Strange but welcome framerate increase

[Merlin5]

This is odd. For the last few days I've been playing F1 2010, and all graphics settings were automatically set by the game at high with all effects on @ 1920 x 1080 and 8 x MSAA. Runs great, and with fraps enabled it shows me a constant 31fps. Five of those settings can be set to ultra, and that brings me down to 29fps. Since there's no significant visual difference, I kept everything at high.

However, today I just noticed I'm getting a constant 41fps and nothing has changed. What's that all about, that it should increase by 10fps?

 

[Strepsils]

Maybe less background services running, one that may impact the fps?

 

[Merlin5]

Dunno, maybe. But fraps is now showing 31fps again. Some inconsistency with fraps?

 

[RavenXXX2]

Maybe you're racing in the dark or the wet when your getting a variation in FPS, some tracks maybe less demanding than others. Fraps is rock solid.

 

[reiyushin]

Maybe you're racing in the dark or the wet when your getting a variation in FPS, some tracks maybe less demanding than others. Fraps is rock solid.

Yup FRAPS doesn't screw up (99.9999999999999% of the time)

Night/Day Wet/Dry would be the main ones that would cause such a variance but different textures from different tracks could have a similar effect.

It's unlikely to be a background application as that would be handled by the cpu which, at that level of detail, is sippin' coolade and workin' on the tan most likely anyways.

 

[Merlin5]

Nope, I'm just doing daytime dry time trials with only me and a ghost car. Nothing has changed onscreen except the framerate.

 

[Scougar]

Issues with your clocks not running at full speed normally?

Not downloading something in the background are you?

 

[Merlin5]

Issues with your clocks not running at full speed normally?

Well, now that you mention it, I just checked with rivatuner which gives the same framerate, and shows my gpu clock at 500Mhz. Should my GPU clock be going to 750Mhz? Or is everything quite normal from what you see?

 

[Gerard]

Should be going to 750mhz, looks like its not clocking itself up.

 

[Syx]

From my experience with the game, RavenXXX2's comment should not be immediately disregarded as some tracks do appear to be more demanding than others, the effect was much more noticeable on an older system.

 

[Merlin5]

Should be going to 750mhz, looks like its not clocking itself up.

Yeah. Right, there is something definitely wrong here with my card or the drivers. I've tested with furmark, and various games, and the gpu clock is staying at 500Mhz, even with Crysis loaded.

Drivers perhaps? I'm using 10.4.

 

[Benihana]

Can't hurt to update? F1 was out after 10.4's surely?

 

[Merlin5]

Yeah, but one of my games didn't work properly with 10.9 or 10.9a so I went to 10.4 which works fine. I've got an old screenshot of my ati overdrive under load from furmark, from when I was using 9.12 drivers, and the clock speed was up at 750Mhz. So either something physical has changed with my card, or else hopefully it's just a driver issue. I'll try the latest 10.10's, see what that's like.

 

[jorzeh]

yeh my 4870x2 didnt like 10.9 either just totally crashed my system i'm reinstalling tonight tho so i'll be trying 10.10 also.

 

[Merlin5]

Right then, problem solved. Sort of. Well, I've got GPU clock 750Mz and Memory clock 900Mhz back under load, as it should be, so that's good. The problem is when any youtube video is loaded, it immediately puts the clocks down to 500Mhz, in all games, not just F1. Also happens when mpg or mp4 is loaded in the background, but not affected by other formats. I have no clue why it should do that though, any ideas? **Haven't tried 10.10's yet, maybe I should to see if the youtube thing still happens.

**edit: Ah, 10.10s doesn't fix it.

Also, see where I set PSU and CPU onscreen at the top left in rivatuner, those are meant to monitor voltages, but they say 'NA', not applicable. Any idea why it doesn't show the voltages?