[TheAntiMartyr]

See my sig for specs. I'm not OC'ing the card...just leaving it as is. Cant play Metro 2033 on this card due to gameplay crippling frame-rate drops and I have major issues with Guild Wars 2. Other games like Far Cry 3 and Black Ops 2 run fine. Guild Wars 2 is a real pain in the ass on this card. My wife has the same build as I do, only her card is an EVGA GTX 660Ti. Guild Wars 2 runs very smooth on her system. I'm quite jealous, but happy for her all at the same time..

Here is what Guild Wars 2 does on my system. When monitoring with Afterburner, the GPU usage takes some pretty wild swings. Like from 84% down to 23% and then back up to somewhere around 90%. Of course the frame rates and screen tearing go right along with it for a less than stellar gameplay experience. Why does it fluctuate so much? It seems to do it a lot when I go to turn quickly in the game. Vsync on or off. No difference. Any advice is always greatly appreciated. I just want the game to run smooth. I've tryed it all from triple buffering to HPET tweaks. I'm at a loss.

 

[Cupa]

Delete the Nvidia drivers and reinstall the latest or one you prefer. Only install the drivers, no 3D vision, no audio, and no Physx. Do a clean install, and when it's done go to control panel and make sure everything is set as default.

Since it works fine in Far Cry 3 and Black Ops 2 it's most likely a software problem, I highly doubt there's anything wrong with the card. If you do need 3D vision, Physx, and the audio from the drivers install them when you can play your games smoothly.

 

[Awk34]

I agree with the above post. Do a clean install of nVidia drivers. Also make sure that you have the latest DirectX and proper redistributables from the games.

 

[Sharchaster]

I strongly recommend you to use this method when un-installing NVIDIA drivers :

http://www.overclock.net/t/1150443/how-to-remove-your-nvidia-gpu-drivers

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharchaster

I strongly recommend you to use this method when un-installing NVIDIA drivers :

http://www.overclock.net/t/1150443/how-to-remove-your-nvidia-gpu-drivers

Thanks for all of the great suggestions. I have already done all of the above with the exception of this link provided by Sharchaster, who I assume has the same card as I do. I will do a clean install using this method and report back later in the day.

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

Ok. So I spent the 15 minutes and went thru this whole list and did every step to the letter. I then re-installed drivers. The stutter in Metro 2033 persists despite the fact that GPU usage stays in in 90% range. As for Guild Wars 2...I'm at a loss. The driver clean proccess helped...but my GPU usage still randomly fluctuates between 54% - 94%. I wish there was a way I could "lock" or tell the graphics drive to "USE 90% GPU FOR THIS GAME". I'm really tired of this GPU boost BS already. Its a good idea on paper...but its really hit or miss in practice. Maybe I'll sell it on Craigslist and give the red team a try. I need CONSISTANT power when I play my games. Not "Hmmm, how much power to you think we need for this part of the game?" performance.

 

[Sharchaster]

Does Guild Wars 2 is a CPU bound? I remember when Andrew (mod on Geforce.com) say that...but I can completely wrong here...did you were trying on another games too? Like BF3, FC3? Which driver NVIDIA did you using now?

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

314.07, but I still had the problem with the last drivers. I've only had the card for a little over a month now. I know that GW2 is somewhat CPU dependant..but my wifes EVGA 660Ti uses 75%-95% GPU usage at all times in the game.

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

Another update. I removed the drivers again using the following method. Only this time I installed my wifes EVGA GTX 660Ti and installed drivers for it. Metro 2033 never froze and Guild Wars 2 ran as smooth on my PC as it does on hers. The 660Ti handled everything like a champ and never tanked once. So, I talked to Newegg today. They are going to take the card back even though its been more than 30 days, and charge me a re-stocking fee. So. I'm going to have to go without a graphics card for a while (1-2 weeks), until Newegg can issue me a store credit. Looks like I'm in the market for a new GPU. Any suggestions?

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

Called back newegg and talked them into refunding my preffered account so I could order another card today. This is what I ordered, and I sprung for overnight shipping. I've been mucking with this PC long enough. I'm ready to kick back and enjoy it. Always had good luck with EVGA, so I ordered this card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130843

It was so nice punching this card into Google and not seeing a bunch of negative threads.

