Video card help! Driver issue or time for an upgrade?

[shiftline]

I just installed Dying light and alot of the videos and game play seem a bit jittery, i can see refresh lines.. so im not sure if its windows 10, the driver or the card just cant keep up any more...

I built my PC a few years ago but it still seems to be a powerhouse.
OS Win 10 pro x64
Intel i7 950 3.07 ghz
20GB ram
Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6950
Video driver version 15.200.1046.2
Catalyst control centrer version 2015.0728.2244.39078

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

 

[basco]

is your 6950 1gb or 2gb ?
and dying light shows you in the videosettings the to be expected memory used for different quality -have a look there.
your using 1920x1080 monitor ?

 

[shiftline]

Its 1GB card

Video Adapter AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
Name [SIW] Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950] [XFX Pine Group Inc.]
Video Processor AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x6719)
Adapter DAC Type Internal DAC(400MHz)
PCI ID 0x1002 / 0x6719 - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] / Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950]
PCI sub ID 0x1682 / 0x3123 - XFX Pine Group Inc.
Memory 1024 MBytes
Video Mode Description 1920 x 1080 x 4294967296 colors
Driver Version 15.200.1046.2
Drivers aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,amdxc64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,amdxc32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver Date 2015-07-15 00:00:00

Resolution is 1920 x1080

I searched the video settings in the game but could not find the expected memory used.

 

[de.das.dude]

i think the memory is falling short, 1GB gets used up too easily even on med settings at 1080p because of the better textures in game nowadays.

 

[shiftline]

I figured that may be the case.. Whats the 'minimum' recommended for an upgrade with out breaking the bank these days?

 

[de.das.dude]

fix a budget... get the most expensive option that fits that budget simple
tbh no sense in spending extra for special versions of card, unless they are offering better cooling,

 

[R-T-B]

If you're PSU can support it, the R9 290's are a great deal right now. They are "last gen" but considering the r9 390 is just a rebrand with 8GBs of ram, you aren't missing much.

The R9 285 is also not bad for 1080p and can probably be had cheap.

 

[basco]

dont have the game installed right now so sorry my fault with memory
but yeah like dude said you will have to lower your settings with 1gb ram.
your cpu is fine and good for a better videocard.

http://now.avg.com/the-ultimate-dying-light-performance-guide/

 

[shiftline]

True enough, ill work on upgrading it in the next few months once the bank account recovers.. Thanks for the tips!

I would prob shoot for 300 or less (cdn) as im not really a hardcore gamer.. but i have my spurts every once in a while

 

[shiftline]

XFX Radeon R9 285 and GTX 960 XLR8 look to be good contenders

 

[arbiter]

yea radeon 6950 should be retired, it will be 5 years old in December. 300$ canadian, only thing left is how good is your psu. nvidia gtx960 is more power efficient of the 2 but both are around same performance wise.

 

[shiftline]

CPU is an Intel i7 950 3.07GHz quad core

 

[RCoon]

Some of my old review charts:

Basically a GTX 970 produced 60FPS average, with decent highs on 1080p. VRAM usages were significantly high.

 

[AsRock]

i have a 6970 2GB it was getting a little short of ram so a 1GB EKK, i think it is time for that video card upgrade.

Which is why i got a 290X when it came out as most of my games were hitting that 2GB limit.

 

[moproblems99]

I would choose the 380 over the 285. From when I was looking over the last few months, the 380 could actually be had cheaper than the 285. The 290 would be a step better if you can find one for a decent price.

 

[Aquinus]

I just replaced my 6870s in CFX because the 1GB of VRAM was simply not enough for a 7970 woth of compute power between the two cards. I ended up getting a 390 but, a 4GB 380 would also be a good option as well in your position.

Side note: I did lose performance upgrading to Windows 10. It was measurable but not huge. In fact Vsync seems to be impacted the most by the upgrade which is odd, at least in my case.

 

[shiftline]

Just a little comparison price wise of the suggested cards based on NCIX's pricing. .. More for my self for future refrence as i will prob be about a month until i get one.

Is there any other contenders to mention or does this about sum it up?

MSI GeForce GTX 960 100 Million Edition TwinFrozr V 1216/1279MHZ 2GB 7GHZ GDDR5 PCI-E Video Card $279.99 CAD
XFX Radeon R9 285 Black DD 975MHZ 2GB 5.8GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card $294.99 CAD

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 Strix OC 1253MHZ 4GB 7.0GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card $439.99 CAD
MSI Radeon R9 390 Twinfrozr V 1060MHZ 8GB 6.1GHZ GDDR5 2x DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card $439.99 CAD

GIGABYTE GTX 970 G1 1329MHZ 4GB 7.0GHZ GDDR5 2xHDMI DVI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card $459.00 CAD
Sapphire Nitro R9 390 8G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-D / HDMI /TRIPLE DP OC Version (Uefi) $484.99 CAD

 

[moproblems99]

I would drop the 285 and replace it with a 4GB R9 380.

For that matter drop the 2GB 960, I think they have 4GB variations of that too.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I would drop the 285 and replace it with a 4GB R9 380.

For that matter drop the 2GB 960, I think they have 4GB variations of that too.

No point in getting the 4Gb versions though. Unless running 2 in sli is in the future.

 

[moproblems99]

No point in getting the 4Gb versions though. Unless running 2 in sli is in the future.

For the $10 price premium, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

For the $10 price premium, I wouldn't worry about it.

Try $20-30

 

[Aquinus]

Just as a side note, Farcry 4 uses 3.5GB of VRAM at full graphics in surround. While the 390 handles is gracefully, that is 0.5GB away from 4GB. I think 4GB probably could get exceeded soon in modern games.

 

[arbiter]

Just as a side note, Farcry 4 uses 3.5GB of VRAM at full graphics in surround. While the 390 handles is gracefully, that is 0.5GB away from 4GB. I think 4GB probably could get exceeded soon in modern games.

You did say "in surround" its not uncommon for ram usage to be 4gb+ when using 3 displays.

 

[Aquinus]

You did say "in surround" its not uncommon for ram usage to be 4gb+ when using 3 displays.

Yeah, but we're only talking about extra VRAM to store the rendered frames to be displayed. 256-512MB isn't unrealistic going from 1080p to surround. Switching from surround to just 1080p uses about 400MB less but that's less pronounced against people doing 1440p and 4k though. 3.1GB used for a not so graphically intense scene isn't exactly making resolution stand out like night and day with respect to usage. Either way, If we're at 3.1Gb already at 1080p and 3.5GB in surround, it won't take long to go over 4GB. That's my point and still holds if you consider resolution or not because textures and geometry data doesn't get less just because of a lower resolution and the increase in VRAM use is just to store the extra pixels to be displayed, nothing more.

Edit: There was a moment when memory usage hit 4GB but, it didn't stay there. That, to me, makes the 8GB seems worth while because performance crashes hard when you run out of VRAM.

 

[moproblems99]

I have not seen FC4 but consider TW3. I think TW3 uses less than 3GB and it has pretty good graphics.