70% GPU usage in The Witcher 3 (sli)

[Vayra86]

So I tried DSR 4k on Crysis 3 to see what it would do and indeed, my CPU usage drops a bit and my GPUs are almost maxed out all the time. So yah, more eye candy there, FPS seems to STEADY a lot around 75 FPS.

It feels a bit sttuterish with DSR but I suspect that would be because the frames dont match the refresh rate, v-sync would probably help here, I'll play with it a little

If you like to stay above 60 fps to use that refresh rate of your monitor, you could try playing with frame limits a little. Seeing as you capped your Refresh rate at 100hz, try playing with decimals. So try 90, 80, 70 fps limits to see if the stuttery behaviour goes away. At the same time you can reduce tearing this way. (Imagine it like this: you get 100 frames per second, reducing that by 10 will give you a similar frame at a more regular interval).

 

[jonathan1107]

If you like to stay above 60 fps to use that refresh rate of your monitor, you could try playing with frame limits a little. Seeing as you capped your Refresh rate at 100hz, try playing with decimals. So try 90, 80, 70 fps limits to see if the stuttery behaviour goes away. At the same time you can reduce tearing this way. (Imagine it like this: you get 100 frames per second, reducing that by 10 will give you a similar frame at a more regular interval).

that'S usually what I do at that point ya.
Yesterday I saw my RAM usage go up to 12gb whilst playing EVOLVE
Since I only have 8gb of physical memory I'm guessing that probably was my total RAM usage including my Pagefile...

This made me seriously consider 32gb RAM instead of 16gb total.

EDIT: Sorry guys I ended up finding out that I was actually using 5.1gb physical memory. The 12gb was the Pagefile size that was being used during my gaming session (playing evolved)

I ended purchasing these:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...&cm_re=avexir_ram_2400-_-20-011-097-_-Product

As a first step towards rebalancing my build. Probably will upgrade to a bigger SSD and better CPU this christmas

 

[jonathan1107]

OMG you guys won't believe what I just discovered lol.

I know it's just a small detail and "RAM doesn't matter" so much. But I just saved myself 180$
I had ordered a set of 16gb 2400mhz ram online...

And this morning, out of the blue, knowing I possess one of the rare quality 8gb RAM sets. (a cl7 1600mhz 7-8-7-24), I don't know why I haven't thought about this before, but I decided to try and Overclock it to 2400mhz. I started out with cl11 timings, 11-13-13-31, and it was stable. I then tested cl 10 (10-12-12-31) and it's still super stable. I'm gonna try cl9 in a few minutes.

Well that might mean I only have to purchase another 8gb of memory and not 16gb...
What do you guys think, can I keep my current 8gb (g.skills) and buy another 8gb of RAM, and just run them both at the same exact speeds and timings?

EDIT: I just realized though, that my current setup is 8gb (2x 4gb).
Which would mean I'd have to get another 2x4gb to totalize 16gb...

And 4 sticks is a bit less performance than 2 sticks right?

What do you guys think? worth the trouble (4x4gb) using a combo of my RAM plus some new RAM (save some $$) or not ?

 

[sneekypeet]

And 4 sticks is a bit less performance than 2 sticks right?

What do you guys think? worth the trouble (4x4gb) using a combo of my RAM plus some new RAM (save some $$) or not ?

no to the first, and no to the second.

Your real issue here is buying another matching set that will perform the same as the kit you have now. Chances are slim in that, and also when using 4 sticks versus 2, performance does not take the hit, the stress to the IMC is the real issue there.

 

[Kanan]

OMG you guys won't believe what I just discovered lol.

I know it's just a small detail and "RAM doesn't matter" so much. But I just saved myself 180$
I had ordered a set of 16gb 2400mhz ram online...

And this morning, out of the blue, knowing I possess one of the rare quality 8gb RAM sets. (a cl7 1600mhz 7-8-7-24), I don't know why I haven't thought about this before, but I decided to try and Overclock it to 2400mhz. I started out with cl11 timings, 11-13-13-31, and it was stable. I then tested cl 10 (10-12-12-31) and it's still super stable. I'm gonna try cl9 in a few minutes.

Well that might mean I only have to purchase another 8gb of memory and not 16gb...
What do you guys think, can I keep my current 8gb (g.skills) and buy another 8gb of RAM, and just run them both at the same exact speeds and timings?

EDIT: I just realized though, that my current setup is 8gb (2x 4gb).
Which would mean I'd have to get another 2x4gb to totalize 16gb...

And 4 sticks is a bit less performance than 2 sticks right?

What do you guys think? worth the trouble (4x4gb) using a combo of my RAM plus some new RAM (save some $$) or not ?

First: 1600 MHz Ram with CL 8 or 9 and 2400 MHz Ram speed with CL10-11 is a difference of 5%~ at most. It's not worth it to replace it for just the Ram speeds.
Second: It doesn't matter how big the Ram sticks are, what's important is the timings and Ram speed, nothing more and nothing less.

So yes, you can buy 2x4 GB Rams with CL10 or 11 with a speed of 2400 MHz and be happy with it and save some money. I honestly thought why you didn't do that in the first place. I simply thought, you have too much money and didn't say anything.

