Bizarre Microstuttering Issue

[MagicPanda]

Hello to all of you. <3

Long story short, I recently overhauled my computer after spilling water on the motherboard and video card, and the motherboard died a horrible death. So now, this is the current rig I am using:

(Note: The video card miraculously survived, and is now being used in the current machine, along with the old power supply hard drive, and sound card.)

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115057

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

Memory: Crucial 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148164

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB (I have a second and larger hard drive, but I lack an additional IDE port and am working on a fix for it.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106

Power Supply: RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-630SS 630W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152035

Monitor: Westinghouse L2410NM Black 24"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824255001

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102178

Here's the deal: I'm fidding with Warcraft III and Starcraft. As far as I understand, these games were not programmed for quad-core technology. Warcraft III runs perfectly at the maximum settings (1600x1200 resolution with full detail). It runs at a smooth sixty frames per second. Now, I am interested in doing some video capture with the new setup. However, capturing video has proven inadequate at 1600x1200 (stuttering, and a slightly undesirable framerate). Here's the weird part: When I lower the resolution to any other setting, the game proceeds to run at a choppy and wild 63-to-65 frames per second, fluctuating further when I enable video capture. Starcraft experiences the same problems. The games run worse under less taxing circumstances.

Here's what I've already tried:

- I've updated all of my drivers.
- I recently formatted the machine.
- I disabled integrated audio (something recommended on another forum) to no avail.
- I've tried using the "Set Affinity" command (which Warcraft III prevents you from using entirely) and did not work.
- As far as I can tell, the machine is running cool and nothing is out of whack.

So, I'm out of options. From what I've read, microstuttering is normally a multi-video card issue, but in this case, I'm running a single HD4850. Everything about this problem just strikes me as weird. Any advice?

 

[spotless]

i was using 4850 and when its gets to hot, it stutters, try opening ur side pannel (case)

 

[Dekasav]

Enable VSync. Should stabalize the framerate.

 

[Annisman]

Why didn't you get 2X 2gb sticks of ram ?? 2gb is going to cause some problems in some games, although I doubt your current issue is memory related.

Send those sticks of ram back and get 4GB you poo!

 

[MagicPanda]

i was using 4850 and when its gets to hot, it stutters, try opening ur side pannel (case)

Alright, just reinstalled Catalyst to check that out. It's running at 79 degrees Celsius. Seems to be running cool to me, although the fan blows air into a space currently occupied by my sound card. I'll probably go ahead and fix that in a little bit.

Enable VSync. Should stabalize the framerate.

No dice. Enabling Triple Buffering has no impact, either. :\

Why didn't you get 2X 2gb sticks of ram ?? 2gb is going to cause some problems in some games, although I doubt your current issue is memory related.

Send those sticks of ram back and get 4GB you poo!

I didn't pick out the hardware. Was originally told to go purchase my own memory, which quickly became "I already got you memory". ^^

 

[MagicPanda]

Alright, I actually went ahead and rebooted after applying the Catalyst settings. I'm at least getting somewhere, it seems. Warcraft III is now running at a perfectly smooth 9.1 frames per second! I'll update this post when I figure out something from here.

Edit: Yeah, once I proceed to bring triple buffering back into the mix, Vsync yields the same results as previously. Oddly enough, if I try to cap the game's framerate at 60 frames per second, the framerate slows fromm 64 frames per second to 32...and I still see the same stuttering as before.

 

[daship]

You need more memory, and your hard drive is slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Ide drives are slow junk, the only reaseon there is still a port on the mobo for it is for people that are cheap.

Get 4G ram and a SATA 2 HDD then come back if you have issues.

It would help to OC your CPU as well.

Thats a nice board you got there, you can install OS x with that board.

 

[trkorecky]

You need more memory, and your hard drive is slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Ide drives are slow junk, the only reaseon there is still a port on the mobo for it is for people that are cheap.

Get 4G ram and a SATA 2 HDD then come back if you have issues.

It would help to OC your CPU as well.

Thats a nice board you got there, you can install OS x with that board.

What are you talking about? These games were made a decade ago at best, his hardware is more than enough.

Sounds like some sort of odd driver issue yet, try updating your BIOS and all other drivers on your machine (chipset, audio, etc.). What OS are you running?

 

[MagicPanda]

You need more memory, and your hard drive is slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Ide drives are slow junk, the only reaseon there is still a port on the mobo for it is for people that are cheap.

Get 4G ram and a SATA 2 HDD then come back if you have issues.

It would help to OC your CPU as well.

Thats a nice board you got there, you can install OS x with that board.

As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the games being too taxing. I busted out Call of Duty 4 and ran the settings all the way to the maximum (1920x1200 + the works) and it ran fine until the computer crashed. As it turned out, the sound card was installed in the only remaining PCI slot, which proceeded to completely block off the 4850's fan from the outside world. But after removing the sound card, Warcraft III still microstutters.

What are you talking about? These games were made a decade ago at best, his hardware is more than enough.

Sounds like some sort of odd driver issue yet, try updating your BIOS and all other drivers on your machine (chipset, audio, etc.). What OS are you running?

I'm currently using Windows XP. It's very possible it's a driver issue. My brother uses the same video card, so I can go ahead and test to see if that is the problem. After all, it did take in water.

 

[trkorecky]

Swapping the hardware may work, but it's odd that you're getting such issues with those older games. What caused the crash when you were playing CoD?

 

[MagicPanda]

Swapping the hardware may work, but it's odd that you're getting such issues with those older games. What caused the crash when you were playing CoD?

My motherboard has very little space between the various PCI slots, which forced my brother to place the sound card directly below the video card, blocking the fan. When I rebooted from the crash, the card was running at 106 degrees Celsius. I pulled the sound card out and the video card is currently running at 48 degrees Celsius.

 

[W Craven]

If your Gigabyte bios is like mine then there are settings for the video card and would be where you overclock the cpu.. it's called Robust Garphics Booster and it has 3 settings Auto/Fast/Turbo .. try one of these out and you may have to bump the PCI Express Frq up to 100Mhz but i wouldn't go over 102Mhz..

I had a eVGA 260GTX that wanted Turbo setting and 102Mhz to play smooth when overclocked..

 

[MagicPanda]

Figured I should add this: If I run the games in Windowed Mode, they run perfectly smooth. Just tried it out. If I can't figure out a perfect fix, I may go ahead and use that. May actually be preferred from a video capture standpoint, since it will allow me to mess with the resolution on the fly.

If your Gigabyte bios is like mine then there are settings for the video card and would be where you overclock the cpu.. it's called Robust Garphics Booster and it has 3 settings Auto/Fast/Turbo .. try one of these out and you may have to bump the PCI Express Frq up to 100Mhz but i wouldn't go over 102Mhz..

I had a eVGA 260GTX that wanted Turbo setting and 102Mhz to play smooth when overclocked..

I'll go ahead and look at that in a bit. I don't have much experience fiddling with the BIOS.

 

[MagicPanda]

Alright, I've effectively nullified the problem: If I adjust my desktop resolution to a lower resolution (or whatever resolution I would like to run Warcraft III with), it runs without a hitch. And since I have a third-party program to run Starcraft in a window, I've come to the situation where I really don't have any problems at all. Thanks a ton for your help, ladies and gents.