970's having performance issues using 4GB Vram - Nvidia investigating

kitch9 · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:49

ICEx21 said:
Contacted OcUK and getting this RMA'd.

For whoever asked the games I'm having an issue with are:

Shadows of Mordor - If you do get to a scene where you use more than 3.5 the fps drop is very visible and game also starts stuttering.

Assasins Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 are both the same and I know these games have had their problems but having installed Hitman Absolution and Dragon Age Inquisition to test whether it might be an unlucky batch of games I was hit with the same issue.

It's a shame as it's the first time I've went to the green team as I built my new machine to make sure DA:Inquisition and The Witcher 3 were able to be played at 60fps @ 1440.
The cards themselves look awesome and feel great, the Nvidia software is so much better than AMD's and as useless as it is in most games I love PhysX but I'm not going to keep a card which clearly has a massive flaw and gimps my games especially having paid £600+ for them.

Maybe see if Nvidia respond first, although I'm glad I didn't buy and did a bit google fu first.

r7slayer · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:51

TBH guys i know this is a problem but how many games atm hit over the 3.5GB vram limit? Only a couple of games am i right? Only people playing at 4k will have problems i guess so these cards arnt suitable for 4k after all. But best person to ask i guess would be Kaap seen he does a lot stuff in 4k! Im sure kaap would have reported or noticed a problem by now? I understand a lot of people wont be happy because your not getting the performance and vram you paid for but im sure nVidia are working hard on this ATM

breadturbo · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:53

This thread has inadvertently fixed my issue I think.

I was playing Mordor at 1440p all maxed and would get a display driver error every now and again with the Strix's, that test causes the same thing.

Mine even drops to 6gbyte/s at the end o.O

Mine starts lowering at 3gb

ICEx21 · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:54

Kitch, Nvidia have known about this for a while now and there's a very good article someone linked where somebody explains what the main problem is and it does look like it's hardware related.
If and when Nvidia resolve this I'll be happy to go back because in any game that didn't require the vram to go above 3.5 the cards were wonderful.

Unfortunately the games I currently play (DA:Inquisition, BF4, SoM) and the titles I'm looking to play in future will most likely go over 3.5GB vram and I didn't pay for that.

J.D · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:57

r7slayer said:
TBH guys i know this is a problem but how many games atm hit over the 3.5GB vram limit? Only a couple of games am i right? Only people playing at 4k will have problems i guess so these cards arnt suitable for 4k after all. But best person to ask i guess would be Kaap seen he does a lot stuff in 4k! Im sure kaap would have reported or noticed a problem by now? I understand a lot of people wont be happy because your not getting the performance and vram you paid for but im sure nVidia are working hard on this ATM

Kaapstad has 4x 980s not 970s. 980s are fine. Also, running out of Vram less than what you paid for at ANY time is a massive problem.

breadturbo said:
This thread has inadvertently fixed my issue I think.

I was playing Mordor at 1440p all maxed and would get a display driver error every now and again with the Strix's, that test causes the same thing.

Mine even drops to 6gbyte/s at the end o.O

Mine starts lowering at 3gb

Imagine if this was at 4K :eek:

.

What are you going to do?. Ask for a refund or wait it out and see what Nvidia are going to say?.

ICEx21 · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:57

r7slayer said:
TBH guys i know this is a problem but how many games atm hit over the 3.5GB vram limit? Only a couple of games am i right? Only people playing at 4k will have problems i guess so these cards arnt suitable for 4k after all. But best person to ask i guess would be Kaap seen he does a lot stuff in 4k! Im sure kaap would have reported or noticed a problem by now? I understand a lot of people wont be happy because your not getting the performance and vram you paid for but im sure nVidia are working hard on this ATM

Sorry but this is a stupid response. Try reading the thread and you'll see it's not just people on 4k and that it's not just a couple of games.

Once again what a stupid response.

chef-borjan · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:58

breadturbo said:
Mine starts lowering at 3gb

Did you run the test using IGP and headless?

ubersonic · 23 Jan 2015 at 16:58

Guys I think I have the solution, when Nvidia says the card is 4GB they do mean 4GB, that's only 3.725 GiB, add in the extra for Aero and it makes sense that it runs out at 3.500 GiB ^^

(I am joking

)

Mei · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:00

what a stupid response.
lol

breadturbo · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:01

J.D said:
Kaapstad has 4x 980s not 970s. 980s are fine. Also, running out of Vram less than what you paid for at ANY time is a massive problem.

Imagine if this was at 4K .

What are you going to do?. Ask for a refund or wait it out and see what Nvidia are going to say?.

Not sure, will wait and see what Nvidia say first, It's giving the error on mordor, Civ5, DCS and ESO. I will check vram use on them shortly.

They are all deffo over 3gb, I can stop it happening by lowering the textures so it would explain it.

