How to get rid of this microstuttering?

[romeodakins]

I have an A8-3870k hybrid crossfire 6670 setup and I'm getting really bad microstuttering. I'm playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 and I'm getting really good fps on max, around 40-50 but the game looks like its running at 20-25fps. How do I get rid of microsuttering. This happens in Nexuiz also. I've tried using a framerate limiter and limit the fps to 30. It helps on Nexuiz but doesn't work on BFBC2. I'm going crazy trying to fix this.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

The only way to get rid of that is probably stock cfx. Have you tried a different game or drivers?

 

[cbag]

May seem wierd but if you go to Keyboard properties and turn the "Repeat Delay" and "Repeat Rate" to slowest possible it may help.

This worked for me in Dead Island. Probably engine specific but worth a shot.

 

[bignastyid]

Microstuttering is a known issue with most crossfire and sli setups. The only fix is to not use crossfire .

 

[romeodakins]

The only way to get rid of that is probably stock cfx. Have you tried a different game or drivers?

What is stock cfx? And I don't want to turn off crossfire or my gpu will be way weaker.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

I meant stop cfx. You could try underclocking your card maybe?

 

[photonboy]

Microstuttering is a known issue with most crossfire and sli setups. The only fix is to not use crossfire .

This is absolutely correct.
To be more specific, in your case the ONLY way to reduce micro-stutter is to add a THIRD card for 3xCrossfire.

Microstutter info:
SLI or Crossfire use AFR or "Alternate Frame Rendering"; this means that the first graphics chip displays Frame #1, then the second graphics chip displays Frame #2 and so on.

The PROBLEM is that for VERY complex reasons the TIME each GPU shows an image can vary. The problem worsens with new data such as running through a jungle versus simply looking around at the same area.

So rather than getting 30FPS with each frame exactly 1/30th of a second the time is different for each frame and that results in micro-stutter.

SUMMARY:
- microstutter can NOT be fixed in software
- the only way to address this is a third, identical card (to reduce, not eliminate microstutter)
- microstutter varies in strength (new data makes it worse)

 

[photonboy]

FYI, micro-stutter is a known issue that both AMD and NVIDIA have been trying to fix for years.

I would expect the issue to be mostly resolved in two to five years and that it will be largely a hardware solution possibly involving a special chip on the motherboard.

The main difficulty seems to be that they can easily FIX micro-stutter by DELAYING the transmission of frames on a preset clock but this reduces a LAG that is undesirable.

Still, I think a certain amount of lag (time I click to and update on the screen) or reduced frame rate is far desirable versus micro-stutter.

 

[romeodakins]

So I can't do anything about this? I wish I would've known this before I bought this a8+6670 setup. AMD should say something about microstuttering, they even recommended pairing the a8 with the 6670. What's the point of getting this good framerates when microstuttering is just gonna make it look like bad fps

 

[photonboy]

So I can't do anything about this? I wish I would've known this before I bought this a8+6670 setup. AMD should say something about microstuttering, they even recommended pairing the a8 with the 6670. What's the point of getting this good framerates when microstuttering is just gonna make it look like bad fps

As I said, the only way is to add a third, identical graphics card so that you achieve 3x6670 (I assume your A8 APU uses an HD6670 GPU?).

AMD and NVidia really don't want to discuss micro-stutter as they want to sell more cards. I always get really peeved when I see an Interview that goes like this "Oh yeah, I work for NVidia and I just updated to an SLI 2xGTX680 rig to get the BEST gaming experience!" because nobody that understands graphics cards would ever own a multi-GPU rig due to micro-stutter.

You can get more info in this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

*If you don't have time, jump to the CONCLUSION.

(in case it is not clear, an APU is a CPU+GPU that is merged into one chip in such a way that the GPU portion can not be disabled like in an Intel CPU. Because of this you can only properly Crossfire with graphics cards that have identical GPU's. For future reference, an APU should never be used in a gaming computer. APU's are for low-cost computers where the graphics portion is adequate for your needs without another addon card.)

**Again, a second HD6670 should make a big difference.

 

[photonboy]

**UPDATE**

Apparently the HD6670 is a low-end card and does NOT support normal Crossfire. It DOES support Crossfire with your APU via the motherboard but it is impossible to add a second card for a 3xCrossfire setup.

Long story short, there is NOTHING you can do to reduce micro-stutter short of:
a) removing the addon card (no microstutter but much lower frame rates)
b) replace the APU with a CPU and use a dedicated graphics card (expensive update)