Battlefield 3 Frame Drops

[JordanK27]

Hi,
my system is :Intel Quad Core 2.66GHz OC to 3.00 (with a coolermaster heatsink), 4 GB Ram, GTX 560 Non-Ti, Seagate 500 GB(main HDD), Western Digital 625 GB(only for fraps and dxtory videos), Hantol 685 Watt PSU, Asus P5KPL-AM EPU, Asus Vento TA-K51, 22' Monitor, Windows 7 64-bit.
When i play Battlefield 3 i get several frame drops mainly in conguest large. I opened Speccy and MSI Afterburner to check the heat and the GPU usage. The CPU temperatures are in normal levels(40-50oC). The GPU temps are also good(60-70oC). The problem is the GPU usage that drops from 82-14% and 89-7% and goes up again to fall later. In the game the frames drop from 60-40 or even 70-30. The frame drop lasts about 1-3 secs and then the frames go up again. Also there is a noise from the GPU like a quiet and fast zikzikzik that stops when the frame drop occurs for 1-3 secs. I want to mention that the 70% of times i get frame drops is when i suddenly turn left or right.

P.S. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[AntiZig]

how much vram does your gpu have and what is the utilization of it when you're running BF3?

as far as the noise, the only thing that could be making noise is the fan (unless some electrical component has gone awry)

 

[13thmonkey]

can you check vram usage using msi afterburner or evga precision?

i have a similar problem when I have teamspeak turned on, thought I had it figured a few days ago, turns out not.

 

[HEXiT]

massive fps drops are cause by running the game at beyond what your card and cpu can handle. if you want smaller fps drops then you will have to lower your settings to medium with high textures.
your probably trying to run the game at near ultra settings which is way way beyond what your card can handle. at best your looking at medium high but even then you will get fps droop..
the best thing to do on multiplayer is turn everything down to minimum except textures... run fraps on a map like karkland and see where your lowest fps is if its up in the high 60's then you can add a little extra first starting with shadows just turn them on to low. medium and high will have little impact on visual quality other than give a fps hit that gets bigger the better quality you use...
soft smoke is another that has a high gpu hit for little in the way of gfx quality so again have it on by all means but run it at minimum.
but the trick is dont set up your system to go below 60 fps... you want a solid minimum of 60 fps... then you turn on vsnc and your system will fully sync up and give a smoother experience... with little in the way of a noticeable hit for the extras you have enabled...
bf3 uses 60 packets per second. it uses 60 fps per second... sync these up and you will have no hitbox lag and make the game smoother... if you choose to ignore this then so be it but it is the best way to get stable fps and lag free gaming...

 

[loops]

Hi,
my system is :Intel Quad Core 2.66GHz OC to 3.00 (with a coolermaster heatsink), 4 GB Ram, GTX 560 Non-Ti, Seagate 500 GB(main HDD), Western Digital 625 GB(only for fraps and dxtory videos), Hantol 685 Watt PSU, Asus P5KPL-AM EPU, Asus Vento TA-K51, 22' Monitor, Windows 7 64-bit.
When i play Battlefield 3 i get several frame drops mainly in conguest large. I opened Speccy and MSI Afterburner to check the heat and the GPU usage. The CPU temperatures are in normal levels(40-50oC). The GPU temps are also good(60-70oC). The problem is the GPU usage that drops from 82-14% and 89-7% and goes up again to fall later. In the game the frames drop from 60-40 or even 70-30. The frame drop lasts about 1-3 secs and then the frames go up again. Also there is a noise from the GPU like a quiet and fast zikzikzik that stops when the frame drop occurs for 1-3 secs. I want to mention that the 70% of times i get frame drops is when i suddenly turn left or right.

P.S. Thanks in advance for your help!

My rig was very much like yours is now. I had a q9300 cpu/6 gb ram, 560 non ti. I was able to pull off High settings with AA off.

in game type ` render.drawfps 1 and get msi afterburner set up to show gpu temp/use on your screen. You can then minimize afterburner and just focus on fps/temp/use. From there play with the settings mixing high and med settings. IMO an average FPS lower than 40 will result in stutter/noticeable dips. That all said, it sounds like you are doing this already.

If you were able to do high settings and are now having a drop in gpu use/FPS...re do the drivers.

 

[JordanK27]

how much vram does your gpu have and what is the utilization of it when you're running BF3?

as far as the noise, the only thing that could be making noise is the fan (unless some electrical component has gone awry)

the vram is 1 GB

 

[JordanK27]

can you check vram usage using msi afterburner or evga precision?

i have a similar problem when I have teamspeak turned on, thought I had it figured a few days ago, turns out not.

Uhmm how do i check the vram usage with MSI Afterburner? It only has GPU usage, GPU temps, Fan Speed and Fan Tachometer.

 

[JordanK27]

Btw thanks for the help everyone !

