Low FPS in games on a high-end system.

[Dem0nGam3r]

I recently assembled my own gaming PC, and being the first time I've built a computer, it went very well and nothing malfunctioned and the system booted up and from there the OSS, software and drivers installations went smoothly as well (before you ask, I downloaded the lastes drivers for my chipset, USB, audio and GPU, as well as third-party software like java and flash etc.). But from the start ARMA II (and a couple others as I keep trying newer, system-taxing games) aren't running near as well as I believe they should be on my setup.


My specs:

MOBO: ASUS P87ZZ-V LX

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660ti 2GB Model 02G-P4-3660-KR

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570k quad-core @ 3.4 GHz (3rd gen processor) Model CM8063701211800

RAM: Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (2x4GB) Model KHX1600C9D3K2/8G

PSU: Corsair CX Series CX750 750W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Model CP-9020015-NA

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB Model WD1002FAEX (OEM Version)

ODD: LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 (OEM Version)

OSS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 (OEM Version)

Case: Coolermaster Storm Enforcer


It is worth noting that, as my MOBO has a PCI-E 3.0 slot and my GPU is compatible with PCI-E 3.0, I installed the card into the PCI-E 3.0 slot, and I'm not sure if that could cause any problems in somewhat older games and games that originally designed for PCI-E 2.0 video cards ?

So far, almost all the games I've tried are playable at or near the highest settings, save but a few exceptions, namely ARMA II, Metro 2033 and Batman: Arkham City (demo) are not performing well at all, with ARMA II and Batman: AC running at an average of 20-30 FPS in ARMA II (sometimes dipping into the teens) and 30-40 (not at 40 very often) in Batman: AC with the game settings maxed out completely, and I don't remember exactly but I think I was only seeing about 30-40 fps on average even after taking off the DX11 settings in the configuration menu. I realize these games require very powerful systems to run at optimal settings, but (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe my system should be capable of running them easily at top specs. I thought that maybe the games just couldn't run any better on my setup and that my hardware simply couldn't handle the games, but then I found out my friend is getting WAY more FPS in ARMA II with a P8768-V LX MOBO, GTX 570 1.25GB, 2nd-gen i7 2700k quad-core @3.5 GHz, 16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis RAM, and the same HDD, ODD and OSS as my system. So can someone throw out any ideas about what may be causing these low FPS numbers? The disgustingly-low FPS is very annoying for my eyeballs and soon-to-be-broken heart if I can't find out what's the matter.

 

[solar1992]

In my experience, demo's can be rather poorly optimised so tend to run worse than the full game, especially after time when the game gets updates.

Games are not designed for PCI-E specifications, it mostly describes the binary format of data transfer and the most useful comparison for us is throughput efficiency and data transfer speeds. GPU's function the same or better in the newer format.

Your friends extra RAM may be the helping point, take out massively high AA settings. Is your friends monitor resolution the same as yours? higher resolutions increase workload exponentially.

Dx11 may well speed up rendering due to newer features so don't always assume Dx9 will be quicker.

 

[Dem0nGam3r]

I can't imagine ARMA II can even take advantage of 8GB of RAM, let alone more, but I don't know. My monitor has a 60 Hertz refresh rate, and the resolution is set to 1920 x 1080, and that is the resolution I always set the games to. My friend's monitor has a 120 Hertz refresh rate, and his monitor is set to 1920 x 1080 and that's the resolution he runs his games at as well. I'm concerned mainly because these games seem to run far better on this card in benchmarks that I've seen on Tom's and other sites. Oh and just wondering, Would installing the card into the PCI-E 2.0 slot make any difference? I assume not by what you said. Thanks for the response and please excuse me if I don't seem to know a lot about the nitty-gritty technical details, because I don't really.

I just can't figure out what could be causing the poor performance.

 

[trogdor796]

It shouldn't matter with the PCIE 2.0 or 3.0. 3.0 isn't really better because videocards can't saturate it's bandwidth(yet...). Games aren't programmed for PCI-E versions either, it's just a motherboard specification that allows video cards to use the bandwidth.

