High FPS but choppy graphics on gaming system please help =/

[mister ped]

Hi guys, Ive had this computer almost a year now and im having a problem with mmo gaming. I have high FPS average of 100 fps but graphics are very choppy and feels like its 20 fps. Im just wondering if there is something in my system thats holding me back. Im thinking about getting another GFX card to SLI it but i dont wanna spend the money if thats not the problem.

Heres my spec and if theres any other questions im more than happy to answer them.


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-980 (3.33GHz) 4.8GTs/12MB

Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

2nd Hard Disk
80GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 90MB/sW)

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU

Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

Any advice would be much appreciated thanks

 

[mister ped]

through testing i have noticed that turning vsync off improves it a little (however now scrren tearing occurs) and OCing my GFX card helps a little but the problems are still very evident so as i said i believe it may be my graphics card but i need verification first

 

[vrumor]

There should be no MMO you cant run at High without choppy graphics. Get driver sweeper, remove all the nvidia drivers, and ATI if you previously had an ATI card and reinstall the drivers.

 

[mister ped]

There should be no MMO you cant run at High without choppy graphics. Get driver sweeper, remove all the nvidia drivers, and ATI if you previously had an ATI card and reinstall the drivers.

i tried that a while ago and didnt work. Unless theres a driver im missing as i formatted my computer a while ago and reinstalled all my drivers... might have missed one but im sure that wouldnt make this much of an impact to the problems im having.

the game im talking about is swtor and even if i have the graphics on low it still has the same problems. I just cant understand it :s

 

[mister ped]

There should be no MMO you cant run at High without choppy graphics. Get driver sweeper, remove all the nvidia drivers, and ATI if you previously had an ATI card and reinstall the drivers.

yeh i did that a while ago as i formatted my computer due to changing OS to my ssd. I might have missed a driver but i highley doubt it. And even if i did im sure it wouldnt make this much of an impact on games like this. It seems to be whenever i run around or highley populated areas but in my experience this is the kinda thing a mid to low range computer shold do =/

 

[vrumor]

High pop areas in MMOs are gonna slow you down period. I play SWTOR and when im on the Imperial fleet I get lower frames than I do elsewhere cause its a densely populated area. It has to render everyone, their clothes, custom clothes sometimes, thats normal.

 

[mister ped]

yeh well i wouldnt mind that so much but it also happens when theres nothing around and it still feels very jittery. I wouldnt mind so much but when i have the fps counter it never drops below 90fps however when looking at the screen it looks more like 20-30 fps. Its very strange and as i said previously even if i have everything on low settings it makes no positive or negative difference whatsoever.

As for the drivers. I just checked a few driver updater thingys and they only thing they say are out of date is the cpu. Howver i know that when u update it, it dosent recognise it therefore wether the claim its out of date or not is a mystery to me lol

 

[vrumor]

Driver updater thingys? Dont rely on a driver update program. Go to www.nvidia.com and download the newest driver for your card and OS and do a driver sweep and reinstall the newest driver. If youve done that as well, try turning on vertical sync in graphics options.

 

[mister ped]

il do it again but last time i did it, it didnt make a difference.

As for Vsync it actually makes a small improvement if i turn it off rather than on.

 

[ringzero]

If you check the SWTOR forum, you'll see that a large percentage of people are having performance issues of varying degrees and types. I would caution against upgrading your hardware just for this game. It's still in its infancy and is using an unproven engine.

I've read that some people have found a workaround for some performance issues by using a RAM drive and placing specific game files on it. Unfortunately, though, no one has found a silver bullet fix for these performance issues and Bioware is still working on it.

You have an excellent GPU that "should" run SWTOR on all high settings. There's nothing wrong with it and upgrading/SLI will have little to no impact on your issues. Everything else in your computer build looks excellent for playing SWTOR. Your hardware components are exceedingly sufficient for this game.

 

[mister ped]

yes i undertand this and i wish this was the case however i was just using that game as an example. It happens with every MMO i have played on this PC with. SWtor, Aion, Lotro even wow dosent allow me to have max settings without this silly jittering i am having =/

 

[ringzero]

yes i undertand this and i wish this was the case however i was just using that game as an example. It happens with every MMO i have played on this PC with. SWtor, Aion, Lotro even wow dosent allow me to have max settings without this silly jittering i am having =/

That's definitely strange then, but I still believe there's nothing wrong with your hardware. If your GPU were failing, jittering wouldn't be the symptom.

Are you running the games off the SSD? How full is your SSD? I believe you're supposed to leave ~20 of your SSD space free for optimal performance.

What resolution are you gaming at?

Are you running an anti-virus program while you're playing?

