Is Crysis even using my GPU?

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790
I used to have a Geforce 9500GT. I ran crysis at 1024x768 medium settings with low frame rates.

Now that I have a GTX 260 216shader sc, I'm still running crysis 1024x768 on medium settings with low frame rates.

What's going on?

I try to play the game on 1650x1050(monitor resolution 20"), but it runs like garbage. I get 20-25 fps and it dips to 11fps sometimes. When I turn it to 1024x768, I'm still getting the same frame rates, but it only dips to 15fps.

I checked Riva Tuner and it doesn't look like my GPU is being used that much. At Idle, my GPU is at 29celsius. I checked Rivatuner right now after turning off crysis and it says the GPU was 38celsius at the highest load. When I run games like COD 4,5 and 6 the GPU load hits 61celsius at max.

Is my gpu even being used? Is Crysis more GPU or CPU intensive?

If it's mor CPU intensive then I undersatnd since I haven't upgraded my cpu/mobo yet. But if it's GPU intensive, then what's going on?


Here are my specs.

ECS G31T-LM 2 motherboard.

Nvidia GTX 260 16shader overclocked to 760/1537/1179 (hasn't crashed yet during any game play. Seems stable). Would overclocking slow down performance in anyway? I'm not seeing any major heat generation from the video card so I'm concerned about if it's even being used.

4megs DDR2 667mhz 2x2 memory

Intel E5200 2.5gigs (not overclocked, can't due to motherboard)

Thermaltake 600w purepower GPU

HAF 932 case with 3x230mm fans, 1x120mm case fans.

Just a bit frustrated by this game. Is it one of those games that wasn't properly coded like GTA 4? Btw, that game runs like *** for me too.

 

thacondor

Distinguished
Nov 5, 2008
45
0
18,530
wow what drivers? i can push crysis on my 2 9800gt's at that resolution MAXXED out at 80+... oh and from what ive read crysis is more gpu... i also know that cuz my cpu is 60$...
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



Newest Nvidia driver from their site. On my windows personalization screen it says I'm using this driver 8.17.11.9562
 

daedalus685

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2008
1,558
1
19,810
At such a low resolution most modern games will be heavily limited by the CPU not the GPU.

Does the fps change much when you go from that to 1680*1050 or is it always in teh ball park of 20fps?

I'd have expected a 5200 to be faster than that, are you running things like particle physics effects on medium too? These are done on the CPU. Given how weak that cpu seems to be at stock you might want to change all of the cpu settings to low.

Also, there is no point in using such a small resolutoin display with a 260, unless you aer acceleratign physX it will perform identical to almost any other card made in the last couple of years with that few pixels.
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



All of the graphics were set to "Mainstream" which I believe is medium since the settings are, "low, mainstream, gamer, enthusiast" with enthusiast being highest setting.

The FPS is always around 20-25fps. I'd occassionally see 30-35 fps, but that's only if I'm alone and not doing anything. During actual game play it's 20-25fps and dips to 11-15fps.
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790
Okay just ran another test. This time I put it back to 1650x1050 resolution on Enthusiast setting(highest setting on all).

Guess what? The game ran about the same... It still hovered around 20fps until I'm in battle. Then it drops to 11-15fps. I saw it dip to 10fps this time, but all around the game runs the same whether I'm on 1024x768 medium setting or 1650x1050 all settings to max (no anti aliasing).

What could this be? By the way, I set my GPU card back to factory default this time.
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



Okay I just checked right now and it doesn't really have any numbers. I just see a graph and it looks like it's using about 90-95% of the CPU. It ranges from 75-95%. It looks like one of those Earthquake monitoring charts.
 

daedalus685

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2008
1,558
1
19,810
If you are changing to enthusiast without a hit to fps (much of one) you are being limited by the CPU.

Not much you can do about it other than get a faster CPU, as it is the game is not able to use the GPU to near its fullest, just blast it to the highest settings you can I suppose.. lol
 

Zinosys

Distinguished
Jul 12, 2009
453
0
18,810
Mmm.. The E5200 does seem like a bottleneck. After all, it's FSB clocks in at a nice 800MHz...

Which, isn't that x8 PCI-E speed?

Go with xaira and set the performance preset is on performance.
 

aylafan

Distinguished
Feb 24, 2006
540
1
19,165
Having framerates in the 20s-30s and dipping lower in action scenes is quite normal with your Geforce GTX 260 on medium settings/high settings depending on your resolution.

