Frame Latency Spikes Plague Radeon Graphics Cards 158
crookedvulture writes "AMD is bundling a stack of the latest games with graphics cards like its Radeon HD 7950. One might expect the Radeon to perform well in those games, and it does. Sort of. The Radeon posts high FPS numbers, the metric commonly used to measure graphics performance. However, it doesn't feel quite as smooth as the competing Nvidia solution, which actually scores lower on the FPS scale. This comparison of the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce 660 Ti takes a closer look at individual frame latencies to explain why. Turns out the Radeon suffers from frequent, measurable latency spikes that noticeably disrupt the smoothness of animation without lowering the FPS average substantially. This trait spans multiple games, cards, and operating systems, and it's 'raised some alarms' internally at AMD. Looks like Radeons may have problems with smooth frame delivery in new games despite boasting competitive FPS averages."
Frequency scaling (Score:5, Interesting)
The article didn't mention power settings. I'm quite skeptical of all the new tech which overclocks on demand and then clocks down when it gets too hot (or too idle). They should definitely try this test with the standard frequency: pinned at the nominal frequency (if there is such a thing at all).
Looks like a sync problem to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the bottom Skyrim graph in
http://techreport.com/review/24022/does-the-radeon-hd-7950-stumble-in-windows-8/8 [techreport.com]
The slow frames always follow extra-fast ones. Looks like some work is being deferred past a frame boundary?!