Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

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hoppelmoppel
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Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

Hello :)

I did'nt find a better subject but it pretty good describes my problem. I am running here Windows 7 and Ogre 1.7.3 but I really don't know whether this topic is Ogre related or not. But I am observing it currently only in Ogre .. although I am not running many others 3D-Engines .. or games (only WOW).

Well, back to topic. My PC produces some strange noises in the release mode of my own application as well with SampleBrowser in the configuring GUI. It is like a very fast occuring system beep, very frequent and continous but more silent. And it seems to happen only when there are more then 500 fps renderd.

Have you ever observed something similar? Could it be a Ogre problem, or Windows? The graphic drivers are up-to-date.

BR,
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by al2950 »

Never heard any strange beeping, is it coming from your speakers or your tower!? Sounds a stupid question but my 8800GTS makes a fairly loud high pitch noise when rendering at >1000fps!
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

Tower .. but can't really locate it :)

I've already checked the temperatures .. but they stay pretty the same .. and the sound starts immediately when the rendering starts. I don't think that it is temperature related at all .. because rendering a black scene with 1000 frames .. should be still less heavy for the system than a crowded place in WOW.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by al2950 »

I would not worry about it, its almost certainly not to do with high temperatures. Hopefully someone with a hardware background can shed light on why solid state chips appear to be making sounds! :D
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by tod »

I don't think that it is temperature related at all .. because rendering a black scene with 1000 frames .. should be still less heavy for the system than a crowded place in WOW.
I thought the same, but I was wrong, Starcraft 2 had problems with simple scenes rendered as fast as the GPU allows. I'm betting on overheat.
One other think that could beep is the keyboard, it you insert too much presses into the buffer, but that would be pretty evident :)).
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

Let's assume it is the GPU .. but how should it work? I mean .. the noise comes immediatly up .. not after a few seconds .. and .. "SpeedFan" also shows that the temperature is around 50 degress and not around 80/90+. I also don't think that the GPU can overheat within a second with an working cooler.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by tod »

The temperature indeed if very low, 80-90 degrees Celsius where the norm from one of my GPU's without any issue.
One other issue that can generate strange noises is a bad case and headphones (?speakers) connected to the front jacks. I experienced that and it was dependent on what was on screen at the time, some sort of interference.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by Chris Jones »

if the temperature isn't rising don't worry about it, mine does it at high fps and i'm pretty sure it is just something on the gpu being used at a high frequency and causes sound. Have you ever heard a lightbulb? the 50hz electricity can cause the filament to vibrate slightly, probably a similar thing but at a much higher frequency.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by Kojack »

It's capacitor whine.
A lot of high voltage stuff gets it (monitors, tvs, graphics cards, etc).

It's generally harmless, just annoying.

Unless you have a graphics card which is sensitive to high frame rates.
A low poly simple scene rendered at massive frame rates can almost instantly overheat some internal components without your temperature displays saying anything as happened. A lot of people had that problem with The Sims 3, during loading it spams the loading screen at high frame rate and that causes some people's pcs to reboot.
I had a geforce 280 which did it in some games (like The Sims 3), my Radeon 5870 reboots in Stalker Call Of Pripyat during the menu. It also instantly reboots if I ever let Ogre render at over 1500fps or so (with a ground plane and skybox I can easily hit 3000+fps), so I need to add a Sleep to keep it below 1000fps.
For me, the capacitor whine is usually the indication the fps is getting too high.

It's the same sound you hear when a flash charges up.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/camera-flash3.htm


At least this is my understanding. I'm not an electrical engineer.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by Zonder »

Like kojak said above somthing is getting stressed. I would sugest you force the graphics driver to use your screeen refresh rate better than damaging somthing
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hedphelym »

I've had this problem in the past with some of my other gpu's.
highfrequency noise comming from GPU when running some ogre samples (light shaft demo for instance).
it's not just ogre though, it happened with other things too, but never while playing games etc.

for me it was not "beeping", it was a constant high-pitch noise.
kinda like electric noise, hard to explain.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by zarlox »

hedphelym wrote:for me it was not "beeping", it was a constant high-pitch noise.
kinda like electric noise, hard to explain.
I got exactly the same high pitch noise on high FPS release mode. Had this on my HD4850 and now also on my HD6970.

Like Kojack said, its most likely caused by simple scene at very high framerate which stress some components at a high frequency which then becomes a audible frequency. Completely harmless and all high end cards do it.

You usually won't get this in most big commercial games as their scene are complex.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

Zonder wrote:Like kojak said above somthing is getting stressed. I would sugest you force the graphics driver to use your screeen refresh rate better than damaging somthing
I don't think that is a good solution. Let's assume you are shifting a game .. you can't tell the customer to tweak the graphics driver :)
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by madmarx »

you can't tell the customer to tweak the graphics driver
Don't worry, it is not necessary : vsync does exactly that, and the programmer can turn it on.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

Well that's a solution .. although not a good one I think ... and not really usefull in fast shooters. I think the better way is to define a max fps value and redesign the application loop.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by madmarx »

Yes, I agree with you.
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by Kojack »

During play the framerate will be naturally reduced anyway. It's the menus, loading screens or video cutscenes that can get to insane framerates, just add a delay so they aren't 1000+fps. Nobody benchmarks their menu screens. :)
(Video cutscenes can get it if the game renders the same frame repeatedly at max rate in between frame updates)
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by hoppelmoppel »

That's what I meant by redesigning the application loop :)
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Zonder
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Re: Strange System Noise - High FPS Count

Post by Zonder »

I was replying in the context of you personally no I wouldn't expect a support desk to tell customers that ! :)

I agree with above using a Max FPS setting is best.
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