My new GTX 670 stutters compared to my old Radeon 5970

[Whitestar]

In Trackmania 2 Canyon and Trackmania 2 stadium that is.

In Canyon I loaded up track D3, which seems to be a graphically demanding track. Shaders are on Nice, rest is pretty much all the way up. 1920x1080. I ran in 120hz with vsync on. Fps seemed to be almost constant 60, but in the tunnel it went up to over 100, and then down again to 60 when I got out of the tunnel. Very odd. A couple of other places it also fluctuated a bit before settling at 60, or rather vibrating between 59 and 60.

I noticed that even at 60 (and over) it wasn't as smooth as my 5970. There seems to be some sort of frame interval issue going on (or frame latency). It just isn't as smooth flowing as on my 5970. At 60 fps it looks like 40 fps or something, if you know what I mean.

The nVIDIA driver profile for Canyon didn't seem very optimized either. Triple buffering was off. And when I enabled it I got about 15-20 more fps!!! But still it wasn't as smooth flowing as my 5970. With my 5970 I think I got around 5-10 fps more than my new 670.


Does this game favour Radeon cards? Has anyone else benched it with a 670 or 680? Am I getting the performance I should?
I have to say I was a bit disappointed about the 670 performance here.

Any input and/or suggestions on how to make it go smoother will be most welcome.

 

[RCoon]

When you're driving through a tunnel the card wont have to process half as much stuff, which is why you see a huge frame increase. it's like playing BF3 and then looking at the floor - your fps will double more than likely, because there's nothing to process.
As for the frame latency, I'm not aware of anything like that on nvidia's end. May just be one of those games where driver support isnt in ample supply for that specific game.

 

[Whitestar]

Granted, Trackmania 2 Stadium hasn't been released yet, so I don't expect drivers for that until it does. But judging from the popularity of the former Trackmania United/Nations, I would assume that Canyon would be popular too.

I do plan on running SLI in a month or two maybe. I just hope there exists a good/decent SLI profile for Canyon, and that it scales well. I found some threads complaining about lack of proper SLI scaling, but those threads are at least 1,5 years old. Anyone know if a SLI profile from nVIDIA actually exists for Canyon?

I expect full driver support for Trackmania 2 Stadium when it is released, both single and multi GPU.


So, off to a somewhat disappointing start then with my new 670. Canyon (and TM2 Stadium Beta) were the first games I tested. Oh well, the 670 will probably (hopefully) redeem itself in Skyrim, Just Cause 2 and Battlefield 3.

 

[RCoon]

So, off to a somewhat disappointing start then with my new 670. Canyon (and TM2 Stadium Beta) were the first games I tested. Oh well, the 670 will probably (hopefully) redeem itself in Skyrim, Just Cause 2 and Battlefield 3.

That explains things.
And yes, your 670 will happily annihilate those games
I'm sure the profile for stadium will appear/improve when it's out of beta.

 

[erixx]

Try Arma 3 alpha and crank the viewing distance up to the "insane" level after setting everything to ultra. Then, my friend, your computer will ask for water

 

[sttubs]

When you swapped out video cards did you uninstall the Radeon drivers, then use a driver sweeper (gets rid of the junk code leftovers), then install NVidia drivers.

 

[Whitestar]

I did not. I don't think that will compromise the performance though. But being the paranoid person I am I will reinstall Windows with the new card. That should take care of business.

 

[Widjaja]

Fresh install.
Exactly what I would do.
Had nVidia driver remnants make an ATi card under perform a long time ago.

Ever since then, I will never be happy until I have done a complete reinstall of windows after installing a new graphics card when going from red to green or green to red.

 

[vexen]

Did you disable VSync? Sorry if you did, but you make no mention of it. VSync on unstable FPS is generally unpleasing.

 

[Whitestar]

Yeah, I am beginning to realise that after I got the 670. I always keep it on though, because I hate playing without vsync. It just looks so ugly and "wobbly", in lack of a better word.

Now I'm just lowering the settings a bit, then testing to determine lowest fps and making sure it stays above the refresh rate. I do this in all games now. These modern cards seem to be more fps hungry than before. By that I mean that the stuttering effect when fps drops below refresh rate seems more pronounced than on earlier cards. Or maybe I just didn't notice it before because I played on a CRT in 1280x1024 with my old Radeon 5970.

Getting another card and running in SLI should help the situation fps wise. So I can run more games in 120hz @ 120fps and not worry about the fps dropping below 120. Or alternatively 100hz @ 100fps which is still A LOT smoother on my Benq than 60hz @ 60fps. Even 85hz @ 85fps is much smoother than 60. There is simply too much motion blur at 60hz. Just can't deal with it coming from CRT.

Just hope that SLI is much smoother than crossfire. It's really the biggest reason I went nVidia this time.

 

[RCoon]

Yeah, I am beginning to realise that after I got the 670. I always keep it on though, because I hate playing without vsync. It just looks so ugly and "wobbly", in lack of a better word.

