nVidia and Multicore Rendering (and you)

Foxhound

Foxhound

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Has anyone noticed if the newer nVidia drivers (182.xx and on) have been causing multicore rendering to fail? For the longest time, I was able to run multicore support on my rig with no problems, and for the past 2 - 3 weeks, whenever its enabled, my games will lock up and crash. Specifically L4D and TF2, two source games that run the multicore option. Things work fine on a single thread but my FPS doesn't top off like it used to. I'm just wondering if anyone has run into this issue lately or if valve did something to their coding again...

If you're interested, my rig is:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OC to 3.0GHz
4 GB G.Skill DDR2-8500
eVGA 750i FTW Edition motherboard
eVGA GTX 260
2 500GB Seagate barracuda's in RAID 0
1000W Ultra X3 modular PSU
 
aside from your motherboard I've got pretty much the identical set-up. (although my nVidia card isn't as recent) got to say though that i haven't come across any problems thus far.
That said, i rarely run multicore so i may just have been lucky and not come across the same issue.
 
When you get a chance, try enabling it and play for about 20 minutes. Sometimes it crashes within moments, sometimes it takes a little longer. I have noticed when I open the steam overlay sometimes too it does that. I've googled this error and it has a very VERY small feedback base. Im willing to chalk this up to it still being in the dev stages, but I wanted to know if others encountered this issue.
 
My nVidia card likes to do that to me sometimes. But usually it has nothing to do with whether Multicore Rendering is enabled or not. (I have a Quad Core 2 processor and nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ video card) My video card will suddenly just have faults and completely lock up my game and crash my entire comp. This happens mostly in TF2 and Far Cry 2. FC2 esepecially probably because of the shader.

Personally though, I don't notice a difference between Multi-core or Single-core rendering. I've played TF2 for a while, and then when VALVe released the video setting for MCR, I activated it and noticed no difference while running. If it's giving you that much trouble, I don't even think it's worth having on.

Valdez
 
I run multi-core rendering in TF2 and L4D all the time and have not had any problems
 
Shockingly enough, when L4D came out originally, some nVidia cards couldnt run properly on multicore without doing what mine is doing now. They released a patch and it fixed it... I'm tempted to roll back my drivers to 181.xx or 182.xx and see what happens.
 
I have had an issue with Team Fortress lately, but I'm not sure if multicore rendering is causing this problem. Basically, after about half and hour of play, my game will freeze for about 10 seconds, then it will resume, but most objects have incorrect textures. The game still runs at the perfect frame rate it always does, just the textures are wrong and the text is unreadable. And no, its not a heat issue. I've been playing many other games recently and I'm having no issues with them. My next step, after a clean reinstall, is to disable multicore and see what happens. I'm running 186.18 drivers.

Screens to help understand:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/toasteddude/2009_07_18.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/toasteddude/2009_07_18_0000.jpg
 
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Yeah, I noticed this too. I never use it anyway, because it makes my FPS extremely unstable. If I look at a room that I usually get 58-60 FPS (it jumps between), and then look at the exact same room with Multicore Rendering, I get between 30-80. Yes, it randomly jumps between all of that without moving, and I'm in a server myself. It also makes your mouse movement less responsive, because it skips a frame or two and has to make up for it. It's like playing UT3 with that one-frame prerendering option.

Multicore Rendering is unstable, for me. I do know of people who have a 140+ FPS boost though. It makes Sykes a sadpanda. Here are my relevant specs:

AMD Athlon X2 3800+ 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
2GB Cheap RAM
 
I have 190.38 and have had no crashes since I updated. I always play with multicore on because I have a quad.
 
Foxhound I had this issue when Valve introduced Multicore to the TF2 engine. My problem wasn't a drop in frame rate or performance per say. It was more like one frame would skip. Kind of like rubber banding in mmos and stuff but it was small but small enough to ruining my aim and game play. Over time I reverted back to older drivers but also noticed some back ground programs would make the issue arise. I use Rainmeter for my custom desktop. It doesn't mess up L4D anymore but sometimes it still does on TF2. So I just shut it down when I play. when the issue first came up I was in contact with Valve,Nvidia, and my video card manufacture XFX. They never really gave me a straight answer. As always I just figured out the best way to play the game on my own as most Techs will agree is the best way. I hope the issue clears up and keep working at making it work.
 
Valdez123 said:
Personally though, I don't notice a difference between Multi-core or Single-core rendering. I've played TF2 for a while, and then when VALVe released the video setting for MCR, I activated it and noticed no difference while running. If it's giving you that much trouble, I don't even think it's worth having on.

Valdez
Click to expand...

Ive got a Phenom II X4 940 BE OC'd to 3.4 and I notice about a 50 FPS increase with MCR on.
 
Quad core users usually see a very good increase. Dual core NVIDIA users are the ones that seem to get the most problems.
 
Yeah mine does that too, But so far it hasn't since the new update..

I run two 7900GT's in SLI mode.
 
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