What is causing my "choppy" graphics?

scourge · February 10th, 2005, 09:14 PM

Definition of choppy:
momentary pause. hiccup. doesn't seem to affect overall framerate.

System:
K7S5A Pro w/ XP2400+ (266FSB/266Mem)
512MB PC2100
SB Live!
128mb Radeon 9550 (Mod to 381 core / 261 mem) w/ ATI Tool
Hauppage WinTV
Win2000 Pro

I'm stumped. I upgraded from 64mb Radeon 9100 because I was tired of choppy graphics in Doom3, FarCry, etc. It's really bad in X2:The Threat. I purchased the Gigabyte Radeon 9550 (not SE, a good one) modded it to better than 9600 and I still have problems! The ATI Tool fuzzy, brown carpet cube says I'm getting 90+ FPS, but it hiccups too.

I've done some research and tried the the pci latency config tool, but that didn't do anything for me.

I need to stress that my framerates are good (30+), but no matter what resolution I run, I get choppy graphics. Every few seconds, the screen will pause momentarily. Just enough to be annoying. It seems that my video card and computer are fast enough. Bandwidth issue somewhere??? There must be a conflict, but I don't know where to look or what utility can help me find issues.

Any and all suggestions are welcome!! I don't really want to buy new equipment, but if somebody can definitively tell me that's what the problem is, I will.

rrcn · February 10th, 2005, 09:25 PM

It's mostly likely your ram and your upgrade from a 9100 to 9550, IMO, wasn't a great decision.

Your system will start loading the next map, I guess you can call it a map, and it will end up using your pagefile instead of your system ram because you are running out of ram. Doom 3 and FarCry are fairly demanding games so the choppiness you see, I would expect.

jdahl1979 · February 10th, 2005, 09:35 PM

Seems like it could be a sound card problem. Drivers good? Happened to me before. Your system should play OK with turned down settings. Could be a conflict between VID and SC.

Dax_Brandy · February 11th, 2005, 12:35 AM

run the video card at stock speed... and see what happens. could be caused by overclocking the video card.

**GroundZero3** · February 11th, 2005, 01:01 AM

did you unistall the old drivers for the video?

scourge · February 11th, 2005, 09:50 AM

First off, thanks for all the responses.

New Development:
I did notice one new thing last night that might shed some light on the problem. I have a Logitech Cordless Navigator Duo (KB & Opt Mouse). While running ATI Tool, I moved the mouse back and forth over the boxes where you input the core and mem clock speeds on the ATI Tool control panel. That made the spinning ATI Tool fuzzy, brown carpet cube hiccup big time.

rrcn:
It's not just the latest and greatest games. Morrowind does the same thing. In fact, it might be all 3D games, I'll have to check that. There were a lot of factors that went into my decision to buy the 9550.

jdahl1979:
I have been considering an Audigy2 ZS. I have never been overly fond of my SB Live or Creative's apparent lack of driver support for it. In fact, just about the only reason I haven't bought the Audigy2 is because I'm still mad at Creative about my SB Live.

Dax_Brandy:
I ran the card at stock when I first purchased it with same effect. I also ran my Radeon 9100 at stock and o'clock with same issue.

GroundZero3:
This is a good point because I've had that issue in the past. I did make sure that I completely removed the old drivers before installing the card and then I used the latest Catalyst drivers.

Thanks!

Xtreeme · February 11th, 2005, 10:03 AM

What the load? Check windows to see how much cpu load. Some of the logitechs stuff and certain USB 2.0 controlers have been strange for me. My bro's DUO was at 90% load with mouse. Someone here had it too same setup.

mypartsguy · February 13th, 2005, 05:13 PM

Man I feel ya big time here.

I started a thread about some of the problems i am having but I left this one out.

Get this,
System

2700+ tbred
gigabyte 7vt600-1394
1gb PQI Power (100% pass on memtest)
geforce 6600GT agp
sata raid 0 hitachi drives 80gb each
550watt ps
Water cooled cpu and northbridge

When I run 3dmark 03 I get some nasty choppyness but my frames are like 30-80 + lmao it just gets these stupid hiccups like your having.

Ack btw newest bios, newest via 4in1' drivers, service pack 2 fresh install, etc... etc...

I was definetly scratching my head. I swapped my proc to a 3200+ barton and it went away but yet I really didnt get any higher fps.

Now I just get what looks like the video card just went but I know it didnt. Its like a crash but the screen goes all nuts and I get hard core pixel picaso , the kind you get with a bad vid card.

jrsweger · February 13th, 2005, 08:37 PM

For what it's worth, I dumped my Logitech cordless mouse (and keyboard) because the mouse caused similar unresponsiveness problems, didn't matter what I was doing. I don't play games but it annoyed the heck out of me when I was doing anything mouse intensive. I know of one other person that had similar problems but I'm sure there are others. This other person had some luck with moving the receiver position in relation to the mouse. In my case, the receiver was within 1.5 to 2 feet away and I felt if that wasn't close enough oh well. They are now setting on my spare parts shelf. Went back to corded and all was well again.

scourge · February 27th, 2005, 09:38 PM

It should have been obvious to me that the Lexmark printer package was the culprit. How stupid of me not to think of that first. So, if you have a Lexmark X75 like I do and are experiencing graphic glitches, try killing and/or uninstalling the software. Hope this helps someone solve their problem before wasting countless hours like I did.