it is highly likely it is NOT a gfx card bottleneck but some other system.

if the resolution of the game DOES change the speeds then further testing is required.

Note - obviously at extreme resolutions the game will slow down... but said slowdown should be more pronounced that the accepted normal resolutions.

 

@M_hael

I dont really think it is the gpu either... hence the ability to produce fine fps.
But its hard to test it out, It feels like iver tried every possible thing at the moment.

And yet winXP sp2 runs far worse than vista x64. Not stutterwise, but general performance wise, which is beyond my logic sence.

The reason many of the 8600m users dont have these problems, I think is because they dont have Zepto computers! I fear it has something to do with Zepto's bios, memory and gpu maybe.... or what do I know.

I have tried simply all the fixes and tweaks and nothing really does the world.

 

It happens playing Tabula Rasa on Vista x64 SINCE I FORMATED. It worked wonderfull for a month and flob, stuttering. It does not happen all the time though.

Will try to roll back to 169.01

 

Happens with my Dell too. Stuttering has been a huge issue for me in COD4. At first I thought is was because my resolution was set too high, but then I realized that it happened just as much at lower resolutions. didn't notice any stuttering until I updated to XP SP3, but I don't know where or not it is related.

 

@dmacfour

Quite interesting story, sad though, but strange enough to be interesting.

What im sick of though, is that there doesnt seem to be any logical pattern for this problem, other than most people either have crappy fps, huge slowdowns and/or stuttering beyond whats resonable.

 

I go back to work on Wed... when I do I'll run some profiles on my machine... see if I can get any information.

I have a dv9500t with an 8600m 256MB running stock drivers, thus far I've seen no issues... but I don't play games on it... I just program them.

I'll run a couple of samples and see what I can see... hopefully I have the issue and can help you diagnose it.

 

I know EXACTLY what you're talking about.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 with the T7100 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB dedicated and 2 GB RAM. When I play Halo and NHL 08, I get the stuttering. It's so annoying.

And I re-formatted my disk and everything runs fine. But I open the game and once in awhile it's really terrible.

 

about this stuttering thing:
1) run rivatuner(the graph thingy) while u're playing some game
2) when it starts stuttering - give it a acouple of seconds, then do alt-tab, or press the win button and see if ur clocks drop in mhz during that time period.
just see, cuz when i experience a slow down, say in need for speed most wanted, that's because my clocks drop suddenly....

 

@BiG_V

Interesting, but have you found a way to fix it? or thought of what might cause this sudden drop?

 

I had this exact problem, but managed to finally solve it (I hope lol), dont know how though. Indeed In my opinion it is due to the clocks dropping like V mentioned.

Go to nvidia control panel.

Change display mode to single display
Change LOD thing to Clam

Apply settings

Go to Powermizer, set it to off and uncheck the extend battery charge by using less power for the display.

I think its powermizer stuffing up which is causing these problems, as before I tricked the laptop to think it had the desktop 8600 GTS, installed 8600 GTS drivers and everything was smooth, no stuttering but I lost all mobile functions such as waking up from sleep after closing and opening the lid.

Try what I said above to see if that helps/solves

If your think it could be hardware (as I used to think/still think from time to time it could be zepto's problem as their 6625WD bios line is buggy) then I can help you test out the desktop drivers to see if stuttering still persists

 

blackbird when you say "Go to Powermizer" where do you mean exactly?

The issue I'm having is that games run fine for a few minutes but after that starts to stutter/frame skip badly. It kinda looks like a heat issue to me.

I've pretty much tried everything and I cannot fix this and it's starting to drive me INSANE.

This is on a Asus G1S

 

^^ This whole post is EXACTLY what I wanted to say except that I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1520.

 

While I didn't have any stuttering issues with my 8600m, I would try disabling PowerMizer. From what I've read it seems as if the stuttering happens when the card is going from a high frame rate to a low one. I'm thinking when it's at the higher frame rate powermizer is kicking in to reduce the clock speed and this is causing the stuttering being experienced. I would try disabling powermizer before playing to see if that makes a difference. Just remember to re-enable it afterwords or battery life will suffer.

 

if that is what powermizer is doing...then it is incredibly likely... that software is based on local minima/maxima sampling... so the circumstances being described (low GPU usage to high) would cause it to "guess" badly.

so I concur... turn it off and retest.

note however that such controls are normally required in order to maintain the laptops temperature so an after effect may be overheating.

 

What is Powermizer?!!! How do I turn it off?!

 

It should be in the NVIDIA Control Panel somewhere. I'd give you a more specific location, but my laptop will not power on right now and my desktop has an ATI card. So I have no way to find it.

PowerMizer is a technology implemented by NVIDIA on their mobile cards that lowers the clock/memory speed when it's not being used to its full potential. Doing this extends battery life and reduces power draw when plugged in. I think the problem here is that when a game is getting high framerates the PowerMizer driver is mistakenly thinking that the card doesn't need to be at full power and it's clocking it back down. The stuttering is then caused when the card needs to be clocked back up.

 

Powermizer basically helps you save battery life by changing your gpu's clock speeds. Whenever it sees you are idle or doing tasks that are not gpu dependent it switches to a lower state, to save battery life and produce less heat.

I'm not sure if powermizer is the cause. I think the newer drivers may be the reason, because there was not as much of this stuttering complaint with the past drivers. I mean there was but not to this extent. I'm kinda confused about this because using the .28s I experience weird results in cod4 but all my other games run fine.

 

Can ANYONE tell me how to find Powermizer? I'm looking everywhere and I can't find it on my computer...

 

Well, it's possible that they changed something with Powermizer in the drivers that's causing it to make more erratic decisions about when it needs to be clocked down. That's why I think powermizer should be disabled first, then if that doesn't fix it, try other drivers.

Edit: Maybe it would be a good idea to make sure that the power settings in windows vista are set to "High Performance" as well

 

I just set my power settings to High Performance and it didn't help.

WHERE IS POWERMIZER?????????? Can ANYONE please tell me where to find it?!

 

Ok this will work in xp, but I am not sure about vista. Go to start/run and type in services.msc that will bring up a list of all the applications you can have running. See if powermizer is listed, if it is set it to manual and disable it. hope this helps

 

Not sure if this will help but maybe worth a try. In rivatuner on the overclocking screen try overclocking the low power 3d clock settings to the same level as the 3d performance.

 

It's not listed... (I have Vista btw)

 

I am not sure but i think vista manages your gpu speed and not the power manager of nvidia.

 

vista doesnt have powermizer...powermizer is integrated into the vista performance controls....high performance, performance, battery saving or whatever the three are.

and yes the forerunner is right, its a issue with new drivers, try any of the 158.XX series, preferably 158.22 on xp or 156.87 or 158.45 on vista you will not notice the stuttering or it will be less

 

I went to the old drivers and sure enough, it worked! Thanks buddy! +1 rep for you!

 

thx, glad I was of help

hope it can be of help to the thread creator as well, will pm him incase he doesnt see this post

 

blackbird, it seems you are correct.

All the 158.XX and Older drivers I tested do not exhibit any stuttering/frame skipping.

All 160.XX series I tested exhibit stuttering/frame skipping.

I only tested a select few. Right now I'm using 158.36 and they seem to work fine so I guess I'll have to stick with them for a while. Hopefully a future driver set will resolve these issues, I hope it doesn't take too long because aside from the stuttering the new drivers give noticeably better performance in Crysis, Bioshock, etc

 

169.28 seems to have done that for me so im happy