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In some games, MSI Afterburner overlay can negatively impact FPS by 9-16%

Final8y

Final8y

Final8y

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Example:

GTA 5
[email protected]
R9 390x@1140/6200

With Overlay vs. Without

0:11-0:12 mark (+9% to +11%)
44 fps vs. 48 fps
45 fps vs. 50 fps
45 fps vs. 49 fps
46 fps vs. 50 fps

0:24 mark (+14 to +16%)
44 fps vs. 51 fps
43 fps vs. 50 fps
42 fps vs. 48 fps

Since most review sites do not show or explain how they test games, this is a very important point. Some of these differences are huge, amounting to moving up a full tier in GPU price bracket such as from a $280 R9 390 to a $380 R9 390X (or competing brand's product).

We cannot assume that all GPUs will react so negatively to the MSI AB overlay, so it seems best to test all games without it for accurate bench-marking.
Click to expand...
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2457508

RussianSensation said:
This is actually a well known issue in many games but I decided to bring it up since it was a topic explored again.

BF3:

"So after much testing today, i think ive pinpointed what was causing the FPS drops/cpu lag while playing BF3 after the CQ release.

Allot of you seem to be posting what your fps is etc. And how much its dropping and all that jazz. Well if you're like me you were probably using a 3rd party program that displayed your FPS on screen such as

MSI Afterburner
EVGA Precision
Fraps

The list goes on. What appears to be happening is the OSD (On Screen Display) part of those programs is conflicting with BF3, which in turn is causing your fps drops."

or on our forum"]Battlefield 3 on our forum:

"I was suprised yesterday when i accidentally booted BF 3 without them, and i noticed more smoother gameplay.

I enabled the perf overlay and the latency on both the cpu and gpu were booth pretty consistent, where as ussualy i would get weird cpu spikes every few seconds."

Borderlands 2:

"So I opened msi ab. (I didn't touch any of the clock rates) I was trying to use it to have the overlay in my games. I then set all my settings and tested the overlay in borderlands 2. Worked well...

It then told me I was getting 20fps, it was really laggy. I closed ab and everything and opened fraps to see fps. Still 15-20fps. I got a bit scared and restarted my pc. I opened borderlands 2 and got 150fps."

Far Cry 2:

"I am always running AfterBurner in the background so I can monitor my GPU Usage/temps and framerate while gaming.

I bought another 6850 the other day and am now running in crossfire. This afternoon I decided to do some Far Cry 2 benchmarks to see how it performed.

My framerate dropped as low as 60 and the average was about 100. I knew I should have been getting higher than that with the settings I had selected.

First thing I did was exit AfterBurner and I noticed an immediate difference. Framerate didn't drop below 100 and the average was about 150.

Is it normal for AfterBurner to hurt FPS this much? Does anyone know of a similar program I can use to monitor my GPU Usage/temps and framerate in-game?

Cheers."

Same link from above by another poster:
"I have this issue with some games (Far Cry2, F1 2010), but not all."

Also,

"msi ab is causing my games to microstutter and I don't know how to fix it. If I don't start ab before my games, games run smooth. However if I start ab to monitor my cpu temps, the frame rate starts dipping. I'm experiencing it while the osd is active only on origin. I searched the bowels of the internet for a solution. Nothing.

On steam games, it runs flawless in enabled. In titanfall and battlefield 4 stutters. I cannot monitor my temps and frame rate. Every 12 secs or so a stutter drops to anywhere from 24fps to 40 fps drops. I'm currently on a 720 display maxed out on a 970."
http://www.gameplayinside.com/optimize/how-to-check-your-frame-rate-and-gpu-usage-in-any-game/


I am not saying this is a typical behavior in all games or even on the same GPUs or even the games I mentioned for everyone, but it's definitely documented online to know it exists.

Also, Joker has mentioned it various times when he finds a game whose performance stutters/FPS drop with MS AB overlay.

The proposed solution in games that suffer from this is:

"In OSD menu, add the game exe with the huge + sign in the bottom. Then just choose the exe from the list and choose "application detection level" to none or just change "On-Screen Display Support" to off. Ask again if you dont understand.

Hope it helps. Only downside is that you wont get any OSD info on screen, and wont get fps measurments on the MSI-AB Hardware Monitor. But you can use Fraps to check if youre FPS is any higher. This doesnt work with all games, but it does work in some games that dont like the OSD. Also disable the exe from D3Doverrider as well, same way there as on MSI-AB OSD Server."
http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=3994303&postcount=17
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Yeah, the most obvious question is; could this mainly be the result of using two different FPS counters at the same time... Fraps fps counter is known to cause an impact so its not really surprising to learn AB might also. Does AB overlay still cause an FPS drop if just used for GPU monitoring (fps overlay off)?
 
Wow, that's quite shocking. Good post, loads of people use these things nowadays.

I've stopped using actual on screen fps displays or overlays these days, but I do use afterburner and rivatuner to run gpu data on a gpu gadget on a second screen, and to framerate limit some games. Might have to do some testing myself.
 
fs123 said:
The question is How do you monitor fps in game without MSI overlay?
Click to expand...

I used the Steam one. I've stopped using them altogether now though as I seem to spend more time obsessing over what the number is rather than enjoying the game i'm playing.
 
Arcane said:
I used the Steam one. I've stopped using them altogether now though as I seem to spend more time obsessing over what the number is rather than enjoying the game i'm playing.
Click to expand...

This too for me, for the on screen ones anyway!:D. If you tracked my eyes when playing a game I bet every few seconds they dart to the top left where the fps counter is. Silly really.
 
I stopped using msi afterburner couple weeks back, can't say at the time I noticed anything..
Thanks for heads up though..

I also only use steam overlay does this effect performance? My recording program also uses a overlay to show records status, fps and avg fps for that running.
 
Interesting read if you close AB, precision X etc. What is the situation with fan control. I prefer to use a custom profile in AB as it keeps my card sub 70c with no increase in noise.
 
setter said:
Interesting read if you close AB, precision X etc. What is the situation with fan control. I prefer to use a custom profile in AB as it keeps my card sub 70c with no increase in noise.
Click to expand...

I thought it was just the OSD rather than MSI? Although I do remember people also talking about the polling rate being an issue, that needed to be increased..

I have to have MSI running to cap my frames in Fallout 4 - vsync off
 
Neil79 said:
I thought it was just the OSD rather than MSI? Although I do remember people also talking about the polling rate being an issue, that needed to be increased..

I have to have MSI running to cap my frames in Fallout 4 - vsync off
Click to expand...

I just cap framerate from the fallout ini file no need for AB other than fan control.
 
That is interesting, will have to try GTA V with it disabled, see if Xfires any better, only really use it to cap my frames.


EDIT: Still the same :p
 
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I have never noticed any change.

I quickly tested BF3 as it was mentioned

Without AB running.
5pvMFgqh.jpg

With AB running, monitoring everything with a polling period of 100ms.
c5bgXhih.jpg
 
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