Low fps in BF3 with a GTX 560. Any tips to get more?

tanaboon

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Hey Tom's Hardware! This is my first post. I recently upgraded my card from an 8800GT to a GTX 560 (non-ti). I ran BF3, just to notice that in BF3, I would get around 20fps, and 30 if I was lucky. I then tried to set the settings to low, but the FPS was also around 20. Here are my spec's

Q6600@3.2gHz
EVGA Gtx 560
4GB DDR2 Ram

I am running the game on 1440x900. I also OC'd my cpu for the first time because I read that it was recommended for this type of upgrade. (Yes, I got an aftermarket cooler) I am thinking maybe my CPU is still bottlenecking my GPU, or maybe I did something wrong while overclocking. I ran Prime95 for 10 hours and I got no errors. If I got a new monitor and played on a higher resolution, would this help increase my FPS? Should I post information on how I over clocked? Any tips would be great!
 
if you're getting such bad performance on that resolution, running the game at higher resolution would not help your case.

I'd say get a monitoring program like hwinfo and check what your CPU and GPU utilization is, it's quite possible that your CPU is bottlenecking even after OC.

Also, you say you tried setting it to low graphics and fps stayed the same? doesn't quite seem to make sense
 

tanaboon

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the increase in fps was very negligible when I set the settings to low is what I meant. As in like, only a 1-5 fps difference, I would've expected more. But I will check hwinfo as you suggested.
 

casualcolors

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I cannot fully answer your question, but worth noting is that BF3's low settings don't visually look as different from high or ultra as low in another game would differ from the highest.

Really your CPU seems to be fine. It shouldn't be bottlenecking your GPU, and particularly not in BF3. 20 fps at 1440x900 sounds really low, but I do know that the 560 is about 1 tier under what you would need to play comfortably above 45 fps at high settings. Make sure you have AA and post processing off and make sure you're not globally forcing it through Nvidia control panel or anything.

Something is certainly wrong. Check your drivers and make sure you have the latest release (try the betas if the latest whql release doesn't improve things for you).
 

rcfant89

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Download the latest driver from Nvidia; 285.62 is the version I'm using.

Also I would get a program like HWmonitor (which is free) and I would check your temperatures of your CPU, GPU and other. Extremely hot temperatures can damage your system and can actually cause very poor performance.

Since you said you overclocked your CPU, perhaps you turned it up too high with insufficient cooling and now it's under performing. That seems unlikely to me but it is possible and either way you ought to monitor your temperatures to keep from degrading (destroying) your equipment.
 

pluto8

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johanvheerden

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There is absolutely no way your hardware is inadequate, i myself played through the whole BF3 with maxed out settings on 1920x1080 resolution. I have a 3.51Ghz Dual Core, 4Gb DDR2 800 Ram like yourself and a GTS 450 which i believe is a considerable amount less performance wise than a GTX560. I have gotten on average 30-40FPS with my rig.

I think your problem is on the software side, there are various things that can make your BF3 run slowly like too many programs running in background for example. Also try cleaning your computer like doing a Disk Cleanup, Virus Scan, Registry Fixer, HDD Defragmentation ect. You should first before anything update your GPU driver to the newest, after that you can also try updating windows (i know it's a long shot but anything is possible right ;) ) If the problem Persists after that try formatting your computer and re-installing windows.

Hope this helps :) Happy gaming
 
There is absolutely no way your hardware is inadequate, i myself played through the whole BF3 with maxed out settings on 1920x1080 resolution. I have a 3.51Ghz Dual Core, 4Gb DDR2 800 Ram like yourself and a GTS 450 which i believe is a considerable amount less performance wise than a GTX560. I have gotten on average 30-40FPS with my rig.
sorry to say but there's no way you ran everything maxed out on 1080 with a single 450
 

johanvheerden

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Haha to each his own, though i should have mentioned that it's a Gainward GTS 450 GS (Golden Sample) if that helps. And i've Oced it [Core Clock:940 Memory Clock: 2100(4200)]

 

casualcolors

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There's still no way that it could actually max BF3 at 40fps at 1080 resolution.
 

overfocused

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I max out BF3 on ultra with MSAA turned off 1920x1200, with at least 30-40FPS, on a 550ti. You should be killing this game FPS-wise. If you download and run Process Explorer and open the performance graph summary, wherever there are spikes in the graph you can put your mouse on the spike and itll pop up text to which process exactly caused the spike. Since it sounds like you're having software issues, this could help a ton to kill the resource mongers 1 by 1.
 

pluto8

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Can you please provide a link to thi Process Explorer because there seems to be different programs and I dont't know which is the right one. What you said though definately sounds like it would work and I really want to try it out. Thanks!
 

overfocused

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According to Newegg's power requirement calculator, they recommend a 564 watt power supply for your system, just with 2 hard drives and the 2x2 memory I think you have. If you have anything else drawing power you're cutting it very close at 600w.

And, if you bought a cheap 600w supply that doesn't have 80+ certification, you're probably still not getting enough power, and are at risk of frying your system. Cheap power supplies without any guarantees typically range from %60-75 efficiency, which is frankly piss poor. If you bought the cheapest one you're probably losing %20-40 in inefficiency and stressing the junk out of the supply and system trying to play BF3.


http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html

I selected Quad Core Extreme CPU, GTX560, 2x2GB RAM, 2x7200RPM HDD, 1x DVDRW since I don't know all of your system devices. If you have any more, you're REALLY pushing it close to the 600w max of your supply while gaming.