Is your processor overclocked at all? Are you running the stock cooler or an aftermarket one? The processors ending with the "k" have an unlocked multiplier and are made to be overclocked. You could hit 4.2GHz on that thing no problem.

ARMAII is a horribly coded game. I have a GTX 680 and i5 2500k@4.4GHz and cannot get that game to run good. It is rarely at 60 frames and dips very low in dense forests or near big cities. I would turn off and form of SSAO, HBAO, MSAA/Antialiasing, as those cause Kepler Cards(GTX 600 series) a big loss in performance due to the 192bit interface of the 660ti. That should help, but honestly, there's nothing you can do to make that game run really good, because the coding is complete ***. How a company can release a product like that is beyond me.

I have Metro 2033 installed but have yet to try it. It is extremely demanding, even for high end systems. From what I've read/heard, it favors AMD cards over Nvidia due to the advanced lighting effects or something. I think one of the settings that kills FPS is DoF(Depth of Field), so maybe try turning that off, and the things metnioned above(HBAO, SSAO, MSAA, etc.), as those cripple 600 series cards.

For AC, not sure, haven't played it yet. Like solar mentioned, the demo version may not be patched and updated like the full game, meaning less performance. Also turn off what I mentioned above. And do you have Physx enabled? A single 660ti probably can't render the game and do Physx calculations, at least not with Physx turned all the way up(advanced).

But, I think the issue here is with the games, not your system. You happen to list out the very demanding and very poorly coded games that are known for being such. If all other games are running fine, it's likely a fault with those games. You got a pretty beast rig there, should run everything else great like you said it has.

 

[bumnut53]

Have you measured your fps or are you just guessing?

 

[xJordannx]

It shouldn't matter with the PCIE 2.0 or 3.0. 3.0 isn't really better because videocards can't saturate it's bandwidth(yet...). Games aren't programmed for PCI-E versions either, it's just a motherboard specification that allows video cards to use the bandwidth.

Is your processor overclocked at all? Are you running the stock cooler or an aftermarket one? The processors ending with the "k" have an unlocked multiplier and are made to be overclocked. You could hit 4.2GHz on that thing no problem.

ARMAII is a horribly coded game. I have a GTX 680 and i5 2500k@4.4GHz and cannot get that game to run good. It is rarely at 60 frames and dips very low in dense forests or near big cities. I would turn off and form of SSAO, HBAO, MSAA/Antialiasing, as those cause Kepler Cards(GTX 600 series) a big loss in performance due to the 192bit interface of the 660ti. That should help, but honestly, there's nothing you can do to make that game run really good, because the coding is complete ***. How a company can release a product like that is beyond me.

I have Metro 2033 installed but have yet to try it. It is extremely demanding, even for high end systems. From what I've read/heard, it favors AMD cards over Nvidia due to the advanced lighting effects or something. I think one of the settings that kills FPS is DoF(Depth of Field), so maybe try turning that off, and the things metnioned above(HBAO, SSAO, MSAA, etc.), as those cripple 600 series cards.

For AC, not sure, haven't played it yet. Like solar mentioned, the demo version may not be patched and updated like the full game, meaning less performance. Also turn off what I mentioned above. And do you have Physx enabled? A single 660ti probably can't render the game and do Physx calculations, at least not with Physx turned all the way up(advanced).

But, I think the issue here is with the games, not your system. You happen to list out the very demanding and very poorly coded games that are known for being such. If all other games are running fine, it's likely a fault with those games. You got a pretty beast rig there, should run everything else great like you said it has.

Hi, I'm Dem0nGam3r's friend that he was talking about. I think the thing that concerned him the most was when he saw that I could run ArmA 2 at the highest settings with a stable 50fps, when he has a more powerful gpu than I do and he gets around 10-20.

 

[xJordannx]

Have you measured your fps or are you just guessing?

He measured it with Fraps.

 

[xJordannx]

I will tell him about the Kepler cards when he comes online, that is really the only thing that would make sense as my card is a GTX570.

