HD 7850 OC Starcraft 2 performance?

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Oscarmk

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Apr 20, 2012
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Hello this are my specs:

Saphire HD 7850 OC (at default OC)
i5 2500k (turbo enabled, i.e. 3.7 ghz while gaming)
16 GB Corsair Vegeance @ 1333 (but can activate XPS for 1600 but would this really help at all?)
Maximus IV Gene-z/Gen 3 Motherboard
Blue Caviar WD 500 GB

I am running absolutely everything in Ultra in Starcraft 2 at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and I have catalyst center version 12.3, with filter standar at 2x, Catalyst A.I : Texture Filter Quality : Quality, enable surface format optimization checked. AA mode: Performance i.e. Multi-sample AA, Triple buffering disabled.

I know that the review here at Toms Hardware says that the 7850 OC performs very poorly at SC 2 but has this been fixed yet?. Anyway the problem I have is I will actually average about 65 fps, judging from the review I should be averaging at least 80?. I have v sync enabled and during large fights it will drop 50-55 fps which seems a bit odd to me. If I disable vertical sync, just looking at a bunch of buildings (10 +) or units (40+) will give me 62-65 fps, looking at just water nothing else will give me 80 fps and looking at completely empty terrain up to a 110 fps.

Which makes me wonder exactly what kind of gaming is performed during Starcraft 2, to come up with the average fps?, or could there be something wrong with my video card or motherboard?, seems to me I should be getting higher fps. I know CPU is important but I believe 3.7 Ghz would be no different fps wise than the 4.4 Ghz benchmarked here. Would the RAM help at all?.

It plays smooth, I am not complaining but it just seems judging by the reviews, and assuming perhaps the problem with SC 2 has been fixed for Catalyst 12.3, that I should be getting at least 15-20 more fps?.

Anyone else using a HD 7850 OC Saphire and Starcraft 2 on ultra?. What fps do you get?.

Thank you,

Oscar
 
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ilysaml

ilysaml

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When they did the bench, the i7 2600k was OCed to 4.5 GHz this really makes a big difference. Also, you don't have to double set the settings on CCC, once I did that and I got 35 FPS in ACR, I reverted the settings back to defaults only made the texture quality to high and i always enable triple buffering.

So, use the built-in game settings, make it to ultra, set everything back to default in CCC , OC that i5 a little bit high and i'm so sure you'll get beyond the bench result.
 
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Oscarmk

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Thank you for your reply, I didn't know the cpu was that important, my understanding was that it will give you about 5 fps more when you OC. I believe all my setting in CCC are default but I just posted them for reference =). I will try enabling triple buffering and see if that helps out.

Will also buy an aftermarket cooler to OC the i5 a bit and see how that goes.
 
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Oscarmk

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I upgraded to CCC 12.4 and enabled triple buffering... played one game was fine and toward the end I started to get constant 5 fps, then the game crashed and the game prompted me to repair some files... running blizzard repair atm...

Succesful repair I disabled triple buffering I will see if I can play now.
 
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ilysaml

ilysaml

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Maybe I wasn't clear, I just said I always enable tripple buffering but I didn't mean that you have to enable it... it won't benefit your performance..Sorry if i wasn't clear about that.

If you wanna understand why i enable it, read that article

Try a bunch of games and see how it goes, it doesn't have to be SC2 specifically.
 
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Oscarmk

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It is ok, I disabled it and got same results, plays fine sufdenly drops to constant 5 fps, fine again 100-120 fps (i actually get more fps with 12.4, but there is the FIVE fps drop), drop to 5... Exit game and get blizzard repair...

Reestarted pc, same 5 fps... Maybe a problem with 12.4 and hd 7850?, the problem is so obvious though, how can they release this after beta on 12.4...
 
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Oscarmk

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I don't really play other games, besides Guild Wars, so I tried that one on everything max and 4 x AA, it actually can tax the video card, anyway I have no problems there at all.

I reinstalled Starcraft, and the problem of 5 fps is completely gone, now what happens is a little more strange... It will be very smooth (although it can drop to 45 on very large fights), but on the first game I play for the day, it seems like when it is "loading" sounds the fps will drop to 1!, for a split second and then get back to 60 again. Seems to happen whenever I build a Spire (for the Mutalisks), the sound it makes when it is finished seems to trigger the drop to 1 fps. It also happens when 5 + Overlords spawn at the same time and make the sound.

This only happens on the first game I play, after that I guess the sound is buffered, I didn't experience this before, is this normal?.

I am using the on board sound on my Maximus IV Gene-z/Gen 3 SupremeFX X-Fi 2, and I have it set for 24 bit (48 000 hz).

It is my understanding on board sound uses the CPU, however it is not at anywhere close to 100% load on any of the 4 cores at any time, it is an i5 - 2500K.
 
