HUGE FPS drop with newer nvidia drivers

Robert Gödicke

I wonder if I'm the only one who noticed HUGE FPS drops when driving in large packs of cars when using recent nvidia drivers (285.62, 285.79). It starts after about 3 minutes of racing when suddenly the framerate drops below 10 and the steering input is heavily delayed (>500ms).

When using the old version 266.58, this never happens. I have limited my framerate in the PLR to 120 frames, and it stays that high using the old drivers, no matter what. I'm using a GTX285 btw, factory clocked.


Another thing, which probably never had a solution, are the infamous DirectX 9 driver resets/crashes with rFactor. But that's another story, since I tried for years to understand why rFactor is so unstable when running in DirectX 9 mode.
I was never able to drive in DirectX 9 mode with my current card (with both Windows Vista 64Bit and Windows 7 64Bit) since the driver will reset while driving (black screen for a short time) or rFactor crashes completely, and not just occasionally. In DirectX 8, rFactor runs for hours. Probably indefinitely.

Greez Rob
 
Robert Gödicke

for all my post.

side all say nvidia is a disaster with rFactor and the latest drivers. (winXp 32, 64bit) (win7 32, 64bit)

LINK
https://community.racesimcentral.ne...aphics-card-issues?p=8776&viewfull=1#post8776

My suggestion (from tests) uses the version 266.58 (good fps)

https://community.racesimcentral.net/showthread.php/376-Graphics-card-issues

https://community.racesimcentral.ne...s-causing-slowdowns-for-anyone?highlight=nodo

https://community.racesimcentral.net/search.php?searchid=3968
 
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I have GTX 260 SP216 and Windows 7 64bit with 285.62 drivers and don't have any problems (fps as expected and no drivers resets. Just finished 2h league race). I do a lot of offline tests recently so will let you know when something happen but upt to now, there were no issues (fingers crossed, it will stay like that :) ).
 
i noticed some issues with the smoke effect and with lots of cars on the track after a while.am curently using a 560ti with latest drivers so its kinda unacceptable to have fps spikes :S
 
Demonicous said:
i noticed some issues with the smoke effect and with lots of cars on the track after a while.am curently using a 560ti with latest drivers so its kinda unacceptable to have fps spikes :S
Click to expand...

My suggestion (from tests) uses the version 266.58 (good fps, quality)
 
Nodo said:
My suggestion (from tests) uses the version 266.58 (good fps, quality)
Click to expand...
Yes, that's my experience so far as well. Every driver revision newer than 266.58 doesn't work properly. It's very annoying having to switch drivers back and forth now so often now because some new games rely on newer drivers to work at all.
 
Robert Gödicke said:
Yes, that's my experience so far as well. Every driver revision newer than 266.58 doesn't work properly. It's very annoying having to switch drivers back and forth now so often now because some new games rely on newer drivers to work at all.
Click to expand...

If the same thing I say 100%.

I decided to jump switch to ATI and I'm pretty happy... looks much better
 
I too noticed FPS drops with recent drivers (started around the Summer last year iirc), especially in Replays it was terrible. Not so bad during races but noticeable.

Personally I wont rollback to 266 (thanks for the tip!) as no doubt RF2 Beta should perform better with newer drivers.
 
Alright, I tested some new drivers and still the same problems. This is ridiculous, and 100% reproducible. And to be honest, it's making me pretty angry...

Both drivers 295.51 Beta and 295.73 WHQL produce very heavy stuttering with rFactor 1, and I took attention that the driver settings, rFactor setting etc are all the same.

Where I can notice it the easiest is when driving with 30+ cars, drive for around 7 minutes, then quit and watch the replay. Whenever your car passes a trackside camera I constantly have microstuttering deluxe. It's horrible. When using the old 266.58 WHQL, the car will pass the camera as fluid as it can be. Another thing where I can notice the difference very easily is when actually driving in a pack of cars (say 10 in front of you and 10 behind you) and then pressing the key to look behind you, rFactor basically stalls for a tenth of a second. The same happens when releasing the key again.

