Widescreen Gaming Forum

BTW - NFS Shift is unplayable at 5760x1200 no matter how low you set things - a sure indicator that it's using more than the 1gb VRAM available. It'll surge to a high fps, then stutter back down to the low 20's. I've seen that before - it's having to swap textures in and out of the framebuffer from main memory. The high FPS moments represent what the card could really do if all the textures could fit at once.

Just thought I'd mention I tried out NFS:Shift @ 1024x768 w/ 0xAA, 0xAF, and it still did the 'high-fps/low-fps' thing on a 4850 1GB and a 4870X2, so I'm not convinced that it's 100% framebuffer related. I suspect that it might be related to the physics implementation in the game, as the fps dipped to lower numbers when I was near a wall or near opponents, like the game was calculating all the possible ramifications of contact with car/wall...

edit: I'm very confused about these adaptors... the 'are they, aren't they' pot-luck of these adaptors is perplexing. I'll be happy if ATi can brand one that 100% works... perhaps the Sapphire one, as Sapphire are the biggest ATi partner. IIRC, they make all the 'Built by ATi' cards, or did.

Dave Baumann would you happen to have a BIOS I could try flashing to a 5750? I have no fear of bricking it.

What BIOS revision do yo have currently? You can check the revision of BIOS under the "Graphics Hardware" tab of the "Information Center" option of Catalyst Control Center.

[quote]BTW - NFS Shift is unplayable at 5760x1200 no matter how low you set things - a sure indicator that it's using more than the 1gb VRAM available. It'll surge to a high fps, then stutter back down to the low 20's. I've seen that before - it's having to swap textures in and out of the framebuffer from main memory. The high FPS moments represent what the card could really do if all the textures could fit at once.

Just thought I'd mention I tried out NFS:Shift @ 1024x768 w/ 0xAA, 0xAF, and it still did the 'high-fps/low-fps' thing on a 4850 1GB and a 4870X2, so I'm not convinced that it's 100% framebuffer related. I suspect that it might be related to the physics implementation in the game, as the fps dipped to lower numbers when I was near a wall or near opponents, like the game was calculating all the possible ramifications of contact with car/wall...

edit: I'm very confused about these adaptors... the 'are they, aren't they' pot-luck of these adaptors is perplexing. I'll be happy if ATi can brand one that 100% works... perhaps the Sapphire one, as Sapphire are the biggest ATi partner. IIRC, they make all the 'Built by ATi' cards, or did.
This is just regarding NFS: Shift. As of 1.02 of the game, and the latest drivers (with hotfix), the game is running perfectly. I get a steady 140+ FPS at 1920x1200 8xAA 16AF. Smokin'! My SLI'd GTX 280's are left in the dust.

What BIOS revision do yo have currently? You can check the revision of BIOS under the "Graphics Hardware" tab of the "Information Center" option of Catalyst Control Center.

012.014.000.004

And bad news -- last night seemingly out of nowhere the flicker came back after not showing itself for almost 2 days :( It was colder in the computer room last night, maybe temperature has something to do with it?

012.014.000.004

And bad news -- last night seemingly out of nowhere the flicker came back after not showing itself for almost 2 days :( It was colder in the computer room last night, maybe temperature has something to do with it?

Very possibly - my old router won't turn on if the room it's in gets too cold (or it does crazy stuff if it's on and temps drop too far...) I can understand that other hardware would similarly dislike cold environments.

This is just regarding NFS: Shift. As of 1.02 of the game, and the latest drivers (with hotfix), the game is running perfectly. I get a steady 140+ FPS at 1920x1200 8xAA 16AF. Smokin'! My SLI'd GTX 280's are left in the dust.

That's good. I was going purely by the demo. :) Does the framerate still judder at 5760x1200?

Very possibly - my old router won't turn on if the room it's in gets too cold (or it does crazy stuff if it's on and temps drop too far...) I can understand that other hardware would similarly dislike cold environments.

I guess i should define "cold" as maybe 62-65 degrees or so. normally the room is kept in the upper 70's and has to be cooled by a mini-split heat pump late into fall here in the south. last night was the first time this season we needed to switch it to heat instead of cool.

[quote]This is just regarding NFS: Shift. As of 1.02 of the game, and the latest drivers (with hotfix), the game is running perfectly. I get a steady 140+ FPS at 1920x1200 8xAA 16AF. Smokin'! My SLI'd GTX 280's are left in the dust.

That's good. I was going purely by the demo. :) Does the framerate still judder at 5760x1200?
Yeah, 5760x1200 is just more than a single 5870 can handle, and Crossfire isn't yet working right with Eyefinity.

But 5040x1050 is really good - although 2xAA is too stressful at the moment. Even with no AA, it's pretty amazing. I just go around the Nordschleife over and over in a stock S2000. Makes me happy :rockout

I guess i should define "cold" as maybe 62-65 degrees or so. normally the room is kept in the upper 70's and has to be cooled by a mini-split heat pump late into fall here in the south. last night was the first time this season we needed to switch it to heat instead of cool.

The room my router is in stays around 18*C... which is, what, 68*F? In the winter, though, it can frequently drop to 10-12*C as if I'm not in a room all/most of the time, I don't bother to heat it beyond what it necessary to stop pipes from freezing. :)

Yeah, 5760x1200 is just more than a single 5870 can handle, and Crossfire isn't yet working right with Eyefinity.

But 5040x1050 is really good - although 2xAA is too stressful at the moment. Even with no AA, it's pretty amazing. I just go around the Nordschleife over and over in a stock S2000. Makes me happy :rockout

Fair enough. Would be interested in seeing what it's like with a 2GB card, but it's possibly a raw power issue on that front... triple-wide resolutions (particularly the ones opened up by EyeFinity like 5670x1200 and (whatever 3x2650 is)x1600 really hammer GPUs harder than anything else.

Fair enough. Would be interested in seeing what it's like with a 2GB card, but it's possibly a raw power issue on that front... triple-wide resolutions (particularly the ones opened up by EyeFinity like 5670x1200 and (whatever 3x2650 is)x1600 really hammer GPUs harder than anything else.

True dat. But, regardless of avail GPU power (like in Crossfire), if you overrun that framebuffer - you're down into the single digits for FPS.

True dat. But, regardless of avail GPU power (like in Crossfire), if you overrun that framebuffer - you're down into the single digits for FPS.

Thats not, strictly speaking, true. Texture mangement schemes are quite sphisticated in how they handle being addressed from system RAM and it not an "all or nothing" type thing; it does just push a portion over to system RAM and either address those from there or swap them dependant on the frequency of use.

[quote]True dat. But, regardless of avail GPU power (like in Crossfire), if you overrun that framebuffer - you're down into the single digits for FPS.

That's not, strictly speaking, true. Texture management schemes are quite sophisticated in how they handle being addressed from system RAM and it not an "all or nothing" type thing; it does just push a portion over to system RAM and either address those from there or swap them dependant on the frequency of use.
yes average FPS may not be impacted that much however you may have a less than smooth experience (or even noticeable stutters)

As you can see in the graph below, the 896MB card hiccups at several points in the benchmark as it swaps textures in and out of memory. The 1792MB card does not suffer this hindrance. While the overall average only shows a .7fps gain for the 1792MB card, the overall performance is much smoother

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_%28GTX_275%29

However one has to say that in general ATI tends to do a better job on this front that NVIDIA, with low memory cards being able to run higher settings than NVIDIA counterparts.

i just got the accell adapter after using the bizlink and can confirm that this works. I currently have the accell pluged into my iphone charger and have not tried the motherboard power yet, but it works, no problem at all.