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

Another update, because I dont like to leave threads unresolved for future visitors. I recieved the EVGA GTX 670 FTW Sig2 today. Of course the whole time I was waiting for it to arrive, I was keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it WAS indeed the card and not some other component that was causing my issues. I ruled out driver issues by following Sharchasters recommendation (4th post on this thread). Thank you, Sharchaster!

So, I installed the EVGA card and I was initially disappointed in the performance compared to the MSI PE. With the MSI GTX 670 PE Twin Frozr IV I was getting 3dmark11 scores between 9275 and 9300.
The EVGA card scored 9025

So I loaded up EVGA Precision and boosted the power target to 115%.


This resulted in a 3dmark11 score of 9341!


So, I'm right back to where I was from a performance standpoint. I then tested the two games that I was having the stutter and micro-freeze issues with, Guild Wars 2 and Metro 2033. Praise the Silicon God's! Guild Wars 2 runs smooth and Metro 2033 runs flawlessly! With the MSI card, Metro 2033 stuttered so badly and had micro-freezes so frequently that it was unplayable. You can imagine my relief when I tested those two games and both worked as they should.

I'm not sure if its an issue with the MSI 670 PE, or if I just had a bad card. So if anyone else has the MSI GTX 670 PE Twin Forzr IV, and has Guild Wars 2 and Metro 2033...would you kindly report back with your experience? I would appreciate it. I've had several MSI cards in the past and this is the first time thay I've ever had an issue with one. I will miss the MSI. It looked great in my build.

 

[Apex89]

So, when you look at the gpu usage in afterburner, is it more consistent now with your EVGA card? I have been playing Crysis 3 with my MSI 670 power edition and it does the same thing as what you described. It seems that its just because there are some parts of the game that are much more demanding than other parts though. No other game that I have played does this. I also think it is because the card just isn't optimized well with Crysis 3 yet. The gpu usage isnt really jumping around as much as it is just lower than expected. Never reaches 99%. Max is usually like 70 to 80 %, and runs extremely cool, in the 50's. Farcry 3 on the other hand runs constantly at 99% and my temps are in the high 60's. It runs absolutely perfect though, extremely smooth.

Also, Crysis 3 runs plenty smooth if i turn AA off and run the high preset. Locks in at 60 fps, just makes me wonder what my card could really do if it was better optimized.

 

[TheAntiMartyr]

I am starting to suspect the GPU boost as the culprit. It just does not seem to work well with some games.

 

[Apex89]

Yeah that would make sense. I have to amend what I said earlier though, because after playing some more, it seems that on some levels it maxes out my gpu usage and on others it doesn't. If I put the settings back to max its at 99% usage most of the time.

Edit: I just ran the free version of 3d mark as well, and got a score of 9303 on stock voltage with my card. Question though, have you overclocked your 3570k? Mine is at the stock frequency and I only scored a 7401 physics score!

Here's the link to my score.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6260879

 

[xBlitzerx]

I just bought the MSI 670 OC. I will post my thoughts here when I get it. Although I don't have GW2 so I can't test that game.

 

[xBlitzerx]

Got my card and installed it tonight. So far I've tried Farcry 3, Planetside 2, League of Legends and SW:ToR. Small increase compared to my 580 performance wise. Although I was able to up the settings on Farcry 3 and Planetside 2 and hold the same framerates as previous.

HUGE difference in noise and temperatures though. I can't believe it. Farcry 3 would get my 580 screaming and still sit at 80C. I didn't hit 70 with the new card and I don't hear anything!. Playing ToR with frames capped at 65 holds my temps under 50C. Loving this card so far!

 

[Moxy]

After reading this thread I had to respond as well. I too am playing Metro 2033 with the Galaxy HOF 780 GTX. I noticed that GPU would fluctuate as well. I tried K-boost and other things, but the GPU would just bounce back down causing stutter and less than desirable frame rates for my resolution (5760x1080). HOF has a handy feature though. Click the OC button on the back and it's like the card ignores other seemingly wacky input and maxes things out at the settings you've selected with no fluctuation in volts or GPU rates--it actually operates as you'd expect it would. Just clicking the button alone using factory overclock for the 780 GTX HOF was enough to bump up the FPS for me. However, a slight OC boosted my FPS by another 10 points. I think this is ultimately a driver issue. Only downside to the button is that the HOF maxes the fans--but hey with max fans it's still not as loud as my 580 GTX was. This is my work around for Metro 2033.