I5 3570K Bottlenecking Crysis 3?

[gravytrain]

I'm using a core i5 3570K overclocked to 4 GHz and have a 7970 + 7950 in Crossfire, playing Crysis 3.

When I run Crysis 3 on Ultra, my CPU usage goes up to 95-100% in some spots while both GPUs are only at around 50-60% usage and my FPS drops to around 30. What's going on?

 

[darkspartenwarrior]

Possibly, Crysis 3 uses as many cores as it can, your quad-core may be bottlenecking.

 

[gravytrain]

Possibly, Crysis 3 uses as many cores as it can, your quad-core may be bottlenecking.

That sucks, would overclocking help at all? I'm a CPU noob. I'm currently undervolted and overclocked.

 

[japps2]

I think your problem is the 7970+7950 crossfire setup. if I recall ati card don't sync and each is running it's own cores+clocks. I'm not sure if this causes conflicts

as for the OC question...it's really easy in you BIOS, just change the speedstep to "disabled" and the multiplyer to a higher number (39)

what motherboard do you have?

 

[lostgamer_03]

It might, a little - not too much.

THE PROBLEM IS:

Crossfire doesn't work very will with Crysis 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dN4aN6vS0

Go to 3:01 in the video. You'll see the Radeon 7990 ARES II perform worse than a single Radeon 7970.

 

[Estacado]

if your game is running at 50-60 fps of course it gonna use more cpu cuz more fps require more cpu

 

[gravytrain]

Well it drops low with just the OC'd 7970 also, with CPU usage maxed and GPU at about 70%. Its only on one particular mission in the campaign though, everything else works fine. I have all settings maxed except antialiasing. I have to turn that down to MSAA Low (2x).

 

[gravytrain]

if your game is running at 50-60 fps of course it gonna use more cpu cuz more fps require more cpu

It's not running at 50-60fps. That's the point, I'm trying to figure out why it isn't.

 

[cdrkeen]

Well it drops low with just the OC'd 7970 also, with CPU usage maxed and GPU at about 70%. Its only on one particular mission in the campaign though, everything else works fine. I have all settings maxed except antialiasing. I have to turn that down to MSAA Low (2x).

That does seem very odd, I have just a single 7850 with a 3570k at 4.4ghz, cpu usage is at core 1 93.8%, core 2 87.7%, core 3 90.8% and core 4 100%. Gpu usage is at 99 percent. I have everything maxed out @1920x1200 with fxaa and I'm getting between 30 and 40 fps so with your card definitely shouldn't be dipping below 40.

Edit
Actually there might be something iffy with your cpu your gpu should definitely be maxed...not as if this game isn't demanding enough. you said you're overclocked at 4 ghz right? Are you sure it has enough votlage? Have you tried rolling back to an older driver like 13.1 or 12.2 to make sure it's not software related?

Edit again.... thought you said you were using catalyst 13.2 beta6 in your first post. If you have not updated to this definitely do it. They added support for crysis 3 in this release.

My cpu isn't maxed with this game, but that's probably because of a gpu bottleneck

 

[iam2thecrowe]

sell your cards and get nvidia sli or a single faster card like the titan. Or you could wait till the game and AMD's drivers are patched to support multi-gpu properly in crysis 3. Or just sell the 7950 and run a single 7970.

 

[cdrkeen]

sell your cards and get nvidia sli or a single faster card like the titan. Or you could wait till the game and AMD's drivers are patched to support multi-gpu properly in crysis 3. Or just sell the 7950 and run a single 7970.

That is absolute rubbish, It has nothing to do with having an ATI card or his crossfire configuration. You sound like an nvidia fan boy. There are many people like myself with no issues at all with only a single 7850. He tried a single 7970 and is dipping to the same fps as my 7850 with the same cpu. This has nothing to do with drivers or the graphics card itself likely unless he is using an older driver!

Also to note, the first level in single player has been noted to have a rope bug where a swing rope dramatically causes a drop in fps, have you played past this or tried multiplayer with the same result?

 

[cdrkeen]

Here are some benchmarks showing what you should expect playing crysis 3
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/crysis_3_graphics_performance_review_benchmark,7.html

However they are using a Core i7 3960X clocked at 4600 MHz. which is about 10 percent faster at stock for games using more cores. You would probably benefit from overclocking your cpu especially with crossfire enabled.

Here is a good guide for overclocking the 3570k if you have an Asrock motherboard not sure what you have:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/complete-overclocking-guide-sandy-bridge-ivy-bridge-asrock-edition

And as always make sure you have decent cooling minimum of a Hyper 212, and keep below 80c with prime95

 

[iam2thecrowe]

That is absolute rubbish, It has nothing to do with having an ATI card or his crossfire configuration. You sound like an nvidia fan boy. There are many people like myself with no issues at all with only a single 7850. He tried a single 7970 and is dipping to the same fps as my 7850 with the same cpu. This has nothing to do with drivers or the graphics card itself likely unless he is using an older driver!

