FC2, Fallout3 or is it just my cpu?

[DEFEATEST]

Hey guys, been having some difficulty with FC2 and Fallout3. When I load the games up my cpu goes nuts, like 80ish % which I guess is fine. Then when loading a save or continuing it takes forever (10+ minutes). I sometimes helps when I alt-tab to desktop and go back again to game. But I just watch my framerates go from 40 to 3 very quickly and every few seconds after that. It does'nt happen in other games. I'm pretty sure it's not my vid card. I know my voltage is set in bios. Also I have noticed recently that my cpu takes time to get going, and get some stuttering and system lag. I have an artic freezer cooler on it, so I don't think it's overheating. Also when I'm in these games, my cpu is running in the high 80- 95%.

specs
amd 6400
4870 512mb
2 gig ddr2 800
fresh copy of win xp sp2

any suggestions would be awesome

 

[AsRock]

Try CPU-z out see how the temps are ( http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php ). Check if the cooler on the CPU is on correctly too.

Post some CPU-z screeny's.

EDI: Get GPU-Z from this site to just the GPU temps just in case.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

[qamulek]

cpu thread bug

For my computer I noticed that FC2 would load up the first time just fine, but then anytime I tried loading a save file[after the first load] the framerate would go down the toilete. I used pcprobe2 to check cpu usage during gameplay and noticed that for FC2 at the start the game only used somewhere in the realm of 7ghz[very high physics etc], however after the game went screwball on me I exited the game to find it was using about 12Ghz of processing power Just going to guess FC2 has a bug where it forgets to quit threads that aren't being used, and that loading up a new save file starts a fresh batch of threads. Having to exit the game after every death kinda sucks, so FC2 is on the backburner till the bugs get sorted out

For Fallout I don't really notice if its screwing up in the same way, but it does sometimes feel like my framerate is way lower then I expect. Like in one area I was expecting 60fps[vsync], but was only getting about 40fps.

I'll try pcprobe2 on Fallout3 and see the typical cpu usuage during normal framerates, and see if the screw-ups are also caused by a thread not stopping when it should have stopped. I haven't had a problem for the last few hours though, so I really don't know whats going on with Fallout3.

 

[DEFEATEST]

im using cpu-z there doesnt seem to be anything showing cpu temps, btw i did up the voltage last night just to see if that would help and it didnt. So I am running the cpu at 1.55 volts

 

[DEFEATEST]

Ok , just used speed fan to monitor heat and i never get about 60 degrees? Is that normal? I was in fallout 3 for about 15 mins, and framerates were pretty bad too . 30ish

 

[iamollie]

patched and drivers up to date, that would be my first port of call

 

[iamollie]

funnily enough with my far cry if i alt-tab to the desktop i lose my cursor and i cant get back on the game and have to result to using taskmgr to shut it down

 

[panchoman]

check your hdd as well man.

 

[DEFEATEST]

I am all patched up to date that I know. Whats the best way to check if you have a problem with the hard drive. BTW all other games seem to run fine and don't do this sort of thing for me.

 

[DEFEATEST]

My hdd is fine, went back to stock voltage and it is running in the 40's now, framerates are still low I think. Not sure if this is vid card or cpu.

 

[AsRock]

Ok , just used speed fan to monitor heat and i never get about 60 degrees? Is that normal? I was in fallout 3 for about 15 mins, and framerates were pretty bad too . 30ish

60c should be fine for the GPU. What are the other temps of the card ?.

You tried running the launcher again and setting up the resolution and details again ?.. Maybe a lower AA setting ?.. And set CCC to it's defaults.

Only other thing i can think of at this time is your CPU is not keeping up. i my self am getting 30+ FPS in max details 2xAA and AFx15 @ 1600x1200 res.


Maybe do a checkdisk on your harddrives just in case of corruption like others are saying..

My hdd is fine, went back to stock voltage and it is running in the 40's now, framerates are still low I think. Not sure if this is vid card or cpu.

Should be happy with 40+ FPS .

 

[erocker]

Do you have Direct X all updated? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

 

[ktr]

Try disabling background process, such at antivirus programs.

