Batman - unplayable with 5870 due to flickering

[Flanno]

Just installed it today. Select 1920x1200, forces me to use ATI control panel settings for AA, so go uncheck use ingame settings in CCC, and select 4xAA. Physx is turned off. And I'm using latest official release of catalyst drivers. Have all steam notifications disabled.

When I start the game, just as the title screen loads, my system is logged into windows live, then everything starts flickering. It's almost like the game is interlaced and running at a very low refresh. It's now unplayable. Don't have this issue with Crysis or Fallout 3.

Anyone seen this flickering problem ?

Just discovered it does not flicker if I run it in windows mode, which is almost fulscreen except for the taskbar visible on the bottom of the screen.

 

[fornowagain]

Reset the gamma, bet you changed it.

 

[Flanno]

Interesting. I didn't touch the ingame gamma but did indeed change the default gamma in CCC under desktop properties\colour. Moved it to 0.9. Will try resetting defaults and report back. Thanks.

 

[Flanno]

Well thanks mate...you were spot on. Even if I leave the gamma alone and change the brightness or contrast in CCC I get the flickering. So I just left everything at defaults and dropped the brightness on my LCD down to 15 % to compensate.

How did you twig this one by the way ?

 

[fornowagain]

Two installs same drivers, one did it one didn't. Compared the two, only difference was the gamma settings. I searched everywhere couldn't find any reference to it, surprised me no one else had experienced it. Anyway, glad I could help.

 

[Flanno]

cheers mate.

By the way I have noticed you are running 5870CF like me. Have you noticed when the cards go into 3d mode like in 3d mark vantage or Crysis, there is a capacitor squeal. Not as bad as some nvidia cards but noticeable to me as system is on desk. Seems to turn on an off in vantage depending on bench. Plus as I am using a HAF 922 which has a mesh sidepanel, it's very obvious. It sounds like a capacitor squeal when sitting at desk. If I go to side of case, I can hear a sort of ticking noise coming from cards as well. I assume this is normal. Have not figured out if it happens in non-crossfire.

Another question is on temps. With 1 card I was idling at 32 degrees. In CF it's 45 on 1st card, and 32 on 2nd card. I assume this is over the 2nd card blocking airflow to the 1st. What worries me is the cards can hit 80 degrees under load. Is this ok ?

I've also noticed you use a 9600gt for physx. Was thinking of a 1gig 9800gt green edition which doesn't need a psu pci-e connector but of course on my board this will mean having to run at 16x-8x-8x and of course more restriced airflow to 2nd 5870. I wonder will there be a big performance decrease doing this and even if physx is worth it considering batman and mass effect are the only 2 games I want to play which use it. Is physx support going to increase in games ?

 

[blaineoliver]

IVe got a problem similar, horizontal flickering on my screen, 2d and 3d, same problem after a reinstall and new drivers. Its either gfx or monitor, i havent got another pc to test the monitor on though!

 

[powdaman]

Flanno I have a new full system built by OcUK and I get the same squeels whilst in any 3d games which changes pitch dependant on the brightness of the visuals. Again mine sits on desk similar to yours. Also get the feedback from this when using the headphone socket on the front of the machine which is very irritating!!

Could this be a problem? Will this eventually break the graphics card??

 

[Flanno]

I have read around on other forums and lots and lots of people with same issue. I think it's normal for the card and something we will have to live with. Sometimes it makes me want to go back to console gaming.

 

[fornowagain]

By the way I have noticed you are running 5870CF like me. Have you noticed when the cards go into 3d mode like in 3d mark vantage or Crysis, there is a capacitor squeal.

Mine are both under water, can't say I've noticed any noise. But then your hearing my be better than mine.

Another question is on temps. With 1 card I was idling at 32 degrees. In CF it's 45 on 1st card, and 32 on 2nd card. I assume this is over the 2nd card blocking airflow to the 1st. What worries me is the cards can hit 80 degrees under load. Is this ok ?

