Could something be wrong with my machine?
By
Back_Blast,
Posted on: 2010-04-15 09:07 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Turn V-Sync off. I'm on a 295 and with V-Sync off, it changed my world.
Still having some slow down in some places, but I'm messing with a bunch of settings.
But, seriously.... turn V-Sync off. I have gotten no vertical tearing.
Oh, I get vertical tearing. A LOT of vertical tearing. It seems I'm really sensitive to that stuff, so it really bugs me when I see it. I'll try turning it off just to have a look, but last time I fiddled around with that on Test, it didn't make a difference in performance.
By the way, I currently have the V-sync option as application controlled, but I still have it on via the in-game options (LOVE games that let me choose). What kind of slowdown am I looking from it? As far as I know, it syncs up framerate to refresh rate, but wouldn't that only affect framerates higher than 60 FPS anyway?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Oh, I get vertical tearing. A LOT of vertical tearing. It seems I'm really sensitive to that stuff, so it really bugs me when I see it. I'll try turning it off just to have a look, but last time I fiddled around with that on Test, it didn't make a difference in performance.
By the way, I currently have the V-sync option as application controlled, but I still have it on via the in-game options (LOVE games that let me choose). What kind of slowdown am I looking from it? As far as I know, it syncs up framerate to refresh rate, but wouldn't that only affect framerates higher than 60 FPS anyway? |
Oddly, it didn't really work that way for me. I was getting around 28-40FPS, depending on the map. Sometimes, like looking at all of RWZ, it'd dip to like 15-18. Turned off V-sync and...
On Live, I went from 50ish FPS to 100+
On Test, 28-40 to 60ish.
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I'll give it a shot as soon as test stops being dead. My experience with v-sync off was that my framerate did indeed shoot up into the 80s, which is actually more than I can physically see by virtue of my monitor not being able to dsiplay more than 60 refreshes per second, but that's because I had spare performance on Live that was getting capped off. I'll have a look at it on Test. |
Originally Posted by RadDidIt
Oddly, it didn't really work that way for me. I was getting around 28-40FPS, depending on the map. Sometimes, like looking at all of RWZ, it'd dip to like 15-18. Turned off V-sync and...
On Live, I went from 50ish FPS to 100+ On Test, 28-40 to 60ish. |
I seriously doubt that will fix my slow-loading textures, though.
*edit*
Nope! Doesn't even budge my framerate, even when it's below 60. And I get vertical tearing, to boot.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'm starting to get confused here... I don't know if it's my system that's producing this slowdown, if it's somehow the game that has serious graphic holes or if it's some bizarre combination of events. Here's what I did to test this:
I picked myself a nice laggy place in Nerva Archipelago, basically flying over the dock next to the Ferry, looking in the direction of the large flock of endlessly looping birds. Standing there and looking in that direction, which modest Ultra Mode settings turned on, brings me down from the standard 60 FPS to around 45-ish. Not too bad for one particular spot, but here's what I don't get.
First of all, opening my Options window slows the game down another 10 FPS. What the hell? None of the other menus have that effect on my performance, yet my options menu looking at Ultra Mode settings consumes a LOT of processing power. And for what? Does it "unlock" the settings or something? Basically, with the Options menu off, I'd get ~45 FPS, and with it on I'd get ~35 FPS. Weird.
Secondly, not only does disabling Vertical Sync not have any effect on my performance (ANY effect) when performance actually matters, but so does FSAA. That's right. Switching between x0 and x4 did not budge my framerate one iota. In fact, shooting it up to x16 didn't really had a marked effect, besides menu lag. This is something I noticed YEARS ago. I thought FSAA would be one of the most expensive options and it's the first thing I turned off, only for my framerate to not even wobble. Granted, other things may or may not lag because of it, but as I have things set up now, I'm not seeing it.
I still can't tell which version of DirectX I have. dxdiag says 11, Everest say 9 and CoH Helper says 10. What the devil? Is there any place where I can grab an offline DX11 installer to make SURE I have the right version? The only way I know to install it now is the web installer which tries to assume which one I want.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I notice you mentionned higher up in the thread that your card had 2 6pin PCI-E power connector connected but that there was a 2pin slot next to it that was empty.
I noticed on my power supply that I had 2 6pin connector one of which had a 2pin connector attached to it. My geforce 275 can't connect that 2pin connector but maybe your 285 needs it.
If this is what you see (might be a different card) 
the 2 pin connector is not for power, it's for sound, it goes with the small black cable you see in the image below
Well, that just proves I'm good at knowing when I don't know what I'm talking about 
You are absolutely correct. This does indeed look like my card, only mine has a different picture sticker on it, which ought to be irrelevant. Those are the connectors I see that you show in your picture, and that explains that. Thank you kindly.
