Seemingly inexplicable poor FPS in games

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 00:46

Hi,

Rig spec is 4.5Ghz AMD FX8150, 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Dominator RAM, Crosshair V motherboard and Gigabyte GTX680 4GB GPU. CPU & GPU water cooled. I have 2 23 inch monitors. One on HDMI, one on DVI. Both at 1920 x 1080.

So, with the specs of the system done, my issue. Some games hit 60FPS no problem. Run nice and smooth on max setting across the board, talking SimCity, World of Tanks, Age of Empire 3, Settlers 7.

Graphics intensive processes no problem. Loads and loads of programs. No problem. Benchmarking good results and temps never get above 55 even when everything is at 100%!

So, couple of games I bought today because I wanted to feel like I was 11 again, Trainz 2012 and Train Simulator 2013. Neither of these games seem particularly revolutionary in their graphics but, I struggle to get above 30FPS and keep getting random and quite frequent drops to 10FPS.

Is this just a badly written game or is it that there's a setting out somewhere? Could it be the nvidia control panel causing issues? More interesting, the games never use more then 1GB of GDDR and never more then 30% of the processing power. The CPU is pretty much idle. I'm lucky to see temps reach 40.

One thing I did notice, was it seems to be when the scene needs drawing or the distance comes into focus. That seems to hit it hard and everything just grinds to a halt for a second. Turning off fog helped this dramatically.

Hope someone can help. Thanks.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 00:49

Forgot to mention...played World of Tanks after playing these other games and suddenly I'm seeing drops to 15FPS in that, this is a game that always played at 60FPS. Thought it worth mentioning.

teppic · 21 Aug 2013 at 01:10

What about other games - are they all now performing badly?

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 09:31

teppic said:
What about other games - are they all now performing badly?

Not sure. Need to play some more and see. Just seems odd that nothing's been stressed and frame rates aren't where I'd expect.

pgi947 · 21 Aug 2013 at 09:34

Fire up afterburner/gpuz/etc.. and keep a look out at what your core boost speed is doing, sounds like the card isn't boosting as high as it should/could.

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2013 at 10:27

It's not problem with the GPU...I recall someone with a FX CPU and a GTX770 having the same dropping down to 15fps problem in World of Tanks.

Games that are CPU demanding and using no more than 1-2 threads is a nightmare combination with the FX CPUs. They simply don't have enough grunt for handling dynamic battle scenes with too many things simultaneously happening at the same time.

Tonester0011 · 21 Aug 2013 at 10:38

Marine-RX179 said:
It's not problem with the GPU...I recall someone with a FX CPU and a GTX770 having the same dropping down to 15fps problem in World of Tanks.

Games that are CPU demanding and using no more than 1-2 threads is a nightmare combination with the FX CPUs. They simply don't have enough grunt for handling dynamic battle scenes with too many things simultaneously happening at the same time.

Yet he was playing earlier at 60fps :confused:

RetrogamerX · 21 Aug 2013 at 10:40

Tonester0011 said:
Yet he was playing earlier at 60fps

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:11

pgi947 said:
Fire up afterburner/gpuz/etc.. and keep a look out at what your core boost speed is doing, sounds like the card isn't boosting as high as it should/could.

Card boosts good. I've just overclocked it by about 140mhz and it's fine. Boosts up there no problem, voltage stays stable. Increased temps by 1 or 2 but still, it's dropping to ****e FPS.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:13

It's 100% no my CPU. Not one of my 8 cores hits 100%...ever! Have noticed that in one of the sims, the GPU is running at 98% most of the time, even with over clock so that looks as if it's just seriously GPU hungry.

More concerning is World Of Tanks. Why is is randomly lagging to 15FPS? Do you know how annoying it is when it happens just as you go to shoot someone? lol.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:14

Marine-RX179 said:
It's not problem with the GPU...I recall someone with a FX CPU and a GTX770 having the same dropping down to 15fps problem in World of Tanks.

Games that are CPU demanding and using no more than 1-2 threads is a nightmare combination with the FX CPUs. They simply don't have enough grunt for handling dynamic battle scenes with too many things simultaneously happening at the same time.

100% not the problem.

