Radeon 8500 SI problem 64 mb card

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50-Warlock-50

Guest
Since installing the expansion the graphics look great and all but now im getting this kind of slow stuttering effect when i try to move. Its not really that major a thing but it is very annoying as it feels like your running with a cannonball attached to your ass! anyone else with an ati card getting this problem or is it just me?

I started off with having the newest ati 3.1 catalyst drivers so i decided to try out the omega drivers and also the original drivers but same prob still. I even tried updating the g/cards bios and still i get the same problem! I also tried using rage3d tweaker to sort it but still havent found a solution! if anyone else has this prob or has found a fix please post it here!

System specs

A7V333 M/board
Athlonxp 2600+ fsb 333 cpu
768mb ddr corsair xms 2700 ram
ATI radeon 8500 64mb ddr graphics card

currently using catlyst 3.0 drivers (cant be bothered downloading new ones atm as i originally had the 3.1 catalyst drivers in and had same prob)
 
O

old.Jable

Guest
i have a 128mb ati 9100, and at times i get the same stuttering. its like its dropping frames, but still managing to smooth the animation out, so you move a little, but the scenery stays where it is, then it jumps forward, then you move again, then the scenery jumps...

i havent got a clue what causes it - it happens to me in the new lands but not the old (altho i havent gone near tnn yet), and it doesnt happen all the time, just when im near the start town and when im deeper northwards into the forest, near other structures such as sylvan houses.

i also get random white polygons flashing thru the trees and stuff for split seconds etc. i can ignore it but cant wait till ati sort out their drivers so they work properly with daoc. ive submitted a report to their driver feedback page, maybe you should do the same.
 
K

kan-

Guest
yeh same here

im using a Geforce 4 ti4200

Its really strange, seems to happen more when theres more water on screen...
 
S

Sibanac

Guest
i get it in forests, with my GF4 4200ti, reloging helps and i get full framerate after that for a while, a real PITA tho
 
P

Pempulla

Guest
Someone might look at this thread and figure out that the problem is not gfx card/driver related.... Anything else you all have in common?
 
B

Belsameth

Guest
tried updating the VIA drivers?
VIA chipsets are picky in that...
 
P

PJS

Guest
Same here with the same ATI gfx card.

While walking around classic and SI the character animation is smooth but the scenery stutters. The really weird thing is there is an actual noise (quiet but noticable) that comes from the pc somewhere (gfx card maybe) that coincides with each stutter. So if you blindfolded me I could tell just by listening to my pc if someone was walking around in SI.

Another similar thing. If I appear in Ligen after releasing and try and walk to the medallion merchant I get huuuuge 2-3 second freezes until it calms down after about 10-20 seconds then its ok again.
 
S

SFXman

Guest
It's really weird, happens here too... I have a periodic ram/memory freeing program that at certain intervals frees memory... helps some bit.
Still, at times I get these same stutter effects. Very strange... the perf meter frame rate part does not vary in colour though... just stutters... very strange.
I have the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers and latest detonators, and a 64mb GeForce 2 GTS.
 
D

deffy

Guest
Originally posted by old.Jable
i can ignore it but cant wait till ati sort out their drivers so they work properly with daoc.

lol rather you than me m8, you got a long wait in there ;)
 
O

old.Jable

Guest
kinda paying the price for a cheap card, but at 72 quid with full directx 8.1 support, im not complaining that much.

i discovered one thing - the white polygons stopped appearing once i removed my overclock, but the stuttering still exists in the new lands.

i just wish i got the same fps as i get in Unreal Tournament 2003 - all detail settings on max and utterly playable at 1600 resolution :)
 
A

Aldrian

Guest
While i was running 3dmark03, i noticed that i get the same stuttering in the fill rate tests, and it was worse in singletexturing than in multitexturing, but still was very annoying in multitexturing...

And btw, i get fps like 5 in all the tests exept the airplane thingie :/

Oh, and i have another problem too. Its about reflective water, its abit buggy, when i look to water sometimes i see reflection of sky, then i turn alittle or go closer the water reflects correctly the trees or then it just reflects some random thing not even on the shore :| Sometimes i get reflection of trees when i look to the sea

Radeon 8500 & windows xp and 384 ram

PJS, i get the same thing too. Dunno for sure, but i think its because the harddrive loads some shit and as you know theyre not very fast so the frame rate drops to 1 or something for a while
 
A

Aeternus

Guest
Hm, I also have a radeon 8500 and using rage3d tweak (love that thing, if properly setup can really improve speed in games dramaticly). Dont jhave my account enabled yet though so havent tried how it works with SI.

Make sure you arent running anti alias at higher than 2x (4x is suicide with a radeon8500 card) usually causes slow downs.
Ive heard overclocked cards suffer all kinda problems with SI, so that migth be one cause... (heard of people who have had to underclock their card to improve framerate!?)

Having more than 512mb ram should help (the old client used to eat up around 400mb ram, including windows and other stuff, when I was playing...).

As for the ligen 2-3 framedrops when releasing, thats because ligen is heavy graphics spot and the graphics card/memory is loading in all the details when releasing there so it slows down for a while.

Ram is cheap nowdays and if possible anyone should try to have more than 512mb, really improves performance... I have 1024mb ram myself and some games eat up 800mb (although they ran just fine with 512mb ram, more ram reduced slowdowns here and there when entering new places and reduced stuttering)

Tweaking your graphics card setting usually improves framedrops, i figure the water reletade stuttering is due to it being to heavy for the graphics card with its current settings, you migth be able to improve performance by lowering the ingame water reflection effects if nothing else works?