 

[jonathan1107]

First: 1600 MHz Ram with CL 8 or 9 and 2400 MHz Ram speed with CL10-11 is a difference of 5%~ at most. It's not worth it to replace it for just the Ram speeds.
Second: It doesn't matter how big the Ram sticks are, what's important is the timings and Ram speed, nothing more and nothing less.

So yes, you can buy 2x4 GB Rams with CL10 or 11 with a speed of 2400 MHz and be happy with it and save some money. I honestly thought why you didn't do that in the first place. I simply thought, you have too much money and didn't say anything.

The thought of overclocking my current RAM to 2400mhz had just never crossed my mind lol

Oh and a few more questions:

- If I intend to upgrade my Windows SSD and buy either faster HDDs or SSDs for my documents and another SSD for my games how do I go about transfering the data without having to re-install windows ? or must I re-install?

What I mean:

My documents are on a RAID 0 HDDx2 setup (2x 500gb)
My windows 7 install is on a 64gb SSD
My games are the previoulsy mentionned RAID 0 HDD setup.

Can I make an exact copy of my Windows SSD onto a the new SSD?
Can I do the same from my RAID 0 HDDs to a single new HDD or SSD?

 

[cadaveca]

Can I make an exact copy of my Windows SSD onto a the new SSD?
Can I do the same from my RAID 0 HDDs to a single new HDD or SSD?

If you own a Seagate or Western Digital drive (even external drives), you can use the free version of Acronis True Home Back-Up (found on either manufacturer's support page) to image your current drive to the new one. There are other softwares out there as well, but I use Acronis.

And yes, you can do that to ANY drive, using Acronis, as long as the data will fit on the drive. It is smart enough to re-size partitions according to drive size, so say to swap from 60 GB to 500 GB, it will make the new drive an exact copy of the 60 GB, but with 500 GB partition size; If you have 40 GB of data on 500 GB drive, you can easily image this onto a 60 GB drive.

 

[Vayra86]

If you run W7 on a separate 64GB SSD dedicated to Windows, keep it like that. You can just keep your current install and add drives, then start moving data around the way you want it. There is no need to touch that OS disk at all. Reinstall your games and apps on the new SSD, and toss passive data on the HDD.

 

[Ryan White]

I'm having an interesting similar problem.

I have a 5960x oc'd to 4.3ghz 64gb DDR4 2133 and dual 980ti's in sli
When I play witcher 3 in 4k on my monitor I get 40-50fps with usage in the 70% area.
When I move my rig to my 4k TV I see a steady 60fps with all the same settings in game.
GPU usage then shoots up to 99% on both cards

The monitor is Running RGB 8bit over DP
The TV is running 4:2:0 over HDMI.

I can't for the life of me figure out why this is happening but I wonder if it is related???

 

[LightningJR]

I'm having an interesting similar problem.

I have a 5960x oc'd to 4.3ghz 64gb DDR4 2133 and dual 980ti's in sli
When I play witcher 3 in 4k on my monitor I get 40-50fps with usage in the 70% area.
When I move my rig to my 4k TV I see a steady 60fps with all the same settings in game.
GPU usage then shoots up to 99% on both cards

The monitor is Running RGB 8bit over DP
The TV is running 4:2:0 over HDMI.

I can't for the life of me figure out why this is happening but I wonder if it is related???

Very odd indeed. It doesn't seem like a similar issue since his issue was a CPU bottleneck. You have a framerate change when you use different screens which is baffling since they're the same resolution.... All I can say to you is to make sure no in game graphic settings or nvidia conrol panel settings are changing. Also make sure the time at which you look at the usage and framerate is exactly the same in game, the time of day and weather changes in The Witcher 3 all the time so it's very important to make sure it's not a variable.

RGB 8bit over DP and 4:2:0 over HDMI wont affect framerate afaik. The game is rendered in 32bit and is changed using the monitor's circuitry.

 

[Ryan White]

Ya it's strange...
I used a save point as a control to check so its at exactly the same time and weather etc..

I am having the issue where 1 card is running 99% and when in SLI both run at 70-80%

I wonder if its the Phillips Monitor...
I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a different 4k PC monitor to test with.

I'm really good at trouble shooting and have spent a lot of time on this to no avail... I started a new thread for this issue specifically.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...tcher-3-5960x-windows-10.218697/#post-3391810

 

[Vayra86]

Ya it's strange...I used a save point as a control to check so its at exactly the same time and weather etc..

I am having the issue where 1 card is running 99% and when in SLI both run at 70-80%

I wonder if its the Phillips Monitor...
I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a different 4k PC monitor to test with.

I'm really good at trouble shooting and have spent a lot of time on this to no avail... I started a new thread for this issue specifically.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...tcher-3-5960x-windows-10.218697/#post-3391810

Tried running the PC monitor over HDMI as well and at 4:2:0 to get a 100% similar situation? Because the panel itself won't matter, the interface may well have a little impact somewhere along the pipeline and color depth too. However extremely unlikely...

If anything I could think of, it is connected to monitor Vsync and a max refresh of 100hz, (adaptive) Vsync would cap that to 50 whenever you get below 100 in performance but that does not explain the 40 fps if you are not GPU or CPU bound. However I would find an opposite situation more likely in that case, because many TV's do 50/100hz interlace and monitors are basically always at 60hz. Another possibility is you maxed refresh rates in Nvidia config panel somewhere when you were switching screens, check that too, you can find the color depth setting there also.