Hey Guys,

I'm looking to disable HPET however I can't seem to find the option in my BIOS which is Gigabyte Z97x-SLI. If my motherboard doesn't have the option what would be the best thing to do.

I've been referencing THIS GUIDE which says the benfits can be less microstutter and screen tearing which a definitely a problem on my R9 290.

I had to request it on here for my Z87 Gigaman should be able to help you. But the bios i got is not even on the website.

You reminded me to update him and the thread because HPET now is only showing in the fancy bios version, or is it classic i cannot remember. But certain things are only available to see and disable in certain modes. Gigabyte have been very very poor imo and i will not buy again. But yes it helped me a lot everything in my pc latency wise took a MASSIVE nosedive for the better with hpet off.

Rofflay said:

I had to request it on here for my Z87 Gigaman should be able to help you. But the bios i got is not even on the website.

You reminded me to update him and the thread because HPET now is only showing in the fancy bios version, or is it classic i cannot remember. But certain things are only available to see and disable in certain modes. Gigabyte have been very very poor imo and i will not buy again. But yes it helped me a lot everything in my pc latency wise took a MASSIVE nosedive for the better with hpet off.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply mate. I've read that the Z97x doesn't have the option which is extremely frustarting. What would be my best option failing turning it of in the BIOS? On the guide I linked he recommended setting the resolution timer to it's maximum (0.5ms?) for people with HPET enforced.

There is a thread on here you should be able to find and read about a cmd command about platform clock true and false. Some said hpet on in bios is best with hpet off in windows. But i think it is fine and probably best just disabling in bios and not touching in windows and do a fresh install because my dpc is as low as it can get really.


Although i would format just to make sure nothing timer wise is messed up. HPET should be available to disble on z97, there is no reason why because as far as i know hpet is dying for a better timer i do not remember the name of that. The problem is your gigabyte bios you need to update to the latest, or request that off the gigabyte rep on here called gigaman.


He helped me, And shouldbe able to help you. For the record my DPC latency in latencymon latest in win 8.1 is around 3-12us idle and around 40-55 gaming. But i disable a lot of crap as well to get that low and install very little apart from drivers.

Op you reading to much into this. This has no effect on screen tear. It can help reduce DPC latency improving audio and gaming, but from my tests I even posted on here it was best to leave enabled in bios and off in Windows. If you can't switch off in bios then your bios will have it forced.
By default windows doesn't use HPET, you can force it.
It uses another timer I forget the name, and when you have HPET enabled in bios windows can then be forced to use it..
If you not already forced it then you won't be using HPET now..

shankly1985 said:

Op you reading to much into this. This has no effect on screen tear. It can help reduce DPC latency improving audio and gaming, but from my tests I even posted on here it was best to leave enabled in bios and off in Windows. If you can't switch off in bios then your bios will have it forced.
By default windows doesn't use HPET, you can force it.
It uses another timer I forget the name, and when you have HPET enabled in bios windows can then be forced to use it..
If you not already forced it then you won't be using HPET now..

Click to expand...

Ah fair enough, I do tend to get a little hung up on things like this to be honest! I checked and it's off in Windows, and since there's no option in the BIOS I can assume it's enabled? I did change the the resolution timer though and thing feel a little snappier.

Rofflay said:

There is a thread on here you should be able to find and read about a cmd command about platform clock true and false. Some said hpet on in bios is best with hpet off in windows. But i think it is fine and probably best just disabling in bios and not touching in windows and do a fresh install because my dpc is as low as it can get really.


Although i would format just to make sure nothing timer wise is messed up. HPET should be available to disble on z97, there is no reason why because as far as i know hpet is dying for a better timer i do not remember the name of that. The problem is your gigabyte bios you need to update to the latest, or request that off the gigabyte rep on here called gigaman.


He helped me, And shouldbe able to help you. For the record my DPC latency in latencymon latest in win 8.1 is around 3-12us idle and around 40-55 gaming. But i disable a lot of crap as well to get that low and install very little apart from drivers.

Click to expand...

It really looks like the option doesn't exist on z97. Ah well, it's not too much a problem really!

Eh so it is gone and replaced hence why there is no need for it in the bios? To be honest this is something that might rile me up i would ask gigaman shankly did the tests i remeber now but i still would want it off and my same latency.

What do you get idle? And what under load? I can go as low as 3-10 us idle because HPET is off on Z87 but i am interested in finding out wth is going on. Is this the case on every Z97 then? Asus? MSI? Because as i said Gigabyte had to give me a special bios to disable mine on z87. People say the same thing about Z87 in that with Windows 8 the hpet timer is gone but this is not the case because when i had no option i had HPET under my device list and my idle was around 27us too which is way too high.


Open up your device manager and look for high precision timer. If it exists, You have hidden HPET enabled.

