Having problems with SL and the Nvidia 970

[Sora Seetan]

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place but i need help!

So i am trying to get SL running smoothly on my Nvidia 970. I have tried several viewers and a whole host of settings and nothing i am doing will make Second Life run smoothly without any jittering. I have tried dropping the graphics settings, turning it back up and switching off some of the hardware settings, setting the default graphics processor to the 970, 32bit firestorm, 64 bit firestorm, linden viewer, anti aliasing to 0, antis filtering to 0, draw distance to 32, updated graphics drivers, re installed viewers, changing the programs graphics settings inside of the Nvidia Control Panel instead and god knows what else and STILL it is jittery when walking around an area with no avatars, and no other buildings or items. Let alone what its like when in avatar infested areas. My computer has 16gb DDR4, Nvidia 970, most recent gen I7 processor and windows 10. Any ideas?, i am really really getting annoyed here, i have tried everything including some random video that gave me a whole load of settings to adjust for the 970 in Second Life and NOTHING is working to fix this

[Lillith Hapmouche]

What kind of "jittering" do you see? Can you capture that in screenshots or perhaps a short video?

It doesn't sound like an ordinary low FPS problem, if I understand your description correctly...
Has that setup ever worked correctly on your end?
Does the card perform well in other circumstances?

[Magnus Brody]

Had the same issue, and it has gone on for a few weeks now.  My comp is as yours, except my card is the older nvidea 780.

Up until these last few weeks, I could use 64 Firestorm or the Lab viewer or the Black Dragon viewer, ultra settings, with a draw distance of 288m without any issues.  Suddenly although my fps were still quite healthy, I was experiencing random lag.  I couldn't even complete a walk across a room, it would be smooth as silk, then suddenly I couldn't even turn myself, followed by a pause then I'd be in the middle of a pond I was easily walking around a second before.

Tried lowering settings, different viewers, installing/clean reinstalling - nothing.  I also tried adjusting the nvidea settings in control panel too.  Nothing worked.  No matter how low my settings and draw distance etc, although the displayed fps would hugely improve, I'd still stick every few seconds, then leap, like a large chunk of frames missing.

Today, I thought the only thing changed since this problem started was a couple of nvidea updates.  I was bang up to date with 385.69 and had upgraded previously to 385.41.  I have rolled back to 382.33 (from May) and the problem has vanished.  Slid all my settings back up to what they were before and I am moving around without sticking at all.  The one negative is that textures seem to remain grey for a little longer, but not so much it is as annoying as not being able to move.

Don't know if this will work for you, but for 15 mins effort to rollback to see, I'm glad I tried.

[cykarushb]

Both your issue and Magnus's sound like network issues more than anything.

Framerate stutter or like things in the game are stuttering? If youre moving and getting stuck and suddenly jumping forward or walking into walls and stuff, thats a network issue, not a graphical issue. Magnus describes that well, getting stuck and then leaping somewhere else, thats your network getting no receive packets from SL to show you where you and other players are. Unless everything looks like its frozen, not just movement, but like absolutely no frames are being shown, theres no lighting changing, no plants waving in the breeze or whatever, then its a different issue. If your looking at the game suddenly freezing and showing you no changes, no animations running or anything and then it suddenly comes back, it would honestly have to be something else. GPU errors wouldnt give short periods of no frames, thats not stutter, something else is causing SL to freeze briefly.

Open your statistics menu to watch your framerate and network usage to see whats going on. A 970 or a 780 with updated drivers should be having no issues whatsoever with SL.

Maybe try a program like MSI afterburner or whatever to monitor GPU usage, framerate and all that to see whats up.

[Magnus Brody]

1 hour ago, cykarushb said:

Both your issue and Magnus's sound like network issues more than anything.

Could be, but I've had firestorm running since I rolled back to 382.33 about 90 mins ago, and it is running smooth as.  That's after suffering weeks of freezing, then suddenly leaping.  All my settings are back to their usual ultra, draw distance 288m and I am getting average 25 fps, with no freezing at all.

Also tested the Lab Viewer and Black Dragon (and all running well) before leaving firestorm running.

I wouldn't normally recommend a graphics driver rollback, but it worked for me after trying everything, including asking my ISP to test for any internet problem.

Just for interest sake, I have a 100Mb internet, which is hardwired to the desktop, always tests as about 102Mb up/down, latency 4 ms, jitter 0 to 1 ms.

To define freezing, it was only my avi which was becoming suddenly stuck, then reappearing with frame gaps, others seemed to be walking around normally and scenery moving around.

[cykarushb]

Quote

To define freezing, it was only my avi which was becoming suddenly stuck, then reappearing with frame gaps, others seemed to be walking around normally and scenery moving around.

Yeah thats just a network issue, could be a variety of things from LL servers being slow, to your Ethernet/wifi adapter being buggy, network adapter drivers, physical connection problems, router problems, etc. It could've been your GPU doing something to affect it, but im not sure what, sometimes Nvidia pushes hardware priority to their GPU so your network connection may have been being disconnected when it was idle or something stupid like that.

As long as it works, maybe Sora should try the same. Personally ive stuck with 377.88 because ive just been too lazy to bother updating to anything newer with my 750ti.