Poor game performance with GTX 260 SLI

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roachmotel

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I recently upgraded my gpu from an 8800 GTS 512(BFG) to GTX 260's(PNY) core 216 in SLI. And also upgraded from XP to W7 64bit. I ran the heaven benchmark on 4x AA, 1680X1050, DX10, and scored over 1500. During the test I monitored the cards using EVGA Precision and saw they were both getting crushed (as they should). I also monitored my cpu using cpuz and it didn't seem to be taking much of a hit in that benchmark. In 3dmark06, I scored 15700, and saw the cpu take heavy load - as it should and the gpu's individually take good loads as well...BUT, I get into Call of Duty MW2 or Battlefield BC2, and I am absolutely not getting the appropriate frames for those cards. And the GPUs are not taking a significant load...in fact - neither of them will get over 40 - 45% usage. And the CPU is not maxed either...both cores will hit the 90's, but mostly stay in the 70's and 80's. The bottom line is the cards appear to be functioning correctly, but these games are not seeming to utilize them as I would expect. I have the most recent drivers...196.75 (even though there is a fan control issue). I used driver sweeper and whiped everything for NVidia display away - and reloaded. My brother is running an AMD setup with 2 3870s in crossfire and breaking 100 FPS in BFBC2 - and I can barely break 40 with a superior set of cards.

Someone please tell me if there is something I should be worried about with this rig - or if all this sounds normal...Here are my specs...

W7 Home Premium 64bit
C2D E6850 (conroe)- Overclocked to 3.6 with no overvoltage. running in the 60 degree range
Corsair TXW 750 PSU
2 X PNY GTX260 (216) in SLI - Overclocked to 633Mhz on the core and 1364 on the shader.
10000 rpm Raptor HD
Striker Extreme Mobo
4x1gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC6400
Viewsonic VX2240W 22" LCD
All air cooled in thermaltake Armor tower
 
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Bluescreendeath

Bluescreendeath

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I'd say you have a CPU bottleneck.

Nvidia cards require a bit more CPU power due to drivers than their ATI counterparts.

Dual-GPUs require a LOT more CPU power and an overclocked E6850 won't be able to handle two fairly high end cards such as your 2x GTX260.

For example, in Tomshardware charts, take a look at the E8400 Core2Duo @ 3.0GHz (which I'd say is slightly better than your 3.6GHz 65nm core2duo due to faster architechture and larger cache). When paired with a GTX295 (performs equal to two GTX260s), the E8400 is suffering some pretty large CPU bottlenecks even in the graphically intensive (and not cpu intensive) game such as Crysis.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469-8.html

For Crysis at VeryHigh settings at 1680x1050, an E8400 gets around 33fps, a Q9550 gets 41 fps. For Crysis at VeryHigh settings at 1280x1024, an E8400 gets around 37fps, a Q9550 gets around 47 fps. For games not as graphically intensive as Crysis, and thus more CPU dependent (which is basically every other game out there), you'd have a much larger CPU bottleneck.

I'd say you need a fast triple or a quad core to make full use of your dual GTX295.
 
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Maziar

Maziar

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No,if you read completely,the OP has problems with BC2 and COD MW2.
2 GTX 260s + 3.6 C2D should be able to handle this fine.
If the OP mainly played games like RTS ones or games like L4D2 which benefit from quad core,then it was a different case.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5850,2433-14.html
Processor%20Bottleneck.png

"Certain games we know are fairly CPU-dependent, like Left 4 Dead and to a lesser extent World in Conflict. It also appears that Resident Evil 5 has a penchant for processing power as we step down from our 4 GHz Core i7-870 to a stock-clocked 2.93 GHz chip. In the situations where the lower-clocked CPU gives up performance, though, you have lots of frame rate already. The most demanding workloads where playability is debatable could still use more GPU muscle. "
 
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swifty_morgan

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First thing I would look at are the settings in the nvidia control panel. Turn off vsync and set other settings to let application decide. You should try enabling and disabling physx. See if it helps at all.

