crysis stuttering

just curious if others have experienced stuttering while showing a relatively smooth fps.

i would be at 32 fps and i notice stuttering straffing or moving or even panning with the mouse at 1920x1200. same for 1680x1050 and even in 1440x900, although it is a little less at these lower resolutions in sli.

haven't tried with sli off but no point in that it seems.

forgot to mention this is with all high settings in dx9.

 

What is the graphics drivers?

I could only play crysis at 1024x800 2xAA till last stage.

 

latest sager's drivers.

haven't tried other drivers yet. maybe i should. wanted to see what others experienced.

currently i am eyeing on playing it on 1440x900 to help calm the stuttering a little.

 

Try opening up the console after it happens, and check for any error messages. This happens to me too, and its usually some random error. No idea how to fix it though .

 

Did you try reinstalling the game?

 

I played crisis at 1680 x 1050 on all medium to high when i had 1 8800 card. there was no problem ever. Now I have SLI and the latest drivers on Sager's site and it stutters with same settings. sometimes the game freezes.

I have 64-bit vista

 

what i mean by stuttering is that i can be moving forward, for example, and i can see the trees or any other object frame by frame like i was moving at 15 fps or so but the console says i am at 32 fps. it's kind of hard to describe. it is a very quick stutter, constantly. i noticed i don't get stuttering if my fps says 45 or higher. but realistically there should not be any visible stuttering at 30 fps or higher.

 

nah it has nothing to do with the installation of the game or the amount of ram i have. i am not describing stuttering while the games reads the hard drives or anything load-related. it's just a stupid stutter that should not be happening. that or the game's fps meter is totally incorrect.

i also experienced fps nose-dives and recovery at one point of the tame where i was moving quickly to fight 2 tanks in the begining of the game.

 

Bus latency due to excessive cache coherency transactions.

Might also have to do with the new I/O prioritization algorithms implemented in _Vista and, in particular, the ability to set super high or super low priorities on threads.

I won't bore everyone with a big essay right now (headache ), but I will link you to a 3-part article by Mark Russinovich, Inside_the_Windows_Vista_Kernel: Part 1, that discusses the optimization changes in _Vista, and in particular, provides registry keys where some of the parameters that control the new optimization algorithms can be found.

This may be of particular interest because it's entirely possible that the new prioritization system is not meshing properly with SLi GPUs (after all the CPU only thinks it's got one, not two), and that tinkering with some of the optimization parameters might improve performance.

 

In Short: XP better for Crysis.

 

Consider a duel-boot if you got the hd space...

 

If you`re not using XP, you should. I have rarely experienced stuttering,and my card is like 1/4 the power of your SLI.

 

he's running xp.

diskeeper defrag helps with stuttering for me and I know what you are describing

 

ARGH, you are right, its that stupid stutter that is somewhat not related to the FPS. It just happens and it has become unbearable for me from the last two days. I have already stopped playing Crysis wondering how to make it work. It is not playable anymore.

Here is what I attempted till now:
1. Reinstalled Nvidia forceware
2. Updated Vista
3. Disabled indexing for C: in volume > properties
4. Defragmented the Hard Drive using standard windows utility
5. In the process of downloading new WHQL certified MB drivers, once done - will post an update.

Intially I thought it was the heat, since it was almost 39 degC here last week, but then that is ruled out since it started happening immediately in the game and I even moved the PC under the air conditioner.

Then the disk defragment did not help. I dont know what will. Waiting for Crysis for 2 long years, got a beautiful upgrade and then this hellish experience

 

Here we go again, now with the M8800 GTX in SLi. That is exactly the same problem I have with my 8700M GTX in SLi.

Well ARGH is using XP, so all explanations that rely on Vista optimizations do not explain all the picture. Shyster in related thread of mine suggested the IRQ lattency might be the problem. I think that is were the problem is but haven't been able to solve it even by installing new drivers for RAID, Mouse, Camera etc etc etc. He mentioned a program that can be used both in Vista and XP to test DPCs.

I've found that this is a systemic problem of the d901c (don't know about others such as the DELL XPS M1730 in SLi).

Yes you get better FPS counts in SLi then in single card mode but you also get stuttering and micros stalls.

There goes all the amazing SLi scores in 1900x1200 down the toillet! In the end you have to play at lower resolutions to get the experience one expects from such an expensive machine, but you could do the same with a single card.

Try this, disable SLi and try to play the game at the resolution you need to play in SLi on order to minimize stuttering. I bet you get a smoother experience.

