Skipping when panning?

Hey Guys, i posted this in the general forum, but didnt get much of a response.

I wondered if you could help me troubleshoot this problem.

I have a 3850 (see sig) and ever since i first overclocked with my x38, when playing games involving a lot of panning, the frame rate runs fine but it seems when scrolling the game shudders or jitters- ie its not smooth. This is not a lack of frame rate jitter, but instead the kind of regular jitter. Like something is holding the Card back.

Ive manged to repeat this with catalyst 8.4 and higher and still exhibit the same problem.

Even when reverting to stock settings on my rig, the card acts the same.

Has anyone come across this before? Sometimes it seems worse than other times..

I have checked:

Temps. Card is 70 Load, 52 idle.
PCIE Bus. Locked at 100%, confirmed by SetFSB
Drivers: Used 8.4 and upwards all with the same issue. Also set to performance profile. Same issue.
Games: Tried on all RTS games (where a lot of panning is involved) and standard stragety games.

Age Of empires.
Ceaser IV
Spellforce 1 and 2
Company of hereos.

The problem only occurs when panning from left to right or right to left. Not when panning up and down!

Can anyone help with this frustrating problem?

Cheers

~ Dodge

Bump anyone

operating system? processes running in the background? cpu temperature? does it stutter alot more when there are many units on the screen? do you have any other games to test your computer besides just strategy games? are you playing online? or single player? honestly, i never heard of this problem :O and the fact that its reproduced similarly in those games, might mean its all related to one thing. and isnt that video card running abit too hot =\?

Its also most likely something right just before you started overclocking....have you erased your computer yet? we need more details about your situation, and anything you notice that is out of the ordinary.
Does it happen when you try to scroll the screen with a mice, or with only the keyboard?
what version is your bios? did you update it than started overclocking???

Hi Secure, thanks for helping out! I really needed that!
operating system?
- Vista X64
processes running in the background?
- The only process that could be interferring i think would be uTorrent. I will close it and see if it makes a difference. Although i was always able to run the program in the background before without the problem. Apart from this, the usual Windows processes. Powerdvd server is another. Is there a tool i can use to copy and paste running processes?
cpu temperature?
35 Idle, 65 Load
does it stutter alot more when there are many units on the screen?
No, but it tends to stutter alot more when placing new buildings etc.The same happens with a very small resolution.
do you have any other games to test your computer besides just strategy games?
I have numerous games, HL2 is absolutely fine, Crysis is a diferent storey(even at lowest settings) there is a judder every 5 seconds.
are you playing online? or single player?
Single Player

My video card temps are ok i think, 48 idle and 70 load.

I havent reformatted the OS yet as i have a lot of data,games installed etc. If it comes down to it, i guess this is what il have to try but it seems to me a hardware related problem.

It mainly happens when scrolling with the kb as thats usually faster than mouse. However the same thing happens also with the mouse, its just not as noticable.

My bios is the latest f3a, i had this bios before overclocking and before playing the games for the first time. Prior to the jittering.

The only thing i think could of changed is the Memory i am using, when i first installed vista x64 i was running 6gb of ram, since i have had to RMA 4gb and only have 2gb left. I realise this is thin for vista 64, but could this really be causing the problem, when running a game years old?

I specifically remember when overcloking my pc, i read somewhere it was advised to set the pciex frequency to 115MHZ and to up the voltage .01 of a volt. Could i have damanged my video card for setting the voltage higher and the frequency higher?

2 gigs of ram...stop right there and fix that first. I would guess your games are hitting the hard drive. Vista needs 4 gig to be smooth...8 gig is even better....

Dragonprince said:

2 gigs of ram...stop right there and fix that first. I would guess your games are hitting the hard drive. Vista needs 4 gig to be smooth...8 gig is even better....

Click to expand...

Yep, gaming with 2GB in Vista is not good enough. Also uTorrent is a resource hog if you have really large torrents running (4GB+ in size), unless you have a killernic card, this is going to steal at least 500-1500MB of your RAM. Closing that program would make a difference too, but more memory is a must.

ya, i was thinking his games are swapping too much, to the hdd too, i think this is exactly the problem here, note you did say you had 6gb, and it was the one hardware thing you had changed, this might be it, and with the pci-e frequency changes that shouldnt really damaged the card unless you added enough voltage to blow it to the sky

If you want to know if it is or not, do this when you start the game, look at the hdd indicator, and start scrolling if it starts blinking or what not, i think you have your answer.

Thanks Seems like you guys hit the nail on the head! Il just have to wait for my 4GB of Ram to be returned from an RMA!! Il report back next year(probably) when the store sorts out the repalcement

Il keep an eye on that HDD indicator and come back if i still get the same probs with 6GB.

Thanks again!

~Dodge

Just to let everyone know who helped me, you were all correct. My adata value memory was replaced with G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) and now im enjoying everything back to normal.

Nothing more to say than

Thanks!