GTX 980 Ti: streaming video trouble

[jyi786]

Guys, ever since I bought my GTX 980 Ti, I've been having trouble with streaming video. Basically anything streaming, like watching TV episodes online on TNT, MaxGo, YouTube, anything HD has this extremely annoying stutter. It's kind of like a micro stutter, although sometimes it actually skips. It almost feels like there's no acceleration happening. The picture is not smooth. The sound doesn't stutter, the video/picture does.

I've tried the following:

1. Multiple graphics driver versions (all clean install using DDU).
2. Disabling all CPU power saving profiles.
3. Disabling Adaptive power profile in GPU settings.
4. Setting GPU to static clock speeds.
5. Trying multiple browsers (Opera, Firefox, Chrome, IE).
6. Updating all my other drivers, like chipset and network drivers.

It's not a Flash issue either, because it happens on YouTube videos which now exclusively run in HTML5.

Can anyone drop me a helping hand here? I'm practically at wits end with this.

Here's my setup.

Board: Asus P8Z68Z Deluxe/Gen3
CPU: 2600k @ 4.4Ghz
RAM: Corsair 32GB
HDDs: Samsung SSD 830 Pro, Samsung SSD 850 Pro, Samsung 1TB spinner, WD 750 spinner and WD 500 spinner
PSU: XFX 1250W Pro
Case: Corsair 600T

 

[aznever]

are you on windows 10?

 

[jyi786]

are you on windows 10?

Nope. Still on "good old" Windows 7.

 

[RedWagnum]

Download a HD video and play it back from your HD/SSD. Does it still stutter? If not it is probably not directly a video issue. Might be some kind of latency elsewhere like the network adapter. If you are using the Intel LAN port try switching to the Realtek or vice-versa and disable which ever one you are not using. If you are not using them, disable the NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 #1, VIA 6315N (Firewire) controller, and the JMicron 362 IDE controller, and move anything in PCIE x1_2 and PCI Slot 2 to other available slots. These devices all share PCIE x16_1's IRQ A which may be having an effect on your issue.

See if any of that helps.

 

[jyi786]

Download a HD video and play it back from your HD/SSD. Does it still stutter? If not it is probably not directly a video issue. Might be some kind of latency elsewhere like the network adapter. If you are using the Intel LAN port try switching to the Realtek or vice-versa and disable which ever one you are not using. If you are not using them, disable the NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 #1, VIA 6315N (Firewire) controller, and the JMicron 362 IDE controller, and move anything in PCIE x1_2 and PCI Slot 2 to other available slots. These devices all share PCIE x16_1's IRQ A which may be having an effect on your issue.

See if any of that helps.

Thanks for the input. Let me try addressing these point by point.

1. I will try downloading and playing directly from my computer. I'm assuming that downloading a 4K video directly from YouTube should suffice, right?
2. I am using the Intel LAN port. I tried using the Realtek already; no difference.
3. I am using both the USB 3.0 and the Firewire, so I can't disable them. Also, there is no IDE controller on my board, but the JMB controller is an external SATA port controller. I'll try disabling it.
4. There is nothing in PCIE x1_2, but I do have a TV card that is in PCI Slot 2. You are also correct that it shares the IRQ with the video card. So I'll go and try that a little later.

Again, worth noting is that this stuttering never happened with my old GTX 570, so there's that.

 

[RedWagnum]

Thanks for the input. Let me try addressing these point by point.

1. I will try downloading and playing directly from my computer. I'm assuming that downloading a 4K video directly from YouTube should suffice, right?
2. I am using the Intel LAN port. I tried using the Realtek already; no difference.
3. I am using both the USB 3.0 and the Firewire, so I can't disable them. Also, there is no IDE controller on my board, but the JMB controller is an external SATA port controller. I'll try disabling it.
4. There is nothing in PCIE x1_2, but I do have a TV card that is in PCI Slot 2. You are also correct that it shares the IRQ with the video card. So I'll go and try that a little later.

Again, worth noting is that this stuttering never happened with my old GTX 570, so there's that.

Is your trouble with any streamed video, just HD (720 or higher), or just UHD (4k)?

The 570 was (iirc) a PCIE Gen 2 card, the 980 is a PCIE Gen 3 card. The board supports PCIE 3.0 but it was possibly an early implementation. Is there a way in BIOS to set PCIE x16_1 to Gen 2? Also, the PEX 8608 PCIE switch only supports Gen 2 but that should not be connected to the PCIE x16_1 slot.

Just throwing stuff out there to try...

