Frame Rate Locking Utility

[RoboSanta]

I'm running a Go7800GTX. It runs beautifully, except it has an extremely nasty habbit of spiking the frame rate.

When this happens the GPU takes a few seconds to recover, resulting in lag that'll make you want to nose dive of your roof, with weights around your ankles and a lit match in your hand, into a pool laced with lighting fluid.

For example, I ran a little test with CS:S map de_dust with settings maxed. For the first few minutes it's ok, but eventually it starts to get a little ahead of itself resulting in said lag. The average frame rate was 85+fps, when it spikes it hits up to 135fps and beyond, an impossible rate to maintain. As it recovers the frame rate drops to below 15fps, it happens continuosly, every 30 seconds or so.

Vsync seems to fix the issue for most games, but the more demanding games like Far Cry and Titan Quest have it real bad!

When I say "real bad" I mean it, in the case of Titan Quest the issue gets even worse when I LOWER the graphical quality.

So I was thinking, if Vsync can be forced then maybe there's a more specific utility to limit the frame rate to to a more appropriate amount. I'm having a lot of trouble finding such a utility, were someone to find it for me I'd be eternally grateful. I'm looking for something that functions much like nVIDIA's program profiles, where I could set frame caps for each individual programs without having to reset it all the time.

To those who think it's attributed to drivers or overheating, it isn't. I've witnessed the lag effects of overheating and this isn't it and I've tried nearly a dozen different drivers. It's also not a lack of proccessing power, if anything it's too powerful.

I really need this capping utility. My specs are listed and feel free the ask me more questions. My drivers are irrelevant, but they are the Asus 91.47. Ta

[Fabrice Roux]

Even if you stated ovtherwise... it looks like overheating to me... try downclocking your GPU clocks by 20% to see if it changes the games behaviours.

[RoboSanta]

With four internal fans I doubt heating is the issue.

Even if it was, it would merely decrease the frame rate, not halt it altogether.

The fact that V-sync usually fixes the problem with most games, is proof enough that lag spikes are to blame.

Anyone heard of a fps capping utility?

[Fabrice Roux]

You could place 12 12cm fans at full speed in your laptop and still get overheating issues.

Main reasons:

- low fresh air flow.

- bad thermal grease spreading.

- poor logic behind fan speed handling.

- bad thermal sensor usage.

The cooling efficiency is a rather complex equation.

VSync helps for one reason... it gives a much lower stress on the GPU and VRAM.

Trust me do the underclocking trick. And post your results.

Some games allow to cap the frame rate but this is not standard... I don't know a frame rate capping app.

[Ice-Tea]

You could place 12 12cm fans at full speed in your laptop and still get overheating issues.

Main reasons:

- low fresh air flow.

- bad thermal grease spreading.

- poor logic behind fan speed handling.

- bad thermal sensor usage.

The cooling efficiency is a rather complex equation.

VSync helps for one reason... it gives a much lower stress on the GPU and VRAM.

Trust me do the underclocking trick. And post your results.

Some games allow to cap the frame rate but this is not standard... I don't know a frame rate capping app.

:)

What he said. There's little point in installing a hovercraft fan on your heatsink if the heat doesn't make it that far.

With poor thermal interface material, you could see temperature drops in excess of 30°C just over the pad.

[RoboSanta]

True, overheating decreases performance in ALL high powered laptops.

But as I said, the fact that vsync rectifies it for most games proves lag spikes are the issue.

Has anyone with a Go7series GPU experienced the lag effect I've described?

FR, please tell me about the frame capping utility.

I've already tried underclocking it by %20, it helps a lot, but the frame rate is unbearable.

Edited October 4, 2006 by RoboSanta

[The_Lead_Factor]

Are you kidding me -_-

As long as the game runs past 25fps, its bareable. Anyway, you make the 8th person i've seen here with an Alienware :) Join the club :)

[jamesd]

Your not alone. When I play GTR2 or CoD2, it happens to me. In CoD2, it only happended when I had it on DX9 mode, and my brother told me "No computer can run it on DX9 mode" which sounds like abseloute crap, but I thought it must have been something screwed with the game. I'm running 84.20, and with CoD2 it was completely different.

With GTR2, it always happends in the same spots on the same tracks. In the demo, one track was fine. But in the full version, there was a spot where it slows down for 30 secs or so.

But these are the only two games for me, CS:S/HL2 and GTA:SA runs fine on pretty much full settings with Anti-aliasing. I might get a temperature monitor and watch it while GTR2 is going

Edited October 4, 2006 by jamesd

[RoboSanta]

It's amazing how much the drivers affect the performance on Cod2. On the official drivers I couldn't even run it on DX9, but with 91.47 I run it maxed on 1024x640 without any of the lag effects I described.

I love the Alienware club, it's full of guys who love to ###### their money away. I could've gotten an equally powerful system for 20% less, but ###### I love being burned at LANs for having done so. :)

Edited October 4, 2006 by RoboSanta