Drivers... and smooth framerate.

All of the information in the article and comments leads to one conclusion: AMD signicantly boosted the raw FPS performance of their cards, e.g. 12.6(Up to 25% Skyrim) and in latest betas, at the cost of general smoothness. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with this AMD driver gutter anymore, as smoothness is a lot more important to me than cheating on benches.

 

Oh boy, I'm tellin ya. Those raw framerate boosts, which brought the GPU usage back up to 99%, were very detrimental to smoothness. I can barely play BF3 now that it breaks 60FPS almost all of the time on a single 7970 64p multi and maxed out (Ultra, 4xMSAA, FXAA off, 1080p). And that comrades level...oh man...can barely get through it now that it flies @80FPS+. /sarcasm

If you haven't tried the graphics drivers after Catalyst 12.6 / 12.8, don't bash them.

Plus, what about Nvidia's driver performance boosts that released during the same timeframe? They can't be sacrificing smoothness for raw framerates, oh that's slanderous.

Quit throwing theories around.

 

:ban::stewpid: wth who called about cheating.? in image quality AMD is superior to Nvidia, especially since Radeon Pro came out and we can max the IQ.

so be going to nvidia section troll...i play every single game smooth as butter, i am only experience stuttering which is because of problematic psu and general oc'ing...

AMD users have a born right of better eyes...we are not Nvidia users who see differences between Forceware Geforce and Quadro/Tesla drivers...haha

 

so like... for games that are past 60, with vsync on.... what's the result?? i know this rules out 120hz & input lag people (there are ways to reduce that)

in fact, below 60, with vsync still on, since i never turn it off... full image stutters are still smoother than uneven tearing

 

I myself have used ATI/AMD cards for about 10 years, I'm just pointing out the conclusions that I have drawn from the article linked in the OP. I have used 5 different AMD cards with the worst being the 7870HD(2 different models), nothing but constant problems and denial of their existence by AMD.

I'm glad that you don't notice any problems with your product, but keep in mind that you are using a very different card/system. It is my born right to choose to trust the reporters that wrote up that article instead of you.

Clearly you didn't understand the difference between avg. FPS and 99th percentile frame testing method.

 

I turned on frame latency in msi afterburner and just about every game I play has a latency of 15 or less. I don't see this non smoothness people are talking about. In fact in borderlands 2, an nvidia optimized game, I get 10ms or less frame latency.

 

Skyrim is intended to be run with vsync.

Like others have said, let the game use vsync and limit your FPS to one below your refresh rate with RP or AB.

My 7950 runs perfectly fine like that in Skyrim @ 1920x1200 using the ultra preset.

 

And lets don't forget TR is talking about the smoothness of AMD/Nvidia + Windows 8...

 

Maybe you want to try this tool: (Win7 and BELLOW)
DPC Lantency Checker ---> latencies of Deferred Procedure Calls (DPCs)

Download and Explanations: (just 1 .exe no installation :nerd
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml


Good Latency: (taken this morning on my aging system)



Problematic Latency:


I don't know how much scientifically proved this tool is but it could be revealing:
If you have spikes of high latency... it will impair your 'smooth' gaming !

 

It seems theres been some kind of rumour brewing up lately regarding Nvidia vs AMD etc.

 

Guys, do you get stutter in Skyrim with latest 12.11 beta 11 on HD7xxx cards ?
Will ATI save performance they introduced in 12.11 in future drivers ?

 

Skyrim's stuttering is most likely Bethesda problem. Bethesda game (and the engine) is plagued with stuttering and optimization since forever.

 

AS far as I am concerned...
My Skyrim = maxed settings + 22 upgraded visual mods including volumetric fog, and SweetFX.
1920x1080 @60Hz. I recorded 1080p video via RP which is new and not optimized feature.
I not only recorded moving forward, but even moving to side to have much more accurate perception of missing frames.

I do not have single dropped frame in that video. It's fluent as water.

I am rally not happy about people who will bash AMD from every side they can.
Just because Flickering does not push people from AMD enough, they have to invent something more disturbing.
Like telling that games are unplayable on High end AMD graphics hardware.

They do not get it at all. If AMD disappeared over night, all of them can immediately start looking for real job. There would be no point in doing reviews of only nVidia graphics chips. Or only intel CPUs. There would not be price war ever again. Prices would skyrocket and never to return back. Intel would release new generation of CPUs once every 4 years. nVidia once every 3 years.

BD was disaster because one manager had no idea that gaming/office PC market has no need for server based CPU. They still suffer a lot from it. But AMD will not fall from such reason. What can bring them down are people who provide misleading information taken from narrow point of view and out of context.

Even lot of people here believe some Techreport guy. I can replicate same test on over hundred games. Guy uses vanilla Skyrim which does not produce so big workload, records screen with camcorder. Then I should have problems everywhere with all those mods, visual upgrades and recording on framebuffer level via RP.

 

Thats nothing new and i doubt it has anything to do with ati cards, i had this stutterring issue even with vsync on with radeon x1900 on elder scrolls oblivion, each second or so the screen froze for a very very small amount of time which u call skipping or whatever, its not a new problem and it has nothing to do with amd cards beying faulty, in dirt3 i get this smoothness without ever having stuterring.

 

YES,

Just moved to 7970 on these days. Horrid stutter everywhere, my old 280GTX SLI pair even didn't have it.

Only solution... Vsync (I always use that so no problems) + MSI afterburner limiting FPS below the sync. And voila = butter smooth.

Cleary this IS a driver bug... sooner or later it will be rectified, so no worries.

 

No, its an engine bug since it happens on both Nvidia and ATI cards. Seriously, this bug is known for most bethesda game that use the same engine, from Oblivion to Skyrim and fallout 3 and new vegas.

 

in "Train Simulator 2013" I'm finding that in certain parts of a route (like when on a viaduct, high above the 'ground') and little scenery around, my GPU hits 99% and the FPs drop to about 10.

When I get off the viaduct and back on terra firma (with a lot of scenery) the GPU usage drops to ~75% and FPs return to about 30.

I just installed Radeon Pro and forced Vsync and tripple buffers for this game.

now when on a viaduct again GPU usage is still 99%, but FPs only drop to 15 (instead of the previous 10).

what the hell is going on...?!?!

 

I have a 2nd rig - FX8120 @3.7ghz/2x GTX670 SLi/8GB RAM/HX1050/64bit Win7 Pro SP1 - and Skyrim at max setting @1080P, it is anything but smooth. It jerks and stutters quite often, I will try with lower ingame setting later, but I'd figured that 2x GTX670 (with FW310.70) would be able to max it out.....right? I did not immediately conclude that the GPU's or driver was at fault, perhaps it's the CPU, but a BD with the hotfix BD patches at 3.7ghz ought to be fast enough since it handles every other game I've thrown at it with ease. Sure, FR isn't as high as if I had an Intel i5/i7, but it's good enough to ensure good playable FR.

 

Well I confirmed smoothing out on Farcry3, Hitman Absolution and Skyrim, that limiting FPS in afterburner eliminates any kind of stutter for me!

It could be a engine bug, but it could be also driver bug and limitation, we can only guess. Probably the game maker and AMD or Nvidia can provide fixes both. :vader:
One giving compatibility fix for it's engine, one for it's drivers. Currently from my point of view, AMD has more problems with that, but no one is perfect, green camp has it's own problems too.

I dunno I happy with such dirty workaround anyway. But without it it is really horrible.

 

When it comes to Far Cry 3 I have zero framerate problems with it when running in DX11. Make sure to run from farcry3_d3d11.exe

DX9 has massive slowdowns.