i7 Stutter fixed

[chrishathaway]

The only way to stop the stutter with my i7 is to disable 2 cores.

But not in windows, as when I do it in windows it reduces the stutter but does not cure it.

However, if I instruct the cpu to use just 2 cores in the motherboard bios, that totally fixes the issue.

Would be nice to use all 4 cores, but I get the feeling it was not designed to use them properly, or at least not i7's

Getting great performance on just the two cores, no need to overclock it from stock 2.67ghz either!


*****RE-SOLVED - NO DISABLING CORES REQUIRED*****

Right, I agree, I can run with all cores enable using restrictions instead.

I have to make sure also that my total video settings do not cross 900mb of my 1gb video ram.

I'm using settings:

-norestrictions -refreshrate 32 -frameLimit 1 -fullspecaudio

Cheers for the advice, properly solved, smoothest it has ever been!

[rev. sK]

can you elaborate on the "stuttering"?
I started a thread earlier regarding the i7 cpus and disabling HT improved performance but now you want to disable cores too? :confused:

And I totally disagree about overclocking. I am running at 3.55Ghz on my 920 with lots of headroom and the game is AMAZING!!!

[chrishathaway]

With HT on and all cores on, the game would report amazing frame rates in the 70-80's, but the game would stutter ever couple of seconds.

I just found that disabling 2 cores in my bios worked for me. Never tried disabling hyper threading, will give it a try.

[chrishathaway]

Tried disabling hyper-threading, still stutters.

My method of bios limiting to one or two cores works fine.

Does not really matter any way, probably never really get in to this game!

[Minardi]

THANK YOU!

Ive been trying everything to get GTA running good, but no matter what, it was stuttering like mad. First i though it was my harddrive, then i thought it was bad ATI drivers, then virtual memory, yadayadayada...

My system is an I7 920 OC @ 4.2 Ghz, 5870 Ati gfx card, 6GB ram, and two 300GB WD VelociRaptor 10000RPM running raid0, wich should be more then enough to run this game.

After choosing only 2 cores in the BIOS my game now runs smooth. The question now is if this is Intels job to fix, or Rockstar's. I remember AMD put out an optimization pacth to thier dual core CPUs back when GTA SA was released, due to the game "running too fast".

All i know now is im not disabling 2 cores, for this 1 game...

[chrishathaway]

Cool, in a way! To at least have my solution ratified!

Weird that you must do it through the Bios though, disabling cores directly through windows does not have the same result - be warned people reading!

Yes it is annoying and to be fair if you limit it to just one core and overclock it for a lower frame rate but even more smoother experience.

The issue is the lame coding by Rockstar, who built a great engine and graphical look but limited how it functioned on hardware that it was going to need.

I might play it, but yes, a restart to do this every time is some what annoying.

It won't be fixed though, that's for sure! I'm a recent i7 adopter, they rock - so happy!, but really they've been round long enough for Rockstar to patch and fix issues with them if they had wanted to.

A Pity, a real pity.

But if you really want to play it, then you can!

[Evolon]

My current system :
- I5 750 (stock 2.67Ghz) OC : 3,7 Ghz
- ATI 5770 (GPU 850MHZ - Memory 1200Mhz/1024RAM)
- 2*2GB Corsair Dominator (1600Mhz) - DDR3

Old system :
- E8400 @ 4Ghz
-Ati 5770 (same as new system)
- 2*2Gb Cruciall ballistix - DDR2

So.. On my old system GTA 4 ran pretty good.. the average frame rate was on the slow side.. but I had a rather smooth overall experience of the game with HIGH texture quality
Benchmark : 40 or 30 fps .. can't remember exactly..

On my new system I get a benchmark with 70fps with everything on high.. But I have a weird constant stutter in my game.. wich I didn't have on my old system (with same gfx card). No matter what graphical settings I pick.. I keep having the stutter.
I got the latest drives, I just reinstalled gta and my operationg system. I have absolutely no problem in all other games (BFBC2, MASS EFFEcT 2, MW2, ..)

The strangest part is .. the more I OC my i5 processor .. the more stutter GTA 4 produces.. :s

Anybody got any ideas ? Ow and I also tried al relevant commandlines , but no improvement!

[chrishathaway]

Have you tried my solution of limiting your cores to just one or two cores from your motherboard bios?

[Evolon]

Have you tried my solution of limiting your cores to just one or two cores from your motherboard bios?

I just looked briefly at my bios , but didn't find anything.. I did disable some of my cpu stuff tho, like hardware prefetcher, virtualization, .. but no succes.

What is the setting called on your bios ?

[chrishathaway]

yeah, they won't work.

I'm on a Am i Bios on my P6TD Deluxe, its under the cpu section and is called "Active Cores", the options being auto (for 3 or more cores) or 1 or 2 cores.

I select 2 cores for the GTA.

What's your mobo model number m8, I'll see if I can find out for you.

[Evolon]

omfg.. it helped.. the frame skipping is gone.. the frame rate is sligthly lower now tho.. but much smoother. OMG! Why?! Even after oc'ing no frame skipping. I actually bought this quadcore for the upcoming "Liberty City Stories" and now I can only use 2 cores.. damn this hurts.

But a friend of mine has also a i5 750 and an ATI 4xxx and he runs the game very smooth with ALL 4 cores.

Thanks anyway.. Tried so many stuff thats on the net.. This is actually the first proposed solution that worked. You made me cry and happy at the same time

BTW : My motherboard is ASUS P7P55D LE

[Evolon]

Just wanna say THANK YOU!! again!