 

[JordanK27]

My rig was very much like yours is now. I had a q9300 cpu/6 gb ram, 560 non ti. I was able to pull off High settings with AA off.

in game type ` render.drawfps 1 and get msi afterburner set up to show gpu temp/use on your screen. You can then minimize afterburner and just focus on fps/temp/use. From there play with the settings mixing high and med settings. IMO an average FPS lower than 40 will result in stutter/noticeable dips. That all said, it sounds like you are doing this already.

If you were able to do high settings and are now having a drop in gpu use/FPS...re do the drivers.

Yeah i have done everything you said except the reinstall of the drivers. Do you think that i should reinstall the same drivers, install older drivers or install this beta driver: http://uk.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-301.24-beta-drivers-released/

Thanks!

 

[JordanK27]

I think i have found the cause of the frame drops. It is the 2X MSAA that causes the drops. I disabled it and i got a smoother gameplay. I will continue the tests and i would like to read your opinions too.
Thank you very much !

 

[13thmonkey]

Uhmm how do i check the vram usage with MSI Afterburner? It only has GPU usage, GPU temps, Fan Speed and Fan Tachometer.

in teh options you have a choice of what to show including vram

 

[JordanK27]

in teh options you have a choice of what to show including vram

Oh is it the Memory Usage? Because thats what i have.

P.S. In my country there is a (IMO crappy) rapper called 12th monkey XD

 

[13thmonkey]

oh dear, time for a name change
gpu memory usage yes

 

[JordanK27]

oh dear, time for a name change
gpu memory usage yes

the gpu memory is 890-966 MB out of 3072. min:168 max:1010. The MSAA wasnt the fault cause i tested it again and frames dropped again.

P.S. Sorry about the name thing XD

 

[13thmonkey]

out of 3GB? are you sure thats gpu memory, how much have you got on that card? the scale might say 3072, does not mean that is your max, if its a 1GB card, you are using all of it

 

[JordanK27]

out of 3GB? are you sure thats gpu memory, how much have you got on that card? the scale might say 3072, does not mean that is your max, if its a 1GB card, you are using all of it

LOL i had the same reaction and i knew that you were going to have it too. On the box of the GPU it says Gigabyte GTX 560 1GB, Speccy says 1GB too(1024 MB) and CYRI says 1 GB too. I dont think it is 3 GB but the Max it says is 1010. Maybe i had to tell you that the 3072 is next to the diagram thingy (i dont know how it is called) and i think that like 100 next to the temperature it puts a limit to the numbers

 

[13thmonkey]

i think thats just the scale, you are using all of your vram, and so if it ever needs new textures then it has to swap them in and out, which may cause delays. drop dropping texture qual down, and make sure the first AA is off

 

[JordanK27]

i think thats just the scale, you are using all of your vram, and so if it ever needs new textures then it has to swap them in and out, which may cause delays. drop dropping texture qual down, and make sure the first AA is off

I didnt understand the "drop dropping texture qual down" Could you explain it better? I am not a native English speaker.
Thanks!

 

[loops]

Run at med settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS
Run at high settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS
Run at ultra settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS

AA w/ 1 g of gpru ram in bf3 large out door maps is not a doable thing w/o shutter/dips.

If your gpu use dips, AA is off, and a dip in fps...re do the latest driver...clean install

 

[JordanK27]

Run at med settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS
Run at high settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS
Run at ultra settings AA off check FPS...turn AA on check FPS

AA w/ 1 g of gpru ram in bf3 large out door maps is not a doable thing w/o shutter/dips.

If your gpu use dips, AA is off, and a dip in fps...re do the latest driver...clean install

I am going to try it tomorrow and i will let you know. It is very late here.

Thanks!

 

[13thmonkey]

I didnt understand the "drop dropping texture qual down" Could you explain it better? I am not a native English speaker.
Thanks!

Sorry hadn't realised, your english is good, the first or second setting in the video menu is texture quality, turn it down a level or two.

 

[AntiZig]

the gpu memory is 890-966 MB out of 3072. min:168 max:1010. The MSAA wasnt the fault cause i tested it again and frames dropped again.

P.S. Sorry about the name thing XD

since you're maxing out on vram as I suspected, you need to lower the texture quality in game

 

[JordanK27]

So i downloaded the 285.62 driver. it is said to be the best for BF3 and it improves the performance by 11% on the GTX 560! I lowered Shadow Quality to Medium, turned on VSync and turned off AA and i get no frame drops now! Thanks guys for all the help and advices. You all really helped me!

 

[13thmonkey]

you've not tried 301.12?

 

[JordanK27]

you've not tried 301.12?

I don't think it is 301.12 but 301.24 . And no i haven't try it because it doesn't mention that it has a performance improvement for BF3 on a GTX560 and i am waiting for the final version of it because i am bored at installing and then uninstalling the beta to install its final version. Do you thing that the new features of the 301.24 will improve the performance more than the 285.62? If it is so good i will try it right now.

Thanks!