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Benchmarking slower than it should, HELP!

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Benchmarking slower than it should, HELP!

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bikeracer4487   06-10-2009 at 09:39:59 PM

So, I recently tried to duplicate TH's Far Cry 2 benchmark (1680x1050, 4aa, 8AF, Very High, Ranch - Small) on my computer to see how it stacked up. I'm running a Q6600 OC'd @ 3.0 GHz, 4GB DDR2-800 6-6-6-18, 2x8800GT's in SLI stock clocks, 500GB 7200RPM 16MB cache Western Digital, and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Sound Card. I ran the test using default settings for physics, trees, and fire (PhysX is disabled in nvidia control panel), Very High preset selected, and 4X AA selected (couldn't find an AF setting). I ran it 3 times and averaged 34 FPS and while I know my CPU can't compete with an i7, on the benchmark charts a 9800GT STILL managed 37.1 FPS and I should have roughly double that... Then I tried disabling the AI and lowering the physics settings a bit to offset my CPU but I still only got 38 FPS...any ideas?

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 07:53:19 AM
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So, I did some additional testing that leaves me confused. Firstly, I updated my driver to 186.08 from 185.85 and I reran the Far Cry 2 benchmark and it came up as 39.0 (marginal increase) with the same settings as TH. Then I ran the HAWX benchmark, which gave me 62 fps which puts it squarely between a GTX 280 and a GTX 275, and a Left 4 Dead benchmark which gave me 82.8 fps which is just below a GTX 260. Left 4 Dead and HAWX were as expected but what's the deal with Far Cry 2? On TH, a single 8800GT scored 33fps so I feel like I should be doing way better than 39...does it not work well with SLI?

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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-11-2009 at 11:09:05 AM
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Far Cry 2 likes a faster CPU, I was getting 45 - 60 fps outdoors and 80 - 90 fps indoors.

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HundredIslandsBoy   06-11-2009 at 11:40:41 AM
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It sounds like your SLI is working normally but your Q6600 is the bottleneck for Far Cry 2 which does better on an overclocked e8400 at 3.6 Ghz. If you canget your Q6600 at 3.2 on 8 x 400 bus speed you'll see a huge improvement. Hope you don't have the stock Intel cooler or it might be too difficult.

Your RAM seems to be on the slow side when there's so many CAS 4 DDR2 800 models to choose from.

The only other thing that comes to mind is to check the affinity settings to ensure Facr Cry 2 is "clicked on" to run on all 4 cores.

http://www.****/reviews/121-Far-Cr [...] age-4.aspx

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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-11-2009 at 11:52:26 AM
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I think you'll find this is simply a case of the Q6600 not being as 'futureproof' as it was touted.

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Kari   06-11-2009 at 12:37:10 PM
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WTH is wrong with that link?? www.**** huh?

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 03:52:10 PM
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Ah, I do remember hearing that Far Cry 2 was CPU limited, just didn't think it would be to this extreme. I do have aftermarket cooling though so I'll try bumping up the clock speed when I get home. So does Far Cry 2 just not utilize 4 cores then?

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orangegator   06-11-2009 at 04:05:19 PM
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Kari wrote :

WTH is wrong with that link?? www.**** huh?



Toms has put x c pus on their filtered words list. They don't like the site because a couple years ago all the experts who used hang out here got sick of the BS that was going on and left Toms for x c cpus.

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 05:15:23 PM
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Well, I managed to get to that review, no thanks to Tom's bogus link filtering... Disappointed in what I found though, less than 2FPS difference between dual core and quad core? Unbelievable...

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HundredIslandsBoy   06-11-2009 at 05:22:25 PM
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You can always hope that Far Cry 2 will release a patch to take full advantage of all 4 cores but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Just guessing but I'm betting that the game was designed/developed for 2 cores.

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 06:30:21 PM
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Well, in that case, do you guys know which games wouldn't be as hindered by my Q6600? I'm trying to get a feel for where my cards stand in comparison to the new cards out there now so I've been comparing my benchmark's to TH's graphics charts, but if you know of other good sites that do extensive benchmarking, I'd love to hear about them.