 

[13thmonkey]

Games are not designed for PCI-E specifications, it mostly describes the binary format of data transfer and the most useful comparison for us is throughput efficiency and data transfer speeds. GPU's function the same or better in the newer format.

utter rubbish

 

[trogdor796]

utter rubbish

What about that is "utter rubbish"?

xJordannx, are you running them at the same resolution and same settings? Are you both running the latest drivers from NVidia?

I kinda missed the part about your hardware beating his. But like I said, the settings I mentioned would cause the system with the 660ti to take more of a FPS hit than the 570, due to the 192bit interface of the 660ti. But besides that the 660ti is more powerful, just not as good at applying certain settings.

 

[13thmonkey]

games not being designed for pci-e is utter rubbish. (although I was reading it as ' the reason that games are perform poorly is that games are not designed to work with the pci-e specs' rather than 'games are agnostic as to the version of the pci-e bus that they use'. Sorry for confusion.

So I'd go with drivers, gpu and chipset, then temps gpu and cpu, Also is your windows fully upto date?

 

[trogdor796]

I would put it as they are designed to work with the specifications of PCI-E, but not designed around it like the way games are designed using DirectX as a standard.

But yes, we need to know exact settings, drivers, temps, and if windows is up to date like 13thmonkey mentioned.

 

[bystander]

So far, almost all the games I've tried are playable at or near the highest settings, save but a few exceptions, namely ARMA II, Metro 2033 and Batman: Arkham City (demo) are not performing well at all, with ARMA II and Batman: AC running at an average of 20-30 FPS in ARMA II (sometimes dipping into the teens) and 30-40 (not at 40 very often) in Batman: AC with the game settings maxed out completely, and I don't remember exactly but I think I was only seeing about 30-40 fps on average even after taking off the DX11 settings in the configuration menu. I realize these games require very powerful systems to run at optimal settings, but (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe my system should be capable of running them easily at top specs. I thought that maybe the games just couldn't run any better on my setup and that my hardware simply couldn't handle the games, but then I found out my friend is getting WAY more FPS in ARMA II with a P8768-V LX MOBO, GTX 570 1.25GB, 2nd-gen i7 2700k quad-core @3.5 GHz, 16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis RAM, and the same HDD, ODD and OSS as my system. So can someone throw out any ideas about what may be causing these low FPS numbers? The disgustingly-low FPS is very annoying for my eyeballs and soon-to-be-broken heart if I can't find out what's the matter.

Well, you managed to pick one game with major coding issues (Batman: AC), one that is insanely CPU limited, and another that is just generally demanding and requires a heavy GPU. Your system is not high end, though it is close, but you lack a high end GPU. You have a midranged GPU.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-geforce-gtx-650-benchmark,3297-6.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Reviews/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-660-ti-benchmark-review,3279-8.html

Notice that many of those benchmarks aren't even maxed, yet still have low FPS.

 

[HEXiT]

arma 2 is a pants coded game. anything over medium or default and performance crumples
batman archam city needs the user to delete some config files at just after installing to get it to run maxed out properly and even then it will crumple in certain parts of the city regardless of your gpu...
the 660ti is at the top end of mid range. so dont expect to max out games like bf3/batman ac or even arma 2 for that matter. your looking at high settings at best if your using AA you will likely have to lower settings even more...

there are plenty of benchmartking programs out there for games such as the crysis bench which will give a true representation of your pc's gaming prowess...
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/four-free-game-benchmarks-that-will-make-your-pc-scream/ check out the links here and you will get a better idea of what your pc can do as all the benches are representative of ingame perfomance and have a good track record of bringing the best out of the computers they run on.

 

[xJordannx]

xJordannx, are you running them at the same resolution and same settings? Are you both running the latest drivers from NVidia?

Exact same settings, same (latest) drivers, and we chose the exact same mission and walked around in an area, he was getting 10-20 fps and I was getting 50 stable.

 

[robnof]

Tell him to try an older driver version. His 660 gpu might be acting like a douchebag. I've had issues like this before comparing my radeon cards in two different builds. My 7970, underperformed my girlfriend's 6970. That particular version of catalyst just wasn't happening with my card, so I reverted to an older driver version which solved my problem.

 

[13thmonkey]

gpu and cpu temps.