Problem with 8600m stuttering/slowdown found

Hi everyone.. I have now together with "blackbird" from here, found the problem many of us are suffering from when it comes to 8600m and performance, bad gameplay experience and unrelated slowdowns. Sit tight now... this news wont be good.

As it is today the stuttering/slowdown/low fps or whatever its been called is a Nvidia error with not too much bright future.

The problem occours at random 8xxx series cards without any logical relation to system OS or configuration.

To put it simple, its the 8xxx series gpu that randomly screws up managing texture memory, which means it leaves textures in the RAM both on the video card and in physical mem, which eventually with in 10-30seconds will become full, and your machine will slowly choke to death = slowdowns.

Nvidia does know this problem and have says to be working on a fix, however! last time they told the public it would be fixed soon was in July 2007 :/ yet we havnt seen any or anything near a fix.

So basicly most of us got an expensive laptop wich is broken, so decide people.. wait for the maybe very late nvidia fix, or claim your money back and go buy something with an ATI mobility card instead, because they are by far at the top of the game right now. Nvidia has screwed up BIG time!

I could continue for a long time explaining the problem, how it all fits together and such, but instead I advice you all to read the 2 articles below (quite short) and watch the youtube video last. Those 3 will give the preciese explanation of wich many in here couldnt understand.


article1:
http://keznews.com/20018=Nvidia_pinpoints_8800_slowdown_cause__delays_fix

article2:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12993

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcn6QDf6624

Good luck everyone.
And thanks to Blackbird for helping me out.

*edit*
Also posted in the Gameplay section.

 

Im sorry to hear that, guess im lucky

 

We find out a lot of stuff together ey Thomas haha.

Anyway yea, just to reinforce what’s been stated before;

The problem is with the memory handling, the textures, purging the memory and clearing it out efficiently on the 8 series cards.

Nvidia knows about this and promised a fix to come out September 2007, but it didn’t meet that date as they had underestimated the problem. They say that among the numerous fixes some slow down the cards performance (not good at all), and others screw up the performance of other cards from different series.

I think that statement is a bit of BS as if that’s the case they can just create a specific driver update for only the 8 series cards.

Currently they are planning to release a DX 9 fix before the DX 10 fix.

Anyway, this is the reason why

- You get stuttering, fps drops
- 3DMark06 scores are great, as it goes back to desktop to clear memory
- ATI DX 10 cards to rival Nvidia’s DX 10 8 series are uneffected
- Problem is OS independent, happens in both XP and Vista.
- Alt+Tab helps bring fps back to normal for a while.
- Limiting the games fps to a number same as or 1 below the lowest fps drop helps as then the drop isnt noticable
- Older drivers improve the stuttering as they came out before 8 series.
- Older drivers help as they do not offer the better fps new drivers have thus making the fps drop which does happen less noticeable.
- Problem is OEM independent
- “8600 Stuttering fixes” help as they deal with texture tweaks.

This video shows the Alt+Tab thing at work and the slowdowns

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UPDATE

According to sources Nvidia has released drivers with a beta fix implemented within...these are only for 8 series.

They are the 163.67 drivers.

You can grab them for Win XP/Vista 32/64 bit at LaptopVideo2Go

According to the changelog the only new feature is:

* Improved performance of the graphics memory manager on GeForce 8 series GPUs running DirectX 9 applications in single-GPU and NVIDIA SLI configurations.
These improvements solve cases of reported performance slowdowns in some 3D applications with high graphics settings and resolutions.


After testing these out myself I can say yes...these really seem to make a difference, I haven't had a single slowdown as of yet, and the games that have been tested are (all over 1 hour of gameplay)

- Call of duty 4
- Half Life 1 and 2
- Counter Strike Source
- Team Fortress 2
- Portal

My method for installing for those people who want to know

uninstalled my driver by going into device manager and clicking on uninstall at the 8600M GT
restart and boot into safe mode
run driver cleaner to remove chipset and driver entries from guru3d
uninstall rivatuner
run ccleaner to wipe out bad registry keys left from uninstalation
run regedit and search for nvidia, powermizer, rivatuner, delete all the keys found
reboot into windows, extract drivers, replace the inf and run using the setup.exe instead of have disk

And after installing I went into nvidia control panel, changed LOD thing to clamp and the performance mode to single display performance mode

 

How about the 167.58 drivers?

