Yet another glitch ive noticed when running alot of games on my new system. Even with Vsync on im getting quite a bit of tear on the screen, which would usually only happen on my old machine when running older games too fast and Vsync would always sort it out. It is most noticable on UT3 but appears also in Bioshock, Gears of War, CoD4 and even TF2 to some extent. The games themselves are running great underneath all this but Ive tried a great number of gfx configuration combinations and cant seem to sort out the tearing- even with triple buffering and vsync- sometimes vsync even seems to make it worse.

Could this have something to do with my old monitor? It has a max res of 1280x1024 which is kinda low and pushing the framerates very high. Or maybe its the fact I have slightly slow DDR2 memory @ 667mhz, or even Vista64 could be the prob..?

Any advice appreciated as I dont feel I have got the most out of my new pc by a LONG shot.

What gfx card do you have?

probably vista

i installed it (vista) and TF2 went from 40fps down to 12fps, so XP had to go back on, which is a shame really, cos i stupidly bought vista

You need to turn vsync (vertical sync) on mate. The problem is your FPS is more than double your monitor's screen refresh rate so its already drawing a new image before its finished the last.

The best way to do it is to download rivatuner from http://www.guru3d.com and force vsync on in both directx and opengl settings. Don't forget that if you have vsync forced disabled in your driver settings the game can't over-ride it. If you want talking through this give me a shout when you see me online. For the time being set your monitors refresh rate as high as it can handle. If its a CRT it can probably do 1280 @ 85hz, if TFT try for 72hz (but tbh you shouldnt get tearing on a tft, only ghosting)...

I take it this is a geforce 7 or 8 series gfx card? If so I've got a beta driver for better hl2 orange box performance. Was shipped to reviewers with the orange box game for "compatibility" reasons and I managed to get my grubby mitts on it . May help? Made little difference to me, perhaps 10fps at best but everything does run nice and smooth. Not noticed any problems with any other games.

I'd try the vsync rivatuner thing first though, saves messing with removing and updating drivers.

Anyway, feel free to shout me when you see me online if you want a hand with anything .

Matt.

I have 2 (BFG) 8800GTXoc's in SLi and am running a Q6600(2.4ghz quad core) with 4gb DDR2-667 (possible bottleneck?) with a nice enough mobo (P5N32-E SLi plus, 680a- plenty of copper ) So at 1280x1024 it def gives the impression things are running 'too fast' on most games. For some reason TF2 doesnt seem to suffer like the other games- maybe becasue im playing online and theres more for the machine to do. I've tried numerous 64-bit beta drivers, ive rolled back, re-installed DX etc etc and have found the current whql to be most stable. (but i like the sound of your HL2 driver)

As for Vsync like i said it often either doesnt help or makes the problem worse, which is unusual as I thought that would sync it with my monitors refresh rate, e.g. 60fps, though I am only enabling it in-game and from the Nvidia Control panel- triple buffering also doesnt help. In some instances when i use Vsync it steadies the tearing a little but creates a juddering effect when I look at a similar scene that was being affected. This is most noticeable in Bioshock, UT3 and slightly in CoD4 and Gears of War and it is often better for me to just get used to the tearing as the judder-effect renders games unplayable. Ive tried lowering the res also and this makes the problem worse in most cases.

This is really bugging me as I usually build my PC on a shoestring budget and was really hoping this machine would run like a dream, which it does to an extent- even with vista64. As far as I remember I got the same problem when running on my TFT (same max res 1280x1024). Will try Rivatuner now (will this enable vsync more effectively?) but maybe I just need a bigger monitor? Any help to sort this out will be so appreciated. Would like to stay with Vista as I like fancy textures (yes I am a graphics whore) but dont mind downgrading to 32 as some say this has solved alot of performance and driver issues.

SLi could be the reason (or driver/game support for it). Id try removing a card and see if that helps. Sounds odd I know but give it a go...

Don't overlook your sound or motherboard drivers either mate. These can cause all sorts of weirdness. I'd go with nvidia drivers all the way from their site and forget about asus.com altogether.

Another possibility is theres a 64bit driver on there it doesnt like. Do you have vista 32bit? Or better still XP SP2? You could try installing on another hard disk (I have plenty of small spares if you want one) and see if that sorts it. Just a process of elimination really i'm afraid mate.

