Aero on ATI HD 4870 slow as hell

[bvinicius]

Hello, first sorry for any typo, English isn't my first language.

Aero randomly get realy slow here that i can't watch any videos, the video starts to drop frames, and the interface becomes very slow overall. It is like trying to run it on a ancient GeForce FX5200 or something like that.

After few minutes everything back to normal for some time till it slow down again, with no apparent reason. The problem isn't in the processor since it don't go over 10% of usage during video play, I am not using avivo here, or other uses.

The only way i found so far is to disable and enable aero in the personalize menu. This bring back the speed to normal.

I am runing a dual monitor setup, one in the HD 4870 (primary) and the other on the onbord HD 3300 video.

Tried the catalyst 9.10 and 9.9 video drives and the problem persist.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance.

 

[QuackPot]

Check the settings and make sure hardware acceleration is on.

 

[bvinicius]

What settings?
In dxdiag everything is ok. Games play fine too. The only problems is when aero is enabled.

 

[stormy13]

If I may ask,

I am runing a dual monitor setup, one in the HD 4870 (primary) and the other on the onbord HD 3300 video.

why? Your 4870 is more than capable of running dual monitors, that and with the onboard enabled you are taking away from system ram. Disable the onboard, and connect the second monitor/display to the 4870, then once back in Windows go into your display properties and set it to "extended", that will allow bother monitors to show different things (clone mode is both showing the same thing).

 

[bvinicius]

stormy13 both are d-sub monitors. and the image quality is bad with 2 in the HD4870 (not good ramdac i think), using dvi-dsub adpters. The memory usage on the secondary is not a problem, i only let the sideport enable so no main memory use.

I just removed the plug-ins to enable aero effects on firefox, the one of the tutorial in this forum, and things seems back to normal. Since after 2h without firefox open the problem didn't come back i was thinking that it may be the cause...

 

[bvinicius]

The problem is back again .

I've seen some people with similar problems, and many of them is using dual monitors. ATI fault perhaps?

 

[stormy13]

Probably not. Been running dual monitors off my 4830 (one connected DVI and the other VGA, and both LCD) for months and never seen a slowdown like you are talking about in either 7 or Vista.

Tried the catalyst 9.10

Unless you are using the beta that surfaced a week or so ago, the 9.10 isn't out yet.

 

[bvinicius]

stormy13, vista works fine here too. only in 7 i have this issue.

Unless you are using the beta that surfaced a week or so ago, the 9.10 isn't out yet.

Yep, the 9.10 beta.

What driver version are you using there? I tried 9.8 too, the problem still persist.

 

[stormy13]

9.9 at the moment. Also haven't done any "tweaking" to anything video/Aero related; didn't see any point as everything is working as it should.

What are the rest of your system specs, and are all drivers installed and updated (and not updated through Windows Update)?

 

[bvinicius]

OS 7 x64 RC 7100
CPU Phenom II x4 810
Motherboard M4A78T-E
Memory 4x2GB OCZ Platinum 1600MHz
Graphics Card ATI HD 4870
Sound Card Onbord
Monitor(s) Displays primary 1920x1080 secondary 1280x1024

All drivers are the mostly recent, except video.

 

[Meistergimp]

The problem is back again .

I've seen some people with similar problems, and many of them is using dual monitors. ATI fault perhaps?

I also have a 4870 and notice Aero slows down and has a "flicker" effect whenever I have (Aero-enabled) windows open on my second monitor. In my case both monitors are connected to my single 4870 via DVI.

If I only use the main monitor, even when playing videos in EVR, Aero is fine. It does seem to be dual-monitor related and may be a driver issue.

 

[GameFreak]

If I may ask,

I am runing a dual monitor setup, one in the HD 4870 (primary) and the other on the onbord HD 3300 video.

why? Your 4870 is more than capable of running dual monitors, that and with the onboard enabled you are taking away from system ram. Disable the onboard, and connect the second monitor/display to the 4870, then once back in Windows go into your display properties and set it to "extended", that will allow bother monitors to show different things (clone mode is both showing the same thing).

Some Video card's doesn't have 2 D-Subs... or he's trying to 1 DVI and 1 D-Sub

 

[HKPolice]

The problem is back again .

I've seen some people with similar problems, and many of them is using dual monitors. ATI fault perhaps?

I also have a 4870 and notice Aero slows down and has a "flicker" effect whenever I have (Aero-enabled) windows open on my second monitor. In my case both monitors are connected to my single 4870 via DVI.

If I only use the main monitor, even when playing videos in EVR, Aero is fine. It does seem to be dual-monitor related and may be a driver issue.

I'm experiencing the same bug with a 4870x2 + 2x LCDs connected via DVI.

Any window on the extended lcd = flickering when moving it around and it just looks overall sluggish. All window on the primary lcd is fine. I tried reversing the order of the primary display (right LCD instead of left) and the same thing happens (primary display smooth, extended lcd slow).

Using catalyst 9.10 and the stock windows 7 drivers (cat 8.12) both produce the same problem.

Any ideas??

 

[HKPolice]

The problem is back again .

I've seen some people with similar problems, and many of them is using dual monitors. ATI fault perhaps?

I also have a 4870 and notice Aero slows down and has a "flicker" effect whenever I have (Aero-enabled) windows open on my second monitor. In my case both monitors are connected to my single 4870 via DVI.

If I only use the main monitor, even when playing videos in EVR, Aero is fine. It does seem to be dual-monitor related and may be a driver issue.

Where did you see other people with this issue BTW? I want to submit this bug to ATi but I want more evidence first. Please post a link if possible.

Thanks

 

[bvinicius]

Catalyst 9.10 fixed the issues here. And one of my programs is at fault too, RTTnews, if it was open then the aero becomes very slow.

 

[Meistergimp]

Just an update to my earlier post regarding the dual-monitor flicker issue with my 4870. I am able to make the problem go away if I power down the system and reboot. It seems that after UVD kicks in (after playing a video in EVR mode or using some other GPU-assisted app such as Flash or AVIVO converter) the problem arises. It's almost as if the GPU is "stuck" in UVD mode. Powering down the system seems to reset the GPU clocks and Aero is fine again - at least until UVD is activated once more.

It's most likely a driver issue, though I haven't ruled out a BIOS bug with the 4870 series cards. I don't remember it happening under Vista, but then again I haven't used that OS in a while. If it's a recent driver problem I've only been using Win7.

 

[krvic]

Just thought I'd through my 2 cents in here -

I have been having a flicker issue on my 2nd monitor (Panasonic Plasma TV connected via HDMI) when viewing videos through Media Center. I finally solved the flicker by disabling Aero. I have confirmed multiple times that with Aero on, I get a flicker in the video. With Aero off, no flicker.

I am using an ATI Radeon HD 4550 1GB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 card with Catalyst 9.10 drivers. Saw the same issue on the Catalyst 9.9 drivers.

Also tried an ATI Radeon 3450 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 with the same results.