 

Havnt tried, but so far my best choise would be Xtreme-G modded version of the 163.71 beta. www.tweakforce.com

seems to give the most smooth gameplay in cod4 for sure. it's late so havnt tried much else for now.

 

Hehe... the drivers thomaskc.dk talked about for a long time!

I downloaded these back then. But I haven't withstand to uninstall, clean and reinstall.

 

Goes to show you shouldn't underestimate the experiences made by customers
It's just sad that Zepto representatives initially made it sound like it was only happening in Thomaskc.dk's head

 

@nania
you dont say... im dissapointed with Zepto that they dont comment, try to help or even answer mails.

I send Rene S. long fully explained mail last week, explaining the problem, what we've found out so far and all that... yet havnt heard anything!

It's silly actually.. because zepto has mostly some great hardware in their laptops, but the support they supply worldwide or just in Denmark at the moment will eventually cost them customers.
They just seem to be in denial.

 

I have a similar potential problem with my 6625WD.

My config : 2.4 Ghz, 2 gb RAM, 512 mb 8600 GT, HDD 120gb 7200 RPM, vista ultimate x32(aero turned off, optimized, nothing running in the background)

Ok, i've noticed that games tend to shutter, drop FPS, no matter what resolution or quality. For example CS Source, it's not playable at 1680x1050 everything high, no AA. But when i lower everything to 640x480, i still don't get a smooth game play, which is ridiculous(and i'm not playing online , so it's not lag)

Same with GTA SA, NFS MW.

I have tried the 163.67 drivers suggested by blackbird and performance it's even worse.

I need your help guys! if you you found a solution or a "wonder" driver please let me know.

Much appreciated

 

I think something else may be wrong there....as CSS should run even with the dated zepto drivers at 1680 x 1050 all max without any probs.

After installing the drivers did you tell vista to update its rating score, as this happened to me before, I installed vista, system rating was 3.0 something as gfx drivers were not installed, I installed gfx drivers from zepto and i tried some games....they ran like crap. So I then updated the vista rating score and it went up to 4.6 and maybe due to that it recognized the drivers properly and games ran fine
Are you overheating
Have you installed drivers properly by uninstalling, going into safe mode, running driver cleaner, booting back and installing using have disk using modded inf
Try the 169.28 driver


If you want you can try updating your bios ...currently 008 one is the best, we have been told of an upcomming bios for the 6625WD for ages but sadly they have updated the bios of their other products just not the 6625WD.

Or you could try to wait for the newer drivers comming out by zepto which should be out soon.


Its a shame really....the 6625WD is advertised as gamer laptop, yet numerous people are having problems and there have been no updates released such as bios, gpu drivers to resolve these issues

 

thanks for your fast reply balckbird.

My system score was 4.5 after installing the drive(s), so i don't know if thats a problem, i'll will update it and see if anything changes.

As for the driver install, yes i did all the steps you have posted on this thread, cleaned up everything, etc. so it's not that either.

I thought the same, CSS should run flawless on this laptop.

I'm using speedFan for temp, (not sure if it's the best), i get 75 max when playing, 38 -45 in idle

i will try the 169.28 tonight, thx

I agree with you, something should be done on this subject, despite all the driver releases, i don't think they are "polished" enough to use the full strength of the 8600 GT, and also stable enough.

 

I just have to add one thing:

The persons with no problem, doesnt post on forums like this, only persons with problems tracks down to forums like this to complain over problems.

The majority doesnt have any problems, I mean, its like 5 persons complaining about drivers, BIOS and blabla. And how many has bought a 6625wd? a few thousands?


Just give it a think before you post the "So many have these problems". I feel it quite annoying...

 

Thats only because you are not one of them... dont look into these posts if they annoy you.

 

i would like to see a fix from nvidia or zepto soon aswell

 

Btw is "so many" dont have these issues, maybe Zepto should just send me a new working laptop and take this only 3 month old non-working back?

they will just say "its a software problem, not a hardware problem", but hey?! since so many arent having problems.. how the hell?!

 

I find it amusing how people relate them selves to matters that are never going to effect them.

Also lets say the majority doesnt have these problems this means it should be easier for the company to spend some time dealing with a few people who do have the problems, Ofcourse they dont have to fix it if its something like the DVD drive not showing up in Vista...but when its a problem with a piece of hardware supplied and the machine is not giving performance as advertised...its something they need to look at.

