Help needed with 59 fps stutter when playing a vsync locked, 60fps game .

[LifeOnMars]

In games that I can run easily with vsync locked at 60FPS. For example -

Nail'd
FIFA 11
NFSHP

to name a few, they will sometimes/most of the time, flicker between 59fps/60/61. When it goes to 59FPS it causes stutter which throughout the course of a game, especially in sports or racing games can actually be very annoying. I have tried using D3Doverrider but it displays the same problem when that frame is dropped?

Is this a normal problem or is it my monitor?

Any solution to this as ideally I just want it locked hard to 60FPS?

EDIT - I do not have this issue with Bad Company 2 or Just Cause 2 and also when recording with Fraps I have noticed that it locks at 30fps and doesnt deviate down to 29fps or upto 31.

 

[IINexusII]

whats the refresh rate of the monitor set to in the games?

 

[LifeOnMars]

whats the refresh rate of the monitor set to in the games?

60Hz/60 FPS

 

[LifeOnMars]

Anyone else have any experience of this or ways to sort it?

 

[hellrazor]

Yeah, it is kind of odd... I remember Doom 3 used to drop to 59, but it didn't stutter or anything.

 

[LifeOnMars]

Still having this issue and still haven't found an answer. Anyone have a fix for this or an explanation at least?

 

[ctrain]

Not sure on the stuttering, but my guess otherwise is that you see the fps move because it's inaccurate by nature.

The frame time for 60 fps isn't a whole number, depending on how it's rounded the frame counter might be slightly off. The lower the fps, the more accurate it should be which might explain your 30 fps mystery of it not moving there.

1000 / 60 = 16.6667~
1000 / 16.6667 = 59.99988~


I just tried enabling vsync in Quake and it flickers from 59 to 60 rapidly.

 

[Mussels]

software in the background causing the problem is my guess.


i have seen dozens of comments like this usually followed up by "hey guys, it was X" with X varying between each person.

 

[streetfighter 2]

We are talking about microstutter right?

In my experience it's a very common issue and disabling vsync actually can help quite a bit. Another thing to try is if you're overclocking the card, set it back to default (or lower the clocks).

I've tried everything under the sun, and a few things above the sun, and I still get microstutter in GTA IV...

i have seen dozens of comments like this usually followed up by "hey guys, it was X" with X varying between each person.

Best. Sentence. Ever.

This is the solution to 90% of the problems I've encountered in life.

 

[Mike0409]

Are you running anything with an overlay? Or running the game from within steam where it's not supported, xfire or raptr? Turn off AV

 

[LifeOnMars]

Not sure on the stuttering, but my guess otherwise is that you see the fps move because it's inaccurate by nature.

The frame time for 60 fps isn't a whole number, depending on how it's rounded the frame counter might be slightly off. The lower the fps, the more accurate it should be which might explain your 30 fps mystery of it not moving there.

1000 / 60 = 16.6667~
1000 / 16.6667 = 59.99988~


I just tried enabling vsync in Quake and it flickers from 59 to 60 rapidly.

But does yours stutter as it flicks between 59 and 60? Mine produces a noticeable step stutter between the frame change.

Mussels - I run a minimal install of windows 7. I hate excess background processes.

SF2 - GTAIV runs as smooth as butter on my rig on high.

Mike - No overlay of any sort, tried with and without FRAPS and still that momentary step stutter.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Which driver revision are you using? Also, what settings in NFS HP? Everything high in-game what settings in nvidia control panel? I am going to attempt to reproduce what you are seeing as I have TONS of background processes and never experienced the issue. Also, shouldn't be hard drive because essentially, we have the same one

EDIT:

Ok just ran through Roadsters Reborn, no nudges at all in the 60fps lock, nvidia 260.89 driver set. I think if you have antivirus it is playing it's toll.

 

[LifeOnMars]

Which driver revision are you using? Also, what settings in NFS HP? Everything high in-game what settings in nvidia control panel? I am going to attempt to reproduce what you are seeing as I have TONS of background processes and never experienced the issue. Also, shouldn't be hard drive because essentially, we have the same one

EDIT:

Ok just ran through Roadsters Reborn, no nudges at all in the 60fps lock, nvidia 260.89 driver set. I think if you have antivirus it is playing it's toll.

Hi Jr. I have no antivirus installed, my settings in the control panel are generally standard with high quality filtering and 3fps for maximum pre rendered frames. I am using the 266.58 drivers. I'm really starting to think it's a monitor issue.

 

[f22a4bandit]

Fifa 11 is stuttering/stalling during game play, correct?

I have this same issue on my PS3, and have heard other people having this problem as well across multiple platforms, so you're not alone. There really isn't a solution as far as I know until EA gets off their Lazy Boy and addresses this issue. It's extremely annoying, so I know exactly what you're going through.

One suggestion I heard was to increase resolution to 1920x1080, but I don't know if this will help you at all.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Hi Jr. I have no antivirus installed, my settings in the control panel are generally standard with high quality filtering and 3fps for maximum pre rendered frames. I am using the 266.58 drivers. I'm really starting to think it's a monitor issue.

Most i can say at this point is to revert back to the 260 driver set and run "Let 3d application decide" in nVidia cp. See if it helps any.

@f22a
That may be the issue as I was playing at 1080p. Will edit with my findings @ 1680x1050

EDIT:
Nope, played the exact same way, just all out smooth.

 

[Mike0409]

Are you running an HDMI cable or DVI? If its HDMI is it an older cable at all?

 

[LifeOnMars]

I'm running a DVI cable.

Jr - I have tried practically every driver that has been released since the 460 GTX came out. All have the same issue so I don't think it is driver related.

