Strange performance issues - comparing my two PC's

Pegsta

Reputable
May 7, 2015
2
0
4,510
Hi All,

I've got an odd problem and I'll try to provide as much information as I can, I will be adding a little to this when I get home (I'm at work at the moment).

I have two systems. My main PC and my Media/Gaming on the TV PC. Specs are as follows:-

Main PC:
Windows 8.1
Core i7 2600k @ stock speeds with HT turned off
12GB Corsair XMS memory
4GB Asus STRIX GTX970 - STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5
Gigabyte motherboard (will get model number later)
DGM Monitor @ 1920x1200 resolution

Media PC:
Windows 7/10 (it was previously running 10, I've reverted to 7 simply because I was fed up of updates - performance was the same under both)
Core i5 2500k @ stock speeds
8GB Corsair XMS memory
2GB ASUS GTX660 Ti-DC2O-2GD5
MSI P67A-GD53 motherboard
Samsung 40" TV @ 1920x1080 resolution

The issue I'm having is with GTA V.

I can get it to run at a nearly flawless 60fps on the Media PC, when I run it on my theoretically more powerful Main PC I get drops to around 45-50fps when in the city even when using identical graphics settings. I get drops even when I lower the settings to normal.

I'm using Riva Tuner to monitor everything and my 970 rarely hits 50% usage with these settings, the CPU hangs around 45-80% utilization based on whether it's city or wilderness. I've tried with and without hyperthreading, seems to make no difference. I've tried some modest overclocking to 3.8GHz on the CPU although I'm not a fan of overclocking stuff (unless it's overclocked out of the box). I've made sure my motherboard bios is up to date and I've also reset to optimal defaults (in case I'd cocked some setting up somewhere).

Both machines are running the nVidia 350 drivers for GTA V with the same driver settings.

I am suspecting a couple of things might be at play but I wanted some additional thoughts.

My theories are:

1. Memory - the 12GB Ram in the main PC is made up of 2 pairs of mixed speed (one 4GB pair and one 2GB pair). I would have assumed it would just down clock the faster memory to the slower). This is admittedly an easy one to test which I'll be doing later by removing the slower 2GB pair.

2. Motherboard - the Gigabyte motherboard I have in the main PC wasn't cheap when I bought it, it was around £90-100. When I have the exact model number I'll post it.

3. Display - could the display be causing the drops? I know it's a silly idea but the monitor I'm using is very very old (although it does have HDMI). Again this would be an easy test to hook my main PC up to the TV to test.

4. Hard drives - both machines are running on much the same hard drives. They aren't especially outstanding drives, just normal 7200rpm drives - cache etc unknown - I'll be checking on this later as I hadn't considered this before writing this thread.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Pegsta



 

Pegsta

Reputable
May 7, 2015
2
0
4,510
Thanks Logainofhades for the suggestion. It wasn't this in the end. It appears to be as I wondered the mixed memory, which I would have thought wouldn't have been a problem.

My full Main PC spec is as below now (with the slower 2GB pair removed).

Summary
Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 2600K @ 3.40GHz 39 °C
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z68X-UD3P-B3 (Socket 1155) 43 °C
Graphics
Standard Monitor (1920x1200@59Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 55 °C
Storage
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAJS-32TKA0 ATA Device (SATA) 45 °C
2794GB Seagate ST3000DM001-1CH166 ATA Device (SATA) 42 °C
1863GB Seagate ST32000542AS ATA Device (SATA) 40 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GSA-H31L ATA Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

and my Media PC spec:

Summary
Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz 35 °C
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 532MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
MSI P67A-GD53 (MS-7681) (SOCKET 0) 36 °C
Graphics
Standard Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (ASUStek Computer Inc) 29 °C
Storage
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 ATA Device (SATA) 28 °C
2794GB Western Digital WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 ATA Device (SATA) 29 °C
465GB SAMSUNG HD501LJ ATA Device (SATA) 31 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
NVIDIA High Definition Audio

I have just noticed my Media PC appears to be around 10 C cooler or more than my main machine. Possibly due to the case - have my Main PC in a Coolermaster Media PC case. I'll have to investigate this now.

I removed the additional memory from my Main PC and noticed an immediate improvement. I then used the Geforce Experience to knock the settings down a couple of notches from their optimal. This gave a silky smooth 60fps (ignoring the odd hiccup here and there when data is loaded) and I then enabled a couple of options to see where the frames started dropping. Appeared to be Tessellation that caused the most upsets.

My settings for GTA V now are:

Ambient Occlusion - Normal
Anisotropic Filtering - x16
Distance Scaling - 100%
Extended Distance Scaling - 0%
Extended Shadows Distance - 0%
FXAA - On
Grass Quality - Very High
High Detail Streaming While Flying - On
High Resolution Shadows - Off
Ignore Suggested Limits - On
In Game Depth of Field Effects - Off
Long Shadows - On
MSAA - Off
NVIDIA TXAA - Off
Particles Quality - High
Population Density - 100%
Population Variety - 100%
Post FX - High
Reflection MSAA - Off
Reflection Quality - High
Resolution - 1920x1200
Shader Quality - Very High
Shadow Quality - Very High
Soft Shadows - NVIDIA PCSS
Tessellation - Off
Texture Quality - Very High
Water Quality - High

I'm quite happy with the overall look and I don't know if this will help anyone else out at all.

Thanks

Pegsta