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:36

Tonester0011 said:
Yet he was playing earlier at 60fps

It's the same problem as people with frame rate in the 100s when running around soloing doing quests in WOW, and frame rate falls to hell when they go raid with tonnes of people and things happening at the same time.

Th3M8dH8tt3r said:
It's 100% no my CPU. Not one of my 8 cores hits 100%...ever! Have noticed that in one of the sims, the GPU is running at 98% most of the time, even with over clock so that looks as if it's just seriously GPU hungry.

More concerning is World Of Tanks. Why is is randomly lagging to 15FPS? Do you know how annoying it is when it happens just as you go to shoot someone? lol.

You do realise most games hardly ever get 100% any of the cores due to how games are coded? The reason why your CPU is not hitting 100% in overall is because the game is NOT using all the cores. Take Guild Wars 2 for example...it would use up to 4 cores, yet none of the cores EVER go beyond 75-80% usage...it's just sloppy coding.

I would suggest you google a bit regarding the frame rate problem on World of Tanks...you will easily see that the CPU is the limitation (may be not directly because of the CPU itself, but how the developer poorly code/optimise the game).

You might want to have a look on the WOT forum instead of asking here:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index....ince-the-86-patch-this-morning-game-breaking/

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:44

Ignore.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:58

Marine-RX179 said:
It's the same problem as people with frame rate in the 100s when running around soloing doing quests in WOW, and frame rate falls to hell when they go raid with tonnes of people and things happening at the same time.

You do realise most games hardly ever get 100% any of the cores due to how games are coded? The reason why your CPU is not hitting 100% in overall is because the game is NOT using all the cores. Take Guild Wars 2 for example...it would use up to 4 cores, yet none of the cores EVER go beyond 75-80% usage...it's just sloppy coding.

I would suggest you google a bit regarding the frame rate problem on World of Tanks...you will easily see that the CPU is the limitation (may be not directly because of the CPU itself, but how the developer poorly code/optimise the game).

You might want to have a look on the WOT forum instead of asking here:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index....ince-the-86-patch-this-morning-game-breaking/

Dude...seriously. It's not the CPU. Yesterday, 60 to 70 FPS constantly. Today, 50 - 60 with lags to 10 - 20. If my CPU was maxing on a core then that would cause a frame rate drop as data gets "stuck" being processed. This route you're suggesting is way out.

banjoted · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:48

Dude, seriously it is the CPU. Not because it's bad but because those games just don't play well with it.

AStaley · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:18

Has anything changed on yours system software/hardware? Has the game been recently patched?

Which NVidia drivers are you using, have you tried a fresh install of the GFX driver?

Is your system patched/AV installed? Have you scanned for viruses? I only ask this because I recall a thread on the EVGA forums that went on for days with everything under the sun being checked only for it to turn out to be a Trojan on the PC.

teppic · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:21

If he was playing all these games before without any problems at all I don't see why people are insisting it's his CPU.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:21

No more comments about the CPU!!!! The CPU has not changed since yesterday when it was playing at 60FPS and was fine and it isn't the CPU END OF!!!

AStaley...the only thing to have changed is the installation of Steam and the two new games. I'll run a malware check but nothing's been flagged up by it. Latest drivers. The GeForce Experience thing has updated but I can't see that having an effect.

Th3M8dH8tt3r · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:22

teppic said:
If he was playing all these games before without any problems at all I don't see why people are insisting it's his CPU.

Cos they read it on a forum that the game is badly coded. Which is total rubbish. It utilises multiple cores, none of which are reaching 100% so...it is impossible the CPU is at fault. Especially when yesterday, it ran fine.

Marine-RX179 · 21 Aug 2013 at 13:24

banjoted said:
Dude, seriously it is the CPU. Not because it's bad but because those games just don't play well with it.

OP don't seem to realise games are subjected to change when it comes to optimisation. It seem the recent updates/patches have brought quite a huge performance issue for lots of people (despite people used to run the game fine). I'm not saying people using Intel CPU ain't suffering the problem, but from what I read around, the issue seem to hit people that ain't using overclocked core i5/i7 much harder (mostly likely due to to weaker single-threaded performance).

If he wants to hear "his GTX680 is too weak for the game", and sure I will say that...