On my dual 6850 Crysis didn't start to play "well" until I hit 3.4..... you should be fine there....@ 3.6.

Even though you are running 2 260's they still only have 896 memory not 1792. This made a difference when I switched to a Lightning card with the extra memory. Could use 8aa @16x10 and not have a problem anywhere... this was in DX10 too. Check your setings in the games control panel also.

Until recently.... DDR2 800 and up I never had problems with ballistix memory. Now it seems the quality of the ram has been diminished. I also found that sometimes 4gig of memory isn't enough. I run 8gigs on my gamer and have for a while. You may also want to check your virtual memory and increase it.

Another thing. most people assume that because you have the newest video card you should automatically get higher frame rates. This isn't always true. What I found is that I can crank the settings up with the newer stuff whereas with the older I couldn't. Sometimes the FPS were less but I got a better gaming experience.

Maybe your over clock is bad ? Try stock speeds or less than clock speeds. Try each card separately.

Quad9550- / 8gig-DDR2-800 / single gtx260-896 / single gtx1796 / this will run anything and have no problems except for the 896 version card. The extra memory has a lot to offer here.... DX10.. ( crysis ) ... DX9 it will run everything. My 5850 hasn't been fully tested yet so I can't really comment on it to great extent. I sli-ed the 2 GTX260's and I'd rather run the single 1792 card.

EDIT: Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260
Graphics memory: 512MB
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2)

don't know what the other game suggests for proper game play. This one says quad
 
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Bluescreendeath

Bluescreendeath

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I posted the benchmarks for Crysis, which is the most GPU limited game on the market. It showed that a GTX295 was clearly bottle-necked by a fast 45nm Wolfdale E8400 @ 3.0GHz with 6mb of cache. Every other game besides Crysis would be far more CPU-dependent and less GPU-dependent than Crysis.




The chart shows an i7 quad cpu. That is far better than what the OP has. That chart with the i7 is basically irrelevant since it's not using anything close to a core2duo.

Also, it's not just about games benefiting from quad cores. When running more than one card, your computer needs the CPU power to effectively max out the cards' potential.


Take a look at the charts with dual core CPUs. The E6300 or E8400 with the GTX295 is the most comparable to what the OP has. In Crysis, which is entirely GPU dependent, it shows some large bottlenecks when you run an Nvidia-dual GPU card with a dual core.

Crysis%201280x1024.png


Crysis%201680x1050.png


 
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Maziar

Maziar

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I have to agree with one thing,1680x1050 is one of the resolutions which benefit from a faster CPU but my main point is that with a 3.6C2D + 2 GTX 260,you should be able to get good FPS but OP seem to get low FPS,here is from what the OP said:
"I get into Call of Duty MW2 or Battlefield BC2, and I am absolutely not getting the appropriate frames for those cards."
If the OP posts how much FPS does he/she exactly get,then we can judge better.
 
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roachmotel

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I am fairly certain this is a CPU issue. In MW2 I am getting decent FPS (average in the 60 - 80 range), but still lag my brother's rig which has a significantly faster quad core AMD system with much weaker gpus. In BFBC2 I am lucky to get out of the 20-35 FPS range, while my brother's rig is breaking 100FPS at times. I enabled the NVidia on screen SLI display in addition to using EVGA Precision (to monitor GPU usage and FPS on the G15 LCD), and in BFBC2 both of the GPU's are at appx 30% load. As I stated in the first post, the heaven benchmark showed that BOTH Gpus were working well and experienced over 95% load in that test.

Now I have taken one of the GTX260's out of the machine, disabled sli (obviously) and I actually get slightly better FPS in BFBC2. I had also witnessed that the if I really tried to work the pair of cards in game with 16XAA and AF and all settings on high - there was virtually no difference in FPS. This all tells me that the cards are simply too strong for the CPU - even though it is OC'd to 3.6. I guess the dual core is just getting its butt kicked.

