New PC not running as well as I thought it would, should I overclock? If so, how? BIOS, RivaTuner, CCC etc.?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535
Alright, so basically, I recently bought a new PC and to be honest I thought it was going to run games better than it does. To be fair I haven't tried it out on too many games and it does run extremely smoothly in some games such as Mirror's Edge (bar the screen tearing but I think getting a new monitor will resolve that) and Bioshock Infinite but then in Far Cry 3 (which yes, I know is notorious for having horrible drivers) it really doesn't run very well, going down to 30 FPS at times. I don't know if it's relevant but it also has screen tearing without vsync that's pretty darn bad. So I've been wondering if I should overclock so I can run these games smoother (sidenote: could it also possibly eliminate screen tearing?) and if so how I should go about it (BIOS, RivaTuner, CCC etc.)? Keep in mind I'm not completely new to this but still don't know a lot when it comes to PCs.

Alright, so here are my specs:
Motherboard- ASRock 990FX Extreme9
Processor- AMD FX-9370 8 Core Black Edition
Graphics Card- Sapphire Radeon HD7970 3GB OC Vapor-X Edition
Ram- G.Skill Ares F3-1600C10D-16GAO 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3
Power Supply Unit- Aerocool Strike-X 800W

I'm not sure if some of the info there is relevant but I figured I'd chuck it all in! Thanks for your help, I appreciate it!
 
Solution
thor220
Far Cry 3 just has poor performance, although it should not be 30 fps on that card. Overclocking won't help FC3 performance issues, nor will it solve screen tearing. Your monitor does not effect screen tearing at all, getting a new one won't help.

To fix screen tearing, Vsync needs to be enabled in the game options. In addition, you need to know how to properly configure the game to get the most eye candy and most performance. Looking up performance guides for the game can help. A quick tip though, if your monitor is above HD, higher resolutions will cause that card to slow down in that game. I'll be sleeping soon, so don't expect an instant reply after this post.
Sort by date Sort by votes
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965
Far Cry 3 just has poor performance, although it should not be 30 fps on that card. Overclocking won't help FC3 performance issues, nor will it solve screen tearing. Your monitor does not effect screen tearing at all, getting a new one won't help.

To fix screen tearing, Vsync needs to be enabled in the game options. In addition, you need to know how to properly configure the game to get the most eye candy and most performance. Looking up performance guides for the game can help. A quick tip though, if your monitor is above HD, higher resolutions will cause that card to slow down in that game. I'll be sleeping soon, so don't expect an instant reply after this post.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Oh, also I forgot to mention that's with running all of those games at maximum settings and that my monitor is 1920x1080 resolution. Yeah I usually run with some form vsync because I can't handle screen tearing but the input lag is just as bad as the tearing. But yeah, read on some forums that people would have screen tearing problems on one monitor then got a new one with a higher refresh rate and had none. Ok, thanks for your response!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Yep, driver details say it's at version 13.152.0.0
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535
I just set Far Cry 3 to "Optimal" settings and it can keep up at 60 FPS or a little below most of the time (with vsync on). I know I said it earlier but I have to say I thought that this rig would run better than this. So should I be looking at overclocking here? I don't know what the problem is, my extremely tech savvy friend told me this rig would run practically everything at max settings for a while to come. :/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965


It should be running that game at 60 fps most of the time. I'm running at 2048 x 1152 resolution and am getting 60 fps with my 7970 but this game will lag in certain areas due to poor coding. You can try an overclock to overcome this but you will most likely see marginal results.

If you want to overclock, remember that it voids your cards warranty. This means you won't get a replacement if this one breaks. Aside from that it's really easy to overclock amd cards. Just go into the catalyst control center > Performance > AMD Overdrive. It's pretty straight forward from there, move the sliders right to increase your overclock, and then hit apply
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Is that with it at max settings? Because if so there must be something I'm doing wrong/something wrong with my system...

To anybody who does overclock, is overheating the only danger with overclocking? I know there's stuff with voltages but I plan on not going anywhere neat that.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965


Max everything w/vsync and HDAO except for shadows. Turned them down to medium as there is little difference between med and ultra.

Heating is a concern but artifacts are also an issue. If you push your card too much, games will start developing these artifacts, which are just small blocks of any color.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Just tried those settings, ran smoothly except for some stuttering which from what I've seen online seems to be one of those odd Far Cry 3 issues. Only thing that really kills me when I turn it on is the MSAA anti-aliasing.

My brother's computer runs Far Cry 3 better than mine and his specs aren't even as good as mine (except his ridiculous amount of RAM, 32GB). Do I need more RAM? Could there be something wrong with my computer or am I just expecting too much of it and need to compromise and find the right balance of gameplay and graphics in games?

P.S I didn't mention it before because I forgot but my system hard drive is pretty old and only about 500GB, could that possibly be affecting speed? Besides that I have a 2TB hard drive which is where I keep all of my games etc.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535
Ok, little bit more info that I thought might help, Assassins Creed III ran extremely smoothly until I got to Boston (a lot of NPCs, crowded with buildings etc.) and I just tried Minecraft and even it lagged. -.- I could possibly have vsync settings wrong or something though (I use RadeonPro to force triple buffering).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965


What is the hard drive you are running these games off of?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


I run all of my games off of my 2TB hard drive, that's where I keep Steam as well.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965
You should test the hard drive for issues. Each HD manufacturer has their own set of tools to test hard disk, so you will need to go to their website.

Also another question, if this really is a hard drive issue, do you see hard drive related issues outside games? For example: slow files transfers, disk read/write errors, slow drive response, or read/write stuttering.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Ok, I'll check it out now. :) Also my system drive is about 6 years old and the drive all of my games are on is a bit less than a year old if that matters.

Hmmm, well the only thing I could say I've noticed would be that sometimes my music stutters and sometimes videos I'm watching in VLC stutter as well.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965


Yeah the hard drive seems suspect but let's wait to see your hard drive test results.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


I'm so sorry for taking so long to reply but I'm using my computer for schoolwork a lot of the time so I usually don't have the time to do such lengthy tests.

Anyhow, I did every test each HDD's manufacturer had in their program and each HDD seems to be completely fine. Although in the Windows Experience Index the primary HDD's disk data transfar rate is at 5.9 and everything else is 8.0 or above, don't know how greatly that would affect performance though?

P.S Due to installing updates to drivers I've partially fixed the audio and video stuttering in VLC and iTunes (it happens less frequently and it goes back to normal more quickly) but they still happen. Honestly have no idea what it could possibly be.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965
figured out why your farcry may lag, turn off v-sync and see if that helps.

On your hard drive, it appears to be fine. At this point is seems as though a fresh install might be the best option. One last test I would recommend before that is a memory test. You will need to download and burn a bootable program for that. It really is the only component left that could be causing these issues.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yecob

Yecob

Distinguished
Oct 29, 2013
43
2
18,535


Welp, Windows Memory Diagnostic came back that there are no problems with my memory. Agh, this is such a pain. Thanks again for all your help.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
thor220

thor220

Splendid
Dec 15, 2009
4,025
2
23,965


No problem. It definately seems like a software/driver issues. Everyone of your other components are working fine so windows must be causing your issues.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom