Micro-Stuttering Due To 2 GPUs? Add A 3rd Card!!!!!

Build 101 does seem to have added a little stutter back into the game as well as an FPS hit, so this could be the cause for you as well.

 

So other than rF2, the add a 3rd card to get rid of 2 card stutters worked??? Im glad I atleast helped one person .

750 watts is on the limit I would get a better PSU as soon as possible, being on the limit like that can not only ruin you powersupply but other parts of your entire pc because its all getting powered by the PSU. It can also affect stability of your entire system. If you want to overclock your cpu and or cards then even more so. I would honestly get a new PSU as soon as possible. I am going to get in the 1200w area of PSU's but if you dont want to go there and use a 1000ish then I would get one of the following.

- Seasonic 1000W platinum
- Seasonic 1050W gold (believe its x series)
- Enermax Platimax 1000W
- OCZ Fatal1ty 1000W
- OCZ ZX 1000W
- Silverstone Strider Gold (or Strider Gold Evolution) 1000W
- Kingwin Lazer Platinum 1000W
- Enermax Revolution 87+ 1000W
- XFX Pro Series 1000W Black Edition (supposedly its a re-badges seasonic 1000w but the seasonic supposedly has a slightly higher quality, quieter fan and better build quality than the version built for XFX. Also, the Seasonic warranty is 7 Years XFX 5 years.
- Rosewill LIGHTNING-1000 1000W (Dont be fooled by the fancy lights its a very good power supply)
- I think Thermaltake's Toughpower series is very good aswell but im getting lazy now lol

The most important things to look into when buying a PSU are:
- voltage regulation (especially on the 12v rail)
- ripple/noise suppression
- platinum or gold (not silver or bronze)
- power efficiency (no lower than 80 plus)

For convenience
- Modular, semi modular or non modular
- Fan size (80mm louder, 120mm quiter)

All fans listed above performed very well to excellent overall and specifically in all 4 categories I mentioned under "the most important things"

You can find reviews for all PSU's mentioned above, and more at www.jonnyguru.com

 

Just thought I would put this in there as it is a great tool for calculating PSU requirements: http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
The nice thing about this calculator is that you don't have to read up to find watt usage on all your components, you just choose your stuff from drop down menu's.

It shows that for my hardware if I were to be running triple HD6950's the minimum PSU I should have would be just under 800 watts. with a recommended around 850 watts. That being said, going to 1000 will give you a little breathing room and allow you to attach other devices if your system is built like mine.

 

Thx for all the great nfo guys! This stuttering with Crossfire I had had since the beta started.
What about Corsair PSU´s? I was a computer technician before but my knowledge nowadays isn't was it used to be, but back then Corsair was a quality brand, maybe it isnt anymore?
About my PSU on the limit, a friend calculated that it is enough for my system right now with about 50watt (not much i know) left for breathing room with no OC. The system is stable so far.
BTW, tried Skyrim with High Resolution Texture pack, it had some stuttering before with low AA and AF, now with the third gfx card everything is so smooth i cant believe it, with EVERYTHING on max. So i am not regretting this third card, everything so far is insane smooth with ultra/highest settings in all tested games so far, except of course for the most important one though... :-(((

 

Out of all those PSU's I listed I cant believe I forgot Corsair. Yes the AX series is awesome but it jumps from 850w to 1200W, and the HX series which was once probably the best PSUs arent the top anymore compared to most if not all the ones I listed above. If I were getting a 1200w model I would choose some of the other 1200w models I mentioned above, rather than the ax1200 (unless its the new ax1200i model)

That being said, although an HX model isnt as good as the brand/models above, they are still good PSUs and im sure you will be just fine with one

 

ok Spinelli, no more Corsair PSU for me then. But about my stuttering issues, it didnt help with win8 64bit either :-( Exactly the same constant stuttering as in win7.

 

It's surreal to consider 3 GPUs to run a outdated graphics title... it shouldn't even deserve a discussion.

 

I dont understand what you mean Satan....There is no need to discuss the issues i have with this title since i have 3 GPU´s?

 

Satangoss do some research, look at the links I provided. 3 GPUS cures tons of problems that crossfire brings. So if you are going to get crossfire I would say get tri-fire. For me its either single card or triple, no dual. Christian said all his other games including Crysis 2, Battlefield 3 and iRacing are now smooth thanks to the third GPU. It works wonders.

 

I found out something rather weird just then, I have a Core I7 2700K @5GHz with 32GB ram and 2 gtx480 cards overclocked a bit too in SLI. I have all settings maxed in game and running 1080p full screen though it very rarely drops below 60p, I use V sync set to video in game because I hate screen tearing and v sync always looks smoother. In RF2 I have had a battle trying to look as smooth as RF1 and all other games/sims that run smooth at 60p for me, its not terrible and not real bad micro-stutter but like the odd dropped frame.

I tried running the game in window mode at 1080p with all the same settings, surprisingly performance hasnt got to where it drops below my v-sync rate and its perfectly smooth having eliminated any stutter so far. I just tried a a single race with 29 AI all settings maxed including in-game aa at level 8 and nvidia transparency aa set at 8xss. In the race my frame rate never dropped below 58 and stayed at 60 for all but a few seconds.

So if you have an SLI setup and having some issues give that a try, its cheaper then buying a 3rd card anyway lol. Generally window mode will reduce performance but if your setup can comfortably give you more then you need its worth a try. I even recorded a video of the first lap and in car recording my framerate never dropped below 45, outside of the car it did drop to about 21 at times but recording videos is a bit of a frame rate killer.

