Radeon 6850 gaming stutters

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uninformedpcgamer

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i am using a month old system thats basically made out of

a radeon HD 6850
an Intel i5 quadcore 3.3 ghz processor
and 8 gigs ddr3 ram

i basically wanted a reasonably priced, stable gaming machine

i'm having some issues when playing almost any game.

basically there are stutters like when i move the camera in crysis or click on an enemy to attack in the witcher... even older games like far cry will have a couple substantial stutters when this happens i'm not running any background programs or anything

these are not game breaking at least not so far, but they are annoying even if they only last as long as it takes to blink (there have been a few times when i was playing stalker shadow of chernobyl when the game froze for several seconds before moving again... but i'm aware its a buggy game anyway)

all the games were purchased either on steam or on good old games (gog) so they're not weird pirated versions or anything like that

i'm new to gaming on pc, so i know that i might be missing something obvious, i tried uninstalling the newest AMD drivers and then installing older drivers (i read that can help sometimes) and then i reinstalled the newest driver package (11.12). i made sure to

i've gone into the catalyst software and turned on the high performance, but the thing is even when i have the games (newer or older) set their own 'optimal settings' there are still regular hiccups and stutters whether high performance is on or not.

believe me, i'm not trying to do anything crazy, i just want to have my games run smoothly and look decent.

something that i wondered about was the driver for my wireless mouse of which there were two because i had to return and replace a defective one and when i plugged in the replacement it installed the driver again... i went into the device manager and removed the older install but it didn't seem to help much... i don't know

i'm very frustrated and cold




 
Solution
I do realize that you may have a low budget and you really don't want to spend a lot of money on this power supply but while you are deciding which one to get think about what you are going through and how much it annoys you. Do you really want to take a chance of this happening again with the new psu. I would go with a proven brand name that is known for quality power supplies , Antec ,Seasonic , Enermax , and Silverstone are a few of the top ones that would be good to look at. Try to catch a sale or rebate offer and set a budget amount that you want to work with and try not to go too low with it.

Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$64.99 and free shipping...
What do you have the screen resolution set to in the game and have you tried reducing the AF and or AA or some of the other non essential settings. Is your mouse sesitivity adjustable? Maybe you can uninstall all of the mouse files and start out fresh. Have you tried uninstalling the game and reinstall it. What is your power supply? Do you have a regular corded mouse to try , just to see if by some chance it is the mouse.
 

uninformedpcgamer

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the screen resolution for my games is set two either 1152 x 648 (for crysis) or 1366 x 768 (for the witcher)

i'm using a 720p lcd tv as a monitor.

i've adjusted AA and AF down to the lowest settings in both the game video menus and in the catalyst software but still the stutters persist

i just tried half-life 2 episode 1 (thinking that maybe the size of in-game environments of crysis, far cry, et al may be the issue) and the same thing happens

i've looked into the mouse thing a bit can i can't see any evidence that it could be the cause of my woes... the stuttering occurs even if the mouse is completely still

i tried turning the sensitivity down but still i have the problems

i'd prefer not to have to uninstall the games yet as they take a very long time to re-download from steam
 
I do understand about the down loading from Steam but I was just taking shots at trying to hit on something that could be causing you the problem.I have not come accross this problem in either my computer or in the forum in order to have some kind of info on it. The only thing that I have seen that resembles this is the microstuttering that takes place with two cards in either SLI or Crossfire.
What's your power supply?
 
Try turning off v-sync just to see if there is a difference. You may have a power supply that is too low for the 6850. I have looked up several cards and they all say that the minimum psu requirement is 500w so my guess is that the power supply is not supplying enough power. What is the exact model of the card.
 

uninformedpcgamer

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this is my card:

GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP

hmm... i guess that would make sense about the power supply, but even on lower settings i get the shakiness

oh well maybe its time to spend more money
 
I would get at the very least a 500w and if you can get a 650w because you have already seen what happens when underpowered and it never hurts to have extra.

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650M 650W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular High Performance Power Supply
$109.99 and a $10 rebate makes it $99.99

CORSAIR Gaming Series GS600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply
$89.99 and a $10 rebate makes it $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139023

Here are a couple to look at.
 

uninformedpcgamer

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no no no...

i'm just frustrated is all. it may be a couple of weeks before i can get the new power source, but i guess if that's what it will take, then i'll try it out.

is there any way to make sure thats what it is?
i must apologize for my ignorance

 

Pjungg

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Did you build the of yourself? Possibly inadequate cooling is causing your gpu to relapse a bit.. But 8xx series is very okay and at that res should be fabulous.. Try buying a high watt psu and if the problem fixes you can look on a website like newegg or slickdeals and when you find a deal return the battery..
 
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Do you have an another video card you can compare/contrast with?

Do you have a local shop that would trust to give you an honest diagnosis on your PSU?

 

uninformedpcgamer

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Its crazy to me 'cause its not like i'm running battlefield 3 on ultra settings... i'm running three or four year old games on medium and high settings and still getting the stutter...

and again its not insanely bad, but when i see the same games running like silk on lower powered hardware in youtube videos i wonder where i went wrong.

i will buy a new psu soon and hopefully that will put me back on the porch with the big dogs or at least the normal dogs...

@spasmolytic46

i don't have another video card unfortunately to test, but i may enlist the help of a computer whiz friend of mine in the meantime who can open this casket of disappointment with me and tell me what bones are missing
 
When he looks at that skeleton of a psu that you have then he''ll tell you the same thing we have been doing. I know you are not playing top notch games on uber settings , it's just that when a video card starts rendering a game the 3d acceleration kicks in and the card starts demanding more power.If it wasn't for playing games that computer would be running perfectly fine.
 

uninformedpcgamer

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ha ha ha! you're right it runs like a dream when i'm navigating the old desktop.
i've been such a fool.

i guess the next question would have to be this:

what's the possibility i've done any damage to my gpu or my computer in general by putting this 420w horror in charge of its fate?

i did a couple of quick tests with crysis and stalker soc with CCC running and it showed the gpu heating up to about 60 C

i know thats not the worst temperature for it to be, but when i was trying to understand the problem i turned up the GPU clock to 900mhz (the default is 820 i think) while starting an stopping a number of games (the usual: crysis, stalker, borderlands) on high specs for about an hour.

is there anyway of telling if the card or any other component is damaged (besides a burning smell which i thankfully haven't experienced)

by the way
thanks for all the assistance, inzone (and others). i'm really getting schooled here.
 
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