OK whats wrong now

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:11

Morning,

I previously had a thread up called " my games are telling me my GPU isn't good enough: Powercolor 5870" or something like that.

Well I still cannot get this sorted. Have been trying to play Mirror's Edge recently and as soon as there is another person on the screen the frame rate drops to the point that I cannot play! Even when I am on my own in a room if I turn left or right it's juddery. The game constantly looks and feele like the GPU is struggling to keep up.

My set up is as per my sig below.

I have tried the game with the LOWEST settings possible and am playing at 1280 x 720.

VSync is off as is Pysx.

This is a regular occurance with all games at the meoment. I am using the latest drivers for both the card and the OS.

Do I just have a dud card? I have been trying to get this sorted ever since I got the thing?

Any help much appreciated!

Chris Beard · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:14

I'm sorry to read of your troubles coolsouthern. Can I ask which version of windows you are running and if you've done a complete virus/malware scan with the likes of spybot recently?

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:27

I am running Vista Home 64-Bit.

I run Malwarebytes everyday and have clean scans. The same with anti-virus.

Thanks !

Hairybudda · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:34

Do a dxdiag.exe and run all the tests, also dump dxinfo.txt here. Download and burn test furmark so we can isolate whether its a direct x problem, or a driver problem (furmark is opengl, if furmark is busted too it's probably a driver issue).

Did you previously run another ATi card? Do you use any third party tuning utilities?

[edit]
Basically what I'm suggesting is that DX is falling back onto reference rendering because it cannot get a hardware accelerated device to render with.

Toastor · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:34

A few thoughts:

Is this a new build or have you just upgraded the graphics card? If it's an upgrade, which card did you have in there before and have you changed any system or bios settings?

What power supply do you have and is it providing enough power to the graphics card?

Are you getting continuous HDD activity while this is happening?

Hairybudda · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:37

Oh, another thing, bring up the task manager and try the game again and tell me how much usage you're getting on all 4 cores.

rxmac · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:38

Sounds like a driver issue to me, uninstall the drivers then boot into safe mode and run something like driver sweeper to remove all the last remnents of old drivers and reinstall new drivers. Make sure you have the latest dot net framework too, just in case.

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:39

Hairybudda said:
Do a dxdiag.exe and run all the tests, also dump dxinfo.txt here. Download and burn test furmark so we can isolate whether its a direct x problem, or a driver problem (furmark is opengl, if furmark is busted too it's probably a driver issue).

Did you previously run another ATi card? Do you use any third party tuning utilities?

[edit]
Basically what I'm suggesting is that DX is falling back onto reference rendering because it cannot get a hardware accelerated device to render with.

Whoa not entirely understanding what you're saying here but I will download furmark and test that out.

I previously had a 4870 in and yes it was just a swap (along with a new case aswell.) My temps don't ever get over 55 while gamin. I have burnt a disc at the same time and temps stay very cool.

Thanks for the advice. Is it safe for me to assume then that with my setup my 5870 should be able to handle this game with everything on full??

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:42

Toastor said:
A few thoughts:

Is this a new build or have you just upgraded the graphics card? If it's an upgrade, which card did you have in there before and have you changed any system or bios settings?

What power supply do you have and is it providing enough power to the graphics card?

Are you getting continuous HDD activity while this is happening?

Ummm I think it's a Corsair 650w. It was an Ocuk pre-build I think they use the same power supply for all their builds?

Continuous HD activity? Sorry to be a "noob". If you mean can I access other files and programs on my hard drive when the game is running then yes I can without problems1

Thanks

Chris Beard · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:43

your Hd 5870 should eat anything you throw at it for breakfast - super especially at 1280x720!

Chris Beard · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:43

Have you tried uninstalling the ATI drivers (all of them, anything ATI or AMD related) and then re-installing the newest available drivers?

Hairybudda · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:45

coolsouthern said:
Whoa not entirely understanding what you're saying here but I will download furmark and test that out.

I previously had a 4870 in and yes it was just a swap (along with a new case aswell.) My temps don't ever get over 55 while gamin. I have burnt a disc at the same time and temps stay very cool.

Thanks for the advice. Is it safe for me to assume then that with my setup my 5870 should be able to handle this game with everything on full??

Yeah it should kill it, it's looking more and more likely to be a driver issue, let us know what happens with the furmark burn test.

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:49

Ok like I have already stated I don't know a'lot about all this but I ran Furmark!

Time Based Benchmarking
800x600
0x

Min:37FPS Max:53 Av:44

Surely at such a low resolution and with 0x I should be getting MUCH better than this??

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:55

Whoa just ran a stability test and this sent my card all the way up to 62 after a couple of mins! Is that way too hot??

Min:28 Av:33 Max:48

Hairybudda · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:58

coolsouthern said:
Ok like I have already stated I don't know a'lot about all this but I ran Furmark!

Time Based Benchmarking
800x600
0x

Min:37FPS Max:53 Av:44

Surely at such a low resolution and with 0x I should be getting MUCH better than this??

I've got a card that's two generations old that's performing better than that. Download the latest catalyst drivers and drivercleaner, install drivercleaner and boot into safe mode. Use it to remove everything ATI/AMD related and then install your catalyst drivers, reboot into normal mode and bench again with furmark!

[edit]
Don't worry about the temps furmark makes your card put out, while the temp is fine furmark is about stress testing your card as hard as it can be pushed so temps will be unnaturally high.

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 12:59

Hairybudda said:
I've got a card that's two generations old that's performing better than that. Download the latest catalyst drivers and drivercleaner, install drivercleaner and boot into safe mode. Use it to remove everything ATI/AMD related and then install your catalyst drivers, reboot into normal mode and bench again with furmark!

Haha...

What?

I will try and do that. Can't wait to destroy my pc

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 13:00

Btw what is the latest driver that everyone is running and where did you get it from?

Chris Beard · 1 Nov 2009 at 13:03

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista64/common-vista64

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 13:19

Thanks for that Chris Beard.

That is what I am using.

I have gone into my 2nd and 3rd hard drives and got rid of everything AMD or ATI.
Now reinstalling Mobo and GPU updates will let you know if that changes anything

coolsouthern · 1 Nov 2009 at 13:21

Re-ran Furmark again but got the same scores

ARRGGGHHHH

Are these scores lower or similiar tho what my 4870 would have produced?