Potential Sli stuttering with 296.10 and build 69

I have seen this loosley discussed, but would like to ensure ISI confirm they have some idea of this please.

I have i72600k running at 5GHz with dual 580 GTX in Sli. In all other games DX11 and absolutely flat out in gfx terms, i see no MICROSTUTTERING problems at all and i have a very keen and sensitive eye.

As an example, when running the 1960's F1 cars on Pekeliling, Malaysia, with 15 AI i see a fairly high amount of stuttering with no real drop in FPS (FPS is always 80 to 100+) as we all approach the first corner and whenever there are multiple cars around me. When i turn SLi OFF, the FPS is vastly reduced but so is this stuttering. Sli off, stuttering is much much lower.

I feel that there is something a little funky happening between the gfx/physics processes whilst SLi is demanding further resources.

I have tried all techniques listed to reduce this effect, but i always see this same lag/stutter if SLi is enabled. I only play this game on single card now to avoid the annoyance.

I fully understand that this is beta, but i have yet to see a post from ISI that states this is a known issue and will one day be fixed. WOuld aprpeciate any feedback and would appreciate any forum posters experiencing the same to confirm this.

As stated, i have no issues in modern hard hitting games such as BF3 and think this Sli process needs to be checked by ISI.

 

In general, stuttering is EXTREMELY common with dual gpu setups, your one of the lucky and rare few who seem to not have it on any of your games but one. There's always going to be huge potential for this, only way to properly be sure of having the least chances of this are by going with a tri setup which has shown in tons of forums and professional review sites to get rid of 95% of stutters, or back to 1 card.

Your damn lucky your only getting it in one game, I have to admit I notice the micro stuttering much more in racing games then fps and other types.

Try changing the sli modes, afr mode etc. Maybe try a clean thorough removal of rf2 and gpu drivers and reinstall same or different drivers. On reinstall do complete install of driver first, then game. Try playing around with all the different sli modes (and other settings). Also try turning shadows down 2 notches, try HDR off. Sometimes some graphics settings can influence stuttering even though the frames are good so maybe play around with lower graphics settings.

 

Going back to the beginning of SLI (I'm talking the 3DFX Voodoo years) to current, I had not seen any stuttering...until the 296.10 driver was released. I've been doing SLI for many, many years. I had Voodoo and Voodoo II SLI, GTX 6800-Ultra SLI, 7800GT SLI, 8800GTS-SLI, GTX9800 SLI, GTX275 SLI, GTX460 SLI, GTX 470 SLI and now GTX 560Ti SLI. I'm guessing I was lucky as well but I had to revert from 296.10 to the 295.51 set, to get rid of my first ever instance of stutter. The 295.73 and the more problematic 296.10 were particularly bad for stutter (on my system). Mileage varied based on configuration. Some guys had zero stutter with the 296.10 driver. Try dropping the overclock to something a bit more conservative first, to see if the processor is throttling. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it probably is due to a system incompatibility issue based purely on some other driver or software installed. Either way I'd try another driver rather than turn down anything. He has enough 'firepower' to run anything currently out there.

 

I've swapped my SLI 580s for a GTX680 to do my Triple Screen gaming now. Whilst I've traded some performance (which I should get back once the 780 is out ) I now don't have to worry about games not having an sli profile or do any fiddling with drivers to get rid of stuttering etc...

 

saabjob - Thanks for confirming!

Spinelli, i appreciate your comments, but i simply drop SLi and most things are fixed - its still splutters a little, but not quite in the same way as with SLi enabled.

I too have had nearly every card available including most as SLi starting with PowerVR, then 3D Voodoo 1,to sli'd Voodoo2's throught to current day 580's and I too ahve seen ZERO microstutter in any game that HAS been optimised for Sli. There are games that until the SLi profile i released run slightly worse than single card, but upon refreshed drivers - BANG, nearly 2x fps. Now i do have sensitive eyes and i very nearly binned my 120 hz screen dues to it being P*SS POOR compared with CRT smoothness but have kept it for its true sqaureness and very vibrant colours (the 19" forever flexible EIZO still sits in the cupboard!!).

Now i take all your comments onboard, but i asure you, my drivers are cleanly installed, as is RF2. There is SOMETHING WRONG with 296.10 and SLi. I would almost bet that i would see this on ANY SLi, not just my 580's. Im a realist, im not expecting ISI to fix this for me, but i do expect ISI to have an SLi setup and i do expect their programmers to have spotted the pigs ear that 296.10 currently is. All i want is for them to say, we are aware, its either our issue or NV's and ONE DAY, it will be fixed.

