Radeon 9700 Pro & Stuttering is driving me mad!

[Guest]

John:I'm with you man, I just built my killer rig for FS2002 and am severly disappointed with this stuttering. I run 1600X1200 also with everything maxed out ( I have a 22" monitor), and have tried various settings for the AA and AF, and sure enough, I have this annoying stutter every few seconds, really ruins the whole experience....damn, it's more annoying than my previous setup with the GeForce 256DDR! I am also at my whits end, I've been researching this for about 3 weeks since I built my system (see specs below).I think someone may have mentioned it, but about the most information I have been able to find on this issue is at the forums on RAGE3D....seems like ALOT of people are having this problem with many different games, both in DirectX and OpenGL.My test for stutter is the default Meigs airfield in the Cessna, and within a few seconds I know if whatever umpteem tweak I tried actually helps the situation. All I do is press the 'S' key and pan around the aircraft while it sits on the runway, whenever the skyline of Chicago comes around, the sim usually freezes for about 2-3 seconds (only once) then thereafter, it will stutter for about .5 second in a regular 2-3 second interval. In between, the frames are smooth and the visual quality of the card is excellent....then...whammo....stutter......damn I am glad I am not the only one with this problem as I just spend many bucks on a kickass gaming box.ATI claims that the latest CAT 3.2 fixed all stuttering issues, and a post by one of the ATI guys on the RAGE3D forum seemed to indicate that any other stuttering issues were due to HD access or insufficient system RAM! I just built a box with an XP2800+ Barton with 1 GB of DDR 3500 RAM.....and I am running a game (sim) that is 1 1/2 years old, I don't think my problem is insufficient RAM. Boy, that comment really ticked me off. Bottom line is this IS an ATI problem.Dude, there are only 2 things that I have found that have helped (but not cured) the situation1. Go to the Troubleshooting tab in the drivers and turn down hardware acceleration 1 notch.....this with help out, but it's a big price to pay in FS2002 as you will loose accelerated mouse movement and accelerated bitmap display....both of these are needed for 2D cockpits, pretty much makes them unusuable..thus, this is not a solution.2. Turn down AA and AF and resolution and graphic settings in the sim. Again, why the Hell did I just build this rig and buy a $300 video card? Not acceptable in my mind, might as well go back to the damn 800 Mhz Athlon with GeForce 256DDR. At least it doen't stutter.Please, if you find a solution, send my a private message with the information (in addition to posting here)...I will do you the same also. I am also one very unhappy camper.Good Luck,Patrick-----------------------------System Specs:Asus A7N8X Deluxe w/ AMD XP2800 Barton w/ Volcano 9 HSF2X 512 MB Corsair XMS3500 C2 DDR RAM (1 GB Total)ATI 9700 Pro (it's a stutter bug)Onboard Sound, Onboard Nvidia NICDisabled Serial Port, Onboard 3COM NIC, and SATAAll PCI slots openMaxtor DM +9 80GB HD LG 48X 24X 48X CD Burner & DVD ROM Windows XP Professional SP1 w/ all updatesNothing Overclocked

[MikeAdamo 51]

Patrick,See my post above!Mike

[John_Tavendale 453]

Hi Patrick,I'm really sorry to hear you're suffering too. I tried the acceleration trick, but it wasn't suitable.Mike: I tried your suggestion, and I am still seeing the stuttering :(I know that the earlier revision 1 Radeons had some problems with 8x AGP, so I tried 4x and it made no difference.I have tried just about everything except the Omega drivers which I'm about to try. I think I have exhausted just about every avenue. I am hoping like hell that Cat 3.3s fix things.. probably just a dream.

[MikeAdamo 51]

Hi John,What's your mesh setting at? I have mine down to 0 (zero) and I read on one of the boards that this helps limit the pausing and stuttering. Also, I dug around my tweak documents and found this modified TERRAIN section for the FS2002.cfg file. May want to try the other suggestions as well.TERRAIN (Paul01 Settings)SuggestedTERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=10.500000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=7TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=2TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=0 ;0=off 1=onTERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=5.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=8.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=3In your FSUIPC set your visibility settings to the following:MaximumVisibilityOvercast=2000MaximumVisibilityFewClouds=4000MaximumVisibility=6000Here are my FS2K2 Scenery and display settings:http://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/display.jpghttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/scenery.jpgFor Flight Sim to only pause and stutter while in spot view it would suggest that some settings within the game are to blame more than the card. I spent a significant amount of time tweaking FS2K2 when I got my new system and these settings in addition to the Radeon Tweaks mentioned in my other post have given me the best results.Hope these suggestions help to fix your problem!!!!!!Mike

[FlyinMisfit 0]

hi John,this might be old news to you and others but i came across this today at Techspots web site. if your running WinXP with SP1 this might be your problem. i didn't know about this until today. it's from MS's KB...http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;815411 happy flyin, fm

[FlyinMisfit 0]

John,i just tested the link in my previous post. just type in the rest of the link (the part that's not underlined)in the address bar and it should take you directly to the KB info. don't know why the entire link did not work as i typed it. fm

[Guest]

Hi John, I had a similar problem with my 9700, I was running Sygate Firewall, I removed it and the Problem went away. I don't know if you are running Sygate or not.Best of LuckBill

[John_Tavendale 453]

Thanks so much for the suggestions.. :)The stutters don't happen in fullscreen mode, but they continue in windowed mode. I prefer to fly in windowed mode, so this is no good for me.Again, thanks so much for your help :)

[Guest DanWalloch]

I had that problem with my 9500 Pro in full screen mode. I used the Rage3D utility to overclock the card by 10Mhz on the gpu and memory and it worked, also got a 2fps increase.

[John_Tavendale 453]

heh, I overclocked it too, but it didn't make any differences.Ah well, she is up for sale, nVidia here I come :-hah

[Joe L 62]

Hello John,You may look at the number of USB ports activated and being used. On my new system (a VIA p4PB Ultra) I found that disabling 4 of the USB ports (case actually has 10) raised my fps in Fs2k2, Comanche benchmark and improved SiSOft Sandra memory bandwidth. Just having 6 USB devices plugged in costs about 5 fps in Comanche demo and FS2k2 - even if they are not being used. (mouse, x-keys, and 4 CH controllers). The Sandra memory bench bandwidth swings by over 10%. I can test this even w/o rebooting by just removing or adding USB devices. Someone on another board said USB modems etc are the worst.It seems smoother to me with even just four of the ports disabled. (Hard to fly w/o the yoke etc though!!)You might also consider running PC3200 memory at 2700 speeds and settings - actually gave me a few fps improvement. Not sure it will be relevant for you but thought I'd pass it on. Although I'm speaking about FPS it could be affecting the stuttering since these issues seem to have an impact on bandwidth.Good luck.Joe L.Philadelphia Hub ManagerCarolina OperationsVN7 Network 3G P4, Radeon 9700Pro, 1g Corsair XMS3200 (running at 2700), etc.

[John_Tavendale 453]

Thanks Joe. I'l give it a go :)I'm actualy running USB devices al at the same time :-hah