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Is microstutter dead or not

Orangey

Orangey

Orangey

Soldato
Joined
22 Aug 2008
Posts
8,338
Been a couple of years since I had a dual-GPU setup, is it safe to go back?

Reading the Titan thread and people arguing back and forth about SLI/CF vs single GPU. Let's put an end to it!
 
No, it's still very much apparent, if you are sensitive to it then it is still a consideration you should have when looking at Multi-GPU configurations.
 
I don’t know if the 690 still sees micro stutter, but I do know it differentiates it's self from the 7990 or other multi card configuration by having a hardware fix for micro stutter integrated in to the card it's self.
 
last SLI set up i had was 2 470's. I suffered from micro stutter quite badly but i dont know if its the same for everyone but i just notice it more.
 
I noticed a difference when moving from my two 480's, to two 670's.

It really bugged me in some games on the 480's. But now everything just feels so much smoother on my 670's. :D
 
Every multi GPU setup will deliver microstutter, the question is just to have it reduced as much as possible.

I've been running SLi setups permanently since 2006, and the worst case of microstutter I had was with 2x GTX 280 SLi on the Intel X58 platform in 2009. It was so bad it ditched the Intel setup all together and went for nVidia Nforce 980a chipset (AMD setup), and the microstutter pretty much disappeared.

Else I'd say I haven't really payed much attention to microstutter with the other setups even though I know it's measurable with FRAPS.
 
If I run my games limited to my monitors refresh rate (vsync or frame rate limiter) I don't notice any micro stutter and I'm sensitive to it. I do notice it with out this though.
 
With SLI 680's, I never noticed any micro stutter. If you run fraps, there is a checkbox for frame latency times, this will show if there is or isn't any for those who are unsure.

I did plenty of testing with games like BF3/FarCry 3/Assasins Creed 3 and all were great with extremely low latency times.
 
I had awful MS with my 6990+6970 combo when BF3 first came out. I hated it.

gregster said:
With SLI 680's, I never noticed any micro stutter. If you run fraps, there is a checkbox for frame latency times, this will show if there is or isn't any for those who are unsure.
Click to expand...

I did not know this... I may try it tonight
 
Guys, AMD people say every game is smoother on AMD CPUs comparatively to Intels. It seems like there's another distincion factor: what "cuts" game: stuttering in multiGPU, or Intel's architecture&features ? My point is you are able to say about microstuttering only if you've got properly configured rest of system (for example, games do have lower framerate, maybe they even stutter, if drivers allow "adaptive energy management" not "full efficiency") and if you can see difference between AMD and Intel CPUs regarding to this smoothing factor :)
 
I could notice stutter when I had SLI 580s - I went back to a single card as it annoyed me (also the heat was immense with 580s)

However, I've never noticed it with SLI 680s or a 690 before that. I don't know if this is due to hardware or driver updates over recent years.
 
Microstutter depends on a number of factors and to be quite frank 9 times out of 10 when people have issues with it it is down to user error.

The main issue is if your having to use 2 (or more cards) just to get borderline playable framerates - in that situation your going to get a lot more potential microstutter and related issues whether your using say 2x 6450s or 4x GTX680.

Where multi GPU shines and where microstutter is usually the least of an issue is the scenarios where your getting say 45-50fps with one card and want to use a 2nd card to maintain a solid 60fps - or for holding as close to 120fps as possible for 120Hz gaming.
 
Can't say its been an issue for me.
If frames drop during an intensive part it can 'stutter' but doesn't look that much worse than when that happened to me with one GPU.

I think its better to start with a pretty powerful card and run sli as in the post above than just scrape by on two lower spec cards.

Shock and awe type approach.
 
BaDBoY_uK said:
I had awful MS with my 6990+6970 combo when BF3 first came out. I hated it.



I did not know this... I may try it tonight
Click to expand...

Run a 5 min bench in any game and look in your C:\Fraps|Benchmarks folder and you will have a ~200K csv file drag and drop this into fraps bench viewer and you will see what frame latency times are. Looks like this.

Crysis 313.95
crysisframelatency.jpg


BF3 313.95
frapsbf3313time.jpg


FarCry3 313.95
farcry3313.jpg


BF3 310.90
frapsbf3time.jpg


As you can see, with the 313.95 drivers, all was sweet as but the 310.90 drivers, it was shocking.

Download Fraps bench viewer here
 
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