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GTX 680 Dirt 3 performance

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2 Apr 2012
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132
Hey guys, My GTX 680 has trouble running dirt 3 at ultra settings with FXAA @ 1080p.

SPEC:
AMD FX8120 @3.65GHZ
GTX680 @ 1GHZ
8 GIG 1600MHZ ram

These specs should be more than enough for this game and yet mine runs between 40-50 fps. Seriously so confused. My drivers are all up to date and with this being a racing game it pretty much NEEDS 60fps.
Any ideas?
 
Soldato
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6 Feb 2010
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14,591
Pretty sure it's because of your CPU holding back the graphic card. Most of the recent Codemaster's racing games are hugely CPU bounded.

My friend with a i3 2120 and a GTX560Ti 2GB overclocked to 950MHz don't even dip below 52fps on Ultra settings with 8xAA on Dirt 3.
 
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Soldato
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Yeah 680 destroys Dirt 3 in FPS, check the nvidia contol panel and make sure all 3D settings are at application controlled. I take it all other games and benchmarks run fine?
 
Soldato
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Make sure you are running the benchmark in DX11 too, seems the GTX 6xx cards perform worse in DX9 than the previous gen cards, seems to a driver and architecture changes that cause titles that run in DX9 to perform worse at the moment and maybe when they optimise the drivers DX9 titles will perform better.
 
Soldato
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Shouldn't be his CPU, but when I was benching Dirt 3 with my GTX680 the average frames were pretty much more than double OP's and my minimum was like 90.
But you got a overclocked i5 2500K. Bulldozer's IPC is quite bad...worse than Phenom II clock for clock, and Codemaster's racing games tends to usually only use up to 3 cores.

Check this out on the 8120 result on DIRT3:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-7.html
It is a close shave with the minimum just barely over 60fps. What I suspect is the 8120 can't keep the frame rate at above 60fps at all time, and the OP probably got vsync enabled so it will keep dipping down to the 40-50fps range.

If the OP can overclocked the 8120 to 4.0-4.2GHz, it might help with the situation.
 
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Soldato
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6 Feb 2010
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64 FPS min on that FX8120.
I'm no fool about AMD's lacklustre CPU's, but it shouldn't be *that* bad in Dirt 3.
64fps min meaning it can easily drop to below 60fps when there are more cars on screen at the same time than in the bench. 4fps above 60fps is not really that much headroom.

As I said, it's most likely the vsync drop the frame rate down even futher to the 40-50fps range when the frame rate become even slightly under 60fps. I guess first thing the OP can try is to run the game with vsync disabled?
 
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OP
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2 Apr 2012
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132
Hi guys, Yes im using adaptive V-SYNC and FXAA in the nvidia control panel. Crysis 2 runs fine at max settings with the high res pack installed.

I looked at GPU-Z while dirt was running and the 680 only seems to go up to 1006MHZ for about 40 seconds then it starts under-clocking itself to 700-800mhz, I dont understand why it's doing this. My cpu usage is between 30-50% the entire time so it shouldnt be a CPU problem. And just out of interest i turned all AA off and my frame rate was the same!? It doesnt matter if i run 8xaa or FXAA or no AA my frame rate is just consistently bad.
It's almost like the 680 is intentionality holding the game at the 45fps mark.
 
Soldato
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My cpu usage is between 30-50% the entire time so it shouldnt be a CPU problem.
It doesn't work like that. You CPU got 8 cores, and Codemaster's racing games tends to run only in 3 threads...so it's pretty much down the the performance of 3 cores ut of 8 of the 8120.

As for the GTX680 downclocking, it could be just that the dynamic overclock feature of the GTX680 kicking in...because of there isn't enough workload (CPU not giving the GPU enough jobs at a fast enough rate and mixed with the use of vsync) for it to even see the need to run the GPU at stock clock (bare in mind what I said about my mate's overclocked GTX560Ti 2GB is already capable of doing constant 60fps on Ultra and 8xAA, but with only rare occasion of dipping down to 52fps on his i3 2120).
 
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OP
Joined
2 Apr 2012
Posts
132
It doesn't work like that. You CPU got 8 cores, and Codemaster's racing games tends to run only in 3 threads...so it's pretty much down the the performance of 3 cores ut of 8 of the 8120.

As for the GTX680 downclocking, it could be just that the dynamic overclock feature of the GTX680 kicking in...because of there isn't enough workload (CPU not giving the GPU enough jobs at a fast enough rate and mixed with the use of vsync) for it to even see the need to run the GPU at stock clock (bare in mind what I said about my mate's overclocked GTX560Ti 2GB is already capable of doing constant 60fps on Ultra and 8xAA, but with only rare occasion of dipping down to 52fps on his i3 2120).

But in benchmarks the 8120 has never been beaten by an i3? This is so frustrating it's unreal haha. Gtx 680 and my brothers 6950 runs dirt 3 better.
 
Associate
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Hi guys, Yes im using adaptive V-SYNC and FXAA in the nvidia control panel. Crysis 2 runs fine at max settings with the high res pack installed.

I looked at GPU-Z while dirt was running and the 680 only seems to go up to 1006MHZ for about 40 seconds then it starts under-clocking itself to 700-800mhz, I dont understand why it's doing this.

To benchmark DiRT 3 you need to disable V-sync to see what the max. and min. framerates are at your chosen settings by the way. If you're forcing Adaptive V-sync then you're maximum framerate will be capped to 60 fps (on a 60 Hz display).

The behaviour you're describing above is due to using Adaptive Performance which means that if the game is running at 60 fps on a 60 Hz display with v-sync enabled then the driver will drop the clocks to reduce power consumption (since high clocks aren't needed to maintain 60 fps at that point). It'll then raise the clocks when more performance is needed.

To avoid this I'd suggest setting the Global profile's performance to "Prefer maximum performance" or, if you prefer, set it only for the DiRT 3 profile. The card will still drop down to 2D speeds on the desktop but during games it'll run at full 3D speeds.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
2 Apr 2012
Posts
132
To benchmark DiRT 3 you need to disable V-sync to see what the max. and min. framerates are at your chosen settings by the way. If you're forcing Adaptive V-sync then you're maximum framerate will be capped to 60 fps (on a 60 Hz display).

The behaviour you're describing above is due to using Adaptive Performance which means that if the game is running at 60 fps on a 60 Hz display with v-sync enabled then the driver will drop the clocks to reduce power consumption (since high clocks aren't needed to maintain 60 fps at that point). It'll then raise the clocks when more performance is needed.

To avoid this I'd suggest setting the Global profile's performance to "Prefer maximum performance" or, if you prefer, set it only for the DiRT 3 profile. The card will still drop down to 2D speeds on the desktop but during games it'll run at full 3D speeds.

Thanks pal, il bench it now and give you the results.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
2 Apr 2012
Posts
132
Total frames: 7729
Average FPS: 70
Minimum FPS: 44

Thats with ultra pre-sets 4xaa no v-sync. Honestly dont know whats causing this. At the beginning of the benchmarks when you see all the cars on the line waiting to go even then my FPS sits at 55. Thats when the cars aren't even moving!
 
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