Also, do you realize that this problem isnt necessarily zepto specific...its a bug with the 8 series..so have a look around the nvidia forums and other gaming forums...you will see how many people are suffering from this problem

 

Just to say i installed the 169.28, last night , and no improvement, still shuttering images. Weird is that its gets worse every time.

I've tried everything, not sure how to get around this problem, i'm curious if someone on XP has the same problems...

Clearly this is extremely frustrating since my specs are not bad , and i would expect 1-2 year old games to play smoothly.

 

adr_vdr

Acutally its not so wierd at all since nothing has been changed with the slowdowns since... ever actually.. so all the new drivers does, is to run better and faster. But faster means higher max fps, and whent its time for dropdowns, you have a longer way to drop = more noticable stuttering.

At the moment the best you can do is, use 169.28 to get the best overall performance, and then force limit your games to run a maxfps at around 35-40fps that way it will never go higher than 35 and since the drivers are fast, it wont drop below 35 either.

All this means it will be around 34-35fps ALL the time, which leads to no stuttering. This however only works if you can limit your max fps

works like a charm in games like cod4 and wow. Just insert the right line in the config files.

 

Do you guys get stuttering/fps drops in all games? I have only noticed it in Call of Duty 4 (stutters right away), Gears of War, HL2 Episode 2 (after maybe 30min gameplay) and Crysis.
Yesterday I downloaded a couple of game demos just to try them out and see if there where any problems. Splinter Cell Double Agent, The Witcher, Call of Duty 2, Tomb Raider Anniversary, NFS Pro Street, Clive Barker's Jericho, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Age of Empires III. And all of them worked great.

 

I get shuttering in all the games i have

NFS MW, CSS, GTA SA, The Witcher, Oblivion. and not playing them on hight settings. even in lower set , still shutters , that's with 169.28

 

All games indeed.

 

Have you tried setting performance mode thing under manage 3d settings in nvidia control panel to be single display performance mode instead of multi

 

@blackbird: Do the drivers you mentioned on the initial page really solve the problem for you? I'm just asking because I'm getting really tired of all the reinstalling and crap so a little review five days after your driver update would be very welcome

 

I've tried the single display setting, no luck.

I've tested NFS MW with fraps and i get an avarage of 45-55 FPS.

Now it still shutters every 30 seconds but the FPS does't drop, i dont get it

Could hard drive have something to do with it?

Also my Bios is 011, i've heard that 008 is the best, noticed that on the ftp a 004 is available, anyone tested it yet?

 

Yes they do

163.67 for XP 32 bit
Nvidia control panel settings for perfomance mode set to single display and LOD thing to clamp.


Any tests you want me to run?

 

do you know of any alternatives for Vista?

 

yes the 011 bios is buggy, I use the 008 without any problems, give it a go it might solve your stutter


as for alternatives....163.67 for Vista 32/64 bit

 

Intro
I just had to register to post this (I know this is in the Zepto forum but seeing as this is more of a problem with Nvidias 8000 series (especially the 8600 it seems) than Zeptos in general I thought I should post it here).
Lately I've been somewhat dissapointed with my Asus G1S, still think it's a great machine and all. But like many others I've had this annoying stuttering, which made me a little worried (it was quite a pricey machine).

The Stuttering
The main problem I figured out was that whenever the fps moved around (didn't matter if it was from 84 to 90 or 40 to 36 or whatever), I got a kind of stutter, or frame skip if u like. How I figured this out was by using the command 'com_max fps [fps]' in CoD4. So if I played on a small map that I could get a contant 60 fps on, I would set the maxfps to 60 and tadaa, pure smooth gameplay without stuttering (unless the fps went down of course).
Put simply, I set it to the absolute minimum fps I thought I would get.
This wasn't appliable to most other games I have, and having to change the maxfps everytime I played a new map was a bit annoying, espically since I knew that I could get better fps without it.

Vertical Sync was also a small solution I found helped in the matter, but it didn't work in every game and not all the time, also some games were to demanding for me to use V-sync with, I needed everybit of fps I could get.

Thus I've been looking around for different solutions to the problem and to get the most out of my machine, tried several drivers, hotfixes, program/windows/nvidia configurations etc without any luck.


Fix and CoD4 testing
But then just recently I stumbled upon this thread, saw the post about the 163.67 drivers and thought "what the heck, let's give it a try". And to my big suprise they actually helped. First things I did was a quick 3Dmark06 test, got something along the lines of 3950, not that great, but not bad either. After that I went on with what matters, the games. Started CoD4, set the maxfps to the default value of 85, and joined a game. Noticed my fps was climbing and falling from 60-90 but WITHOUT stuttering, it was actually playable and smooth like it should be at that fps. You could imagine my joy.
(of course it went below 60 at times but still no stuttering, just normal fps lag).

