Low FPS in BF3 with Decent Gaming PC

"Install Nvidia driver: 290.36"

Installed the driver and I aam hovering around 8ish still.
Ugh this is frusterating me so much I am actually tempted to sell my PC and by a console!

Some things to look at first are CPU and GPU usage and temps, and see if you experience the same thing in other games. The two most likely causes are bad video drivers or faulty hardware. But if they're good, and absolutely nothing is helping, re-formatting your hard drive and re-installing windows might be a good starting point.

Ok my cpu and gpu dont go above like 60 C and yes is happens on other games just not quite as bad(dont notice is has much) but in bf3 I am down almost 40fps lol and my psu is 550 watts the graphics card recommends like 500w

woops, thought it was 550w

APEX AL-D500EXP 500W ATX12V Power Supply
Model Number-AL-D500EXP

what is wrong with that PSU if the systam wattage is 418 why wouldnt a 500 work?
and the link to the psu says sorry this item has been de activated.
and how can we know for sure that is the problem?
Thank You for your response though I think you might be on to something

I would recommend a faster processor for sure. A q6600 in this game lags even at 3.2ghz.

.....um what?

Should I get this psu (hoefully I can return the one I have lol)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Listen to 384-BiT.... you definitely need a new power supply. The one you have is not good enough to power your system... Even if that is not the issue, I wouldn't run your computer for another second on your current power supply.

alright should I get that.
and dude are u absolutely sure this will fix my prob because I dont want to spend the extra money if this wont fix the problem, I meen im not saying spending the extra money will be bad just dont want to have to lol

Ok Thank You so much what PSU would you guys recommend I get for $100 and under

That psu is the problem as said before it can't deliver the full wattage, get either the tx 650 or the psu 384bit listed.

sure I should get this one only 14 ratings at 4/5

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Hows this?

Should I get it ? Or do you think you can find something better lol?

Ok Thank You for all your help really apreciate it! I will post back on this thread after I have installed the new PSU. Thanks again!

omgfw you have got to be kidding me, do you guys even know what ur talking about! Spending 80 bucks and getting this new PSU didnt do ***! What am I suppose to do now lolz!!!!!

Hm ... how is the rest of your computer performance? Internet browsing, watching videos, transferring files, etc.?

Everything else seems to be good. I have notice just a little bit of lag when I start any other game but right after a couple mins they are all smooth. In bf3 I get about 10-30fps on medium. I also tried turning down my resolution as low as it could go and that didn't help. It was at like 640x???. No matter what the settings are at it only changes it like 1-5fps.

The problem is you bought new hardware without first identifying the problem. Buying new parts should never be your first step in troubleshooting. Even if a stranger says "you can trust me".

So it seems to be just a BF3 issue? It must be some driver / game compatibility issue then.

I have been on technical support with EA/BF3 NVidia and ASUS(my card manufacturer) for over 8+ hours and no luck. I was my last option lol. Pluse my the box my GPU came in said you need a 550w psu and I only had a 500w psu so it made since lol.

The last EA guy that I jsut spoke to said I need to open all these ports in my router which I did and that didn't help either. Do you guys think doing that reset thing where it resets ur pc to like it just came out of the store and it completely wipes everything?

A complete wipe and reformatting of your HDD could help but it takes lots of time and you loose everything you forget to back-up. That would definitely be the last step.

while BF3 is running what is your CPU and GPU utilization?

Depending on what you have, it's usually a lot faster and easier to copy your My Documents folder to a flash drive (or burn to DVD) along with all your personal files and install executibles of all your software, than it is to spend 8 hours on the phone with anyone. I could format and reinstall an OS in 30 minutes, copy all files back and install all software in 1-2 hours, and maybe spend another 1-2 hours configuring everything how I like it. Total time: 4 hours max, if you're picky and have to have everything perfect again like me. And if you have decent internet speed, you can have all your games re-downloaded in a single night.

I'm not saying that will for sure fix the OP's issue, but if you've spent 8 hours with no progress, formatting would be my absolute next step.

Ok how do I do all of that exactly, and before I do that is there anything else I can try because I don't really want to have to do all of that and reinstall everything lol.

I don't blame you. Wait for some more responses, maybe someone will suggest something that will work.

yup

wow, how many times do I have to ask the question to get a response out of you?

Sorry AntiZig. What exactly is a CPU and GPU utilization and how to I get it, does it have something to do with the temp.

For CPU: Open task manager, performance tab. Play the game, alt tab in middle. Check the graph and whether it was maxed out or not. There should be 4 graphs since your CPU is quad core.