Spyder, I cannot undestand why you would swap such an awesome combination. Theres no way that a single 680 will touch 580SLi with a fantastic 5Ghz processor behind it!! Your i5 is pretty smart at 4.6GHz, and you have the same 120Hz monitor as myself - do you see the stutter from this screen or are you going to claim perfection like most of the morons (forgive me, but im a CRT luddite for smoothness) ? I can 100% assure you i have zero throttling from this rig, i have 3 rads one being a monster Phobya and my 580s are both under water - I know this rig inside out and can claim 100% stabilty for the entire year i have had it. I also know my driver revisions well and know the last driver (296.10) brought about SLi, and prior to this, SLi was unusable for me as its FPS was lower and laggier than single card. This new version of driver brought about some proper FPS for two cards, but killed the close to perfect physics with lag/stuttering - its not unplayable, but its certainly not perfect like playing on single card. The issue is likely to be something ISI is doing out of sync with NV's expectations, or NV haven't quite got the driver right. My money is on ISI im afraid! And as with all SLi drivers, it always take some interaction from the developer to understand EXACTLY how to get the best from SLi with NVidia hand holding them. This development is likely to come further down the line - I just wanted ISI to confirm suspicions and i will go away until its done!

I want to say ISI, i have been a lover of iRacing for a good year now, and i still like the product. But since i stumbled on the 60's cars, i have been gripped by the b@lls and cannot put it down. Its the greatest experience of old F1 since Grand Prix Legends (even though i crash generally before i complete a lap, i just need 'ONE MORE GO'!) - i absolutely applaud you. Im even liking some of the physics and experiences in the other cars. My hope is that you provide an entire product so great i can drop kick iRacing and spend my monies with you guys! Keep up the BRILLIANT work. I look forward to the up coming mod community - a breathe of fresh air compared with iRacings business model.

 

On my SLI setup, disabling hyperthreading and enabling 'video' in sync completely removed all stuttering.

 

I will try that on monday and see what happens. Dont have the chance until then.

 

@Jonchard : you sound like a PC nerd, I'm afraid that's just not me! I'm here to race rather than geek out on my drivers and pc upgrades and for me a single 680 gives me more game time and less time pulling my hair out over stutters I mainly use iracing, the 680 gives me better frames than my 580s did due to their lack of proper sli implementation in that sim (averaging 250fps now instead of 200) and on RF2 I've lost around 20% in frames but with the bonus of no stutters in triple screen which has made me actually want to play again. As I said, when the 780 arrives at the end of the year I'll swap the 680 for that but it's single GPUs all the way for me now.

 

Fair enough Spyder, and yes, a nerd i am! I even work in the industry lol! If you think SLi is bad, then don't even get me started on camp AMD and the horrendous BS they created around the 48070x2, and their drivers ever since ..... Each to his own and you make a valid point.

 

I did consider a 7970 Jon but from what I'd read here and on some other games forums it sounded like people weren't happy with drivers and slow updates so I stuck with Nvidia for now.

 

Yes anyone with hyperthreading should definetely disable it for any kind of gaming thatd for sure.

 

A 7970 might be good but only in the sence of vram or compute power, non of this I think rfactor needs. At mills with max everything in skyline gtr or megane i get ram usage around 1800mb which is too close to call maybe 3gig would be better, I could maybe see a safety margin that AMD have covered with a bit of future proofing but any game that uses less tha 2000mb the nvidia will smoke easily it feals very easy for the card and smooth and the way the boost clock works keeps the card working very well and probably stops crashing drivers etc...altho mine do somethimes its still early days for a gtx 680..

I cannot fault the gtx 680 with rfactor its the perfect partnership, I run 3 screens fuulHD and at 16xcxaa and everything max this card rules. lowest frame rates online ive seen is 35 maxing at 80-90. btw the only thing I dont run is HDR cos doesn't work in 3 screens on amd or nvidia.
IMHO gtx 680 is future proofed for rfactor 2 once they improve in certain areas, which they will.
If this is the only game u care about get a gtx 680. My EGGA is OC'ed to 1250mhz GPU and all is perfect fine, no loner is performance a factor in winning races, I gone from bottom to bthe top.

 

Spinelli, when i get the chance to see if HT does fix the issue, then it would once again be the first game i have had to "hobble" my system for in this last year, and trust me i have "sampled" nearly all the latest games. I will report back, but will be out for the easter period. Appreciate all the comments.

BartS, never again will my path cross AMDs. Over the vast years our paths have crossed many times, but drivers from camp AMD have always been the thorn in their side. NV is on the ball to the minute all but, and for this alone, i will never turn back.