Now I'm just lowering the settings a bit, then testing to determine lowest fps and making sure it stays above the refresh rate. I do this in all games now. These modern cards seem to be more fps hungry than before. By that I mean that the stuttering effect when fps drops below refresh rate seems more pronounced than on earlier cards. Or maybe I just didn't notice it before because I played on a CRT in 1280x1024 with my old Radeon 5970.

Getting another card and running in SLI should help the situation fps wise. So I can run more games in 120hz @ 120fps and not worry about the fps dropping below 120. Or alternatively 100hz @ 100fps which is still A LOT smoother on my Benq than 60hz @ 60fps. Even 85hz @ 85fps is much smoother than 60. There is simply too much motion blur at 60hz. Just can't deal with it coming from CRT.

Just hope that SLI is much smoother than crossfire. It's really the biggest reason I went nVidia this time.

Totally worth going 120hz, our monitor (XL2411T) will "OC" to 144hz though, so have fun with that. Only problem i have is with about 3 games, bioshock being one of them. When you hit 120/144fps, it gives me brutal headaches.

 

[Whitestar]

I haven't tested Bioshock, if it's Infinite you mean. But Far Cry 3 seems to be very stuttery on my 670 with and without vsync. It was better after I turned triple buffering off, forced vsync through drivers and set render ahead (frame buffering) to 0 or 5 (go figure).

I assume you run Skyrim (if you play it) at 85hz? Really a shame that we cannot run at higher refresh rate in that game. The physics go bananas if I try 100hz and the framerate also reaches 100. 85hz seems to be the sweet spot, which is still a lot smoother than 60 on the Benq.

 

[RCoon]

I haven't tested Bioshock, if it's Infinite you mean. But Far Cry 3 seems to be very stuttery on my 670 with and without vsync. It was better after I turned triple buffering off, forced vsync through drivers and set render ahead (frame buffering) to 0 or 5 (go figure).

I assume you run Skyrim (if you play it) at 85hz? Really a shame that we cannot run at higher refresh rate in that game. The physics go bananas if I try 100hz and the framerate also reaches 100. 85hz seems to be the sweet spot, which is still a lot smoother than 60 on the Benq.

Yeah infinite. The game is too smooth for my eyes, even on max settings, and gives me partial headaches, so I force a tonne of AA through CCC to lower framerates.
I turn all buffering and vsync off on all games and just run unlimited framerate. Skyrim i havent had physics textures issues on, although i do get the occasional texture flickers, mainly on snow and water, where is spazes out and blinks furiously when i look at it in a certain angle. Other than that, I've not come across games with 120fps issues. Farcry 3 is a little choppy though, not much i can do about that, even with render ahead. Cant bring myself to turn vsync on anymore.

 

[Whitestar]

Yesterday I installed Crysis Warhead and tested it on my new GTX 670. I set my desktop refresh to 85 (I know from testing Crysis that I would not get 120 or 100 fps constantly) and fired up the game. Then I pressed Alt+Enter a couple of times to get 85hz in fullscreen mode; if I did not do that then it would just stay at default 60.

I had all settings on Gamer except shadows which where Mainstream.

Wow, just wow! The framerate stayed above 85 I would say about 90-95% of the time, giving an incredible smoothness on my Benq! I played until I got to the first beach where there are a couple of small islands. The combination of the beautiful scenery and the incredible smoothness was just a sight to behold. Can't wait to run this in SLI and get even more frames so I perhaps can run at 100hz or maybe even 120hz with even less motion blur.

Those of you who run this at 60hz, you really should try a 120hz screen. Even at 85hz the difference in motion fluidity and clarity is big, and at 120hz it's enourmous.

 

[vexen]

Yesterday I installed Crysis Warhead and tested it on my new GTX 670. I set my desktop refresh to 85 (I know from testing Crysis that I would not get 120 or 100 fps constantly) and fired up the game. Then I pressed Alt+Enter a couple of times to get 85hz in fullscreen mode; if I did not do that then it would just stay at default 60.

I had all settings on Gamer except shadows which where Mainstream.

Wow, just wow! The framerate stayed above 85 I would say about 90-95% of the time, giving an incredible smoothness on my Benq! I played until I got to the first beach where there are a couple of small islands. The combination of the beautiful scenery and the incredible smoothness was just a sight to behold. Can't wait to run this in SLI and get even more frames so I perhaps can run at 100hz or maybe even 120hz with even less motion blur.

Those of you who run this at 60hz, you really should try a 120hz screen. Even at 85hz the difference in motion fluidity and clarity is big, and at 120hz it's enourmous.

Yeah I wish I could have a 120hz monitor 2560x1440 with great color reproduction, hélas.. I ended up picking 2560x1440. Good to hear your 670 is running fine I understand that you really enjoy vsync, but how does 120hz without vsync feel? Did you try it?

 

[Whitestar]

Sorry for late reply. Been away.

I tried without vsync in Black Mesa. It works well there, although there is some small amount of tearing even if the framerate is well over 120. Not very visible though, and not really distracting.

In a couple of other games it's not looking good without vsync. Especially Far Cry 3, which is terrible.

In Crysis Warhead there seemed to be some stuttering which kinda looks like frame latency issues. But it's just caused by vsync being off. When vsync is on it's soooo smooth.