When they were on air, I set the fan profiles using afterbuner to keep the cards lower than that. Works independently for each card so they stayed the same temp, just with different fan speeds. Works well.

I've also noticed you use a 9600gt for physx. Was thinking of a 1gig 9800gt green edition which doesn't need a psu pci-e connector but of course on my board this will mean having to run at 16x-8x-8x and of course more restriced airflow to 2nd 5870. I wonder will there be a big performance decrease doing this and even if physx is worth it considering batman and mass effect are the only 2 games I want to play which use it. Is physx support going to increase in games ?

Doesn't effect performance not at x8 pci-e 2.0. Crossfire bridge is also helping the crossfire speeds. Mine is a green 9600GT, don't think it needs much more for PhysX tbh. Pulls some fairly high figures in Batman and Mirrors edge. Whether its worth it, can't say really. Certainly adds to those games a lot, it was fun to try. But I plan on using the GT as an HTPC card some day, so worth a punt.

 

[kablooey]

The only time I get squealing is in some benchmarks and some game loading screens, e.g. GTA4, when it's running at crazy (2000+) fps. I've read forcing vsync might eliminate most of it.

 

[fornowagain]

The only time I get squealing is in some benchmarks and some game loading screens, e.g. GTA4, when it's running at crazy (2000+) fps. I've read forcing vsync might eliminate most of it.

The interesting, I force vsync for everything. Can't stand tearing.

 

[Flanno]

fornowagain - Do you use both crossfire bridges by the way. Have heard you only need to use one but some people report better stability with both ?

kablooey - When I think about it, that's when I get sqealiing too...some benches and loading screens. Once crysis is up an running for example the squealing goes away or at least is masked by the sound of the gpu fans. Anyway, I will stick with ati overdrive and if one of my cards overheats for any reason than I guess that's what warranty is for.

As regards tearing and vsync, does anyone know if D3DOverider (comes with rivatuner) works with the 5870's. I hate tearing too but I prefer it to having my framrate halved with vsync on, when the game drops below 60fps. In the past with nvidia cards I got around this by using D3DOverrider to enable tripple buffering.

 

[Overslop]

Using 2 bridges gives you a very small performance increase.

Don't know whether it improves stability or not, but I can't imagine it hurts so you may as well use two.

 

[fornowagain]

I only use the one, tried 2, made no difference in performance. Might put the second one back on now the cards are water cooled.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/3

Though the photo shows two CrossfireX bridges only one CF strap is actually sufficient and recommended to retain better the airflow of the board. According to ATI there’s really no need for a second one unless you use 3- or 4-way CF.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/30/amds_ati_radeon_hd_5850_video_card_review/8

AMD has informed us that only one CrossFireX bridge connector is now required on the Radeon HD 5800 series. We originally setup our two HD 5850’s with just one bridge connector. We had no problems running our games at 1920x1200 with high levels of AA like 8X and CFAA modes. However, when we tried some games at 2560x1600 with 8X AA we experienced a few glitches. For example, Crysis: Warhead would experience some flashing textures at 2560x1600 with 8X AA at all "Enthusiast" settings. AMD told us that one bridge connector is all that is required; but if we were to ever experience flashing textures, try installing both bridge connectors. To our enjoyment, installing both bridge connectors resolved the flashing textures in Crysis at 2560x1600 at 8X AA. From that moment on we continued to test with both bridge connectors connected and had no problems whatsoever.

It seems that if you ever see any broken geometry or flashing polygons in your games with CrossFireX, and you only have one connector installed, try installing two, this can possibly fix your issue. So while one is required, for the most stable experience, and to ensure the least amount of trouble, we still recommend installing both connectors on the Radeon HD 5800 series. We will be looking into this more as we start to test Radeon HD 5870 CrossFireX which can push even more pixels

 

[kablooey]

Forcing vsync does nothing for the cap squealing in GTA4 loading screen as it's still running at high fps, but if I record with FRAPS during the load the noise stops as the framerate drops, confirming it's due to high fps. Tbh it doesn't bother me as I've never had it in any game I've tried.