Gtx 460 768mb Interesting dilemma

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im_thinking1

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Oct 19, 2010
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All righty so when I go to start up games all is dandy until i get into the game fps hang around 30 for every game and the gpu usage goes from 30% to 70% or so , now here's the weird thingy , I alt tab out or alt enter the gpu usage goes up to high 70's through 99 , 70's though 99 is what I want of course since it boost the frames to constant 50's and 60's 60 being the vsync cap.

So my question is , is my card getting stuck in 2d clocks when i first enter games? I check msi afterburner to monitor the clocks and i believe it is skipping between 405 and 800 being my core clock , should i check for the latest video bios for the card or alter them for myself? I'm pretty sure the 2d/3d clock is the problem but I thought i'd ask the question just for more technical info in case there is more to consider.

Thanks , I appreciate all responses/suggestions.
 
Solution
notty22
Look in your bios for power saving features and try changing them. Do one thing at a time, so you can find what might work and what doesn't.
I don't have this problem. Something is obviously not waking up.
Some flag withing the gpu driver/bios/OS

Do you have it so your cpu set to 100% min / 100% max under power options.
Processor power management.
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What game ? All games ?
You can go in to Nvidia control panel and change power management mode from adaptive to 'prefer maximum performance' or you can do that on a per game basis under the program settings tab.
You need to reboot to force this behavior.
 
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Tried it and nothing changed , the gpu wont run between 80-99 percent unless I alt tab in whatever game I'm playing , the core clock still dropped to 405 when i'm on desktop but in game i've flashed back to msi afterburner to see if the clocks dropped while game and it say's that they haven't so don't have any idea why i'd have to alt tab in every game to get the gpu to run like it's suppose to.
 
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You have great timing. The latest 260.99 WHQL drivers from Nvidia were released today:
"Improves Alt-Tab compatibility for several PC games." (see below). Try them out and see if they fix your issue.

NVIDIA GeForce Forceware 260.99 Win XP | 7 | Vista drivers.
Release Highlights:
This is the second WHQL release from the Release 260 family of drivers. You can read about the major new features and performance improvements in the Release 260 family of drivers here. This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, and 400-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs.

New in Release 260.99
Increases performance vs. v260.89 drivers in the following PC games: Civilization V (SLI), Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XIV and F1 2010 (DX11).
Adds SLI profiles for the following PC games:
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Fallout: New Vegas
Improves compatibility for Fallout 3: New Vegas with antialiasing enabled.
Improves Alt-Tab compatibility for several PC games.
 
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Yeah just bought the card and downloaded those yesterday as the first drivers for it 🙁
It's just weird , basically I have to alt tab then alt enter to get full performance from my card , never heard anything like it before.
 
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I use afterburner ^.^ and the clocks are 800/1600/2100 , 405/324 (dont know shader clock then) , and last 51/135 , also dont know shader clock

I'm new to nvidia but i did what the other guy posted to go to the control panel and under global put maximum performance and that didnt help
 
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that psu should be fine. are you saying you think your getting low performance from your card? or are you just looking at gpu useage and letting yourself believe that it has anything to do with performance? for a start dont run prime 95 when using kombuster if your checking gpu useage, that will throw things out. What brand card is it? maybe there is a BIOS update you can try.
 
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Ok i'll try to explain when i start up a game and begin to play the framerates stay at 30fps for any game and drop to low twenty's and the gpu usage is between 30% and 70% if and when i alt tab then alt enter the gpu usage goes up to 70-99% an frames are 45 and up, so my flashing to the desktop then flashing back to the game is telling the card to work better or something thats the only way i can figure it
 
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I have the same exact problem with my 460. Low gpu usage is a common problem for them, I hope it can be fixed with a driver update in the future. The worst game I've found so far is Mafia II. I was only getting like 20-30% usage and the framerate was horrible. I switched off Physx and it runs 80-90% and a solid 60 frames.
 
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Did you restart the game after you turned it off? That worked for me. And on a side note, I've noticed when I enter a 3D application it takes a couple of seconds for the card to switch to the 3D clock speeds. Every time I start a game the very first screen will be choppy for about a second and then it's okay. I really want to like the 460, but I've had nothing but problems so far. This is the second one I've had and they both act the same.
 
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I've read numerous threads about the usage issue and it's a driver error, but i have the latest drivers installed so i guess i'm gonna redownload the latest drivers incase any errors happened during installation and reinstall everything see if that helps.
 
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For example when i start crysis up it shows 30%-60% usage on 1980x1050 and 30fps drops to low 20's but if i hit alt enter "three times" to get it to full screen mode again the usage goes up to 70-99 percent and frames 35-55 🙁
 
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Hmm I seem to have found something if i play a game in windowed mode everything is fine but unless i do the alt enter thing when the game is fullscreen i get the low gpu usage maybe i should try the 260.89 drivers
 
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I'm going to have to try that, and I had the latest drivers (260.89) too before today. I'll try the new ones (260.99) later on tonight. The low usage is frustrating, but I still have hope because it puts up decent frames even with the low usage. I can't wait until they figure out a fix. I'm going to check the Nvidia forums, if anybody knows how to fix it it will probably be on there.
 
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Try to do a clean install of the drivers the old fashioned way. Uninstall everything Nvidia related in the Add/Remove section of the Windows Control Panel, restart, then install the new drivers.

Then check the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel. The Adaptive Power setting should be "Prefer Maximum Performance". You should also make sure to opt for "Single Display Performance mode". It defaults to "Multiple Display Performance mode" for some reason. Make sure your game settings are set for "Full Screen" and not "Windowed" mode as well. There are probably a few other things to check that I can't think of right now.
 
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Yep tried that didn't work , hey i got a picture for you and see what you think
clocksusage.jpg


you can see the 60% usage squiggly line then you can see the dip thats where i alt tab then you can see it get boosted to high 90's percent thats after i hit alt + enter
 
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Make sure under windows power options your using the high performance profile.
Under advanced settings make sure under
PCIe link state power management is set to off

edit: One more thing to try. Right click the shortcut of whatever game/benchmark your using. Check use compatibility mode, select windows Vista SP2 and check disable desktop composition.
 
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Put that to off like you said still the same thing only run's between 30% and 60% on crysis with settings at 1980x1050 high settings vsync on , UNTIL I alt tab then alt enter then usage goes up and stay's between 75-99% msi afterburner doesnt register a clock change during and after i do the alt tab/alt enter , but it has to be using a lower clock when i'm only getting the 30% - 60% of the 800 clock i have it set at and the 2d clock 405 that it defaults to when i first start up a game even though msi afterburner isnt showing it thats the only thing i can think of.
 
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