Anyone not agree with this conclusion? and if I am right - I am looking to find a QX6850 OEM. I think that's about as good a chip as I can get for the 680i chipset/socket 775. True? I can't spend more than 250-300 on this.
 
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roachmotel

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Well, I found a core 2 extreme QX6850 for $275 - and should have it by Friday. We will know the answer then. I will post with results after the install. I appreciate the assistance.
 
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skolpo

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You guys told him it was a CPU bottleneck and he went out and bought an overpriced CPU... I hope you guys are right. It does not sound like a CPU bottleneck to me, especially when he's referring to games like COD4.

You should try using the previous beta drivers before taking a step on buying something that isn't guaranteed to solve your problem. You should also try running both GPUs by itself to see if they both yield the same performance. This will determine if either card is defective. And you never gave us your FPS@resolution, but I'm guessing you're playing at 1680x1050 with max settings. Plus, two 3870s at >100fps on BFBC2? Are his settings maxed using a high resolution? But even so, an e6850@3.6Ghz should have NO PROBLEM maxing out at least COD4MW2 and running with smooth framerate. I have an e6750@3.4Ghz with a GTX285 and this is exactly the case. Your SLI setup should be even more superior. I think you were too hasty with buying a new quad core CPU, but if it solves your problems, kudos.
 
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Bluescreendeath

Bluescreendeath

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Well yeah, I'm not arguing with the fact he'll get good fps. He stated that he was getting fps in the 80s-90s.

I'm just stating that the reason why he didn't notice any large fps increase going from 1 GTX260 to two GTX260s was because he hit a CPU bottleneck
 
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Bluescreendeath

Bluescreendeath

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=(

You spent way too much money. You should've just got a used Q6600 or Q6700 for about $120-$140 and overclock it for the same performance.

$275 is the price of an i7. $275 is overpriced even for a 45nm Q9x00 quad, let alone an older 65nm Q6x00 quad.
 
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roachmotel

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OK...time for an update. This has been a long, winding, and expensive road. Since I began this adventure - I have upgraded my PSU to 900W, bought a new mother board (Asus p5n-t deluxe) purchased some new crappy memory (kingston pc6400 (Value)...a new CPU (QX6850) and several pretty led fans...lol.

But the findings are fairly interesting and hopefully will be a good instruction tool for some people out there. I will try and keep this short...the initial problem was stated above so I won't restate it...

I upgraded the PSU because I was concerned that the 750 was not enough to power everything with the 2 GPUs...that didn't work. I upgraded the CPU to a quad only to eventually find that it was a bad chip...(have to RMA it). In the process, I found that the NB or SB on the Mobo was bad through multiple conversations with Asus (RMA in process) - so I put a new Mobo in and started to get BSODs...I ran memtest and found that at least one of my mem stix was bad - so I bought 2 - 2 gig stix of value memory...By this point, I knew the cpu was failing so I went back to the C2D E6850 and everything was stable. I OC'd it to 3.6 again (after putting on a new CPU cooler which keeps the temps in the high 20's at idle. then went into the game (BFBC2) and found I still have the same issue I originally had. Everything has been upgraded, cleaned and validated. I watched closely to see the CPU usage in game and see that both cores are almost constantly at 100% and the GPU's barely get over 30%. I pulled one GPU out to test if the frames would vary and they pretty much stayed flat. The CPU was still maxed and the GPU usage was slightly higher around 45 - 50%. Soooooooo...I am now more convinced than ever that this is solely a CPU bottleneck issue. I am going to RMA the extreme QX6850 (which was OEM for $275). RMA the Striker Extreme - which Asus is apparently going to 'fix' and send back to me (a story for another day)...and RMA 4x1gb crucial ballistix PC 6400. What a week.

