Need help on forcing 3D clocks on my GTX 460 (to fix stuttering issue)

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Yes, I meant Program Settings. I wasn't sure if you tried for individual programs or just the universal all program setting. Sorry, I cant remember the tab names right now. lol

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Already stated that I tried this. It did nothing, running any other program puts it back to default.

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I was about to say something similar ... although I wouldn't say 'no way', because it would depend on the game, the settings, etc. So, I second the question ... what games are we talking about here? With the single-player version of the game, does the same thing happen?

One or both of my cards downclock to low-power 3d Mode all the time with easy-to-run games (lately playing dead space 2, and it happens all the time), but then I'm always running v-sync, which makes such downclocking WAY more likely to occur. A frame-rate cap in a game would have the same effect.

The process, however, seems to work quite seemlessly for me ... I don't get a stutter when it happens or anything.

I'm not sure there actually is a way to reliably over-ride the power-saving feature the OP speaks of if there's no override in the NVCP ... maybe if you were really handy with bios editing you could set all three of your clocks to be the same.

Or the other option is to just crank the settings in the game, make it harder for the GPU to run, turn up AA, etc. You may be able to find a 'balance' this way.

@Rome leaving Afterburner running in the background or not, it doesn't seem to do anything. After I force it, it stays at the forced clocks for about 5 mins, then clocks back down after that, regardless. Clicking back on any windowed program puts it right back to idle clocks no matter what I set in Afterburner.

@Horsemama what could my RAM possibly have to do with the card downclocking? Absolutely nothing. It seems to be the drivers forcing the downclock, there's no way my system has anything to do with any problems I'm having with this card. I've Googled this issue for hours and people with all kinds of different PCs are having this problem, be it a AM3, AM2 or even 1366 i7 rigs (and all types of different Fermi GPUs, from single GTS 450s to SLI GTX 480/GTX 470 setups). And I didn't buy this card to "max it out", I bought it to "max out" my DirectX9/OpenGL games, which it did better than any GPU I've had before, until I ran into this issue, that is. I'm running nothing demanding on it which is having stuttering issues, including L4D2 and Killing Floor (both of which I could max on a 8800GT no problem with the same PC).

@brett Also I have already tried turning on Vsync and it only makes the issue far worse and the game/s much more unplayable. I have no idea why the hell it downclocks at all, even though I'm running L4D2 with Nvidia's own Anti-aliasing system (16xQ CSAA). Tried 8xMSAA, still stuttering. I cannot possibly go above these settings in the game, and forcing anything extra though drivers is absolutely useless.

The only fix that exist for this problem as of right now seems to work just with Windows Vista/7 Nvidia drivers, going to Nvidia Control Panel and setting the 'Prefer maximum performance'. I don't get this option at all with Nvidia's XP drivers and I find it ridiculous that something as straightforward as disabling its undervolting/downclocking isn't included in the XP drivers (because their XP support is an afterthought now for any decent GPU it seems). I'm gonna keep looking for some sort of unofficial/official fix, one thing I'm not gonna do is BIOS flash the card to keep it at 3D clocks, since I want to retire this as a HTPC later on. Will probably try and tell Nvidia about this again, since they ignored this issue when it was brought up before.

P.S.: bump!

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CPU heavily bottlenecking your GPU so it can't run 100%? I mean... in that SS, the graphics of that game suck. You should easily be maxing it out with your GTX460, especially at your low resolution, but yet you only get 36 fps on "normal" fps. Therefore, I conclude that you sir, are heavily bottlenecked by your CPU and possibly your RAM.

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Wow you people still don't get it? I don't give a crap about "bottlenecking", I care about it not stuttering during games. This game obviously isn't putting enough load on the GPU or something so it keeps clocking down, the 30FPS or so shown here is a worst case scenario because before it starts stuttering, it drops from the 60+FPS normal to 30 and lower, then goes back up after like 30 seconds of stutter. Enough with people's opinions on my old rig, let's get back on topic.

P.S. and the screenshots were re-formatted in paint, I can't be bothered to Photoshop it for you or something, and OCN won't let me post originals straight off my PC since it has a size limit.

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/facepalm.... if you knew what "bottlenecking" is, then you would know the answer to your scenario. Love it when ppl act like a-holes on the internet.

The reason the game isn't putting enough load on your GPU is because your CPU can't keep up with it, so it is "holding back" or "bottlenecking" your GPU. The evidence is your extremely low frame rates.

Also, if it is the game, then you probably tried other games to see if you are having the same issue right? Of course, since you obviously "get it."

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What exactly did I say that made me sound like an a-hole, in your opinion? If anything you're the one who's acting like one now, I didn't ask you for an overview of my performance, I asked for a method of forcing 3D clocks. My CPU has nothing to do with the crap FPS I'm getting, which is what you seem to be either too stupid or ignorant to understand. I could run Crysis 2 demo on this rig better than I can run this game, same goes for Mafia 2 and those are and my PC is well out of spec for running. This game I could max all day before with an 8800GT and have a PC more than capable of maxing this game now. If you can't post something related to the topic, don't bother posting your BS comments at all.

EDIT: and since you stated why my performance is "so low", I'll tell you why.

1. Vsync was on. Apparently Nvidia Fermi GPUs have issues in this game with vsync. People with i7s and GTX 200 series cards got same crap performance from what I've read till Nvidia fixed it. Had a similar problem in L4D2, putting on Vsync would cut my FPS in half.
2. Physics were on highest. This is totally CPU-related, I can turn this down to normal and run it 80+FPS.

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Glad to hear you fixed it. However, you never told us that it was only one game, you never said it ran other titles fine. In fact, you said "since right now it is stuttering in an awful lot of games due to downclocking when it shouldn't." So, the obvious route to assume was it was hardware related because your cpu/gpu pairing is quite rare. A low-end CPU can sometimes over-bottleneck a strong card enough that it doesn't rival much weaker graphics cards due to how the new cards need to communicate. Had we known it was only one game affected rather than "an awful lot", we'd have taken a far different approach.

Also, in the future,

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is not an ideal way to talk to people trying to help you for free.