BartS, i have a question about 3 screens, are the sides somewhat stretched? I have used 3 screens on iRacing and the side screen are correctly proportioned and not stretched. I have seen others on here stating that RF2 side screens are stretched unlike iRacing. Can you confirm this? Im on the virge of buying another 2, but have family considerations at this time. I will have tripple screen before the product goes gold (i hope!).

 

Spinelli,

One would say the developer have it wrong if you have to "hobble" systems!!

 

I know you asked Bart, but for what it is worth, I have triple screens.

Multiview works for me and gets rid of the stretched images on the side monitors (have to turn off HDR) and the screens are rendered separately, BUT it hits the FPS hard.

Here's an example comparison for Megane @ Mills back of the grid vs 20 AI (all visible), AI controlled over 1 lap. All options either ON, Full or High or Max or Ultra apart from shadows on high. AA level 3 and FXAA off.

View attachment 1885

I really like the look of HDR and also Multiview, but can't have them on at the same time. Multiview looks so much better, but the fps really suffers as shown above so until ISI have progressed further with the graphics and their options, including Multiview, SLI/xFire and HDR, I run with Multiview off and HDR on and put up with the stretched images on the side monitors for the time being.

This is the beauty of a WIP Beta, you get to play with all the options and see progression with each build.

 

Jonchard, your posts are very interesting and I agree it would be reassuring to get some acknowledgment from the ISI/NV "team" that they understand there is a problem and they are working to solve it. I kind of assume that to be true but it couldn't hurt for them to reply.

You could have left out the "moron" flame. Cudo's to everyone (especially Spyder) for not taking the bait.

Edit: Also to Jonchard... you really should go 3 screens. You've got a lot invested in HW already so I'm suprised you haven't already taken that step. The no stretching of Multiview is great! Using 3 screens, Multiview and ~25deg FOV is like sitting in the cockpit!

Edit 2: HOLY CRAP! After reading this thread I enabled video sync and my stuttering went away! Man that is soooooo great. Did it at Spa where it was always very evident and it is gone!

This now makes sense of one of my posts in some other graphics thread where I was dismayed that the stuttering got so bad with zero AI that the game was unplayable even though my FPS was in the 80-90s. Apparently the stuttering happens when the rendrered FPS out runs the video FPS and the video sycn stops that.

Thanks to all who post their tips. Damn it! What can I complain about now!?

 

Ricknau, i did bait a little, but people are absolutely blind to LCD/Plasma imperfections. They have their place just so long as there is no panning required!! Im sorry for baiting, and in hindsight you are right, it was naughty of me. Im just an old hat player wanting to see CRT response back into modern replacements! Im an FPS and smoothness junky who is relatively well placed to say "It isn't quite right". I also take it as noted that they are bound to be aware of the issues mentioned, but sometimes when you don't see it in print, you want to be sure its not missed. I want the final product to be perfect not marred with silly issues.

I too cannot believe i havent yet extended to 3 screens, but a child and lack of space currently slow me! It won't be long and i will indeed spread accross 3. Aftyer using it extensively on a mates rig on iRacing where the screens are rendered to perfection, i simply must have, but commitments say "slow down - you have responsabilities!!" - lol! It was a bit like using his T500RS for just 1 minute, knowing my G27 was junk. Was only a matter of weeks and i had replaced it. Now i have TH8 too and its wicked kit. Just need the space and 3 screens now!

Thanks for all that commented and continue to offer good suggestions. THanks for not giving me a real hard time for some of the comments.

 

Nothing so far has removed my stuttering apart from turning SLi OFF. I have disabled HyperThreading - NO DIFFERENCE. I have tried all Vsync options and theres little difference from one to another. I have has best result by turning 120Hz back to 60 Hz and while the stutter is there, this almost halved it!! Am now trying later drivers (301.24).

 

Ok, updated drivers - no difference. The only way to reduce the lag i see is to disable SLi. The END. Other suggestions reduce it a little, but the issue is best seen when amidst many cars i.e. when you see 10 of them at the same time. If the car in front fills the screen as you are so close, then its butter smooth. If you spin the car to be facing the wrong way, its butter smooth. If you can see more than a few AI cars, then SLi becomes a lag fest - no game breaking but annoying when simply turning it off appears to double the perceived SMOOTHNESS seen even though dropping to one card halves the FPS.

I can only assume that ISI will crack this one day. In the meantime, i will stick to one card and one screen. Thanks for all the suggestions peeps. Fingers crossed that ISI suss it soon!

 

New drivers, with adaptive VSync enabled seems to have helped me with my SLI stutters, I still get some mild stuttering now and then, but am unsure if this is because of SLI or just my lowly GPU memory.