Mal X · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:03

ICEx21 said:
Kitch, Nvidia have known about this for a while now and there's a very good article someone linked where somebody explains what the main problem is and it does look like it's hardware related.
If and when Nvidia resolve this I'll be happy to go back because in any game that didn't require the vram to go above 3.5 the cards were wonderful.

Unfortunately the games I currently play (DA:Inquisition, BF4, SoM) and the titles I'm looking to play in future will most likely go over 3.5GB vram and I didn't pay for that.

if so this is deffo a faulty card and they should be sent back for a full refund

Five.Stars · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:07

Rusty0611 said:
I prefer private healthcare, thanks, but I will take your advice on using their services. I'll take your waffle as evidence that you're not even affected by the issue.

As I said, if it does happen to negatively impact you then rattle away and get your refund.

It negatively affects every single 970 owner if it is indeed an inherent fault. Regardless of whether people have witnessed the fault itself is unimportant.

Vertigo · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:11

ubersonic said:
If anyone here is having this issue can you please try enabling classic (not basic) theme and seeing what that does (fixes the issue for 780ti users).

Still there for me in Basic mode - slows at 3.2GB

Phixsator said:
Well before people get all aggro perhaps we should let nVidia have a chance at fixing it.. I dont mind seeing a bit of burn on nVidia's back when they are not being fair to consumers but one has to be fair and offer a chance for them to remedy the situation I believe.

Quite! Keyboard warrior central in here right now with everyone screaming about lawsuits and misrepresentation blah blah blah.

There will be an official response of some kind at some point so let's just wait and see shall we?

If this turns out to be a hardware issue then parallels will likely be drawn with the SATA issue on the first Sandy Bridge P67 chipsets which lead to the B3 revision. In that case Intel funded a free refund or exchange for anyone who wanted it and I'm sure NVidia will have to do the same, at huge expense to themselves obviously.

moogle · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:13

ubersonic said:
Guys I think I have the solution, when Nvidia says the card is 4GB they do mean 4GB, that's only 3.725 GiB, add in the extra for Aero and it makes sense that it runs out at 3.500 GiB ^^

(I am joking )

Careful they might actually use that!

Rusty0611 said:
They gain (assuming successful) a full refund on a card they've had ample painless use from. It's up to people to enforce their rights regarding warranty if they have an issue .

True, but I'm sure they didn't buy the card to do so. I would probably do the same because the longer you leave things to get fixed the more difficult it is. Most likely down the line retailers would offer a partial refund out of the use which I understand, but getting it sorted now you wouldn't lose as much and still get the same use over the years.

Rusty0611 · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:15

Five.Stars said:
It negatively affects every single 970 owner if it is indeed an inherent fault. Regardless of whether people have witnessed the fault itself is unimportant.

Only if they reach a point with their set up where it tanks performance. It's a problem, yes, but it may not be a problem that affects most people. If it does affect them then they have their warranty.

moogle said:
True, but I'm sure they didn't buy the card to do so. I would probably do the same because the longer you leave things to get fixed the more difficult it is. Most likely down the line retailers would offer a partial refund out of the use which I understand, but getting it sorted now you wouldn't lose as much and still get the same use over the years.

I don't think they could get away with a partial refund where it's an inherent problem. Though not an expert on the legality of it.

J.D · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:18

breadturbo said:
Not sure, will wait and see what Nvidia say first, It's giving the error on mordor, Civ5, DCS and ESO. I will check vram use on them shortly.

They are all deffo over 3gb, I can stop it happening by lowering the textures so it would explain it.

That's sickening

. Well at least you know the problem now as if this information wasn't available then you may have had a headache trying to find this out.

I'd also consider possibly acting rather than waiting on Nvidia to respond. If they don't address this soon then you don't want to be left hanging around with under performing cards.

moogle · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:20

Rusty0611 said:
I don't think they could get away with a partial refund where it's an inherent problem. Though not an expert on the legality of it.

I guess, I'm only ever interested in my rights when I need to use them

Five.Stars · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:22

Rusty0611;27523108[B said:
]Only if they reach a point with their set up where it tanks performance.[/B] It's a problem, yes, but it may not be a problem that affects most people. If it does affect them then they have their warranty.

I don't think they could get away with a partial refund where it's an inherent problem. Though not an expert on the legality of it.

:BANGS HEAD AGAINST THE WALL:

Mei · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:23

companies can get away with a lot legally
they could just turn and blame windows

im sure they dont want this making bad press for them tho

Legend · 23 Jan 2015 at 17:24

Can you imagine how happy AMD are right now? Nvidia could have buried them with this series of cards and already looked like they were sailing off in to the sunset with their bags of cash... but if this turns out to be an unfixable problem, it plays straight in to AMD's hands, and they will doubtless get A LOT of new customers as a result, when they release their new cards... assuming they don't suffer with the same fault!