Why do fps drop in steps 60, 30, 15 etc

[Mysterae_]

Yes, I meant Afterburner, and no, straxusii didn't say anything about MSI Afterburner having an option for enabling vsync.

He didn't say it per se, but in post number 11 it was intimated that it did. I think the misunderstanding was "limiting fps" and "using vsync". It appears they are two different animals...

That's not what I said. You're confusing Vertical Synchronization and FPS Limiter, both do different things and have different outcomes. Limiting FPS to or below the refresh rate will still cause tearing (albeit reduce it by a fair margin) and that's the only option you will find in Afterburner.

Well spotted and indeed I did. This is something new I have learned so your time helping me isn't wasted

That and you also didn't understand what I've written.
Jumps from 60-45-30-15 are caused by Vertical Synchronization with double buffering, it has been explained by Rroff and me in this thread. Unless there's another underlying issue that causes it, that's your problem and it's easy to fix with something like D3DOverrider or nvidia Inspector tool.

I did understand it, just not how to fix it. I'll give those tools a shot.

This is going nowhere since you don't take anyone's response in this thread seriously.

That's a bit harsh, at the time nobody had given me any way of fixing it. I am listening and using the steps to try and fix it.

Try running D3DOverrider (enable Force Vsync and Triple Buffering) with the game that is causing those fps fluctuations and see if that resolves the problem. Then try turning Vsync off entirely, even force it off on the drivers level, see if the GPU usage changes dramatically. Then, if the previous two testing methods fail, do a clean drivers install. Then look for other bottlenecks.

Will do, first thing is new drivers (I'm currently using 295.73) then the other stuff.

Also, read my posts carefully, if you don't understand something clearly, ask, I'll be glad to help, but don't make assumptions that you know what you're talking about when you really don't (like replying to my post regarding Afterburner and fps limiter, when you're confusing it with vsync, etc.).

Yes Dad.

I'm going to post the afterburner traces in my next post, I was too tired to post them last night.

 

[Mysterae_]

The pc is a i7 2600k @ 4.4, P67-UD7-B3 motherboard, GTX570, Corsair AX1200 psu. Should be enough to power but something is amiss...

These are traces from Anno 2070 at 1920x1200, vsync is turned on.

The first trace below is after a fresh reboot, stock clocks of the 570. You can see the framerate sticks at 30 and the gpu usage is a bit sporadic as I look around in game. The memory usage is nowhere near maxed (around 500mb used).

The trace below is again at stock clocks and shows 3 segments where I did various things. The first part the trace is the first image continued, the middle part I exited the game and restarted it - the gpu usage is a bit all over the place but at least hitting max now and again. The 3rd part of the trace I stopped moving in the game and focused where the fps drop to 30 - the gpu usage drops as well to around 60%.

The last trace below I have overclocked to my usual (900/2000) and is a mix of moving around, staying in one place. The dips to zero are where I have alt-tabbed out and back in to the game. You can see the when the gpu is hitting the ceiling the frames lift, but when the fps are 30 the gpu is 51%. It's not hitting vram max, not throttling (max temp when at 30fps is 61c).

So I'm now going to try the things suggested and see if it improves.

 

[Mr Krugga]

Force Triple Buffering on in drivers.

 

[Mysterae_]

Thanks Mr Krugga, it worked, kind of.

I tried the 296 then the latest beta drivers 301.24 which I'm still using. Forced triple buffering on in nvidia drivers and vsync on in game. Without vsync on the tearing was terrible. The adaptive vsync I tried briefly but wasn't good - but I'm not sure if you have to enable vsync on in game (which overrides which for example) but I'll try it again later.

When I say enabling triple buffering worked kind of, it still happens especially if I alt-tab out of the game. I have to exit the game, disable tb and apply, enable tb and apply and start game again. Look at the trace below and you can see where I did what!

At least I now know how to fix it, cheers Krugga. It definetely feels smoother and I can tell the gpu is working harder by the slight increase in temps and fan speed (as well as Afterburner telling me so).

 

[Marine-RX179]

Definetly not cpu limited, (i7 2600k @ 4.4) nowhere near max utilisation or thermal limit, infact only 45C. It could be that damn PCIE Revodrive SSD hogging the PCIE bus but since nothings loading or saving I don't think so. Incidently the vram loaded is only 600mb of the 570's 1.2gb. I'm starting to think it's the game badly optimised.

Actually that's not completely true. One thing you should know is that not all games are designed to make good use of 4 cores or more. Takes some CPU demanding games that uses pretty much only one core for example (i.e. WOW), even the i7 2600K at 4.4GHz can easily bottleneck the GTX570.

 

[Davedree]

Actually that's not completely true. One thing you should know is that not all games are designed to make good use of 4 cores or more. Takes some CPU demanding games that uses pretty much only one core for example (i.e. WOW), even the i7 2600K at 4.4GHz can easily bottleneck the GTX570.

assassins creed is a great example too,

 

[Mysterae_]

Interesting. I'll monitor the cpu usage and temp to see if it's affecting it.