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homiezheadsup

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I have the same concern for the 7850 or any of the 7000 series for SC2.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/403
there is clearly a nvidia bias towards getting SC2 towards the 110 + FPS range. It doesn't look like any AMD product is able to achieve this feat. Some say it could be driver issues buteven the 580 beats the 7000 series in SC2, so it can't just be a driver issue when even the 6900 series hasn't improve that much. I currently have a GTX 280, and the latest Nvidia drivers that just came out this week said it will improve SC2 performance by 18% for some of its GPUs. I wonder if AMD is doing the same thing with their drivers? If not I know that I will definitely staying with Nvidia on my next card.
 
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Oscarmk

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Still can't figure it out, keep averaging about 50 fps by just looking at a bunch of units. And I have found reviews claiming that a 7850 should get 150 + fps?, this does not make any sense to me at all. According to anandtech I should be averaging about 73 with 4 X MSAA, but I am just running MSAA and still get a lower fps average.
 
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Oscarmk

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I am starting to think this is just how the 7850 OC performs at Starcraft II, but I haven't found anyone with a 7850 OC playing SC II to confirm this. I have found some benchmarks with OC processors if that OC gives you about 15 more fps on average then my results are normal I suppose. Although it would make a big difference if the games tested are 1 v 1 or 4 v 4, I am playing 1 v 1 and still not getting the fps I am supposed to get according to benchmarking.

Anyway at the beginning of the game it will be between 150-200 fps, then towards end game it will average to 50 and drop to even high 30s on big fights, but mostly average 45-50 during fights. What I find really strange are some reviews of a 7850 playing everything on Ultra and getting 150 fps average, I guess those are bogus.

I would like to find a review with min, max and avg fps, but all I have found is average fps.
 
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Oscarmk

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I actually have not experienced that 1 fps drop again, I played a bit yesterday and didn't experience it. Although it did drop randomly to around 30 fps during mid game once, it seems to be related to sound, when many sounds are playing at once it seems to trigger this drop. But I only played 2 games, so that problem is probably still there.

More info about my build: I am running a Seasonic 620 W Semi-modular, and my temp on GPU is only 50 C when gaming, CPU at 55 C. And all the equipment is brand new, just assembled the pc about 15 days ago, and I have not experienced any other stability issues, blue screens or bad performance of any other kind.

Just once when i was turning on the PC on a cold start, it started for 3 seconds, shut down and then started again by itself (reset) with no problems. Has not happened again though, but did make me suspect a problem in the PSU or MoBo, could have just been a spike on power or something I suppose, I am using an APC 3500 Joules correctly grounded to plug everything. Before this happened the same problems were already there though.
 
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Oscarmk

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Since I don't have other games to test I ran 3d Mark 11 in performance and my results seem fine for my hardware:

I just ran 3d Mark 11 in performance this is my score:


Description

Processor
Processor
Intel Core i5-2500K Processor
Processor clock3712 MHz
Physical / logical processors1 / 4
# of cores4
Graphics Card
Graphics Card
AMD Radeon HD 7850
VendorPC Partner Limited
# of cards1
SLI / CrossFire Off
Memory2048 MB
Core clock920 MHz
Memory clock1250 MHz
Driver name
Driver version8.961.0.0
Driver statusFM Approved
Graphics Card (Secondary)
General
Operating system64-bit Windows 7 (6.1.7601)
MotherboardASUSTeK Computer INC. MAXIMUS IV GENE-Z/GEN3
Memory16384 MB
Module 1
4096 MB Corsair 9 @ 667 MHz
Module 2
4096 MB Corsair 9 @ 667 MHz
Module 3
4096 MB Corsair 9 @ 667 MHz
Module 4
4096 MB Corsair 9 @ 667 MHz
Hard drive model500GB WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0
Detailed scores
3DMark ScoreP5667
Graphics Score5443
Physics Score6933
Combined Score5874
GraphicsTest121.88 FPS
GraphicsTest225.45 FPS
GraphicsTest334.96 FPS
GraphicsTest418.05 FPS
PhysicsTest22.01 FPS
CombinedTest27.32 FPS
Settings
Default settings used Yes
EditionBasic
Screen Width1280
Screen Height720
Msaa Sample Count1
Texture Filtering ModeTrilinear
Max Af Anisotropy1
Tessellation Detail5
Max Tessellation Factor10
ShadowMapSize5
Shadow Cascade Count4
Surface Shadow Sample Count16
Volumetric Illumination Quality5
Ambient Occlusion Quality5
Depth Of Field Quality5
Enable Window ModeOff
Enable Vertical SyncOff
Enable Triple BufferingOff
Enable WireframeOff
Color Saturation100%

It says its comparable to similar systems, and I checked tomshardware, anandtech and it is slightly lower, but then again my cpu is only at 3.7 and my ram is at 1333, while their setups are 4.5k and also 8 virtual cores and ram at 1600 mhz +, so I assume my score is fine.

So it looks like the GPU is performing like it should, yet SC just won't play good enough.
 
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