Rivatuner alters registry entrys directly so if you have a bugged driver that isnt making the changes it should be rivatuner will apply the settings properly. It's fairly simple to use, but don't mess with what you can't get your head around . You can't do physical damage but you can cause yourself problems by "messing with that what shouldnt be touched" .

A bit ot, but I've had this no name TFT LCD since 2003 and apart from a dodgy transformer which makes the screen cut out occasionally (a kick usually fixes it), I've never had a single problem with displaying a thing. No ghosting whatsoever. It's crystal clear.
And I'm no expert, but try turning off the SLi. A single OC'ed 8800GTX will probably be more than enough. Until games start getting really epic in requirements (i.e they all become Crysis like in need), I'm not sure you'll need 2 that often tbh. Unless you do lots of heavy graphics work.

A friend of mine just gave me a suggestion...The geforce 8800 cards will throttle back if they aren't receiving enough power. You should have a minimum 800watt power supply with that setup mate, preferably a full 1000watt unit for a little overhead. At full pelt your machine will be using around 600watts (and power supplys are between 70 and 80% efficient, therefore a minimum 800watt), if your power supply cant provide it your graphics cards will use what is available. Have you built this yourself dude or is it a pre-built?

Another thing to check is your hard disk jumper. If it is set to cable select then change it to master, if master then change to cable select (assuming its IDE not SATA).

A couple of tests to do...

Rivatuner - registry level enable vsync for opengl and directx
Disable SLI in the DRIVER (not game) - the card will still draw power, if you still get tearing it could be power supply.
Remove second graphics card - no power draw from 2nd card. If the tearing goes its likely power supply related.
Update motherboard bios using asus live update.
Update motherboard, network and sound drivers from the oem provider, not the manufacturer (nvidia board drivers not asus for example).
CPU temperature - could be clock throttling in game if its overheating at all. Intel say theyre fine to 105c, motherboard manufacturers tend ot set the default clock throttle temp at 60 or 65c. These quad core chips will sit at that all day at idle unless you spend some proper money on cooling. Will be in bios. I usually disable all thermal control including C1E and EIST/speedstep.

Post back, let me know how you get on . Methinks someone may be a busy boy tonight!

Thanks for the suggesions- a few have already been tried (nvidia drivers, disabling sli) but im on the rest. Oh and for the record my PSU is a 750w Thermaltake toughpower- pretty nice looking box, some people on club SLi are using the same box with dual cards and ive been told the x1950s and 7950s strangely use more power.

This was a pre-built base unit and I did make some preliminary phonecalls about power and they initially told me it would probably ship with a 1000w but they seemed to think 750w was enough in the end. I have to say it is beautifully built- couldnt have done a better job myself... ill check the voltages and let you know whats goin on. The only component that is less than perfect is the worryingly named 'Corsair value' Ram running at 667mhz- could this be holding my system back? i always thought the overall FSB was dependant on all components running at max speed?

As for cooling i have 2 large case fans front and back (125mm+?) and a side fan (100mm?) but the 8800s have some pretty awesome cooling on them and the mobo has is nicely passively cooled- stock heatsink on the cpu though. Will check out the temps and voltages and post them up here.

I did notice the back of the gpu's are pumping out quite a bit of heat but i felt that was to be expected- will try to put the gfx fan speeds up a bit but I'm told there is no program to change both cards fan speeds atm.

Oh and my HD is a 500gb Sata2. Will try booting off my other Sata drive with XPsp2 on it as that is fairly uninvasive and isnt gonna void any warantee, Im not used to having one! At least I know if it is hardware related they should sort it out. Thanks again guys

Ok heres the info I've got from the bios... ive yet to use a program like Cpu-id or Aida32 but heres what i got

Voltages
Vcore Voltage: 1.23v
Mem voltage: 1.88v
1.2HT voltage: 1.26v
NB voltage: 1.24v
SB voltage: 1.52v
CPU VTT voltage 1.26v
DDR2 termination voltage: 0.94v
3.3v voltage: 3.21v
5v voltage: 5.02v
12v voltage: 11.65v

Temps in bios CPU:35'C M/B: 33'C

hope this help the diagnosis... off for a fiddle now