Does anyone feel that the QX6850 is not the best chip for the price at $275? I think I simply need to get a quad core, but thought getting an extreme at that price was worth it. Thoughts?

new rig...for now

C2D E6850 @3.6Mhz (upgrading to C2QX6850)
900Watt PSU - rocketfish
Mobo - Asus P5n-T Deluxe
2 X GTX260 in SLI
Windows 7 64 bit
150 gig WD Raptor
2 X 2Gig Kingston Value mem (PC6400)
 
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chad1073

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Aww man thnx for the update bro i was watching this thread:) i to have 2 gtx 260's and a q6600, 4 gigs of ram and im only pulling 40 to 20 fps:( i do see 50s and 70s some times on some maps. im glad you updated us cuz i was thinking about upgrading myself, but you did first so im not lol.. I think its a driver problem or just the game dont like nvidia cards.. so ill just play it and wait :) but yeah i think the game is just crap and more suited for console's... but i cant stop playing it lol
 
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roachmotel

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New update...this is pathetic.

I now bought an intel core 2 quad Q9400 @2.66 hoping to finally put this issue to bed...but noooooooooo!!! Now all 4 cores on the cpu are typically running in the 60-80% usage area, but the gpus are still not getting hit more than 40%. I swept and installed the latest NVidia beta drivers...197.13, I think...which were supposedly going to fix it and no change. The only thing I have left is the cards...anyone think it's the cards? or is this really just a game optimization and continuing driver issue?

My brother is consistently getting over 100 frames with an AMD/ATI setup...Phenom 965 and an ATI5870 (just one). I know I shouldn't necessarily expect to get 100 frames, but based on the charts, I am not that far behind him on either cpu or video...I should be in the 80's consistently, I would think.

WTF is going on with my gpu's?

C2Q Q9400 (brand new)
P5N-T Deluxe Mobo (brand new)
900W power supply (brand new)
Windows 7 64 bit (fresh install)
4 gig pc6400 (kingston value) (brand new)
150gig raptor drive (10000 rpm)
2 x GTX 260 ((2 months old running 197.13 beta drivers) Tried 196.75, 196.21, 196.34 all with swept drivers prior to install))
 
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roachmotel

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I promise he is getting those frames. his rig is very well optimized. He will occasionally drop into the 80's, but usually in the 100's. He threw one 3870 in last week to test, and was getting 60 frames.

All I know, is the charts say I should be right with him. I wish I could figure this out. I feel like I have tried everything.

and he is running 4x aa, 4x af @1680 X1050....same as me. I can max everything and also turn on vsync and HBAO and seem to get a bit better performance...maybe 35-40 frames instead of the 25-35 that I get at 4x aa and 4x af. One thing is for sure...I should not be gettign 30 FPS in this game with this rig...I should be in the 60 -80 range.
 
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lucuis

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Something is definitely up. My settings are thus, in my settings.ini.

[WindowSettings]
Width=1920
Height=1080
Fullscreen=true
RefreshRate=60
VSync=false
[Sound]
Quality=high
VoipEnable=true
SpeakerCount=5
[Graphics]
Effects=medium
Soldiers=high
Vehicles=high
Overgrowth=high
Undergrowth=high
StaticObjects=high
Terrain=high
Shadows=low
Bloom=true
HSAO=false
MSAA=0
Water=medium
MainQuality=custom
Texture=high
DxVersion=auto
Aniso=0
Detail=high
RenderAheadLimit=1
Fov=70


FRAPS Bench, FULL game of BFBC2. All cores enabled.
Frames Time (ms) Min 34 Max 88 Avg 53.793
24942 463669

All done with an 8800GTS 512 OC and a q6600 @ 3.2ghz

Also thought i'd mention i get very similar FPS with 2 cores disabled.

FRAPS, FULL game of BFBC2. 2 of 4 cores DISABLED.
Frames Time (ms) Min 20 Max 72 Avg 43.052
32449 753715

Keep in mind, the second bench run was on a different map. It was the winter map, playing conquest. The winter map does stress the system more, i found.
 
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