 

Thats one thing i havent tryed, running the sim in a window, since i thought the SLI/CrossfireX didnt work in a window, maybe it does? Anyway I must try this too, even though im not using SLI.

 

Its worth a try, I didnt think SLI would work in a window either but I have been using afterburner onscreen stats which confirms its working. Generally window mode will take out a bit of performance but luckily I have a bit to spare it seems but it is the only thing that has produced the silky smooth motion I get in RF1.

I find the easiest way to see if its running smoothly is not just by the framerate as mine rarely shifts but looking out the side of the car. In everything I have tried full screen if you keep an eye on a trackside fence it has the odd stutter but in window mode at least in my case this looks as smooth as it should. Here is the video I recorded in that test from windowed mode but this doesn't appear quite as smooth in 30P and Im sure there is the odd missed frame which you can see by likely just down to the recording software used as the framerate was fine during the recording.

Since then Ive done a few full field races and put the AI to max to speed them up a little and having done about 10, 10 lap races have had no issues with FPS with all settings maxed out. Great fun too in these cars.

 

Just tryed with Crossfire enabled in window mode and as you said it was no stutter, BUT the fps dropped as if i had turned off Crossfire, maybe SLI works in windowed mode and crossfire doesnt? :-( Was worth a try though.

 

Bad luck, I was surprised SLI was still working in window mode I guess crossfire may not. Dont know if you have tried MSI afterburner, Im pretty sure it works with both Nvidia and ATI/AMD. You can set On Screen Display to show any of the stats it tracks like in this video here.

This can show FPS, each GPU load, temps, fan speeds or anything pretty much to do with the GPU as can be seen in the top right corner of the video. Mine there is Displaying FPS, then each GPU is showing temps, load, fan speed, Gpu core clock speed and the bottom shows memory usage of each GPU.

One thing I did find that worked for smoothness but is much more of a performance hit for me then running windowed mode is running V sync forced in game to display. Then in PLR file there is this setting

Render Once Per VSync="0" // Attempts to render once per vsync; 1 = use timer, no wait; 2 = use vblank, no wait; 3 = use vblank, wait

If I set it to "2" it was smooth but there were times where my FPS would drop down to about 35 and when it drops down quickly the motion gets pretty rough, you can try all 3 options to see if they help.

There is also another PLR file setting which is worth a try.

Flush Previous Frame="0" // Make sure command queue from previous frame is finished (may help prevent stuttering)

you can try set this to 1, it doesnt do much for me on Nvidia SLI but it may with crossfire.

I went through the entire PLR file and tried every setting for smoothest rendering and surprisingly windowed mode has worked best. This is the last thing I expected but thats why its worth trying everything because the solution isnt always as logical as you think.

Im sure RF2 will run smoother once gold in SLI and Xfire and my current solution could be worse with the next update.

 

Windowed mode requires a lot more resources and horsepower to be able to run with the same fps in most games. The reason is because you now have to have memory and GPU time for running your wallpaper and all the icons on your system tray and any icons on your desktop. Full screen eliminates the need to have those in memory until you exit game or alt tab out.

 

I meant: it make no sense to find a "cure" for a problem which simply should not exist! Much less if the cure costs some hundreds of $. RF2 graphics are not suposed to be that demanding, a single GPU should be able to handle it. Not to mention two GPUs...

 

Yea I know it does but I do have 32GB of ram and Rfactor is only 32 bit so it wont use more then 4gb, windowed mode still takes up more background cpu processes and should run worse but as my system can handle it its working for me. I dont know what could be causing constant 60p in full screen to have micro stutters that dont happen in windowed mode though as thats the first time I noticed this in any app.


@ Satangoss RF2 is still only early beta so it will run better down the track but its still good fun as is and I want it to run as well as it can for me. Some others that have computers that should have no issues with it but its just not running that smooth may want to try the same to see if it works for them. Obviously though this wont work for people who arent getting steady framerates above the monitor refresh rates because window mode will cause a performance hit.

And seeing as the other alternative hear is to buy a 3rd GFX card I think trying something that may sound stupid but may work for free is worth a shot.

 

I have found a method of getting the same smooth framerates as I get in window mode in full screen.

Limiting FPS in game to match vsync with this line

Max Framerate="60.00000" // 0 to disable (note: positive numbers only, we always use the 'alternate' method now)

All the other options regarding frame sync in the PLR file I have set at default and hopefully this works for others too on both Nvidia and ATI Sli.

I have vsync set in game to "display" and now the game is running full screen on my setup as smooth as possible. I changed the video link above to another recorded this way but that I forced frame rate during recording to 30p using afterburner which is also what I use to record videos. I get much better results then fraps, it supports multi thread encoding and is also free.

In the past I noticed micro stutter when GPU usage gets to 100% but full settings and full fields day night or rain havent got my GPU usage that high yet.

In nvida control panel (beta 305.53 driver) I am using forced triple buffering, forced threaded optimization, SLI rendering mode Nvidia Recommended, Vsync Application setting, pre rendered frame app controlled, AA app controlled (level 8 ingame), AA transparency 4x SS ( Had 8X earlier but didnt notice the difference really), filter quality high.

 

I am running two GT 650Ms in SLI and getting micro stutter now in rF2.
Does not happen in rF1 though.
If I run full screen I get micro stutter, if I run windowed it does not occur, but the framerates suck, almost as though it is not using SLI.
Trying to figure out what is going on...

 

Run the game in single card mode. Crossfire or SLI is still not optimized for the this sim yet, its still a beta guys.