Hope you can solve this in your systems, becouse I could not in mine. Also, my complaints had no echo with Clevo & Co. They told me just to upgrade the cards, well I'm glad I did not still.

Trance
PS: "It just happens and it has become unbearable for me from the last two days" - wait six months and then ... well I disabled SLi in mine.

 

You`re being to extreme, Trance.
The game just bluntly sucks.
I don`t think there is ANY OTHER GAME that would stutter and WUXGA except at super high details.

 

Maybe I'm being extreme, let's see if that observation mantains the same in six months (I have mine over six months now). Wait t'ill new FPS blockbusters come to town such as FarCry 2, COD5 etc etc. There is were all the juice that an SLi setup is suppose to give is needed, that is the target of Crysis, not playing last years games.

I also ask guys to test the system with SLi disabled at same resolutions or one resolution down and see what you get.

Trance
PS: By the way, traditionally Unreal Tournement is a light game for the current video cards, so it is hardely a good tool for performance measurement. Also strategy games that don't rely on real time, fast paced visual effects to greately help the player getting the job done are not good, that includes Command & Conquer, and so on.

 

Technology gets outdated very fast. Remember,today`s top mobile hardware is yesterday`s top desktop hardware and less.

 

I don't understand why you are stating so many excuses to this problem?

We know that technology gets outdated really fast, but how fast it is a $3500 to $5000 laptop is supposed to get outdated (one month?).

Last years 8800 GT in SLi (the slowest 8800 video card now on the market for more then 6 months) on the desktop world can play Crysis at 1900x1200 at High with no problems at all and with similar if not worst FPS counts and 3DMark06 scores to the ones being posted about the d901c.

By the way, the d901c is supposed to be in entirely new league on mobile gaming performance when compared with the M570RU (like the one you own). It is a desktop replacement, unlike other Clevo notebooks, and people pay more for it becouse of that.

So if there is a solution for the stuttering in SLi for both M8700 GT and M8800 GTX it should be found, don't you think? By the way, the stuttering is visible at low FPS counts not high (when FPS counts drop and rise again etc etc) and not necessarly at very high res as ARGH posted.

Trance

 

Okay I just installed nforce_winvista32_15.01_international.exe which I downloaded from nvidia.com. Stuttering is gone, I dont believe it. Gaming again, in that alien ship now, just lost gravity. It is super smooth.

It was just the drivers for me apparently, but now that it works, I recommend you all update.

 

I know what you say Trance, and I feel the same way. But trust me, even 100 000$ have problems and break down.
Same thing with 5k$ laptops. They will do the best job possible until something too demanding comes along.
I don`t make excuses,I`m stating facts.It doesn`t help being sore about it ,I`ve been pissed off with my fan issues ever since I had the laptop and finally gave up on that. Why do gaming laptop have to be noisy if they`re idling at 33C ? Why do 5k$ laptops stutter?
We don`t know. It`s in the drivers,hdd fragmentation,GPU issues,heat,IRQ requests,less power than actually required,etc.
I don`t want to sound like I`m against you Trance,I`m from Europe myself and deal with the same BS prices and issues. The only difference is that I know why I did not pay 5k$ for my laptop but only 2.5 . Because even 2.5k$ laptops are not perfect.

 

Eleron, I understand your point but don't comply. I never bought a high end product that wouldn't perform as advertised. Yes some of them had problems, but they were fixed! High FPS count with Stuttering regardless of resolution is an indicator of a problem.

If it was not a problem, what about this for a marketing punch line or review

"The fastest mobile SLi system on the planet, that delivers the highest FPS rates, at any resolution that while playing Crysis adds a pinch of stuttering to give you an edge over the competition. You can only smile if this added bonus comes in the soon to be launched blockbusters too or some other game! After all you payed for it"

By the way, the reviews suggest that it playes Crysis 100% smooth at 1920x1200 and High settings. So I was not expecting these kind of posts.

"Nevertheless, the Crysis performance in Vista was absolutely astonishing; it really does take dual 8800M-GTX graphics cards to drive this game at a 1920x1200 resolution." - Chaz

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsId=4392

This is not what the users are saying in this thread. 34.7 average is more then in enough to play it smoothly at 1900x1200 given good components (see desktop forums), more even so would 50.8 at 1440x900.

As I said, given the same conditions try to disable SLi at the res you find it playing smooth (as of not stuttering in any scene) and see what happens. It might just suprise you.

Trance

 

The problem for me is in the VBIOS...

