5 replies to this topic

[Tw1stedMonkey]

After messing around for hours and searching even longer than that on google trying to fix my fps stuttering issues, I am at a total loss. It makes no sense at all to me and I hope someone can Regardless of settings, on my brother's computer the fps frequently dips from ~30-60s (depending on settings) fps into the low 10-20s especially when turning, like multiple times in a 10 sec period. Can usually stay solid and consistent if not looking around and very little action in the viewpoint. Disabling crossfire at one point was able to give 80-90 fps on lowest settings with the near-constant dips hitting into the low 20s in the testing grounds. I have tried numerous user.cfg fixes and fiddling with settings in catalyst control center.

So I recently installed a new cpu and gpu and gave my old cpu, gpu and RAM to my brother to upgrade his rig. He had to get a new motherboard in order to upgrade from his 4 core 2.something GHz processor to my old 6 core 3.2 GHz Phenom II. I also had some old DDR3 RAM that I gave him. I had all of these components working in my old computer and never had any significant issues running MWO that I wasn't able to fix on my own.
Unfortunately the case he had was too small to fit the new motherboard so we kinda had to ghetto rig it, while the new case ships. I put a sheet of cardboard under the motherboard and set the case on it's side since there were no screws holding it in place. The gpus don't seem to be seated all that great but idk if that could be causing the stuttering problems. I also had a second Radeon HD 5770 so we added that in crossfire with his old card. I also don't know if the RAM is still good but I tested with one of my comp's RAM and there was no change but i haven't tested using different slots. There is also a ... possible issue with the CPU pins...

3 or 4 bent and fell off but I attempted and apparently successful re-solder but I have no idea how well it has held up after 2 years and the stress of transferring from one motherboard to another. I never had any major issues aside from some mysterious and infrequent BSODs when using RAM in 2 slots on my old motherboard. Is there a way to test to make sure all the pins are making proper connections? I am trying to figure out where the problem is but idk if it is driver issues, MWO issues, GPU issues, cpu issues, or ghetto-rigged case issues haha.

TL;DR Regardless of settings the fps frequently dips from ~30-60s (depending on settings) fps into the low 10-20s especially when turning, like multiple times in a 10 sec period. Can usually stay solid and consistent if not looking around and very little action in the viewpoint.
System Specs:
cpu: AMD Phenom II (I forget the model) @3.2GHz (stock) 6 cores
motherboard: MSI 970A-G46 Socket AM3+/ AMD 970/ DDR3/ CrossFireX & SLI/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard[/color]
http://www.amazon.co...atx+motherboard
RAM: 2x4GB 1333 MHz (i think, can't remember )
gpu: Dual Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 850 MHz clock ( i think) crossfired together
OS: Windows 7 64 bit

Edited by Tw1stedMonkey, 13 July 2014 - 11:25 PM.

[nehebkau]

If there was a pin problem the system would just die, (BSOD), Same thing with RAM issues. Stuttering and Low FPS is either, graphics Card, CPU overload or BUS (data transfer) overload. You can check the CPU load by using windows' task manager. If your CPU is pinned, across all cores then you may have your problem. As for data transfer, those 2 PCI-E 16 should be fine, unless you have bad/out of date mainboard drivers.

I'd put my money on graphics card/drivers so:

Step 1: Disable Crossfire -- it will slow you down on this and many other games.
Step 2: Go back to Direct x9
Step 3: Get rid of that cardboard -- its a fire hazard and paper/cardboard conducts static electricity!
Step 4: Try a different version of your video card drivers (i.e. get an older version if you are using the newest version, contrary to popular belief newer may not be better) A good place to start is the driver CD that came with the video card or the video card manufacture's website.
Step 4: Run the MWORepairTool.exe (several times may be necessary.

Edited by nehebkau, 14 July 2014 - 03:51 PM.

[Tw1stedMonkey]

Well I have installed/reinstalled drivers over 3 times (1st was updating even though the drivers should have been the same i was getting issues.) Then I uninstalled catalyst and manually uninstalled both cards in the device manager to to a fresh install. Now I am currently using the beta drivers though I don't think that was the issue.