I believe, after quite some further testing now, that the newer drivers somewhat stall for a short period of time whenever another car appears on the screen. To be more precise, when it is within your field of view, even if it's behind trackside objects and stuff. Like I said it's 100% reproducible and very annoying.
So when driving, it's usually happening after driving through a turn, since other parts of the track (where other cars are driving) are shifted into your field of view.

I wonder if ISI could get in touch with nVidia to solve this problem somehow? I dunno if there are any chances, especially since rFactor 1 is a pretty old game already...

But having to switch the drivers back to 266.58 whenever I want to fire up rFactor 1 is really annoying. I already got used to not being able to use DirectX 9 mode with my GTX285 due to crashing problems and driver resets, but now having to switch back to 266.58 for quite some time now is really annoying... :(

Sorry for the rant, but if people could see what I'm seeing here, they'd probably understand.
 
Robert, I was using 285.62 with GTX 260 SP216. Since yesterday, with GTX 460 1GB and also no issues (and fps gain from switching to GTX 460, as expected).
Maybe you should get back to them and see if you still have the issue on the older drivers?

Will check on the newest WHQL and report back.
 
Tested it. And yes, issues are still there.
I tested the drivers 270.61 WQHL, 280.19 WHQL, 285.62 WHQL, 285.79 Beta, 290.36 Beta, 295.51 Beta and 295.73 WHQL. They all produce the same strange stuttering/stalling when other cars are appearing.

The 266.58 WHQL still works like a charm though (except that choosing DirectX9 mode is not a good idea). There must have been some changes between this revision and the ones which were released later on. I even reinstalled Windows 7 and got the newest driver available immediately (which was the 295.51 Beta then) and the stuttering was instantly present. It's not low framerates, just this weird stuttering. Really frustrating.

I still have to use the 266.58 WHQL for rFactor 1, having to switch to newer ones when firing up rFactor 2 or Battlefield 3 or whatever else. :(
 
For what it's worth, rFactor 1 is a 7+ year old game written when DX9 was state of the art, and it was built long before Vista and Win7 were even considered. I wouldn't hold my breath for any new driver being released to improve the situation unless you file a support case with nVidia and work with them to sort it out. I did that last year to get the dreaded 25x/26x driver series artifacts issue on WinXP corrected, so if you're willing to help them out, perhaps they can fix it. If you can provide them with a mod and a replay where the issue is 100% reproducible, it just might be enough to do the trick. :)
 
With the driver crashes under XP, I stared getting those since a very particular driver version came out. Until that, I had no issues at all (I had 8800GTS G92 at that time). And it wasn't only me back then! It was like most of our simracing community with nVidia cards started to have that issue. For me, the solution was to get back to older, stable drivers but when I switched to GTX 260, I had to install those newer drivers... and because of that, also had to say "hello" to DX8 and "goodbye" to DX9 :)
Since I moved on to Win 7, I'm not having much driver issues (I mean, issues that are caused by gfx's drivers bugs).

Robert, I wasn't able to replicate your issues in rFactor 2. On both 285.62 and 295.73 I have no issues at all. Performance wise - both performing the same.
 
I don't have issues with those drivers in rFactor 2 LesiU, only in rFactor 1. That's why I have to switch the drivers, rFactor 1 is only playable with the 266.58 driver, newer titles like the rFactor 2 Beta run much better on the newest drivers. In rFactor 2, I only get occasional crashes / driver resets, but they're probably only a result of rFactor 2's Beta stage, even though the similarities to the popular issues with rFactor 1's DirectX 9 mode in combination with certain nVidia cards do worry me a little...
 
Hah! Don't ask why and how, but I thought you have issues both in rF1 AND rF 2! :) Sorry!
OK then, tomorrow will do some tests in rF 1 and let you know.
Cheers
 
You're still using the Galaxy GTX 260+ SP216? Would be interesting to see if this is an issue with the 200 series maybe...

I can get this effect as well when standing in the box along with 30+ other vehicles sitting in the pits, then switching to the external chase camera and rotating it via Numpad 4 or 6. Whenever the line of cars in the pits appears in the field of view, I get that stuttering, but the stuttering is much more obvious in the replay / TV cam thing I described above.

I'm curious what your results will be.
 
No, since Monday I have the GTX 460 1GB... but the GTX 260 went to my friend so maybe I'll be able to get it back for a day to do those tests.
 
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