 

[DEFEATEST]

Now I do have bitdefender running in the background, but you cant turn it off in windows xp
It doesnt seem to take up much cpu at all and there is a "gamer" mode for what its worth.

Ya my dx is all good.

I just figure these are pretty poor fps for my system when I compare it to others of the like. Heck people are getting 30+fps with a 7900gt and a amd 3800!! that's what I mean.

I have a pretty low end mobo (amd 690 chipset m2a-vm) I wonder what thats doing to me?

 

[Widjaja]

I think your fps for fallout 3 is low if you are running at native res.
I haven't checked my frames yet but the game is very playable.
Only time the game was laggy was after my system froze during the game and I had to hard reset.
Fallout 3 kept on being laggy in certain areas until it CTD.
Then restarted the game and frames were fine.
Almost seemed like a memory leak issue or something was hogging resources still after I had reset the PC.

 

[phanbuey]

honestly sounds like a CCC issue, or memory leaks as widjaja said. I would make sure:
That ur GFX card is running at PCI-e 16x
Uninstall the 4870 drivers through device manager, and then reinstall the latest ones...

 

[xu^]

Fallout 3 seems to be riddled with bugs tbh ,god knows how they all escaped the testers..

anyway ive putting it on hold until a patch or 2 comes out to make it acceptable,im getting random crashes to desktop ,sometimes having to reload the same save game 3 or 4 times b4 it works.

 

[Gilletter]

and if you have a "pirated" version of fallout 3, it's been documented that it's LOADED with all sorts of malware...

 

[blastboy]

and if you have a "pirated" version of fallout 3, it's been documented that it's LOADED with all sorts of malware...

that depends on who released it...i seriously doubt he would be complaining if he was using pirated versions.

 

[DEFEATEST]

I have a legit copy of fallout3 and I have had no issues with ctd or anything like that, I was just thinking my fps was quite low just as in Far Cry2. I will look into making sure that I am running at 16x pci-e. Thanks for all your help guys!

 

[panchoman]

try disabling v-sync if you have it enabled.

 

[qamulek]

Try gpu-z and rivatuner

But I just watch my framerates go from 40 to 3 very quickly and every few seconds after that.

A constant low framerate is likely to be due to being cpu limited, as AsRock suggested, or due to bugs[loading on fc2, ??? on fallout3], however framerate stuttering is more likely due to cpu/gpu overheating. If those 60's down to 40's temperatures are your cpu, then your cpu should be fine meaning you should now watch your gpu temperatures. Use gpu-z to monitor your gpu temperatures during gameplay; the link for the download is at the bottom of the page. If gpu temperatures are an issue you should be able to manually change the fanspeed using rivatuner.

A good way to test for a cpu-limited case is to change the resolution from its max down to its minimum and see how the frame rate varies with resolution. In UT3 I found I was cpu limited[on another system] when I was playing the game at 640x480 resolution with the same crappy framerates that I was getting at 1440x900. I then found that after I turned <world detail> down to minimum the framerates went up at all resolutions.

EDIT: Oh on my current mobo I found that when I was using a heavy heatpipe cooler my motherboard was slightly warped due to the amount of torque needed to keep the thing from falling off. The mobo booted up fine however the gpu would randomly be only recognized at the low bootup frequencies; when it did bootup at the correct frequencies the gpu would randomly decide to switch back to the crappy bootup frequencies, and this could occur even in the middle of playing a game. Another side effect was that my cpu refused to overclock very well since the cpu had some FSB holes that it refused to operate at. At some point I remembered how the mobo was warped due to the heatpipe cooler so I loosened the screws holding the cooler almost all the way[after the goop has been broken in it pretty much can hold the cooler on by itself], and the mobo finally decided to work correctly with the gpu being recognized every time and the cpu having no FSB holes.

Just keep in mind to check the core clock on the gpu every time you boot up using gpu-z, and also check them again when you get crappy framerates. The probability that this is the cause is pretty low, but its just something to watch out for.

 

[DEFEATEST]

Well after some tinkering, I got it pretty stabilized. Higer framerates (not what I would think it should be) but ok for now. And I dont get the major drops or insane load times anymore -fingers crossed. What I did was update cpu drivers, then ran dual core optimizer, ran dx9c again. pci-e 16x was always working.