The version that I have now is the 60.84.5B.00.A0, no stutter, smooth play. Because it was the first 8700M GT VBIOS released[2007-06-30] I emailed Sager/Clevo/Goldenstar(Clevo representative on Europe) asking for VBIOS 8700M GT updates. Dell had released by that time some VBIOS 8700M GT updates too.

Only Goldenstar(Germany) gave affirmative response about updates. They sended me a new one 60.84.5B.00.14 dated 2007-08-09.

I made one backup of the factory .ROM and flashed it with that new one.

Man, it was like my 8700M GT transformed on one 8400M GS or something... every game had stuttering on it... re-flashed to see if it was some sort of flashing problem. The stuttering continued... Then I reversed to the factory older one, fantastic again, smooth play.

I think it's something on the VBIOS of yours 8700M GTs that is making that problems, Trance. Remember that you needed to flash them with other VBIOSes when you receive your D901C because the SLi problem...

 

Audigy,

My VBIOS is the latest according both to my supplier and Justin (thx Justin). Also it happens only in SLi. Single card playes fine.

I'm stunned that this problem persists with the new M8800 GTX. Hope this guys solve it.

Trance

 

Also Goldenstar support service confirmed that, when you asked me to ask them...

One thing I know, [Stay away from SLi on notebooks]. Even on desktops SLi have lots of problems, on an NB will be worse on that field for sure.

Let's hope that 9800M GTX(?) will not have as many problems as 8800M GTX have now... underclocking problems, underperforming face to Dell's ones, stuttering...

 

I`m hoping the same thing. I could`ve gone the SLI way but more weight and a bigger laptop didn`t sound appealing.
Although I`d wish I bought a 9260 back then it`s still ok with one card. And hopefully the 9800M GTX will be better than that.

 

maybe i am talking about a different kind of stuttering here.

if i reduce the graphical settings a little and or reduce the resolution the stuttering goes away and is more reflective of the fps shown on the screen.

trance, i recal you said you had stuttering in COD4 no matter what graphics setting you played at in sli? i think your stuttering is different.

if it's not different then i am betting it is the nature of sli and it's drivers for now.

 

"trance, i recal you said you had stuttering in COD4 no matter what graphics setting you played at in sli? i think your stuttering is different."

Not really. If I lower the settings (resolution or quality) enough the stuttering goes away. The problem is that once I find a soft sport on the settings were the stuttering goes away or simply happens occasionally, if I disable SLi I get better results.

Just try this with yours ARGH:

Find a soft spot where your SLi config performs well ( without stuttering). Then run the game with the same settings but with SLi disable and check if you notice any difference in performance.

In mine, I would not find any difference in single card mode, in fact I could rise the quality settings up a wee bit (not the res) and still get a smooth experience. So I concluded that SLi is actually dragging the smooth experience down while increasing FPS count. So only good for benchmarks (or and so reviews) but not for real gaming, defeating its purpose.

I'm hoping that in your setup, disabling SLi on the soft spot actually reintroduces stuttering, or FPS count drops just enough to make it unsmooth, so we can conclude it is better to keep SLi enabled. If not, and considering your system is well assembled, we can only conclude the SLi systems from Clevo actuall make things worst not better (as for not worh a penny ... I think you can find other ways to communicate the same idea but not as elegant).

Trance

 

i cannot run the game in high resolution without sli or it is very choppy so if spots that are nice and smooth in sli will generally be choppy with sli disabled unless i drastically reduce the resolution.

in spots that stutter i can either reduce the resolution, from lets say 1920x1200 to 1440x900 and the stutter goes away (unless i find another spot where there is alot on the screen then it can stutter again) so i think it is simply a case of drivers not being able to cope with alot happening on the screen and they get overwhelmed and cuase stutter.

i must add that even with the stutter the game is playable. it is just annoying to me eyes more than anything where it would say 30fps but produces a quick and subtle stutter.

 

"i cannot run the game in high resolution without sli or it is very choppy so if spots that are nice and smooth in sli will generally be choppy with sli disabled unless i drastically reduce the resolution."

Same thing for me. That is what higher FPS count are suppose to do (choppy is not the same as stuttering).

"in spots that stutter i can either reduce the resolution, from lets say 1920x1200 to 1440x900 and the stutter goes away "

Granted, so I can and the stutter goes away (in mine say at 1280x900). Now at 1440x900 and same settings (High in Crysis I guess) run with SLi disabled. Can you play it as well or even better? If yes, rise the res to something a wee bit higher to see were you can go (with a single card). In mine I could increase t'ill 1400x1050.

" must add that even with the stutter the game is playable. it is just annoying to me eyes more than anything where it would say 30fps but produces a quick and subtle stutter."