I 've been playing for half an hour and the game is so much more enjoyable now.

Lets hope someone comes with a solution to use with all 4 cores.

[mjn507]

Yeah, that really sucks for you.

build:
gfx: ATI 5870
cpu: i7 860 @ 2.8 (NO oc, no disabling of cores)
mobo: Asus Sabertooth 55i
ram: 8GB DDR3 1333 (4x2GB)
os: win7 pro 64 bit

I've had no issues with any stuttering in the game. Actually no issues at all.

bench:

Statistics
Average FPS: 61.51
Duration: 37.29 sec
CPU Usage: 33%
System memory usage: 37%
Video memory usage: 79%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1680 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 39
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Video Driver version: 8.14.1.6091
Audio Adapter: Speakers (VIA High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz

[Evolon]

Statistics
Average FPS: 56.13
Duration: 37.06 sec
CPU Usage: 45%
System memory usage: 63%
Video memory usage: 81%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1050 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 36
Detail Distance: 51

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Video Driver version: 8.14.1.6099
Audio Adapter: Luidsprekers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz

Nothing wrong with my bench either :s

[Evolon]

Chrishathaway and Minardi, what motherboards are you using ?

[Minardi]

Chrishathaway and Minardi, what motherboards are you using ?

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

[Minardi]

I created this topic on gtaforums.com :

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?act=ST&f=240&t=444096&st=0#entry1059844816

[Evolon]

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!

I've just put in my Old gx card : NVIDIA 8800 GT. And the stutter was gone WITH ALL 4 CORES ON AND OC'd :s ...

Note that my gfx settings are lower.. since its an older gfx card ofcourse.. but with my ATI 5770 I get the same 'frame-skipping' on the lowest settings.

Statistics
Average FPS: 62.02
Duration: 36.97 sec
CPU Usage: 76%
System memory usage: 60%
Video memory usage: 99%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1600 x 1024 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 26
Detail Distance: 100

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Video Driver version: 197.13
Audio Adapter: Luidsprekers (Creative SB X-Fi)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli

EDIT : I also tried installing the 9.12 drivers from ATI as well as Flashing my motherboard bios to the latest update. All with no improvement

[LaptopNut]

I must be one of the lucky ones then, I play this game on my mobile Core i7 laptop. The following is my benchmark:

Statistics
Average FPS: 52.01
Duration: 37.09 sec
CPU Usage: 45%
System memory usage: 60%
Video memory usage: 88%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1600 x 900 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 40
Detail Distance: 40

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285M
Video Driver version: 197.25
Audio Adapter: Speakers (SRS Audio Sandbox (WDM))
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 820 @ 1.73GHz


I also used to get severe stuttering which made the game unplayable and very annoying. Regardless of which Cores I disabled or Bios settings the stuttering would remain. This all changed when I tested out Nvidia Drivers 196.86. I have tested many Drivers and the only ones where GTA IV doesn't have any stutter in is 196.86, 197.15 and 197.25. The last 2 and the current Drivers I am using on my laptop are Desktop Drivers by the way.

I think the stuttering is a GPU / Drivers issue.

[Evolon]

I tried every driver since Catalyst 9.11 and none worked..

But I finally have a simple solution for my problem. I just installed patch 1.0.3 over my steam version (wich is automatically 1.0.4 if you download it) and the stuttering was gone.

No more disabling cores for me.. I 'm enjoying gta4 to the fullest! Finally!! :)

[Philote]

Awsome Evolon. That finally made it playable for me as well. Didn't feel so good turning off half of the spanking new processor (i5 750) just to get the game working ok.

Funny thing is, just for the heck of it I manually reinstalled 1.0.4, and the problem did not reappear for me. So with the procedure of manually downgrading to 1.0.3 and then manually upgrading to 1.0.4 all is well! I am so very impressed by this game now, it is the best gaming experience I can possibly imagine.

[Evolon]

Awsome Evolon. That finally made it playable for me as well. Didn't feel so good turning off half of the spanking new processor (i5 750) just to get the game working ok.

Funny thing is, just for the heck of it I manually reinstalled 1.0.4, and the problem did not reappear for me. So with the procedure of manually downgrading to 1.0.3 and then manually upgrading to 1.0.4 all is well! I am so very impressed by this game now, it is the best gaming experience I can possibly imagine.

I 'm happy for you that it helped :). I defenitely agree that is the best singlepalyer gaming experience one can Imagine :).. But it would be perfect if rockstar decided to put some more effort in optimizing this game.

Anyways.. I tried reinstalling 1.0.0.4 again , but I had no luck there, still the same problem. I even got it in 1.0.0.3 after 1-2 hours playing.. but the "-memrestrict xxxxxx" command line solved that problem as well for me .

Tried installing the patch 1.002 as well. but the framerate wasn't great and even the graphics looked much worst (no matter what vidoe setting I used) .. but the stuttering didnt appear.

So now I only can't use the alternative controls settings wich were included in 1.0.0.4 patch, but I can live with that.. Lets just hope R* comes up with another patch someday that actually does work for EVERYONE ^^

Some questions
Did you start patching from 1.0 or did you just patched over the 1.03 version ?
Did you use any commandlines ?

[chrishathaway]

Right, I agree, I can run with all cores enable using restrictions instead.

I have to make sure also that my total video settings do not cross 900mb of my 1gb video ram.

I'm using settings:

-norestrictions -refreshrate 32 -frameLimit 1 -fullspecaudio

Cheers for the advice, properly solved, smoothest it has ever been!