Weird display issue & 7770 upgrade path

 

Okay guys I have two questions, the second only being relevant after the first has been answered.


Question #1: First off I would like to ask about the problem that is appearing in the first picture I have posted. To give some context, every once in a while my monitor will spaz out like this as shown. It happens out of nowhere and without any real connection to gpu load. If I leave the computer alone long enough then it will usually fix itself, but only for a short while as several minutes later if I let it fix itself, the computer will blue screen and say "The display driver crashed and tried to reset itself but failed" or something along those lines. The puzzling thing, as i'm sure you have already noticed, is that my secondary monitor looks fine. Every time this happens my secondary monitor appears unaltered and totally usable, even while the main one is having a fit. I should also point out that my main monitor is running through an Avermedia Live Gamer HD internal PCI-e capture card, but I am inclined to beleive that it is not the problem seeing as both windows and the blue screen tell me that "the display driver has crashed". I have tried upgrading and reinstalling the catalyst driver but to no avail. Perhaps the problem lies with the monitor? The gpu? The capture card?

 

 Image showing the problem to which I refer: http://i.imgur.com/QUV5UEB.jpg

 


Once the above issue has been resolved, I would like to ask something else. The reason I have not made a seperate thread for this is because the context of the first problem is relevant to the second.


Question #2: Depending on whether the last problem has been determined to lay with the GPU or not, I would like to know how I should go forward with upgrading my graphics card. I have been happy with my 7770 for quite a while now, yet recently I have been noticing that I have been having to scale back games quite a bit to be able to play them at playable framerates. I'm fine with 30fps for singleplayer games, but when I go onto the multiplayer side of things that @$#% just aint gonna fly. Try playing RoTT '13 at 30fps and tell me how fun it is getting your disembodied torso flying across the map every 10 seconds. Anyway, because of this I have been looking into upgrading the GPU performance of my computer. And the way I see it I have three main upgrade paths to go down (I would like to preface this by saying that I am an indie developer and therefore nearly every penny of extra money I earn goes towards the game, so I am on a pretty tight budget). The first option I see would be to get another 7770 and crossfire it with my current one. There are benefits of this path such as it being much more affordable without me having to get rid of my current hardware. The downsides are what i'm curious about. If you are not already familiar with the work Ryan has done with frame rating and crossfire, definitely go check out his findings (specifically his most recent video on the new AMD Catalyst driver to fix frame timings). You can see the video that I refer to here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bErKbmY-X5Q . Assuming that you are aware of these new findings now, I am wondering if it would now be worth it to only have to shell out $80 instead of several hundred, and just get another 7770. Furthermore, I would like to know if I could Crossfire a 7790 with my current 7770, and if this would be wise even if I could. The next option I see is to sell my current GPU for ~$60 and just go all out on a new card. This option would cost me considerably more and is therefore not as preffered if the prior option is viable. I am aware that single GPU is almost always better if possible, but my wallet would be feeling mighty thin afterwards. Furthermore, is crossfire supported by emulators like PCSX2 or Dolphin? I do a decent amount of emulation so that would be good to know. The final option I see would be to keep my current GPU for a while and wait for the 8xxx series (expected to launch this holiday). This has obvious downsides seeing as I couldn't justify a 8970 with my current budget, so I would therefore be waiting even longer for the midrange cards to release. If the next generation will be worth it, however, then it might be worth the wait.


 

Anyway, I appreciate you guys taking the time to read my spheal and hope that y'all can help me out with this. My specs are available to view on my profile, but feel free to ask me any/all questions.

 

Cheers!


tl;dr #1 Having display problem, don't know what the problem is (see picture http://i.imgur.com/QUV5UEB.jpg)

 


tl;dr #2 Should I x-fire my 7770 if it's not the problem listed above? With a 7790 or 7770? Buy new single card from 7xxx series or wait for 8xxx series (considering I am on a tight budget)

Couple of things.

1. Do you have it overclocked?

2. What connection are you using (DVI, VGA, HDMI etc.)?

If you have integrated graphics, see if the problem still occurs when using the integrated graphics as opposed to the 7770.

 

Crossfire would probably give you the biggest boost in performance for the price in games that support it, but I always advise sticking to a one card situation if at all possible. Many people report issues with crossifre, microstutter being the least of which (and I know that many other people have had no issues with it whatsoever, I am just reporting what I've heard people say). There is no telling how good the 9xxx series of video cards will be (it is pretty well known that AMD's next line of gpus will skip the 8xxx name because 8xxx was used by oems for 7xxx rebrands). There might be a huge improvement in price/performance, in which case you would probably want to just have one card from that series. On the other hand, there might not be any real improvement. If you can wait, you might save yourself from buyer's remorse.

Here is a pretty good article that discusses the Catalyst 13.8b1 drivers 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7195/amd-frame-pacing-explorer-cat138

I cant say anything about CrossFire though. The general consensus seems to be that its economical but not ideal. 

 

1) I had it overclocked to 1125 core/ 1300 memory, thought that might be the issue and subsequently put it back to the stock settings it came with to see if that would fix the problem, yet it didn't. I should note, however, that the card did come factory overclocked to 1095/1125. I had the card running at 1125/1300 and never going over 65-70c under maximum load even during summer in Los Angeles, for over a year. Also, this problem doesn't happen with any consistency to the GPU being under heavy loads.


2) My main monitor setup is a little complicated. It runs HDMI from my graphics card into my internal capture (which acts as a zero latency passthrough) and then from my capture card out via HDMI, to a DVI converter, which leads with a DVI cable to my monitor (because this monitor doesn't accept HDMI). The second monitor is running DVI out from my graphics card, to a VGA converter where it is sent to my monitor (only accepts VGA)


 


ALSO, I should mention that just now my computer whigged out as I described it and I was able to let it bluescreen to see exactly what it said and did. As usual, the main monitor glitched while the seconday stayed normal. After several minutes the main monitor stopped glitching out (but had a strange flickering to it). 10 seconds later both monitors went black, with only the mouse cursor showing, then windows started to pop up off color, with all sorts of weird artifacting on the screens. Then I heard a single beep and seconds later my computer blue screened. This time, however, the blue screen showed up on the secondary monitor only (doesn't usually happen) with the primary monitor displaying gray verticle lines.

 



The following pictures show what I am talking about:

 

 

Try skipping the capture card. Take that out of the loop to see if that is what is causing the problem. Then try only running one monitor. Then try using the integrated graphics. Eliminate possibilities. Do you have another computer that you can drop the 7770 into to see if it is working properly or not?

Unfortunately, I do not beleive that my board has integrated graphics, but it was a good idea and I appreciate your imput about the latter question.

Still, try taking the capture card out of the computer and disconnect the second monitor. See if that helps any.

This problem went on before I got the second monitor, which was relatively recently. I do no have integrated graphics on my board and I do not have another computer that I can readily drop my 7770 into. I suppose I could try skipping the capture card, but it would be a bit inconvenient seeing as I use it quite often.

Thanks though. I should also mention something else. A few months ago I got a new case, motherboard, and processor to swap out for my previous rig. I'm not 100% sure on this but I don't beleive I ever had this problem previously, even though I had the same GPU/capture card/monitor