Why a cable for sound, though? It's a video card. What could it do with sound? Now that you mention it, I did see this mentions upthread (minus the pictures), so whoever said it was absolutely right, I just thought I sucked at explaining, because I couldn't even begin to conceive what connection sound could have to a video card.
Well, that's one more possible problem ticked off, then. It's not the drivers, it's not the power cables, it's not the game. Hmm... I'll keep an eye out on performance, because now I'm starting to doubt my own observations, and if I see consistently questionable performance (which does seem to be intermittent, by the way), I'll call up Support. Doesn't really seem to be anything else left to look at at this point.
Thank you, everybody, for your help. We have a pretty cool community going on here, let no-one claim otherwise
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That would be for the HDMI/HDTV output to a TV. It has the sound as part of it. If you don't plan on hooking up to a TV, you don't need to worry about it being connected.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Why a cable for sound, though? It's a video card. What could it do with sound? Now that you mention it, I did see this mentions upthread (minus the pictures), so whoever said it was absolutely right, I just thought I sucked at explaining, because I couldn't even begin to conceive what connection sound could have to a video card.
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�Let there be truth, happiness, and waffles�
-Vagabond, Dark Lord & Avatar of Gnarr
The Justiciars
You pretty well hit all the stuff worth keeping. Also if you have AE arcs or whatnot, save that too. Pretty much anything you may have modified in some way. Beyond that, you can do an nunistall and then delete anything left over to be sure you got it all. Then run the updater and let it do it's thing. I'd avoid putting anything customised back right away just in case the problem originates there. It shouldn't, but you never know.
As for the mystery plug for sound, I'd assume that has to do with HDMI. I didn't know HDMI needed it's own power before. My card doesn't need it. But I have a Radeon so there's bound to be some differences. That being the source of your issue seems a bit unusual to me but maybe? I'd also make certain the PSU you think you have is what you have, just to be certain.
As for DirectX, I think this might be what you're looking for. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
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I really don't have anything that I've actually modified in the game, to be honest. Just saved settings and screenshots. I have a few costumes, but those are based on models currently in the game that I can dump the costumes out of. I may have had arcs at some point, but both of mine are currently uploaded, and I assume I can save a copy off those... Right?|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
You pretty well hit all the stuff worth keeping. Also if you have AE arcs or whatnot, save that too. Pretty much anything you may have modified in some way. Beyond that, you can do an nunistall and then delete anything left over to be sure you got it all. Then run the updater and let it do it's thing. I'd avoid putting anything customised back right away just in case the problem originates there. It shouldn't, but you never know.
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| As for DirectX, I think this might be what you're looking for. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The 2 pin mystery plug is not for power, it connects to the sound card if the setup requires it for the HDMI.|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
As for the mystery plug for sound, I'd assume that has to do with HDMI. I didn't know HDMI needed it's own power before. My card doesn't need it. But I have a Radeon so there's bound to be some differences. That being the source of your issue seems a bit unusual to me but maybe? I'd also make certain the PSU you think you have is what you have, just to be certain.
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I keep thinking that they power supply is the issue here. It seems like the +12 Amps are a bit on the low side. Most of the 285s that I have looked at need at least 40 amps.
�Let there be truth, happiness, and waffles�
-Vagabond, Dark Lord & Avatar of Gnarr
The Justiciars
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Well, the power unit in my PC is about as powerful as they were offering, and I don't think I can plug anything more into the card. Is that even fixable without serious expense? I mean, the guys at the shop assured me it would be enough.
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Originally Posted by DocArcus
I keep thinking that they power supply is the issue here. It seems like the +12 Amps are a bit on the low side. Most of the 285s that I have looked at need at least 40 amps.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I'd save the arc stuff just in case. That DirectX should be the latest and greatest.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I really don't have anything that I've actually modified in the game, to be honest. Just saved settings and screenshots. I have a few costumes, but those are based on models currently in the game that I can dump the costumes out of. I may have had arcs at some point, but both of mine are currently uploaded, and I assume I can save a copy off those... Right?
Isn't that DirectX 9, though? It says "Version: 9.28.1886." Not that I specifically need anything over 9 (like, say, DirectX 11), but now that I've finally switched over from XP and into 7, I thought I might as well. I'll try that download anyway. As far as I'm aware, DirectX won't patch itself to an older version even if I tried to make it. |
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Originally Posted by DocArcus
The 2 pin mystery plug is not for power, it connects to the sound card if the setup requires it for the HDMI.
I keep thinking that they power supply is the issue here. It seems like the +12 Amps are a bit on the low side. Most of the 285s that I have looked at need at least 40 amps. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, the power unit in my PC is about as powerful as they were offering, and I don't think I can plug anything more into the card. Is that even fixable without serious expense? I mean, the guys at the shop assured me it would be enough.