I don't know how your 9500GT can even get similar framerates as my videocard or your new GTX 260, when my ATI HD 3850 is 3x more powerful than your 9500GT (not a 9600GT, major difference) and I get around 25-30FPS at 1280x1024 on medium settings in Crysis.

Here are some reviews with your Geforce GTX 260 compared.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-260-review/9 Crysis
http://hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-260-Core-216-EVGA-Zotac/?page=8 Crysis
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/917/6/ Crysis Warhead

Also, your processor is an Intel E5200 at 2.5GHz. I highly doubt that is a bottleneck.

However, if you installed newer drivers over your old drivers. That could've corrupted the drivers and that could be why you have low framerates. Just uninstall the drivers in safe mode and reinstall the new ones in Windows.



 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



In RivaTuner it says: CoreTemperature 34c in idle right now, but in Everest it says

GPU 42c, GPU memory 34c, GPU ambient 35c.

Which temperature am I supposed to look at? I just went into nvidia control panel and changed it into Performance. Tried the game again, nothing has changed. Still low FPS.

 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



My 9500 GT was getting the same resolution as my GTX 260 in the 1024x768 resolution. My 9500GT couldn't run 1650x1050 though, it's like a slide show.
My concern was that the GTX 260 ran the same as my 9500GT in 1024x768 which is weird.

I did install new drivers over my old ones. I used to have an ATI 4870, returned it and got a Nvidia GTX 260. I don't think I uninstalled the ATI drivers before I installed the Nvidia ones. Everything was fine so I just installed the Nvidia ones first. Then later I uninstalled the ATI ones just to save space. Could that have an affect?

I'm going to go and uninstall my Nvidia Drivers right now then install them again to see if that helps. I'll report back in a few.
 
1) you're not going to get high FPS on Crysis without a high end setup
2) Your CPU is rather underpowerd for that GPU. Crysis is pretty CPU intensive
3) Did you install the v1.2 patch?

My athlon X2 5000+ at stock clocks ran Crysis fine on medium, for the most part, at 1024x768 with a single Radeon 3850 (I hadn't gotten the second one yet). Of course, I still got the dips a little below 20FPS in some of the heavier scenes.

Anyway, make sure you run drive cleaner pro to get rid of any trace of the Radeon Drivers. Earlier drivers are particularly bad at cleaning up after themselves when you uninstall them. The DDR speed of your RAM is holding you back a little since Intel CPUs are a little more sensitive to DDR frequency. Finally, it would of course be a help if you could overclock that CPU of yours, but if you lack the BIOS options you will have to look into a software overclocking utility.
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790



Do software overclocking exist? I would love to be able to use one. I thought bios was the only way.

I just did a clean format right now so all my previous drivers are gone. Infact I did more than a clean format, I upgraded my windows vista 32bit to windows ultimate 64 bit. So far so good. I'm in the process of reinstalling all my drives and games right now so I'll check to see if this has helped my crysis crisis.
 

marney_5

Distinguished
Oct 8, 2009
237
0
18,690



I wouldnt bother with the drivers off the Nvidia site, I have a 260 and i normally get the tweeked versions off the Guru3d website.

it probably wont make much difference to the problem your having but ive seen a big performance difference between Nvidia and Guru3d drivers.

Just a suggestion!
 

radguy

Distinguished
Jan 25, 2008
223
0
18,680
A stock e5200 should be giving you an ave of 50ish fps on crysis warhead with a gtx 260 at 768res. It almost sounds to me like the processor isn't comming out of powersaving mode staying in 6x or 9x mode. I didn't think it could happen and I know you not ocing so its a minimal bios options but I might check disable any powersaving setting if there is one.
 

tuesday0180

Distinguished
Nov 15, 2009
414
0
18,790
Alright guys, did a clean install, am on Windows 7 utlimate now 64 bit and just reinstalled Crysis warhead.

Here are the results: Same thing! Well, sorta. It's maybe 2-3 frames more on average, but that probably resulted from a clean installation and using windows 7.

I jumped down to the lowest setting, 1680x1050 at the lowest graphic setting. It got up to 45-50fps when I'm not in combat and facing a wall. In combat it still drops down to 20's and sometimes teens.

Could motherboards be a big hinderance to game play? I have a crappy motherboard, but I thought with my above average video card I could play the game at medium at atleast 40fps.