Yes, I would also consider it playable on a single player mode. But once you go on-line that stuttering will kill ya (frame skips). After a month playing it, forcing your eyes to ignore the stuttering you will fall back to a lower resolution becouse you can't stand it anymore and your killing rate will increase.

Trance

 

here is my crysis benchmarks so you can see where sli benefits me. sli helps in 1440x900 so its not worth disabling;

crysis internal benchmark utility full screen mode Benchmark_GPU batch file;

800x600 all high dx9 = 49.16 fps avg. single gpu

1280x960 all high dx9 = 31.91 fps avg. single gpu

1440x900 all high dx9 = 29.62 fps avg. single gpu

1680x1050 all high dx9 = 23.37 fps avg. single gpu

1920x1200 all high dx9 = 18.86 fps avg. single gpu

800x600 all high dx9 = 43.50 fps avg. sli card

1280x960 all high dx9 = 41.67 fps avg. sli card

1440x900 all high dx9 = 38.56 fps avg. sli card

1680x1050 all high dx9 = 35.19 fps avg. sli card

1920x1200 all high dx9 = 30.28 fps avg. sli card

 

So you have a different problem then I have!

Trance

 

really? i thought we were on the same page as to what the problem was but it seemed like it was bugging you more than i.

what is the difference, in your view?

 

1440x900 all high dx9 = 29.62 fps avg. single gpu
1440x900 all high dx9 = 38.56 fps avg. sli card
'
Basically at this res you state that the stuttering effect is gone in Crysis in SLi.

In COD4, mine is gone at a lower res but it does not matter, say my soft spot is X. I haven't tested the FPS count both with SLI and without. What I do notice is that with a single card I don't have stuttering either and res X and I can rise the resolution (say X+1) and still don't have stuttering. The same does not happen when SLi is on.

So at res X+1 I have stuttering in SLi and no stuttering without it. So I prefer playing without SLi. The same happens with Assassins Creed.

You say:

"here is my crysis benchmarks so you can see where sli benefits me. sli helps in 1440x900 so its not worth disabling;"

As it seams, in your case you always get better results in SLi, regardless of resolution. That is you don't have an X+1 res where the actual game playing is better with it disabled then enabled even if you get less FPS count.

That is why I say it is different.

Trance
PS: The way you decribe what stuttering is, seams to be exactly what I experience too. You might also get mild stuttering, or simply tearing unlike me (I do experience heavy stuttering, I can actually see that there are one more frames missing ... aka as frame skips)

 

i would not say it is completely gone from the entire game as it does occur in other more stressfull moments where there is more happening on the screen. but, if i experience stutter at a particular spot in 1920x1200 i know i can eliminate this stutterin if i lower the res to 1440x900 and keep same settings or lower res to 1680x1050 and reduce shadows to medium and it provides a simial stutter-free gameplay at the spot.

this to me signals the problem to be a combination of drivers and gpu power. for example, you state you need to lower your resolution much more than i to eliminate the stuttering. maybe the 128 bus on your cards are the culprit as they start to choke in higher res.

i want to ask you, when you experience the stuttering, what is the highest fps reading during this? if it is about 30 fps (or a tad lower) than it is the same thing as me. in crysis, i have observed that the game needs to read at least 38 to 45 fps to appear smooth without the stutter.

 

Perhaps you guys are describing an extreme example of a problem we've seen in all Crysis benchmark results. While SLI greatly improves average and maximum FPS it always seems to lower minimum FPS substantially, something that strikes me as a fault somewhere.

 

Hey Trance, I noticed you said you have stuttering in Assassin's Creed too? I have been playing that game without flaw at all maxed settings @ 1920x1200. No stuttering, smooth as silk. DX10 even. Using the latest bios (the one that came with my second card from Justin), and 174.33 drivers. (SLi enabled too)

I have Crysis installed but I have not played it since installing so I have not been able to comment, until I saw you mention Assassin's Creed, which I am playing.

Sorry, I know this doesn't help anything, just thought I would let you know that not all machines are experiencing the same problem and there may be hope.

 

When in SLi probably that stuttering appears in low FPS counts (below 40 or 30). Since my video card is slower then yours, that happens more often then not.

In your case, the only game that is really stressing your cards to the limmit is Crysis. So this problem may be visible less often then in mine (all other games don't really make it swet).

But the problem is there. Wait until newer games start coming and you probably will notice more and more. This is not good. (It is a time bomb) becouse gaming smoothness is no longer in direct proportion with FPS counts as it used to be.

