Starting to get CPU bottlenecked.

Pete.Dakota

Pete.Dakota

Pete.Dakota

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31 Aug 2009
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Surrey, UK
I recently picked up Dirt 2 and Bad Company 2 and am noticing a lot of bottlenecking on the CPU.

Q8300 @ 2.5ghz
3GB DDR2
5770

I can run both games on high settings at 1920x1200, or at low, but the frame rate stays roughly the same. My monitoring gadgets on my other screen give a clear picture of what's happening: the GPU can run maximum settings in BC2 and work at around 85-90%, but all four CPU cores are maxxed out. If I turn the settings to lowest, the GPU eases down to about 35%, but the CPU is still at 100% and the frame rate stays where it was.

Aside from the obvious 'get a better CPU', 'overclock', options, what can be done to alleviate a game's CPU load? If anything..
 
The thing about turning down graphics setting is that it doesn't usually reduce the CPU load of a game that much. It still has the same physics to work out for the graphics to be then rendered on top of this. This is why lowering the resolution doesn't have huge benefits in the same situation. It still has to work out where all the bits fall when you blow something up etc. If you have a game such as GTA then turning down traffic density will reduce it. Overclock it to 3ghz:p

I don't know that game but if it is using 100% of your CPU then you probably won't get much gain by turning things down.
 
Off topic but, still proud of my Q6600, 3.6 since the first day I bought it without problems, it was cheaper to buy back then, actually cost more now the last time I checked :eek:.

That said, I'm keeping a close eye on new cpus, supposedly next gen stuff coming next year (when isnt there :rolleyes: :D )
 
Problem is my current mobo doesn't allow overclocking. It's just some budget board from a cannibalised store-bought rig. Might pay the odd £40 for a decent enough board that'll allow to me OC.
 
I can highly recommend a P45 board for OCing those chips, I got my E8400 to 4.5GHz stable 24/7 on my P5Qdeluxe, but you can get the pro version reasonably cheap on MM
 
May as well ask while I'm here. What's the difference between 775 G31, G41, P43 and P45. Which one will work with my Q8600? The Gs seem so much cheaper.
 
what are your framerates? my system runs bc2 fine 60 - 80 fps with 120 peak, maybe your gpu needs upgrading or you need later drivers
 
P45 is what you want. The others won't give you a high enough fsb to overclock your chip, making the upgrade pointless. As above, P5Q are the best.
 
What's the difference between the Asus P5Q Pro Turbo and Deluxe? Found them on a competitor site and they're almost the same price. But can't work out the difference.
 
Deluxe has a couple of extra bells and whistles, but for overclocking performance will be nearly equal. You get dual ethernets etc, that type of thing. I got the deluxe for the same reason: wasn't much in the price difference
 
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