EDIT: Have you checked the DPC Latency Checker? Might show sonmething...

 

[jyi786]

Is your trouble with any streamed video, just HD (720 or higher), or just UHD (4k)?

Nope. ANY streamed video.

The 570 was (iirc) a PCIE Gen 2 card, the 980 is a PCIE Gen 3 card. The board supports PCIE 3.0 but it was possibly an early implementation. Is there a way in BIOS to set PCIE x16_1 to Gen 2? Also, the PEX 8608 PCIE switch only supports Gen 2 but that should not be connected to the PCIE x16_1 slot.

PCI-E mode is actually dictated by the CPU (it can go down to x1 for power savings, but maxes at what the CPU dictates). My GTX 980 Ti only runs in PCI-E 2.0 because my CPU is a Sandy Bridge (2600k).

EDIT: Have you checked the DPC Latency Checker? Might show sonmething...

YEP! I actually have that installed on my computer already. I noticed I was getting high spikes, but it was all over the place: either LAN, CPU, DX graphics related.

 

[RedWagnum]

Nope. ANY streamed video.

Okay. So how did you do on your local test?

PCI-E mode is actually dictated by the CPU (it can go down to x1 for power savings, but maxes at what the CPU dictates). My GTX 980 Ti only runs in PCI-E 2.0 because my CPU is a Sandy Bridge (2600k).

Right you are, forgot about that.

YEP! I actually have that installed on my computer already. I noticed I was getting high spikes, but it was all over the place: either LAN, CPU, DX graphics related.

Hmmm... If I was getting paid to troubleshoot this I would yank everything out except CPU, RAM, and Video, reset CMOS to default values, disable all on-board devices except what is absolutely needed to boot. Then throw in a HD and install a fresh copy of Win7 and the latest drivers for any enabled devices. Install DPC and check latency.

If latency looks good start adding devices (on-board first) and related drivers until something starts increasing the latency and there you have it.

Of course if latency looks bad with the minimum configuration then the problem is with the board, CPU, or 980.

Hella lotta work to do all that though.

But then again, if you are having the same problem with local content it may just be a wonky 980.

Random stream of thoughts... Did you run DPC with the old video card in the system? Do you still have it? Can you swap it in and check latency? or another video card?

 

[jyi786]

Okay. So how did you do on your local test?

Unfortunately never got around to it, but...

Hmmm... If I was getting paid to troubleshoot this I would yank everything out except CPU, RAM, and Video, reset CMOS to default values, disable all on-board devices except what is absolutely needed to boot. Then throw in a HD and install a fresh copy of Win7 and the latest drivers for any enabled devices. Install DPC and check latency.

If latency looks good start adding devices (on-board first) and related drivers until something starts increasing the latency and there you have it.

Technically speaking, if the only thing that changed was the video card, I'd put my bets on the video card. Or its drivers. I really didn't want to have to go through all that, so I figured that it might be something wrong with the configuration. Something is just not configured a way that the GTX 980 Ti likes.

Random stream of thoughts... Did you run DPC with the old video card in the system? Do you still have it? Can you swap it in and check latency? or another video card?

I did put the old card back in momentarily last week, but truly didn't wish to go through that mess again.

Over the course of last night and this morning, here's what I did:

1. Disable JBM controller.
2. Disable Renasas USB 3.0 controller.
3. Mod Flash player by putting this in its mms.conf file: ProtectedMode=0
4. Updated Intel NIC drivers and Intel NIC management software to a Windows 10 x64 version (although the latest version seemed to cause more latency than old versions).
5. Updated my pfSense box (yes, I know this probably had nothing to do with it, but I did it anyway, thinking that maybe there was jitter or something).
6. Set vsync to Disabled in the nVidia control panel.

Doing the first and second point caused my sound card to get "redetected", so it must have allocated different resources. Unfortunately, every single important part of the system is sharing virtually the same IRQ, and that's IRQ 16: the video card, sound card, TV card, USB 3.0 and one other component; nothing I can do about it, even if I move components around.

One of or a combination of doing what I listed now has netted me a 75% improvement. Videos are watchable now. There is a hitch every now and then, but nothing like the ridiculous amount of constant stutter I was getting.

 

[RedWagnum]

One of or a combination of doing what I listed now has netted me a 75% improvement. Videos are watchable now. There is a hitch every now and then, but nothing like the ridiculous amount of constant stutter I was getting.

Sorry I wasn't of more help. At least things got better and not worse!

Did you re-run DPC to see if latency improved? Bet it did...