Oblivion performance
So after comfirming that CoD 4 seemed to run fine, I moved on to Oblivion which was unplayable before. Same thing here, the stuttering I had before was gone, just like that. Though I noticed another kind of stutter/lag but in no way as bad as the one I had before, and this stutter/lag could be due to several reasons (oblivion is a demanding game, and people seem to have a bit of problems running it smooth in general).
I will have to tweak around some with it but overall it was a great improvement.

Half Life 2 - Smooth as butter
The third and last game i tried was HL2 (original), I turned V-Sync off and loaded up my most recent checkpoint (beginning of Nova Prospect). First I was a bit unsure if it was gone or not as I haven't played HL2 in awhile and the stuttering in that game wasn't that bad to begin with, but after playing around a bit I came to the conclusion that it was smooth enough to be considered an improvement. Noticed some small lag (less than a second) ocassionally, but was far from game-breaking and could also be due to other reasons (Got the game maxed out, resolution, AA and everything).

So overall I'm happy that I tried this drivers out and I greatly recommend them to people with stuttering problems. May not work for everyone, but still think they are worth a try, since these are the only ones I've actually seen a difference with (with the exception of the stock drivers being generally less efficient than all the others).


Summary
Just to do a quick sum up of these drivers (note, haven't tested them fully)
+ Removed and/or lessened my stuttering problems in CoD4, Oblivion and Half-Life 2.
+ Might have gained a slight FPS increase, in at least CoD4.
+ The games I've tested generally runs more smooth.

- Can't seem to overclock them with Ntune (though that doesn't matter that much to me)
- My 3Dmark06 score could be better (have had over 4000 before with other drivers), but not really a minus as other factors could have contributed to the loss.
- May not apply to all games, only tested a selcted few and not to a great extent.

Notes
Also worth mentioning, before I did the tests I downloaded and installed a hotfix for Windows Vista from Nvidias site, note sure which one it was since I downloaded 3 different ones but only one of them worked. And i also changed LOD to 'clamp' and the performance mode to single display performance mode, like blackbird mentioned.

Curious to hear what others experienced with these drivers.
And a big thanks to both blackbird and thomaskc.dk for making this thread and mentioning the 163.67 drivers, thanks! :]

 

In winxp the 163.71 beta has been the best by far for me specially in COD4.
But in Vista nothing seems to be better really, only the newer driver you use, the better overall performance you get, which means your minimum fps will be higher, so when you limit your maxfps in a game to match your overall minimum fps things become just a bit more smooth since you can maybe run the game at 40fps instead of 30fps.

The 163.67 and 163.71 drivers does nothing in Vista.

And thanks Lord_phol

 

Glad we helped Lord Phol
Thanks for the post and welcome to the forums

 

I can now confirm that in Vista x64 the quadro FX 5600 driver 162.67 downloaded from Nvidias beta site, has removed stuttering completely for me in WoW running window mode.

Havnt yet tested any other games, will try cod4 within the weekend.

Downloads:

Vista 32bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_162.67.html

Vista 64bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_162.67.html

Winxp 32bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_162.67.html

*note* To install these in Vista, uninstall your old drivers, reboot in safe mode and go to device manager and choose to update your drivers for your gfxcard. There you choose "have a disk" and "choose from list" until you can browse the path exactly to the inf file.
A long list of gpus will be listed and I just picked 8600 gt. reboot and enjoy

 

thomaskc.dk

thats great news!

could please test other games as well if you can.

i'll try it out and post my results later.

thnanks for you post, maybe this one will work.

 

I tried out the one Thomas is mentioning, and it doesn't fix it for me, strange how its so random which driver fixes it for people.

 

will a chipset update help? if so where can you download the latest one.

Checked out intel.com, and all i found was for graphic cards....

Cheers

 

Ive tried force updating my chipset drivers, no change there either.

 

you can try

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=816

 

@Blackbird: Alright, so I tried using the driver you suggested. Doesn't seem to work for me though. And seriously, I'd be surprised if it really works for you. Because at first it appeared as if you were right, no stuttering at 1280x1024 with high details in UT3. Then I tried lowering the settings or the resolution and the stuttering was back- worse than ever before. From my point of view the only thing the driver does is soften the symptoms- without really solving the problem with memory allocation and whatnot. For some goddamn reason it works on that particular resolution with that particular bunch of settings but as soon as anything is being changed it all goes down like it used to before. Still using that driver with the particular resolution is no solution either since I'm only running 1280x1024 on my external display. The notebook display can't even handle it, so it won't help me anyway.