For whatever reason the only time it is really stable (30-40 fps on high setting with no AA and only dips into 20s i think) is when i rename the custom user.cfg, disable crossfire, and switch to dx9. I've run the mworepair tool at least twice. I put the cardboard so the motherboard didn't just lay on the metal casing and create short since no more than 1 of the screw holes line up at a time and the screw posts would just be touching the bare back of the motherboard in random spots.

After getting it stable I then experimented with various setting and performed the suggestions in this thread: http://mwomercs.com/...s-have-working/
However nothing seemed to succeed in getting better performance over dx9, no xfire, and no user.cfg. I really want to know what the hell these devs are actually doing because I'm pretty sure one person could do the work they complete each patch in a week's time actually working the full 8 hours a day. Still no xfire support when there are threads asking for it dating back to 2012... And the DX11 looks pretty but is almost always significantly worse performance over dx9.

Edited by Tw1stedMonkey, 14 July 2014 - 10:36 PM.

[Kmieciu]

In my opinion the smoke and particle effects are responsible for FPS dips.The snowstorm on frozen city is particularly bad, while canyon network runs great without any distracting effects. Also, the smoke effects generated when LRM hit your cockpit can bring down FPS to single digits.

Try disabling the Depth of Field, Cockpit glass, motion blur and damage glow. The game looks IMHO better without these.

[Tw1stedMonkey]

Kmieciu, on 14 July 2014 - 11:32 PM, said:

In my opinion the smoke and particle effects are responsible for FPS dips.The snowstorm on frozen city is particularly bad, while canyon network runs great without any distracting effects. Also, the smoke effects generated when LRM hit your cockpit can bring down FPS to single digits.

Try disabling the Depth of Field, Cockpit glass, motion blur and damage glow. The game looks IMHO better without these.

I've tried all of the but the core problem is present even on lowest settings. I was recently able to get crossfire working but with the flickering problem where apparently half the frames were time dilated and showed "ghost" images of the mechlab at first then previous views from the game, AND the stuttering was still present. Up to 60 fps while standing still looking at a wall to a fairly steady 30-40 fps while moving with frequent ( i am talking like every 2-3 seconds) dips into the 20s and 10s.

I ran nearly the EXACT same setup with my older motherboard and never saw any problems like that. I also found that the issue is present even in other games. I used Crysis 2 as a test with bandicam to monitor fps and it showed crossfire to always and fairly significantly add fps but the stuttering was still present but seemingly less of an issue (probably because it was not an online game and the stuttering slowed down the game clock as well.

Also I have followed (or attempted to follow) all of the suugestions in: http://mwomercs.com/...s-have-working/ and several other threads to no avail. I have also disables "core parking" whatever that means which has made crysis 2 run better but the stuttering is still there although maybe half as bad (and playable mostly.) Have yet to test mwo as the internet went out for his house.

[Tw1stedMonkey]

It works! I don't know what exactly worked but there isn't any more jarring and unplayable stuttering or dips. Disabling cpu core parking had probably the biggest impact but I also used this method to remove old and duplicate drivers: http://www.howtogeek...o-new-hardware/
I had like 6 copies of the same video card (which there should have been only 2, 1 for each slot.) I also used MSI afterburner to monitor performance and more importantly limit fps to around 40. By the time i got afterburner instaled it seemed as though i did something to make crossfire work (AFR friendly mode still has flickering though so i got rid of the custom 3d application settings in CCC and it worked on whatever is default i guess). Oh I also have the custom user.cfg that disables cockpit glass, HDR grain, depth of field, and sets the r_multiGPU thing to 1. Then I overclocked the cpu to 3.5 GHz by increasing the multiplier in the BIOS because amd cpu overdrive has disappeared from the CCC. It might still have the stuttering problem and I just boosted the performance enough to where it isn't noticeable but whatever, it only took many hours over several days to get steady 40 fps on mostly high settings!