Stuttering on 4870 (Not x2)

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[H]ard|Gawd
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I did a quick search for this here, and didn't turn up anything. So here I go.

I decided to finally upgrade from my 2 year old 8800GTS. I was looking forward to returning to ATI, and supporting the "little" guy by scratching my upgrade itch. Unfortunately, two games I wish to play very much (FC2 & Clear Sky) also exhibit a game-ruining problem, since installing the 4870 (using newest 8.10 hotfix drivers, default settings). The problem is a very obvious stutter that happens frequently and randomly. Reported frame rate looks good though...

Ok, so don't give me the average stuff. Yes, I uninstalled all nvidia drivers, and ran driver sweeper from safe-mode afterward. I covered my bases and did a clean install of the 4870. I tried disabling catalyst AI. No change. Tried forcing vsync. No change. Tried overdrive, and no overdrive. Nothing helped. Tried using both analog a digital outputs to monitor. Nadda. (Coincidentally, the VGA input for my monitor died after about 15 mins of having the 4870 hooked up...But that's another issue for another time.)

So, I jump back for my 8800. Uninstall drivers for 4870. Run driver sweeper in safe mode. And setup my nvidia drivers again. Go back into FarCry 2. No stuttering. All is good...

So, I guess I'm making a stop here to see if I should try anything more before sending this 4870 back to newegg. I'm going to reinstall the card one more time tonight. If it doesnt work on this install, it's as good as gone from me.
 
To follow up, I have reinstalled the 4870. Here's a couple nuggets of info beyond what I mentioned before.

My monitor is a 1920x1200 LCD. The 4870 stutters in FC2, at that res. If i drop the res to 1280x800, stuttering magically vanishes. Kind of disappointing. This is what i UPgraded to.
 
Same problem with Crysis: Warhead and the HD 4800 series. My guess is...the 640 MB of VRAM helps smooth things out. Or maybe all the complaints about ATi drivers sucking are true.


Until someone knows for sure, I blame the VRAM. Gotta have more VRAM for today's games if you're going to max-out the settings.
 
ATI drivers are ass.

If AMD wants to be competitive they have to frequently fix their drivers like nVidia.
 
cambrian said:
ATI drivers are ass.

If AMD wants to be competitive they have to frequently fix their drivers like nVidia.
Click to expand...

LOL of the day. ATI (AMD now actually) roll out a new driver once a month, something that cannot be said for Nvidia.

As for the OP, did you even check out the benchmark results for the games you played?
They both seem to run better on Nvidia hardware (GTX260 216) - though not by much.
STALKER , FC2, and I think they're both Vram hogs at that res - I think a 1024mb 4870 would be more adequate, or a GTX260 (216 or not is not a big difference).
Good luck, if I were you I'd replace that 512mb card.

EDIT:
I can also clearly state it's not a driver issue, since my brother maxes both those games out on a 4850 at 1600*1200 (Maxing out STALKER is relative, DX9 and not ultra super high settings just nice and pretty high settings). He's using 8.10.
 
Ja, forgot I posted this...technically, this thread is dead. I have since switched to a GTX280, because I realized I needed more vram.

ATI's driver's aren't bad. But, one quirk about how they handle my LCD TV pushed me away real fast. Sadly, the driver's don't give you the option to turn off ATI's special treatment for TV's, so that I can play games above 24hz.
 
Stuttering is most likely a lack of VRAM but the massive frame rate dips in Stalker CS is driver related. Forcing Vsync via CCC doesn't work either for games that don't have an option to turn it on or doesn't work. Other bugs I noticed were minor but annoying. I liked my 4850 for both price and performance, but the drivers need more work so I went back to NVIDIA. Good luck to those who can wait.
 
All of this is wrong. I get the stuttering with the 1GB 4870 even in a res like 640x480. It's nothing to do with vram.

Strangely I only get the bug in older games like most wanted and warcraft - crysis, warhead and race driver grid all run perfectly.. so, baffled. I am thinking perhaps those old games dont push it hard enough so it goes to sleep? I can run crysis/warhead at 1600x1200 (haven't tried harder) and it's completely smooth. Then an old game like most wanted I get ok performance for 5-6 sec, then a 'pause' for a second, then continues.. repeat. *baffled*
 
It's the drivers, sadly or maybe bad card? maybe a bit of a hijack here, but is this a frequent problem among 4870 users?
 
For the record, this issue was resolved by removing ASUS AiSuite. AiNap.exe was doing stuff while the system was active.. removing it fixed it.

Hope this helps someone.
 
Yes there's some good advice. Don't install the crapware that comes with many video cards and/or motherboards. Just install the latest ATI or nvidia drivers from their site or drivers from the mobo site.
 
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