Anyway, the point is: Do me a favor and try some different resolutions (preferably lower ones) and lower settings with some games (most of all UT3-Demo if availible because it's been the easiest way to nail it down, source engine games seemed to run fine most of the time anyway for me) running the 163.something driver you pointed out.

 

Anyone tried this TRUE MOBILE driver yet?

 

I'm running on that driver right now and even though the performance seems quite good the stuttering is still there.

As of right now, I'd recommend to install that driver and limit the maxfps of ony game to the minimum that is to be encountered. I know, this method sucks since 28 stable is still not as good as 28-43, but it's the only thing that seemed to work for me so far.

 

I can also now confirm that I get FPS drop after a while.. I drop from 60 to 40. By tabbing back to windows and then back to the game works for maybe 30 seconds. My GPU temp is ~85 degrees and I have been playing for almost 2 hours.

 

Yeah I have, and they are worse than most other. Same old slowdown/stutter and way worse performance than for instance the 169.xx.

So when it comes to Vista, they are useless.

 

Ahh it sad to hear that

I am sticking to the 169.21 driver now until someone discovers something better and stuttering free.
I rarely experience stuttering with this driver actually only in ATItool and not in games.

 

I can confirm that 163.71 worked much better in WoW for me. The FPS drop doesnt occur at all anymore. But the driver it self has not as good performance as the new onces. So the overall FPS isnt as high as it could be. But as I said, the stuttering and the HUGE FPS drop after some hours of playing does not occure at all!! THats very nice. THis saved my day.

Home the new drivers that Zepto will release will have better performance and still the stutterfix.

 

i've tried the 162.67, and no luck , still the same...

new drivers from zepto would be highly appreacited.

 

I honestly dont think the drivers from Zepto will change anything at all....

My guess is that its an already schedueled task that they now mention to shut people up. If those 167 drivers zepto are releasing really should fix this, then some of the MANY drivers nvidia has released the last 3-4 month would have fixed this as well.

 

Have you tried the new 171.16 driver?

 

My drivers:
Nvidia "test drivers" version 169.28

Working new games with no stuttering:
Oblivion
CoD 4
Unreal Tournament 3
Crysis (not demo/beta)

Not working:
Gears of Wars
Crysis demo (It seems to have bad performance no mater what you do)

Did not work before update to 169.28 drivers:
CoD 4
Crysis (not demo/beta)
Gears of Wars
Oblivion (Dont know)

What I think:
We seem to have tested most of the drivers and found that there are always problems in some weird way. There are no full working drivers that solves it.

What I know:
Zepto told me that there wont be any official drivers before they get them from "nvidia" that has to test the drivers so they work. And so the latest graphic drivers from zepto are "the latest" drivers from Nvidia.
As I understand so should we not confuse the latest drivers on nvidias homepage as full working drivers, even if they are no beta (be course they still are in a special way). I guess we have to blame nvidia and tell them to hurry the driver testing so we can get easy drivers to install.

But as I see it, the 169.28 I use on my zepto znote 3415W does not solve the whole problem. So it looks like we will have to wait for a looong time before great working official drivers.

 

I dont have UT3 or the demo anymore, but I do however have Gears of War which is based on the UT3 engine.

Did test it out and yes no stuttering, and the resolutions tested at were 1680 x 1050 (major lag too demanding), 1280 x 720 (perfect no stuter except in that powerplant mission which i think stutters for every gow owner)

I am going to make an image of my xp installation as I finally have everything working, and going to install vista x64 and see if the exact same drivers or anyothers solve something

 

Hi everyone, im back again.. heh..

But ive tested the quadro FX WHQL driver 162.65 and they do fix my stuttering issues, it seems completely actually! And seems a bit smoother than the beta 162.67.

However both drivers score like 3400 points in 3dmark06 at 1280x768 while the newest drivers like 169.21 - xxx.25 and xxx.28 scores like 3700 at the same resolution.

So they are all around noticable slower for sure.

So annoying that we just cant use the newest and best drivers as the rest of world (well some of it).

 

Hmm.. I'll test them too. Where do I get them? laptopvideo2go?