5960x holding back a 1080ti

[Dirk Diggler]

See below quote from the SOW thread. A single core is sitting almost 100% which is choking the GPU. I see this in FC4 also. Is this normal for a 5960x?

I've tried the same area with my second system which is a 6700k/980ti both at stock, and they're hitting 100+ FPS with 100% GPU usage.

Maybe this is just happening in certain points in the game and it's an engine issue?

If you fast travel to Haedir (first tower in the game)...

And then jump off the tower to land next to the catapult thingy...

Spin clockwise so that the catapult is on your character's left hand side. You can see from the next image that the FPS is below the 100fps target and the GPU isn't being fully utilised - and the culprit seems to be core #9 which is working flat out at near 100%. All other cores are low usage.

There are other areas of the game where this is happening and the FPS is tanking to the 40's. Can anyone reproduce this to check that it's not my system at fault?

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It shouldnt be.... unless maybe the 5960x is thermal throttling ?

It's custom water so no thermal issues.

@mmj_uk I'll double check graphic settings, cheers.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I've had another look:

6700k (4.0 GHz) / 980ti (stock) / 2560*1440
5960x (4.3 GHz) / 1080ti (2000) / 3440*1440

Both systems are at the same save point, and lowest graphics settings. The 6700k system is pushing maximum frames and usage at all times. The 5960x can't hit maximum GPU usage, or maximum fps.

The 6700k seems to share the load across all 4 cores equally to around 60% each, but the 5960x is loading a single core up 100% and the rest of the cores are low usage around 10%.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I've cleared the config settings but the issue persists. I'll keep an eye on this and hopefully it's just this one game that's affected.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I'll give these suggestions a try later, thanks.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

BIOS flashed to latest, and no change with performance in the game. Here's the IBT result for 10 runs at 4.3GHz @ 1.3v.

Cinebench is scoring 1627 with the same settings.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

If you have any Intel software installed, uninstall it. Plays havoc with certain programs.

Only Intel software installed is the IRST - should I try uninstalling that?

~10GFlops difference from start to finish. Perhaps add +0.01V core voltage. On my other system if the core voltage was too low it would still pass IBT but GFlops was not fairly constant between iterations and there were subtle WHEA errors in event viewer.

Can you try running SOW with HT disabled so it uses physical cores instead?

Do you have any WHEA errors in event viewer?

Good luck.

How do I search for them? Event viewer has heaps of error logs for DistributedCOM etc..

 

[Dirk Diggler]

@smsmasters thanks for that; no events logged.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

That's good then. What happens when you run SOW with HT disabled?

No difference, mate.

It's a known issue with FC since FC3.

Go into task man -> details -> find fc4 exe -> right-click -> set affinity, disable the core that is maxed out.

Idk if you need to alt tab back into the game, but I do, then alt tab back out. All the other cores should have kicked in, and you're free to enable the core you disabled again.

This might be the same with SOW, but I don't play it.

Sounds promising, I'll try that once the wife disappears to bed.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It's a known issue with FC since FC3.

Go into task man -> details -> find fc4 exe -> right-click -> set affinity, disable the core that is maxed out.

Idk if you need to alt tab back into the game, but I do, then alt tab back out. All the other cores should have kicked in, and you're free to enable the core you disabled again.

This might be the same with SOW, but I don't play it.

Every time I disable a core, the load shifts to another.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

For whatever reason the game is hell-bent on using just a single core in your configuration, I'd put it down to software bug and try to enjoy the game as is.

Yea, you're right. The issue doesn't appear to affect anything else, so I've probably invested enough time in it.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Did you ever solve this?

@String

Nah, I gave up. However, I've just switched to a 2700x so I'll see if that's any different when I get round to trying it again.