Also Shankly i believe you are mistaken re-read your own thread and take a look at your peak latency. Clearly off in windows and off in bios is superior because you had a 92us spike with on in windows and off in bios compared to off in both. 92us is quite high i never have anything go past 45-50us on my Z87 system. And i can go as low as 2 us idle sometimes. My graph in BF4 also is so flat it is a complete joke both of them are literally like a flat line.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18625634


Run wintimer tester 1.1 and you should be around 3.4mhz not 14mhz that is HPET timer.

Rofflay said:

Also Shankly i believe you are mistaken re-read your own thread and take a look at your peak latency. Clearly off in windows and off in bios is superior because you had a 92us spike with on in windows and off in bios compared to off in both. 92us is quite high i never have anything go past 45-50us on my Z87 system. And i can go as low as 2 us idle sometimes. thats what you call a low latency system!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18625634


Run wintimer tester 1.1 and you should be around 3.4mhz not 14mhz that is HPET timer.

Click to expand...

You can never control a spike from happening sadly. You shouldn't base the results from this, that's like comparing network ping and going with the highest spike.

You want to be looking at the performance overall and the current reading.

Not really because my graph looked pretty much the same until i disabled HPET in my bios. Look at SLI and fps one has more frames per second but it is also not as smooth as a single card with equal fps. Timers can work the exact same your 3D mark score actually was the best with both off. There is such a thing as fake fps SLI clearly proves this. I can test it on Z87 and have done myself, And clearly the lowest possible latency is with HPET option off in bios. I do not need to run any commands in windows because after a fresh format HPET does not exist in my device manager. And i have never saw latency this good until Gigabyte sent me thier latest bios.


I had to request it off Gigaman and before my graph was not that great. Now it is pure flat and everything is great my performance is in the top 8 on Firestriker the only system issue i have is with my crap mouse. But i have a controller to verify that is a mouse issue. Obviously i will test again but im telling you HPET is complete crap and it wouldnt suprise me if they are just being noobs. I googled Asus Z97 HPET and they have a rep asking what is HPET lol! Yet Gigabyte have a bios called F10 on Z87 which clearly halves my latency and removed high precision timer from device manager. There is not that big of a difference in Z97 v Z87 for them to have different times because timers is windows based. So how do you explain that? Win timer tester and latency mon clearly shows a diference with the different settings. And as i said HPET means having 30us idle and 70us when gaming compared to 5us and 50us roughly for me.


What i think has happened here is these vendors have taken thier own decision on HPET based on fps which would be wrong. Just for the reasons i will not touch SLI with a bargepole, I would rather take a 1fps hit and halve my system latency than get 1fps which is fake like SLI.

Also mate, Gigaman should be along shortly to hopefully provide an answer he has asked me for the link to your thread and i have provided him the info. Your trust is not enabled yet so i hope you still see this message.

We might just see HPET appear in the bios for Z97 users yet! That would be something! It would be nice though if more people would stand up and ask for this as well because if they do not the chances are we will never see this appear again, Or we will be left without the ability to toggle which is just wrong considering the testing i did, And the documented evidence Shankly also produced. I am going to add in my own evidence also i am currently up late testing and have managed to get screenshots with HPET off using Battlefield 4 graph, And latencymon.

So far my results are thus. Running BF4 without gametime.maxvariablefps results in GPU spikes. Capping at refresh rate will make the GPU graph will literally flatline. BUT the cpu will still spike due to the HPET setting it seems. With HPET on i get some spikes but it seems when i disable it will flatline as well. This seems to be also the case with Latencymon i get an warning about Nvidia latency with HPET on. Yet turning it off in bios makes everything great and my latency plummets down to 2-4us. I need to do some more but hopefully tomorrow results will be finnished.

@PrinceNelson

You can use this special bios F8a. It has option to disable HPET.

P.S. Anyone else with Z97 series motherboard who wants such bios please contact technical support through our website.

Lucky guy!!! Spread the words peeps Gigabyte HPET on Z97.

Download latencymon on windows 8.1 and run it, let it sit idle. Then downoad the bios and disable the HPET option. Now when you have finally done all this run the following CMD command as administrator: bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock


And reboot and watch as you get way less latency.

GIGA-Man said:

@PrinceNelson

You can use this special bios F8a. It has option to disable HPET.

P.S. Anyone else with Z97 series motherboard who wants such bios please contact technical support through our website.

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Don't suppose you could provide such a link to a file for z97 wifi bk?

GIGA-Man said:

@PrinceNelson

You can use this special bios F8a. It has option to disable HPET.

P.S. Anyone else with Z97 series motherboard who wants such bios please contact technical support through our website.

Click to expand...

Wow thanks mate! Is there a reason the option isn't included in the standard BIOS versions? Also does this have everything from all the previous updates such as F7 etc?

Rofflay said:

Lucky guy!!! Spread the words peeps Gigabyte HPET on Z97.

Download latencymon on windows 8.1 and run it, let it sit idle. Then downoad the bios and disable the HPET option. Now when you have finally done all this run the following CMD command as administrator: bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock


And reboot and watch as you get way less latency.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sorting that out with Giga-Man for me mate, really nice of you and very much appreciated!