Is Crysis even using my GPU?

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

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$...

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Message edited by thacondor on 12-08-2009 at 10:57:56 PM

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Reply to thacondor

thacondor wrote :

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$...

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

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Reply to tuesday0180

I can't really tell how much of the GPU is being used either because Riva tuner doesn't show it. It's weird when I had my ATI 4870 it showed GPU usage.

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Reply to tuesday0180

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.

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Reply to daedalus685

tuesday0180 wrote :

I can't really tell how much of the GPU is being used either because Riva tuner doesn't show it. It's weird when I had my ATI 4870 it showed GPU usage.

GPUz will display that information.

Reply to daedalus685

daedalus685 wrote :

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.

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

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.

Message edited by tuesday0180 on 12-08-2009 at 11:22:26 PM

Reply to tuesday0180

CPU creating a "bottleneck" perhaps? Whats your CPU usage look like in Task Manager (while in Crysis)?

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Message edited by brett1042002 on 12-08-2009 at 11:34:08 PM

Just tried another test. This time I ran crysis warhead in DX 9 instead. I received about 5 fps jump, but not much.

At Mainstream settings I'm still getting 15-30fps.

Reply to tuesday0180

brett1042002 wrote :

CPU creating a "bottleneck" perhaps? Whats your CPU usage look like in Task Manager (while in Crysis)?

Is there a program that will record my CPU usage like Riva Tuner?

Reply to tuesday0180

brett1042002 wrote :

CPU creating a "bottleneck" perhaps? Whats your CPU usage look like in Task Manager (while in Crysis)?

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

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

Reply to daedalus685

go into nvidia settings and make sure the performance preset is on performance

http://media.photobucket.com/image [...] lPanel.jpg

set it to use my preference emphasizing perf, have you tried gpuz to check ur temps also?, those temps sound low for a gtx260.

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------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

Get a regor if you can am3... Cheap and OC easy...
^^and that must be because the gpu is waiting on CPU so it's not working as hard as it can be...

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Reply to thacondor

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.

Reply to Zinosys

Is Vsync enabled? I don't know if it would cause something like that, but it may be worth noting.

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Reply to jedimasterben

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/NV [...] ac/?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.

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Message edited by aylafan on 12-09-2009 at 03:19:31 AM

Reply to aylafan

xaira wrote :

go into nvidia settings and make sure the performance preset is on performance

http://media.photobucket.com/image [...] lPanel.jpg

set it to use my preference emphasizing perf, have you tried gpuz to check ur temps also?, those temps sound low for a gtx260.

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

aylafan wrote :

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/NV [...] ac/?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.

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

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.

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megamanx00 wrote :

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.

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

tuesday0180 wrote :

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

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!

Reply to Marney_5

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.

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Reply to radguy

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.

Reply to tuesday0180

radguy wrote :

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.

Just changed my power options from balanced to performance. Tried crysis again, same thing. I'm currently using 1680x1050 resolutions right now. I didn't try 1024x768 again yet.

Reply to tuesday0180

My money is on the CPU creating a "bottleneck." If that is the case, only thing to do is overclock that thing to +3.0ghz or get a new cpu/mobo, if you are wanting higher FPS in Crysis. Just my .02. Good luck!

Alright just saw this video of a guys gameplay.

He's pretty much on the same system: E5200 260gtx, but he overclocked his CPU to 3.9ghz while I'm still at 2.5(bios won't let me overclock). He overclocked his video card. I did too, but when I did I didn't get much increase in performance.

He's running at Enthusiast settings (highest setting) and getting 25-35 fps with fraps on. I'm getting anywhere from 9fps-25fps on highest setting without fraps.

We're both running same resolution 1680x1050.

So.... It does look like it's my cpu. I don't get it though I hear people with my same CPU E5200 get better results than me without even overclocking. Could motherboard hold you back?

Here is the guys youtube video if you want to see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoSLpPfc3js

Reply to tuesday0180

Looks like my next logical step is a new motherboard. Crap, already way over budget by getting a gtx 260 instead of a used 9800gt on ebay hah. Original budget was around $60.00-$70.00. I ended up spending $219.00 on the GTX, $100 on a new pc case, $15 for a hard drive cooler.

Reply to tuesday0180

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