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It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
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Can't really say, since I don't have the system specs on me and Everest won't tell me. I could have a look inside the box, but I tend to not want to unscrew the case too much, and I doubt I'd see anything anyway, since it's a jumble of cables in there, anyway.|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
Well one of the issues these days is the power of the 12V rail(s). If your PSU has multiple rails, depending on their outputs, you may have to balance the load across more than one. I don't suppose you could get us the exact make and model?
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I do know that my power unit comes with cable plugs, rather than how normal units come, which is cables basically coming out of it in a clump. I'll have to see how those are plugged in, myself, but are you saying I should have both cables to the video card on different sockets? That'll be hard to do, since even so much as touching the cables would require me to take the power unit out of the case. It's just too cramped in there.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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So you have a modular PSU. Those are nice. The model of the PSU should be on a label on the PSU itself. If you're lucky, it will be the side you can see. That will tell us a lot about what we're dealing with. Once we know that, we can determine how many rails it has and what the strength(s) are. That will determine if any plugs need realigning.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
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Huh... OK, I'll dig through the cables when I get home and see what U can read. I just hope the labels aren't on the side facing the other wall, because only one side of my case unscrews. The other is riveted shut. Will update as I get more info.|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
So you have a modular PSU. Those are nice. The model of the PSU should be on a label on the PSU itself. If you're lucky, it will be the side you can see. That will tell us a lot about what we're dealing with. Once we know that, we can determine how many rails it has and what the strength(s) are. That will determine if any plugs need realigning.
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Seriously, guys, I wish I had a digital camera to take a snapshot of that rat's nest. It's horrible!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Nah, forget about it. No way I can see a thing in that mess. The power unit is mounted upside down for some reason - I guess to match the bolt holes on the back of the case, and if it has any labels, they're pressed up against one of the side plates. All I can read off the side is "FSP Group."
I CAN read a few of the port designations, though. I managed to follow the cables through the tangle, no doubt giving myself cross-eye for the rest of the day. I can spot two cable bundles going into the card - a blue chain mail bundle and a red chain mail bundle. The blue chain mail bundle actually comes out of a hole in the power unit itself, it's not plugged into any of the cables. I've no idea what that's connected to on the inside. The red chain mail bundle IS plugged in, however, and it's plugged into a port that, if I'm reading the label correctly, is labelled SATA, which I assume the power for my hard drives also shares. both bundles are chain mail from beginning to end, so I know there's nothing else plugged into them, and the extra SATA power cable I used for my second hard drive came out of another SATA slot.
I don't know what that means, but I don't think both power cords going to the card are on the same, err... What was that? Basically, one comes from inside the power unit case, one's plugged into the external ports.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Hm, this look familiar? http://www.fspgroupusa.com/everest80plus-700/p/405.html
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Sam, didn't they give you an invoice for the parts? If they did, look up the PS.
You mentioned Everest, have you used it to do some stress testing of your system? You might try 3DMark for some more stress testing and compare it to the results here, if you numbers are not close you might have a defective card.
"I used to make diddly squat, but I've been with the company for 16 years and have had plenty of great raises. Now I just make squat" -- Me
Pediatric brain tumors are the #1 cause of cancer related deaths in children.
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As far as I can tell, yes, actually. It even has the same chain mail cable bundle sleeves and those gaudy Velcro ties. The ports LOOK like they're the same on the side of it, too, though I don't want to open my box again. Ever. Closing that thing back down with all the cables in there is like packing a suitcase for a long holiday, and I don't enjoy using my knee on my PC case too much.
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Originally Posted by Back_Blast
Hm, this look familiar? http://www.fspgroupusa.com/everest80plus-700/p/405.html
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Huh? I thought 3D Mark was depricated. Last I heard about it was 2005. If it's still a viable benchmark, I'll give it a run as soon as I find some time to do so. Thank you. Will post results when I have them.
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Originally Posted by Eislor
Sam, didn't they give you an invoice for the parts? If they did, look up the PS.
You mentioned Everest, have you used it to do some stress testing of your system? You might try 3DMark for some more stress testing and compare it to the results here, if you numbers are not close you might have a defective card. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, I used up my ONE free test for 3D Mark Vintage, and I got the following results, compared to the one in Tom's Hardware:
3DMakr Score
Mine: 14 620, Tom's: 13 958
GPU Score
Mine: 11 926, Tom's: 12 207
CPU Score
Mine: 45 325, Tom's: 24 503
Well... That's about what would be expected, then. I guess I should just shut up and silently slink away, huh? I don't know. Maybe I either over-estimated my computer or underestimated the things I was putting it through. I thought for sure, Cryostasis, a 2009 game, at least, would run well, but apparently its Russian developers designed it to run on some theoretical future computer.
Yeah, sweeping the drivers and tuning things up actually sped my system up a bit, and I guess it's operating about on par with what would be expected.
I guess that settles that.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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*edit*
Retesting the above now, it SEEMS like the delay is shorter, down to about half a second eyeballing it, but it's still there, and it wasn't on my old rig. Will probably call up support tomorrow morning.