Have you reset all settings on the nVidia control panel to default settings? Just in case you've got some crazy anti-aliasing mode going on.

I'll echo the other suggestions, use Driver Sweeper ( http://phyxion.net/Driver-Sweeper/Driver-Sweeper/ ) to uninstall your video driver, then get the latest directly from the nVidia website.

Otherwise, keep a detailed log of when it occurs and what the in-game circumstances are. Is it happening 100% of the time in every single game you play? Is it only MMOs or off-line games also?

 

[mister ped]

6 gig left on my ssd, however the symptoms were there when i had over 50gig spare.

Il do all you suggested and then report back with findings.

Also its only MMORPGs that this happened on... I play competative fpses online and i get none of these problems playing them.

Il be in touch

 

[dixon6393]

Have you tried turning off turbo boost on your processor? It has been noted in many games, assuming SWTOR isn't very processor based, that when you enter an area that is in between the range that turbo boost will engage, that lag can be cause by the slight increase in processing capability. So the turbo boost is engaging and disengaging constantly. You should configure your processor to run at 130 watts all the time.

 

[dixon6393]

It might not make sense to you entirely, but the stall is actually the whole computer stalling as the wattage is changed.

 

[dixon6393]

Basically, go into BIOS and turn off turbo boost and voltage stepping. That should solve that problem. It might make your computer run a tad hotter, but that really shouldn't be an issue with your watercooling.

 

[mister ped]

sounds very likely that something like this could be the cause however i have attempted to do what you said and it dosent seem to have made a difference. turbo boost and voltage stepping options wernt avaliable in bios unless you mean speedstep which i had disabled anyways..

Any other ideas or extra info on what you have already advised is very welcome il get there in the end

 

[dixon6393]

sounds very likely that something like this could be the cause however i have attempted to do what you said and it dosent seem to have made a difference. turbo boost and voltage stepping options wernt avaliable in bios unless you mean speedstep which i had disabled anyways..

Any other ideas or extra info on what you have already advised is very welcome il get there in the end

Alright, what I would advise is to download a program called HWmonitor. (http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/hwmonitor/1.19-setup.exe)

This will display various numbers pertaining to voltage/temps/fan Speed/wattage. Play the game and pay attention to the wattage section below the CPU Core temps. The first column is the current wattage (Not assuming you're retarded, just outlining it so it isn't a completely alien program). If you see that number jumping around a lot and it sort of lines up with the shuttering, you have a probable cause.

 

[mister ped]

right so i had a lil mess on with that hw monitor.. awesome lil programme nice and informative.

i didnt notice the wattage jump however when i reset the values this is what it resulted in for cpu.

when i had it on windowed mode and i was running around ingame it seemed to be around 20-30W mark however when i stopped running around it showed that the min was 10.31W (probs when i stop runnin and am checking the results) and max was 52.94W

now i never personally noticed the jump in Wattage however i reset it a few times and the same findings were made. Is this normal or is this the cause that u are thinking of?

also if it makes any difference (i aint a computer wizz or owt) but in BIOS under the AI tweaker tab i noticed all he RAM and CPU voltage and almost all the rest under that section is on AUTO rather than manually set. Could this cause this kind of problem or is it safe to keep it as that setting?

Thanks a lot guys, im starting to feel that im fainally getting somewhere with my issues

 

[ringzero]

Another question:

Does the choppiness/hitching go away when you put it on low graphics settings? Do changing game setting help at all, or is it always choppy no matter what?

 

[mister ped]

always no matter what

 

[mister ped]

i change the settings, the control centre for graphics card, everything... and still just as choppy. Clearly somethings not right =/ (ive reset all to default btw and only changed the things that ive been advised to change)

 

[mister ped]

Have you tried turning off turbo boost on your processor? It has been noted in many games, assuming SWTOR isn't very processor based, that when you enter an area that is in between the range that turbo boost will engage, that lag can be cause by the slight increase in processing capability. So the turbo boost is engaging and disengaging constantly. You should configure your processor to run at 130 watts all the time.

how do i do this? there was no turbo boost option.. so any other way to ensure the wattage dosent constantly change? through BIOS or w/e?

 

[ringzero]

always no matter what

It's definitely not your GPU, then. I'm not sure where Dixon's going, but I'm curious to see if that helps.

Otherwise I'd be willing to bet it's something running in the background that's stealing resources. If you haven't already, try shutting down all non-Windows applications and utilities, including services and anti-virus.

Is it consistent hitching, like rhythmic at all times, or does it chiefly happen when you move into a new in-game area? If it's only happening when the game is loading new stuff, it could be a problem with hard-drive access.

 

[mister ped]

its constant. even if im running round in circles in a place where no1 else is about =/