GPU upgrade causes stutter

I would say they should be disabled, but I can't find any clear information on the settings. All I can find is information on what C-States are and how they operate... which isn't what I am trying to learn :/ (I want to know what this option does!)

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

I would say they should be disabled, but I can't find any clear information on the settings. All I can find is information on what C-States are and how they operate... which isn't what I am trying to learn :/ (I want to know what this option does!)

I've disabled what I could and put the rest on high performance, including Enabling Intel Turbo Boost Technology. However, this still haven't solved any issues I'm having. Sorry, I could not provide more info but everything my bios provides no info whatsoever. :/

I have to ask, how could this be a CPU issue when other more demanding games are running fine?

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Drakier wrote:

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zheavy wrote:

I have to ask, how could this be a CPU issue when other more demanding games are running fine?

Because not all games are created equally. They don't use the same developers, or the same rendering engines, or the same algorithms. They're completely different software.

What you said is basically the same as (talking about a web browser) "how could this be a CPU issue when Microsoft Word runs fine?".

That's how it sounds in my head when I read replies comparing pieces of non-comparable software.

All software acts differently. Some are more related than others because of the engines they use or whatever, but they're not the same and shouldn't be compared as if they are.

Would you say the same thing about a performance problem in Internet Explorer vs FireFox or Chrome? They're both web browsers. Why does one behave badly and take more resources than the others? It's silly.

I understand that part already...
That wasn't really what I meant when I asked that. Since he's been suggesting that I should change some configuration in my BIOS related to CPU power, this has came a bit odd to me since I owned this PC for awhile now and have ran countless games/applications/software on them without any CPU problems. I figured what he was saying that my CPU isn't getting enough power when I could push the load on my PC further in many other stuff.

Idk I guess I was wrong and my understanding of software/hardware is still too limited, hence why I'm here anyway making this thread hoping to resolve this.

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zheavy wrote:

I understand that part already...
That wasn't really what I meant when I asked that. Since he's been suggesting that I should change some configuration in my BIOS related to CPU power, this has came a bit odd to me since I owned this PC for awhile now and have ran countless games/applications/software on them without any CPU problems. I figured what he was saying that my CPU isn't getting enough power when I could push the load on my PC further in many other stuff.

It's not precisely an issue because of a lack of power, it's an issue with how the power is regulated and how the CPU behaves in relation to it when using power saving features. With the power saving settings enabled the CPU can enter a power saving state when not under load and will "wake up" when a bunch of stuff needs to be processed.

Depending on the features of the motherboard and CPU the CPU could support a mode where the voltage is significantly reduced in addition to the clock speed when entering a power saving state (All Intel i3, i5 and i7 CPU's support this, I've never owned an AMD chip). Older CPU's only manipulated the clock speed and not the voltage and are less prone (not immune) to causing issues.

For CPU's capable of dynamically modifying their voltage, the transition to/from the power saving state causes the CPU to stall for an exceptionally small amount of time while the voltage is adjusted and this small stall can cause havoc on certain timing systems that some software may utilize.

it's a similar situation with modern video cards, they support power saving in a similar manner to CPU's these days and it can introduce similar stutter related issues. So if none of the CPU settings did anything then check your display drivers in Windows for any power saving settings and try disabling that functionality, at least temporarily.

Okay thanks both for the clarifications. I think I get the picture now, so I went back to BIOS and changed some settings a bit, I turned off turbo boost for now since this was the only way I could disable EIST. After doing a bit of research, I found out this is a power saving feature along with the rest which are as well disabled now.

I ran the game and HwInfo32 in the background to monitor my voltages and frequencies. I noticed that even with EIST Off, my voltages were bouncing between idle and full during gameplay, so were my frequency randomly across all 4 cores., the stutter was there. I did some research on google and I found this reply.

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Yes i understand what you say. You believe that disabling EIST completely disables all power saving features of the CPU, thats not true anymore at least on Sandy Bridge, you can find out for yourself by disabling EIST on BIOS and checking with CPU-Z for your voltages and frequencys with EIST On & Off, you will find that even with EIST disabled the CPU comfortably idles with reduced voltages at its designated idle speed, lets say 1600mhz, and quickly goes to full speed, 3400mhz, even on small loads skipping the intermediate pstate frequencies of EIST, like 2400mhz etc. It makes a difference...

So I went to dominus which is one of the few places where besides the stutter, my FPS drops 40 and below. My voltages never went below 1.201V, and my frequncy as well at 3.3GHZ, I also invited few people in the group to make things more intense, but even in both cases - solo dominus blood rain phase, and with players spamming skills along myself - my frame rate still dropped even tho my CPU voltages/frequencies never dropped down from max.

I do hope I understood correctly else I would have wasted your time so far, sorry for all this >.<

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So if none of the CPU settings did anything then check your display drivers in Windows for any power saving settings and try disabling that functionality, at least temporarily.

I'm not sure where to look, I checked control panel and my driver settings I didn't exactly know what to look for. The only power option I found is the one you told me about earlier which is already set to high performance.

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zheavy wrote:

Okay thanks both for the clarifications. I think I get the picture now, so I went back to BIOS and changed some settings a bit, I turned off turbo boost for now since this was the only way I could disable EIST. After doing a bit of research, I found out this is a power saving feature along with the rest which are as well disabled now.

Although EIST is a power saving feature, enabling it and setting Windows "Power Settings" (In Control Panel) to use the High performance Profile should mitigate the CPU underclocking because of EIST. So you can leave EIST and Turbo Boost enabled. In this scenario the only thing that would happen is your CPU occasionally dynamically overclocking when placed under load.

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zheavy wrote:

I do hope I understood correctly else I would have wasted your time so far, sorry for all this >.<

I believe you have a pretty good idea now.

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zheavy wrote:

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Nicholas Steel wrote:

So if none of the CPU settings did anything then check your display drivers in Windows for any power saving settings and try disabling that functionality, at least temporarily.

I'm not sure where to look, I checked control panel and my driver settings I didn't exactly know what to look for. The only power option I found is the one you told me about earlier which is already set to high performance.

I have never used an AMD/ATI video card and am unfamiliar with their display drivers :/

I have 2 other thoughts:

1: Does your RAM support X.M.P? If yes, have you configured it to use X.M.P in the BIOS? X.M.P basically sets all your RAM settings to match what the manufacturer of the RAM specified. I recommend you enable X.M.P if possible, even if it doesn't resolve the situation as it will still give you both performance gains and improved stability (Less crash prone) in most software.

2: You have a Green Western Digital hard drive (Energy efficient model). This drive may simply be too slow for what the game demands, or it could have power saving features of its own. You know what I say about power saving features right? Disable them! They do you no good in situations where performance is critical and in some cases can greatly hamper the experience in unforeseen ways.

For Seagate hard drives there is software you can install in Windows to control the power saving features of their modern HDD's. I believe older drives you couldn't configure the power saving at all (This could be the case for you depending on how old your drive is). I'm aware Seagate isn't Western Digital, this paragraph is just explaining that there is likely Windows software that will allow you to do what you want and that the setting you're after might not be a BIOS setting.