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gamerk316   06-11-2009 at 06:48:06 PM
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Games supporting more then two cores are still quite rare, hence the problem. Still, 40 or so FPS is all my QX9650 (@3.6 at the time) could get with a 9800GX2 with all settings maxed...so I don't think its the CPU, I think the game just hates SLI setups.

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 06:56:11 PM
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gamerk316 wrote :

Games supporting more then two cores are still quite rare, hence the problem. Still, 40 or so FPS is all my QX9650 (@3.6 at the time) could get with a 9800GX2 with all settings maxed...so I don't think its the CPU, I think the game just hates SLI setups.




Huh, well I didn't have ALL settings maxed, but I don't think it's an issue with SLI, check out this article: http://www.bjorn3d.com/read_pf.php?cID=1389

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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-11-2009 at 07:18:04 PM
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Sli in Far Cry 2 is not an issue, I found that my cards were well and truly worked at all times @1680 x 1050, the issue is people buying into the Quad core bunkum that you need one because all games are going multi threaded when in reality they just aren't.

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bikeracer4487   06-11-2009 at 07:43:58 PM
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Well I realize that, but there are definitely benefits of having a quad core outside of gaming, but given the number of recent quad core processors being released into the market I would think that developers would start to utilize more cores and come up with methods that would give games upward compatibility that would allow them to utilize 8 or more cores.

------------------------------ XFX 780i SLI mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OC'd@ 3.24 GHz (9x360MHz)
4GB DDR2-800 @ 5-4-4-10
2x8800GT's in SLI w/ 700 MHz Core, 1000MHz (2000 MHz effective) Memory, and 1750 MHz Shader clocks
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Bronze Graphics badge mousemonkey   06-11-2009 at 07:54:06 PM
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I don't doubt that they will eventually, problem is the Q6600 got way more hype than it deserved IMHO and there are those who, like yourself, are wondering why they are not getting the performance they thought they would, and outside of gaming I still was not that impressed with the Q6600 which is why I got rid of mine the first chance I got.

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bikeracer4487   06-12-2009 at 03:19:14 AM
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So I bumped my overclock to 3.2 GHz and also OC'd my 8800GT's to 675/1000(2000 effective)/1675 MHz clocks and this bumped my average FPS to 42.9, so that helped a little...

------------------------------ XFX 780i SLI mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OC'd@ 3.24 GHz (9x360MHz)
4GB DDR2-800 @ 5-4-4-10
2x8800GT's in SLI w/ 700 MHz Core, 1000MHz (2000 MHz effective) Memory, and 1750 MHz Shader clocks
Reply to bikeracer4487
bikeracer4487   06-12-2009 at 06:41:48 AM
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Also, I mistakenly wrote that my RAM was 6-6-6-18 when it was 5-5-5-18, but in any case it is now 5-4-4-10

------------------------------ XFX 780i SLI mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OC'd@ 3.24 GHz (9x360MHz)
4GB DDR2-800 @ 5-4-4-10
2x8800GT's in SLI w/ 700 MHz Core, 1000MHz (2000 MHz effective) Memory, and 1750 MHz Shader clocks
Reply to bikeracer4487
bikeracer4487   06-13-2009 at 09:41:10 PM
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K, so I upped my CPU overclock to 8x400MHz = 3.2 GHz, dropped my memory timings to 5-4-4-10 (for some reason 4-4-4-10 was unstable), and OC'd my graphics cards to 700/1000(2000 effective)/1750 (core/mem/shaders) and this improved my benchmark to 46.0 FPS which I think is a rather big improvement, placing me squarely between a GTS 250 and a GTX 260, and those are with i7's so I'm pretty pleased.

------------------------------ XFX 780i SLI mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 OC'd@ 3.24 GHz (9x360MHz)
4GB DDR2-800 @ 5-4-4-10
2x8800GT's in SLI w/ 700 MHz Core, 1000MHz (2000 MHz effective) Memory, and 1750 MHz Shader clocks
Reply to bikeracer4487
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