As for ati radeon 8500 and similar cards.
Lowering things like Anti alias down to 2x (to performance if its really bad framerates), notice that the catalyst 3.1 drives have quite improved anti alias performance speed compared to lower drives... well worth taking the time to install even if it migth not solve the problem.
Lowering anistropic filtering to 4x or 2x should improve speed.
Changing texture setting to quality or lower, same with mip map.

But as I mentioned above, if the stuttering is water related it migth be due to the pixel shaders... the scene just being to big to handle for the graphics card.

As for the poor performance (3-5fps, thats actually quite decent score) in 3dmark03, thats because the benchmarks there are really futuristic, most stuff in directx8.1 (which SI uses i belive?) isnt even in games out today.... stuff like the water reflections. the benchmarks in 3dmark03 use directx9 optimized effects...stuff that wont be in computer games in a long time.
 
A

Aeternus

Guest
Originally posted by Aldrian
While i was running 3dmark03, i noticed that i get the same stuttering in the fill rate tests, and it was worse in singletexturing than in multitexturing, but still was very annoying in multitexturing...

And btw, i get fps like 5 in all the tests exept the airplane thingie :/

Oh, and i have another problem too. Its about reflective water, its abit buggy, when i look to water sometimes i see reflection of sky, then i turn alittle or go closer the water reflects correctly the trees or then it just reflects some random thing not even on the shore :| Sometimes i get reflection of trees when i look to the sea

Radeon 8500 & windows xp and 384 ram

PJS, i get the same thing too. Dunno for sure, but i think its because the harddrive loads some shit and as you know theyre not very fast so the frame rate drops to 1 or something for a while

More ram should fix the last problem, after getting 512+ ram my hd never slows down games due to loading... when i had 384 ram I noticed some slowdowns once in a while. I now have 1024mb ram (just cause its quite cheap and definitly useful) and the only time the hd loads is when I start the computer :D

Daoc eats up quite allot of ram, just the classic version could eat up some 400mb at times... once after some heavy rvr it ate up near 500mb ram... zoning into capital cities and back would eat up quite allot of ram as well, had to relog several times in TNN when crafting for long periods of time... (that place is like a blackhole for eating ram in classic daoc, hope its better in SI!)
 
A

Aeternus

Guest
Okay tried SI now and... ugh the stuttering is just horrible... its like classic during a huge zerg, nearly unplayable...
 
O

old.Jable

Guest
the stuttering that i am talking about is not seconds long, so i guess im lucky in that respect. it is annoying tho, as i move the scenery constantly stops and jumps and stops and jumps.

i also get the buggy water effects - sometimes they are lovely, but other times a dark feature will be reflected across the entire river, or maybe the effects dont appear from distance.

this isnt a major problem - it certainly doesnt affect my framerate when i go near the water, and it looks lovely when it works properly.

im thinking its the ati drivers, but i wont be sure until ive completely reinstalled my pc, as i had a gf2mx installed on it prior to getting SI and you never know what drivers are left behind when you switch cards about...
 
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old.job

Guest
Stuttering is just caused by your gfx card struggling to move and load the new higher textures, also there are loads more objects on the ground.
I have lived with it in classic, cos my pc is low spec, my new t14200, helps to keep it not bad in SI.
My mates 2.6ghz pent/4600/333ram plays SI faultlessly, must be around 50-60 fps, but still gets stuttering when loading next zone or a load of chars suddenly appearing, you will need raid disk setup to cure that, say 2-160 dma 7200rpm in stripe mode, doubling your access speed.
 
A

Aldrian

Guest
Problem is that my motherboard (asus a7a266, supports SDR and DDR) has only 2 DDR slots and other one has 128mb on it and other 256 :/
And currently my hd is abit messed up (w2k and wxp and loads of other programs and such), i would need to format it and that would cause damn much work to install all the things back... but the format would be good idea cause that would probably fix one more problem with my radon and daoc, sometimes the screen just locks, sounds continue looping and only restart helps after that

Damn, why cant computers be just like PS (insert the game disc and play) :p
 
W

wildpt

Guest
Got same problem with slow stuttering effect and with some tests i found up if i turn water to classic all its ok, its a shame cos is one of the best feature.

I have gforce 4 TI 64 ram, 1.5mhz and 512 ram.
Also decrease anti aliasing to 2X and dont use menu transparent.

A friend have more or less same spec but uses gf 4 Ti4400 128 ram and is fine with water max...
 
A

Aeternus

Guest
seems ATI is aware of this problem and its driver related... from what ive heard it migth be fixed in the catalyst 3.2 drives coming out later this month hopefully.
 
K

kan-

Guest
happens outside avalon city (where the apple trees are)

and near alot of grass sprites on the ground.
 
T

Tenko

Guest
I've got a similiar problem

First whacked all effects to max, shadows, reflections etc (My pc usually has no problems with last years games :p) and things were slow, just as described above. I turned things down to the default settings and logged in a char near some water and got the same results.


Now my PC aint cutting edge but its an Athlon 1.9XP, 512meg ram and a TI500 GF3 graphics card so it aint that shabby.

(It scored higher than any other same specced pc on 3dmark03 but thats still not that great:D)
 
D

Drclink

Guest
I had a radeon 8500 before upgrading to radeon 9700 I had the same problem it was a fps issuse by going to control panel > display>settings>advanced lower the settings in open gl and direct 3d and check vsync is off.

vsync stops the odd gfx tear but i never noticed any real problem with it off and by lowering the cards detail levels and switching vsynyc of mine ran smoothly.
 

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