Nvidia geforce 560ti solid 60fps for a while then stuter at 25fps

[Citabria]

got new vid card and it blazes.. runs skyrim like a dream etc.

it runs aces high fine with everything maxed out for an hour or so then starts to microstutter like mad. unplayable and unenjoyable. gunnery near impossible.

suckfest.

i cleaned all drivers etc etc.

I am told other people experience this. AH runs fine then bam stutter central.

grrr.

[Chalenge]

Which drivers are you using and what settings?

[Citabria]

301.42 drivers

default settings on vid card.

everything turned on on aces high.

Aces high runs solid 60fps for a long time then out of the blue... bam micro stutter 25fps.

its not consistent it just happens out of the blue.

[Debrody]

Same experience here. The game runs fine with all the eye candy on, steady 60 FPS for like 20-30 minutes then it slowly decreases to 15-20. Alt+tabbing in and out usually solves this problem even though sometimes it causes game crashes. It can be annoying. Especially since this system runs everything else (mostly Napoleon Total War and Skyrim) very steadily.
Radeon HD-5830, the latest Catalist, PhenomII 955, 8GB Kingston DDR3-1600 ram, AH is on an OCZ Agility 3 SSD, 500W Chieftec PSU.

[Chalenge]

Im using the same drivers but with 690s and I dont have the problem but I also do not have all settings maxed or even on. I dont like the way shadows look on opposing aircraft (especially bombers) so I have them off. I also do not use building shadows or the grass. I can turn them on without having issues with the following settings (and as I already stated).

I use 2048 textures in the first settings window but when I use shadows (graphic details) I have them set to a maximum of 1024.

I am using FXAA with 8x antialiasing under Enhance the application and with 3 prerendered frames.
Anisotropic filtering is set to application controlled.
Multi-display is set to single display.
Negative LOD bias is set to allow.
Texture filtering is set to quality.
Vsync is on.

All that said if I use CSAA above 16x I will get something like what you describe but I only see fps drop to about 55.

Now I know you will wait for Skuzzy to see if there is any other issue at work but if this isnt clear for someone and they want more info I can also post a screenshot.

[Skuzzy]

Sounds to me like the memory of the video card is filling up.  Easy to fill up 2GB (or more) of video RAM with Aces High, depending on the settings.  Get enough objects in view with enough anti-aliasing and large shadow texture size and that will do it.

Just drop the shadow texture size and see if that helps.  Or drop the anti-aliasing a notch.  Or both.

[Debrody]

So... the GPU can run it maxed out as long as the VRAM isnt full, then i alt+tab, ergo reset the VRAM so my card can run AH again for 20 minutes?
Why the old (maybe unneeded) data isnt cleared from the VRAM? Is that even possible?

[gyrene81]

301.42 drivers

your problem is from the drivers, there is an inconsistent bug in them. the gpu will sporadically drop down to 50mhz, nvidia claims it only happens with overclocked video cards but, people with stock cards are having the same issue. either roll back to the previous drivers or try the beta drivers if you feel brave.

[Skuzzy]

So... the GPU can run it maxed out as long as the VRAM isnt full, then i alt+tab, ergo reset the VRAM so my card can run AH again for 20 minutes?
Why the old (maybe unneeded) data isnt cleared from the VRAM? Is that even possible?

Aces High does release data it no longer needs for the draw, but caching is done, which can cause data to be left in video card RAM.  The drivers will not clear it, if there is still system RAM it can use (the overflow) for storage.  Unfortunately, any video card fetches from system RAM are going to cause stutters due to how slow that process is.

gyrene also brings up a good point.

[Citabria]

removed the drivers and installed the old 266 drivers from the disk the card came with will see if that works.

[Chalenge]

I played for more than four hours tonight with no issues. I looked into the bug reports and its "some manufacturers" and the cards are dropping back "by 50Mhz" and not "to 50Mhz." Also the sporadic problem is "intermittent vsync stuttering" and again only by some manufacturers. No idea what that even looks like.

Doesnt seem to faze the 690s from what I can tell.

[gyrene81]

I played for more than four hours tonight with no issues. I looked into the bug reports and its "some manufacturers" and the cards are dropping back "by 50Mhz" and not "to 50Mhz." Also the sporadic problem is "intermittent vsync stuttering" and again only by some manufacturers. No idea what that even looks like.

Doesnt seem to faze the 690s from what I can tell.

uh ya...

not surprised the 690s aren't affected, not as many people are willing to shell out $1000 for a video card as there are people buying $200-$300 video cards. most of the complaints i've seen (outside of the nvidia propaganda) have been with 4xx and 5xx series.

[Debrody]

Doesnt seem to faze the 690s from what I can tell.

I got a Ferrari. Im rarely being overtaken by Fiats.
 

[Chalenge]

Interesting... the bug reported was specifically for the 600s being affected but specific brands of factory overclocked models.

Apples/Oranges debrody.

[Debrody]

Apples/Oranges debrody.

Not as much. If its a memory overload bug like Skuzzy said, how can you overload a card with 4/6GB vram?? My lord.