For GPU: Download MSI afterburner, play the game, alt tab in middle of it. Check the graph which says GPU usage. See if it was at maximum.

alternatively you can get hwinfo (64 bit version for u) it's free, and you don't have to tab out. start the program, check sensor-only and hit run, play the game a bit. then come back to the program, find your CPU utilization maximum in % and GPU core utilization maximum in % see if any of them top out.

it's nothing to do with temperature, it's a measure of how heavily your components are being stressed by the system.

Ok my cpu was around around 96% usage and my GPU was hovering around 22ish but would occasionaly jump up to 50ish for like a second

o ya that is with all of the settings on the lowest they can go except for the resolution that was at 1920x1080 or watever is it.

but like I said early changing the settings didnt really seem to make a difference

right, cause it seems that your CPU is maxing out. Since BF3 is GPU heavy you can turn the graphics quality up, your cpu will still be limiting you.

if you're seeing cpu topping out, I'd suggest try getting game booster and play with that, might improve cpu performance.

the cpu didnt max out it was around 96ish didnt ever really go to 100, the highest level of nvidia support available that I have been emailing says it might be a program problem. They say with my pc i should be able to get up to 60 fps on ultra

YES BACKGROUND PROCESSES WOULD ALSO BE A "PROGRAM PROBLEM"

bah sry for caps, anyhow, trying gamebooster isn't gonna hurt, if you don't like it you can always uninstall it after.

Ya ive tried it already, seemed to just mess things up. It didnt help either. Have any other ideas?

hmm if even that didn't help then I'm fresh out   sry

the only last resort is full reformat but even then it's not guaranteed to fix anything, it's more of a broad spectrum antibiotics

What should I try then?

Hey guys I have a thread going right now about this same issue and it seems to have been forgotten, here's the link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tom...

Basically, I have my settings on medium with the resolution at 1600x900 and my FPS is only hovering around 25 and while I am in a jet it stutters pretty bad which messes up aiming completely.
I have installed all of the latest drivers, plus a clean install.
I have also contacted Nvidia, ASUS, EA, and my ISP with a total of like 10+ hours on technical support with no progress at all.
My PC specs are:
AMD Phenom II 965 3.4/3.6ghz quad
Overclocked ASUS GTX 560
8GB of Ram
600w PSU
Nvidia says I should be able to get 50+ frames with high-ultra settings
I have also cleaned my whole pc with ParetoLogic Health Advisor which is like a 30 dollar program. I did the deepest cleaning available.
Also my FPS doesn't seem to change even if I set it to high or low, would only change like 1-5fps.
Nothing seems to work.
Please help, this is really bugging me and I just want to get my pc back to normal.

I'll be honest , the 560 may struggle to perfrom perfect at Ultra settings, the 560ti just makes it with Ultra so the 560 will suffer at Ultra. You could also be maxing out the vram and its putting strain on it.
Best thing to do is lower some of your settings till you find a sweet spot, turn off AA and AO , also turn off motion blur and reduce some of the quality till it plays smoothly.

Dude, you gotta read what I wrote. I am getting 20fps on MEDIUM not ultra. I said that Nvidia told me I should be able to get close to that.

I will say it again- 20FPS ON MEDIUM SETTINGS WITH A RESOLUTION OF 1600x900

I can run BF3 on my 3 year old laptop @ 1280x1024, with a Core2 Duo 3GHz and a 9800GTS with medium/high graphics. He should be able to get a lot more. Lol. And, the CPU definitely isn't the bottleneck on that machine.

On my PC I run it on ultra 1920x1200 with MSAA off with a 550ti, from 25-50FPS depending on how much is going on. It still doesn't have a stuttering appearance, and its very smooth no matter what the FPS is. This sounds like a logical issue... most likely a driver or hardware compatibility issue with either your system or the game itself.

Reformat and see if you still have the issue starting from scratch. Thats the best solution when you want to see if its a corrupted/glitched driver causing slowdowns. Sometimes no matter how much you clean a computer it will still never ever be as fast as day 1.

How to do reformat. Can you give me instructions or a link? Thanks!

Ok, I just looked online how to reformat and it seems like it would help but it says that it wipes your entire hard drive and I dont wan't to do that unless this is really the last option but I am willing to try anything at this point. Do you guys really think this might fix my problem, and do I only reformat the HDD with windows on it because I have 2 hard drives?

If you're running Win7 make a disk backup image on an external drive first. If you're running Vista, install Win7. Lol.