Bandit - It's not attrocious stutter and is quite random and it's really only like 1frame/1 second lag. I have seen the PS3 stutter and that is shocking.

Out of interest I have to use a switch card on my mobo to run my graphics card at the full 16x2.0 can these ever cause issues? I have checked GPUz and it is running at full speed.... just speculating

EDIT - This 59fps stutter also affects a fully patched "The Saboteur". It runs at a constant 60fps which is smooth as and then hiccups/hitches when it goes to 59fps but it does that quite frequently exactly like FIFA. Is it an EA issue? I doubt it but it's annoying as hell and ruins a perfectly playable game otherwise.

 

[Mike0409]

I'm running a DVI cable.

Jr - I have tried practically every driver that has been released since the 460 GTX came out. All have the same issue so I don't think it is driver related.

Bandit - It's not attrocious stutter and is quite random and it's really only like 1frame/1 second lag. I have seen the PS3 stutter and that is shocking.

Out of interest I have to use a switch card on my mobo to run my graphics card at the full 16x2.0 can these ever cause issues? I have checked GPUz and it is running at full speed.... just speculating

A switch card, kind of like the old SLI/Non-SLI cards they use to use?

Do you have Triple Buffering enabled? This should add an extra frame, but it will cause stuttering occasionally, then smooth out. Try turning that off.

 

[f22a4bandit]

I'm running a DVI cable.

Jr - I have tried practically every driver that has been released since the 460 GTX came out. All have the same issue so I don't think it is driver related.

Bandit - It's not attrocious stutter and is quite random and it's really only like 1frame/1 second lag. I have seen the PS3 stutter and that is shocking.

Out of interest I have to use a switch card on my mobo to run my graphics card at the full 16x2.0 can these ever cause issues? I have checked GPUz and it is running at full speed.... just speculating

EDIT - This 59fps stutter also affects a fully patched "The Saboteur". It runs at a constant 60fps which is smooth as and then hiccups/hitches when it goes to 59fps but it does that quite frequently exactly like FIFA. Is it an EA issue? I doubt it but it's annoying as hell and ruins a perfectly playable game otherwise.

I think it is more of an EA issue than an actual hardware issue at this point. The stuttering seems common in the sports games for whatever reason. Madden 11, I'm told, also experiences this same issue during game play.

Yeah, the PS3 stuttering is really bad, but like you said, it only happens randomly. Of course, I have to wonder if it's actually the hard drive in my PS3 slim that's causing this issue, as it seems only slim users experience this phenomenon.

Your thread reminded me of the problem I'm having with Fifa 11. Almost every other title I own doesn't experience this issue.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Out of interest I have to use a switch card on my mobo to run my graphics card at the full 16x2.0 can these ever cause issues? I have checked GPUz and it is running at full speed.... just speculating

Take it out and run the card at 8x 2.0. Shouldn't give a performance hit.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

With vsync on if the games stutters at 59 FPS that could be a sign that the actual frame rates of the game is much lower with vsync off. It appears to me that your setup isn't capable of playing those games with vsync on. As you need your minimum frame rates to be at least 60 FPS. Any dips with min/average would cause stuttering in such cases.

If you believe it should based on IQ/resolution, etc. Then you are going to need to look at:
-background processes
-chipset settings
-CPU overclock settings
-CPU/GPU/Chipset temps
-Driver settings
-etc


Sidenote:
Your stats say you are using 1T timing? Why not change that to 2T and see if that helps.

 

[LifeOnMars]

With vsync on if the games stutters at 59 FPS that could be a sign that the actual frame rates of the game is much lower with vsync off. It appears to me that your setup isn't capable of playing those games with vsync on. As you need your minimum frame rates to be at least 60 FPS. Any dips with min/average would cause stuttering in such cases.

If you believe it should based on IQ/resolution, etc. Then you are going to need to look at:
-background processes
-chipset settings
-CPU overclock settings
-CPU/GPU/Chipset temps
-Driver settings
-etc


Sidenote:
Your stats say you are using 1T timing? Why not change that to 2T and see if that helps.

You see, with FIFA 11 especially, I have looked at the frames I'm getting with vysnc off and it never dips below 150fps....seriously. The tearing is awful though and my monitor does not handle it well. I did actually try reverting back to 2T timings but no joy unfortunately.

EDIT -

I'm gonna try and find a way of capturing this so I can show you guys how it occurs.

 

[Mike0409]

You see, with FIFA 11 especially, I have looked at the frames I'm getting with vysnc off and it never dips below 150fps....seriously. The tearing is awful though and my monitor does not handle it well. I did actually try reverting back to 2T timings but no joy unfortunately.

EDIT -

I'm gonna try and find a way of capturing this so I can show you guys how it occurs.

Do this, beef your Refresh rate up to 70hz, and turn Vsync off. See if tearing still occurs.

 

[LifeOnMars]

Do this, beef your Refresh rate up to 70hz, and turn Vsync off. See if tearing still occurs.

How do I beef my refresh rate up to 70hz? Its natively 1680x1050 60hz unless you mean that I should try dropping my res?

 

[Zenith]

I can say for NFS:HP I have the exactly same issue. Playing with 60FPS almost whole game thru, but getting 59FPS dips and kinda stalls fluidity of game. I was wondering if better GFX card would solve this problem. I also tried D3DOverrider and triple buffer and got somehow same result.

I remember going from 8800GTS to HD5850 card and while playing Burnout Paradise Ultimate I got similar FPS dips as now in NFS:HP. 8800GTS was fluid eg. constant 60FPS in Burnout. Those games are both made by Criterion.