I do get good FPS counts but it stutters (on average I have around 40 on COD4).

Trance

PS: The 8700M GT in SLi is the worst computer garbage that I ever bought ($300 for a peace of s*). Performance I think is really far from a 7950GTX althought is next generation.

 

Trance, the 8700M GT is not a bad card... the problem is on Clevo implementation.

The 8700M GT(single) is being consistently better than the old 7950GTX on all the recent titles. Crysis, COD 4, Assasins Creed, etc... ask eleron...

As I said before, most of the recent titles are very demanding on the shader side... and on that conditions the 8700M GT wins by a large margin(6x times more shader processing power than 7950GTX) even with an 128bit bus.

The problem here is because of Clevo flaws on its implementation...

EDIT: Have you tried to contact with Webservinfor to maybe swich the cards or something?

 

Audigy is right. My 7950GTX can`t keep up with the 8700M GT in newer titles,which rely heavily on shading capabilities.
I played and finished AC on all max, 1066x600 ,shadows 2/3 just to get over 20 fps(around 30 fps usually) and still had stuttering inside the lab and some odd places.
Audigy`s 8700M GT played it at insane resolutions compared to mine...

 

I ran into similar issues with Crysis. Things would slow way down once in a while, but the frame rate was reading pretty good. It would stay very slow when the menu would pull up as well. I'd exit the game and reboot and things would run okay. Only happened a few times so I never bothered to track down the problem. Irritating, but didn't stop me from finishing the game. Have not run into this problem with any other application...seems to be something with Crysis.

 

I have been troubleshooting for this for over a month now, been changing hardware and installing windows like 5 times in a day, but this stutter does not go.

1. I updated the BIOS.
2. Installed AMD Dual Core Optimizer.
3. WindowsXP nicely updated to SP3
4. Brand new chipset drivers and forceware.
5. Finally tried installation on a brand new Seagate Baracudda 7200K but stutter continues on Crysis and NFSPS
6. Tried 3 different PSU's at my dealers shop from 400W to 600W Powersafe Gold, no change in the games, they still stutter.
7. I was using 2 X 2 GB PC 800 Transcend, tried checking with 1GB X 2 Dynet 667MHz but they still stutter.

Now he says, it is either a problem on the board or the graphics card. I have a feeling my board doesn't really like the processor, it is the board for sure but there is another possibility I heard, of the PCIE slot not supplying enough voltage to the card, which is again a problem with the board.

I am doing this motherboard and graphics card switching tomorrow morning and will update again. Hopefully tomorrow is the last day of this nonsense and my wife hates me because of the time I spent installing windows and the motherboard drivers

Will put the graphics card into another PC there, install my Crysis and NFSPS, if it works the motherboard get changed and if it stutters on the new PC as well, I'll get a new 8600GT

 

I have also heard Crysis does not support SLI. I personally do not know if it is true, but my friend running on a desktop with dual 8800gtx has stuttering problems as well where on my desktop with 8800gts do not.

Take it for what its worth.

 

It is not just SLI or Crysis or for that matter Intel or AMD. It happens in all the games I install, in fact it is the least in Crysis. I don't have an SLI setup, maybe will have one if my board is found defective and I get one that supports SLI... still stutters

 

in the end the stuttering i am experiencing is called "micro stutter" and it is an inherited symptom of multi-gpu solutions and there is currently no fix for this. really defeats the purpose of sli, for now.

 

To what extent is the gameplay afftected? In the stutter that I face, it is ruined and nothing is playable!

You mean there is no point getting an SLI Rig for now?

 

Out of interest abhi, you do realise this is a NOTEBOOK forum, yes?

 

it is sort of difficult to explain. if you google micro stutter you can get a good idea of what it is. it is basically the notice of individual frames not synching up. you notice the stutter as you walk or move throughout the game where it occurs. despite your fps counter reading 35 fps, it feels like you are at 17 fps. load the exact same game save and run with one card, even though the fps counter only reads 26 fps, the game is smoother, as another example.

so in the end youy do not feel like you are getting your money's worth out of sli.

 

I know it is

 

I finally ran crysis last night and I had few problems:
1.) as ARGH said stuttering
2.) the "reading" prompt always show up, probably need a bigger HDD.
3.) I hope someone can explain this one, after the first discovery site frozen (where i sneaked in and eavesdropped the conversation of the scientists), the whole fps went down to like 3fps, I wasn't firing or do anything special at that point.
my settings: 1680x1050, 2XAA, all high, XP pro sp3, DX10