Also to note, the first level in single player has been noted to have a rope bug where a swing rope dramatically causes a drop in fps, have you played past this or tried multiplayer with the same result?

its not rubbish, i have owned a single 6850 and dual 6850's prior to getting my gtx660. there is a reason i switched to nvidia, it is from bad experiences with AMD drivers and crossfire issues. Fair enough if he has tried a single 7970 and it does the same thing then crossfire may not be the problem here. maybe it is just a cpu bottleneck caused by poor game engine optimisation.

 

[cdrkeen]

I've never personally had issues with amd ati drivers but I do know crossfire isn't worth it because of micro stuttering and crossfire drivers typically don't support new game titles for awhile.

maybe it is just a cpu bottleneck caused by poor game engine optimisation.

Really? I wouldn't say that... all four cores for me are around 90% utilization and 99% gpu usage which means the gpu is getting enough juice from the cpu.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

I've never personally had issues with amd ati drivers but I do know crossfire isn't worth it because of micro stuttering and crossfire drivers typically don't support new game titles for awhile.



Really? I wouldn't say that... all four cores for me are around 90% utilization and 99% gpu usage which means the gpu is getting enough juice from the cpu.

Im not saying that its not feeding the GPU, but there is something very CPU itensive going on that perhaps shouldnt be, or is poorly optimised and hammering the cpu.

 

[cdrkeen]

Not sure how you're getting that. This is a very heavily taxing game both on the gpu and cpu. The fact that he is getting almost 100 percent usage on cpu and 70 gpu would point to some other issue than the game being the cause because I have the same cpu and my single 7850 looks to be getting the same minimum fps. If the game was poorly optimized for a cpu I would be getting way less of a minimum fps than the op.

So either the issue is faulty hardware or some corruption or faulty driver installed. It could also be a bad overclock if he under volted and set it to 4ghz. He should of set +.005 volts.

 

[amuffin]

Well, from the beta, Crysis 3 is pretty bad...

Wait a bit until they optimize their drivers.

 

[cdrkeen]

This has nothing to do with drivers unless he's using an old one.

 

[DarthZoolu]

I got these frame rates with the PC in my sig,
2013-02-27 09:10:04 - crysis3 (DAM)
Frames: 3940 - Time: 102500ms - Avg: 38.439 - Min: 30 - Max: 51

2013-02-27 09:19:43 - crysis3 (First level where you are breaking into Dome)
Frames: 2266 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 37.767 - Min: 28 - Max: 50

2013-02-27 09:09:24 - crysis3 (field)
Frames: 272 - Time: 9109ms - Avg: 32.861 - Min: 23 - Max: 40

We have some of the same stuff and I am running just fine. Thats all 1080p Max settings FXAA

 

[DarthZoolu]

Sorry guess my sig didnt update yet, here is what I'm running

Windows 8 Pro 64Bit, i5 3570k OC 4ghz (Hyper 212), Gigabyte z77 UD3H, 16GB 1600 G.Skill Sniper, Gigabyte HD 7950 OC 1100/1500, C.F.3 60GB SSD, WD 500GB HDD, Cooler Master HAF912 +CM 120mm 4 pack , RaidMax Hybrid RX-630SS psu

 

[$hawn]

Well you could try out the latest AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta6 drivers, and see if that helps. I think there are some serious optimizations done for Crysis3 in these latest drivers.
No harm in trying it out, and given that its the 6th beta, its most probably is very stable too

PS:- I find this really funny, but it seems that an FX-8350 is actually faster than even an i7-3770K, when it comes to Crysis3....lolz

So much for all the 'Games will never use more than 3 cores' stuff. I'm a software developer myself, and I know the massive amounts of pain it takes to make things like games run in parallel. But given that both the PS4 and Xbox will have 8 weak cores, looks like lots of developers will be Forced to take on the challenge now.

 

[gravytrain]

Sorry I've been off for a while, the problem is on the campaign level where you have to hide from the tower and go through that grassy field and the tower bombs you if you come out of cloak. My FPS drops to about 30 right here (With both crossfire GPU is at about 50% each and single 7970 is at about 70%) and CPU usage is maxed out either way. Multiplayer runs at 60 FPS with and without crossfire (Without crossfire, 7970 is maxed on usage and CPU is about 70%).

I'm using beta 13.2 beta 7 drivers.

 

[imomun]

Yes im 99% sure the 3570k is getting bottolenecked by the heavy foilage on that particular leve, I have overclocked mine to 4.4GHz and see about minimum 6Fps gain, so say if before it was 40 at that level at a particular spot Now with 4.4GHz its 45-46FPS. Theres 1% chance it could be bad code aswell