Borderlands 2 hybrid setup

[Vrahk]

Hello Not really sure if this is the proper place for this question, but here it goes to start my pc specs are

Phenom 2 1090t 6 core overclocked to 3.6 ghz
Crosshair 4 Formula Motherboard
12 gigs of ram at 1333mhz latincy of 9-9-9 (i think)
Sapphire radeon 8770 ghz oc edition clocked at 1100 mhz memory clock is the standard 1250 mhz cant stabilize the overclock with sapphire trix but it works better than catalyst controls centers overclock function for me.
evga Nvidia gts 450 as dedicated physx card

Physx 9.12.0613
Nvidia display driver 306.02
newest amd drivers for the 7870
this guid for hybrid physX " http://www.ngohq.com/graphic-cards/22136-how-to-fix-hybrid-physx-with-latest-physx-and-geforce-285-solved.html " fluid mark shows it working properly and gpu-z puts a load on the card wile doing the test.

now for the question.
I am playing borderlands 2 this configuration would not work until the patch the other day now it works but i am getting nowhere near the framrates others are claiming, with older hardware ie. amd 6950 hybrid with geforce 8800. they claim to never drop below 44 fps running everything on high. i am running most things on high, but af is disabled, aa is disabled, depth of field is disabled, physx is on med, realistic lighting is disabled, in some areas I'm running at 62fps but when i go anywhere with enemies or water it drops into the 7- 20 fps range not playable at all, i can get none of the other hybrid physx mods to work on my pc at all for some reason ( i am following the guides to the letter ie what drivers to use stuff like that. with the current configuration i do get physx it just really bogs my machine down its driving me up a wall if any of you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[wanderer11]

I think you mean 7870, but anyway try leaving gpuz running to see if your card(s) are being used 100%.

 

[COLGeek]

What make/model of PSU (power supply) are you using? Also, how are your system temps (CPU and GPU) under at idle and under load (like when gaming)?

 

[Vrahk]

the load on my 7870 is about 54% when the framrates drop highest i have seen on the gts 450 is 17% load wile playing my 7870 card temp is 33-40c and cpu is solid 40c
motherboards is 34c notrthbridge is 40c and southbridge is 37

 

[COLGeek]

Your temps look good. What make/model of power supply are you using?

 

[wanderer11]

the load on my 7870 is about 54% when the framrates drop highest i have seen on the gts 450 is 17% load wile playing my 7870 card temp is 33-40c and cpu is solid 40c
motherboards is 34c notrthbridge is 40c and southbridge is 37

What is the load on your processor like? Since your 7870 is only at 54% it is not being fully utilized. This sounds like a driver issue. I don't know anything about hybrid drivers, but there is an issue with yours I think. EDIT: You don't have Vsync on do you?

 

[Vrahk]

i found a spot that drops my fram rates the lowest water coming out of a pipe and my gts 450 has 0% load and the 7870 goes to 100% so im guessing its probably a software conflict with borderlands as this works fine batman AC and AA and i get loads of 54% on the Gts 450 in those games

 

[samuelspark]

I would just take out the dedicated graphics card and put PhysX on Medium. The PhysX load will automatically go to the CPU in the absence of a nVidia card. It should be ok as you have a 6 core CPU.

Add me on Steam if you want to play some. SoCSC2Samuel

 

[Vrahk]

Your temps look good. What make/model of power supply are you using?

my psu is thermaltake TR 2 600w m odel W0388: Tr2 600w W/O PFC and cpu coller its a spinQ vt with an under cpu 4 inch fan thanks the the thermaltake spedo case

 

[Vrahk]

I would just take out the dedicated graphics card and put PhysX on Medium. The PhysX load will automatically go to the CPU in the absence of a nVidia card. It should be ok as you have a 6 core CPU.

Add me on Steam if you want to play some. SoCSC2Samuel

the problem with that is that currently im getting no load on the gts 450 and its all on the cpu as far as i can tell and my frames drop to 7fps in some areas of the game on medium physx thank you for the advice though

 

[COLGeek]

The quality of your PSU is questionable after looking at some reviews/feedback by several on both Amazon and Newegg. It should be able to power all of your components, but you are pushing it.

When the system lags, what are your CPU and GPU temps? If you revert both your CPU and GPU back to stock speeds, does it lag?

I am trying to determine if your system is downclocking as a result of heat or power.

NOTE, the AMD/ATI and Nvidia hybrid solutions can be very flaky and temperamental (meaning hard to get and keep working properly). This you already know.

If hardware Physx is something you truly desire, you may want to consider a stronger, stand alone Nvidia GPU in the future to avoid all of these issues.

 

[Vrahk]

temps are in the high 30s-low 40s lags way more when in standard clock speed im probly just going to have to give up physx not like i want it for anything other than the flags in borderlands 2 i much prefure the havoc engine hen the amd gpu

 

[COLGeek]

Those are still low temps and indicates a rather low load on the components. I need to think about this some more.

In the meantime, I would remove both the AMD and Nvidia drivers completely with something like Driver Fusion (http://treexy.com/products/driver-fusion). Then I would power the system and remove the 450.

Power the system back on and install the latest version of Catalyst (12.8 is the current, but the 12.9 Beta is available and it looks pretty good). You can get at:

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

Crank your OC settings back up and try your game again.

 

[Dude496]

Did you delete the physxdevice.dll file from thr borderlands 2 folder? Also have you verified that your hybrid setup is working in fluidmark?

 

[Vrahk]

i want to thank all of you for your advice.
i pulled the 450 there was a ram problem for some reason my mb clocked it at 800mhz when its 1333 mhz so i fixed that borderlands came out with an update that makes it run much smother with medium physx on my cpu, lowest frame rate was 27fps annoying but playable. it seemed to me that borderlands was forcing my 7870 to do the workload for physx as since uninstalling the 450gts it has droped to about 64% load from 100% in the hybrid config with physx on med on the cpu, gpu z also told me the 7870 had physx enabled though that was weird but normal as i am new to the hybrid thing. so again thanks for all the help, it nice to know there are people willing to try and help you out for free. also did delete physxdevice.dll file and fluidmark performed flawlessly also arkham asylum worked and arkham city ran the benchmark test flawlessly with physx on. so i figured its just something to do with borderlands putting the load on the 7870 for some reason. anyway thanks for the help.