Graphics card problem - Help :(

[Greeny93]

-------RESOLVED-------


Hi, recently built my first computer. began playing Starcraft on it, and wasn't too impressed with the fps ( around 40fps ) Had a look at nvidea's suggested fps with the gtx580, and they say it should get over 100fps.

these are my specs -

i7 3820k 3.6ghz
Sparkle Gtx580 1.5gb
16gb corsair vengance 1600mhz
750w ******** black edition psu
asus P9x79 pro mobo
ocz 120gb ssd

I have oc'd the processor to 4.6ghz, to ensure that wasn't bottlenecking it, and it made no difference.

Temps are always sub 65c

Also tested starcraft, etc with Msi Afterburner... The GPU clock was fine, ( 772 as it shoud...) however it didn't go above 30% usage, and only around 400mb memory usage.

Oh, also to add... Bought this as an Open-Box clearance item from a legit&trusted supplier, super cheap, could this have anything to do with it? dodgy...?

-cheers-

 

[Kaapstad]

Your mobo has got 3 pcie slots have you tried the card in the others.

Are you sure about your card GTX 580s normally have 1.5gb or 3gb.

I also think putting your CPU back to stock will do no harm until your card is running correct. Ocing the CPU does not make that much difference.

 

[SouthEastBlue]

Yeah as far as I'm aware there is no GTX 580 with 2GB of ram. You sure it's not a GTX 560 2GB? Would probably be a good deal slower than the 580 (maybe 70 - 80% slower?) which would explain the problem...

 

[Greeny93]

Whoops, yeah - it's 1.5gb, wasn't thinking.

Haven't tried the other ports... currently in PCIe 3.0_1 x16. I believe this is the best?

also downloading Sparkle's driver atm, see if that makes any different... stupidly slow d/l speed though!! ( 23kb/s ) -_-

 

[Orcvader]

Whoops, yeah - it's 1.5gb, wasn't thinking.

Haven't tried the other ports... currently in PCIe 3.0_1 x16. I believe this is the best?

also downloading Sparkle's driver atm, see if that makes any different... stupidly slow d/l speed though!! ( 23kb/s ) -_-

Always use the ones from the Nvidia site. They will be more recent and up to date. What resolution do you play on?

 

[coupe69]

Stay well clear of Sparkles driver, download the latest ones fron the nVidia site - link

 

[Greeny93]

Oh really? i currently have the latest nvidia driver =/ although it is a beta...

& 1920x1080. Really should be on much better FPS.

Tested an old gpu, errm... gt 2200 something like that, and it was gettting 5FPS less -_-

 

[Orcvader]

Go to your documents, then the StarCraft II folder. Open the Variables documents, and check to see if you have these lines:

frameratecap=xx
frameratecapGlue=xx

If you do, remove them, then save the file. That should remove any FPS limiter.

Also in the Nvidia control panel, make sure you set the 3D settings as application controlled.

 

[Greeny93]

Thanks for your support...

there wasn't a frame-rate cap, and the 3d settings were already as ^

:/ Don't understand why it is only running at around 30% mem usage, and yet settling for such low fps. Under stress tests it hits 99% though!
There is noway to manually make it go flat out for games?
seems asif the system is bottle-necked somewhere? although it shouldn't be.....

hmm.

 

[coupe69]

Is it just an issue with Starcraft? Are you having issues with other games? Starcraft patched to the latest version? All other drivers up to date? Latest BIOS for your board?

 

[Orcvader]

That's really wierd, with SC2 I'm getting about 60-70% usage on my 7950 (limited to 60 FPS) on 1080p.

Even on my old 6850 (with i7-2600K @ 4.4ghz) and 5770 (with P2 965 @ 3.8ghz) I was getting better FPS with maxed out settings.

I suggest perhaps reinstalling SC2? Have you got the latest drivers for the motherboard as well?

 

[Greeny93]

Thanks again for all the help... ALL drivers are updated, inc bios.

When benchmarking the GPU, it hits 99% usage ... However!

The memory usage stays the SAME understress/idle ( around 250mb ) What does this mean?

Another thing... Just the otherday my onboard sound-card crashed. Could this be related?

cheers...

 

[Orcvader]

Don't worry about memory usage. It's just the data that the GPU has been told to deal with. Something is causing the data to not reach the GPU fast enough from the looks of things.

If the onboard sound is crashing, uninstall the sound drivers via device manager, and try the ones from the Realtek site: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...=3&GetDown=false#High Definition Audio Codecs

Also another thing you could try, can you check your firmwire with your OCZ SSD? Who knows, it could be the SSD at fault. Earlier versions of some of the OCZ drives caused a lot of problems, but the latest firmwire for it seems to have ironed all the bugs out.

 

[Greeny93]

Hi, Thanks a lot for all your help

None of the above worked, so I re-installed windows. This solved the problem, for a day.

Turns out Windows Updater was auto-updating overnight, and the update screwed up the driver Easy fix - turn off auto-update =D

Thanks again !!