Low Performance.

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
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10,510
My system is of around 2 months now, I am getting very bad performance in GTA IV, especially. There is no constant lag in the game but there is continuous strong and uneven choppiness and high amounts of stuttering, rendering the game unplayable at full settings. This king of strong stuttering and choppy behavior is seen in other games too, but only sometimes.
I have tried almost all possible different windows and bios settings and played the game but nothing helped.
I use my cpu overclocked to 4.3 GHz. Now, I have also checked GTA IV with all oc disabled and at default bios settings but still the game was badly unplayable. Whereas my friend can run the game uber smooth with a non overclockable pc with a Core i5 2500 with Cooler Master TX3 EVO cooler, ASUS P8H67-M Evo, 2+2 GB Corsair XMS3 1333 MHz, Palit GTX 560 Ti @1360x768 and Corsair CX600, the game installs on a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 GB. And I have seen another guy using Core i7 2700K oc to 4.5 GHz with Cooler Master TX3 Evo cooler, ASUS Sabertooth Z77, 4+4 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz, Zotac GTX 680 @1920x1080, Corsair TX750 V2, and the game runs even smoother. And the 3rd guy with i7 3770K oc to 4.5 GHz with Corsair H100 cooler, Maximus V Gene, 4+4 GB Vengeance 1866 MHz, Palit GTX 570 sonic platinum @1920x1080, Corsair TX750 V2, and the game runs equally smooth. These are all the stats.

My configuration--
Intel Core i5 3570K oc to 4.3 GHz with Cooler Master 212 Evo with two extra cooler master blade master 120 fans, MSI Big Bang MPower Z77, 4+4 GB Corsair Vengeance 1866 MHz, Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 700, Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X @1280x1024, and the games install within the first 100 GB of a WD Caviar Black 1 TB.

I do not understand what is the problem, PLEASE HELP ME.
 

EzioAs

Distinguished
That's weird, I was able to run GTA4 smoothly with an i5-3570K at 4.5GHz and a GTX460. Granted framerates varies but it's actually very playable and not at all choppy. Remember that GTA4 is a poorly coded title on the PC. Are you using the latest catalyst drivers? Did you found out similar issues with people using an AMD card? Try looking at some GTA4 forums/discussions on this issue
 

Poprin

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Dec 13, 2012
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If this is not a software problem (check you have all the latest drivers / no conflicts) and it is hardware I would think this is an overheating issue. Your spec should run that game. I know you've got an aftermarket cooler and case fans but have you checked your CPU temp using something like coretemp? See what it's running idle and then put it under load for 5 minutes using something like Prime95 and see if your temps skyrocket. If they go up really quick and there is a large margin between idle and load temps your CPU cooler may need re-seating and while you do it clean the CPU and cooler with something like Arcticlean and then apply some good quality thermal compound.

I noticed you overclock your system as do your friends so I may be preaching to the converted here so don't think I'm being patronising it's just what I would suggest!
 

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
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Thanks everyone. My system does not overheat atleast as reported by the temperatures, while playing GTA IV with all these issues my cpu temp remains at 40C at 4.4GHz realtime. And my motherboard's VRM is also cooled actively by two 20mm fans @7500 rpm supplied by ASUS with its Sabertooth Z77, and I got them from my friend. Air around the motherboard, RAM, hard drives and SSDs, DVD drives, SMPS, gfx card and sound card is continuously flushed by 8 more 80mm regular case fans. As I already said my cpu cooler is hyper 212 evo with three 120mm high pressure fans, two cm blade master 120 and a single cm xtraflow 120 that came with the cooler. I always have all updated with the latest drivers and softwares for my system, everything starting from device drivers, system softwares, to all other programs. And I have tried with the Catalyst 12.10 WHQL and also with all the 12.11 beta amd has been releasing and the latest is beta 11, but I got the same problem with every one of them. There are no conflicts reported by windows anywhere, I have also checked if the card has a dedicated IRQ and that it has. Now windows may not report incompatibility issues or other types of conflicts, generally it doesn't. And also I could not find any forum or anywhere notifying or discussing any issue with GTA IV and amd 7000 series cards 3GB/2GB variants or even anything like that.
Now I simply do not understand, where is the problem in my system. PLEASE HELP ME.
 

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
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I have checked the game, running my 1866 rated vengeance at its SPD speed 1333 mhz and still the problem persists with all default timings. Should I still check with one DIMM?
 

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
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I use Corsair Vengeance 1866 mhz 8GB kit (2x 4GB), and now I have checked with a single DIMM (with each one of the two 4GBs I got) on dimm slot 2, MSI recommends 2 dimm config on slots 2 and 4. In doing so I found a problem, my ram is installed on the slot 2 but the bois shows that the slot 4 is populated and the other slots are empty, and of course any software in the os also show the same, cpuz, aida64, msi control center etc.
Now (1) How does this relate to memory incompatibility with the m/b, memory instability and unstable game play? (2) Is this a motherboard issue?
PLEASE HELP..
 

NerdBBQ

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Oct 29, 2012
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10,690
Maybe something is wrong with your PSU? But I think the prime suspect would be an issue with your GPU such as overheating or some kind of damage. Try removing it and seeing what happens.
 

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
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My gfx card is brand new and I was just extremely careful in handling my products. If u say so I will check my card, and moreover I am getting this issue right from the first time I assembled my pc. Do you really think smps might be causing problems in this case? Should I try out with a Corsair TX650 V2 power supply? While gaming my card's gpu temp remains at 50C, though not sure about the vrm and memory chips' temperatures. I did not overclock the gpu or the memory, and since all the memory chips are directly cooled by the same vapor-x cooler along with the gpu, so I can I expect that the memory temps are stable? and gpu vrm and the memory vrm is cooled by separate heatsinks, and as far as I have seen and known the vrm on the 7950 vapor-x is quite better than the original amd 7970's vrm and pcb design feeding a 7950 and that the vrm temps are also far far lower.
Ok an important information is that while playing gta iv I get around 50-70 fps realtime, noted with latest fraps 3.5.9, but I get very unplayable behavior in the game, extremely high choppiness and stutterings and that too continuously, and this very unplayable behavior is not seen with fraps.
 

Swarna_16

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Dec 11, 2012
9
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10,510

Yes, it is unplayable, and in my first quote I gave instances of three people and their pcs, I have not seen any lag or stutterings and choppiness to anywhere near in comparison with my system. They had choppiness but to be very exact their levels of stutterings and choppiness is around 2% of what I get with my pc. Thus the game unplayable at full settings even at 55-60 fps.
Now I do not understand all the very precise and accurate factors those most importantly matters in a gameplay experience other than frame rate.