Low fps with low memory, GPU and CPU utilization.

[JRodz]

Hello,

I believe I am having some sort of bottleneck problem with my setup. In some games I am
having less than optimal performance (45 - 50 fps) and my GPUs load sit at around 35% - 50%, highest CPU core is at 60% and Ram sometimes goes up to 70%.
At first I thought it had something to do with my PSU dying and was not providing enough juice to the cards, however yesterday I installed Dying Light, and both of my GPUs ramp up to 90% - 95% and the game runs butter smooth (100+ fps) @ 1440p. This is in the first part of the game (inside building and in the balcony).

The games where I get the low FPS with low usage are Black Desert Online, Dark Souls 3 and I think The Witcher 3 (cant remember the loads on this one). Haven't tried more games yet.

To make black desert online run with SLI I have to these settings: http://i.imgur.com/mWCKNxA.jpg


I am using hardware info/GPU-z to monitor the loads.

So my questions are:

1) Am I being bottleneck by something other than my CPU or Ram (since loads are low)?

2) Am I supposed to be monitoring the load on other components?

3) Should I always be seeing one of the components reach 100%?


Specs:
GPU: GTX 970 SLI
CPU: AMD FX 8320
Ram: 8 GB Corsair (2x4GB sticks) 1066Mhz
MB: Sabertooth 990FX R1
PSU: Ultra X4 1,050W 80 plus
Storage: SSD


Thanks in advance!

 

[little cat]

1.Bottleneck : FX 8320 , bad SLI driver support , badly coded games (using 1 or 2 cores)
2. GPU and CPU load are enough
3. The best would be the two cards at 100%

The RAM is DDR3 2133MHz , isnt it ?

 

[JRodz]

Thanks for replaying,

Can't remember the ram model but I think they are the slowest dd3. So must be 1333Mhz.

 

[JRodz]

1.Bottleneck : FX 8320 , bad SLI driver support , badly coded games (using 1 or 2 cores)
2. GPU and CPU load are enough
3. The best would be the two cards at 100%

The RAM is DDR3 2133MHz , isnt it ?

I checked the CPU cores and they are all being used.

 

[rtwjunkie]

badly coded games (using 1 or 2 cores)

Not the Witcher 3. Your analysis is incorrect. It is a multi-core user: http://www.nextpowerup.com/articles/the-witcher-3-performance-analysis/page/4/

Recommended Hardware
This is entirely dependent upon what your target settings are. Ignoring GameWorks entirely, on 1080p at Ultra settings, a 980/290X is absolutely required, as is a quad core with Hyperthreading. If you want 60FPS, top end GPUs are your only hope, and the game will happily use up any threads it can get its hands on. On 1440p CPU usage was lower, but only because my GPU was bottlenecking, and framerates were relatively low. You need an i7 for Ultra in this game for anything close to 60FPS. Those with less than these specs will likely get a very playable 45FPS on Ultra, but for 60FPS you're going to need to lower the settings to High. VRAM usage is a non-issue. All modern cards come with 2GB VRAM, and that's about the most you're going to need on normal resolutions. 1440p and higher can see usage above 2GB, but rarely, usually in a huge city or vast open area with water. The game is very much designed to be beautiful, and use what power it can get to achieve it, unfortunately that leaves little wiggle room with your wallet.

I've seen people successfully play it on midrange cards and older quad cores, but settings dictate something along the lines of low-mid video options. It sort of feels like a betrayal though, playing the game without it looking its best.

What we liked

• Great texture compression
• Fully multi-threaded

Not so good

• GameWorks cripples performance
• Massive Ultra requirements

 

[little cat]

Not the Witcher 3. Your analysis is incorrect. It is a multi-core user: http://www.nextpowerup.com/articles/the-witcher-3-performance-analysis/page/4/

Recommended Hardware
This is entirely dependent upon what your target settings are. Ignoring GameWorks entirely, on 1080p at Ultra settings, a 980/290X is absolutely required, as is a quad core with Hyperthreading. If you want 60FPS, top end GPUs are your only hope, and the game will happily use up any threads it can get its hands on. On 1440p CPU usage was lower, but only because my GPU was bottlenecking, and framerates were relatively low. You need an i7 for Ultra in this game for anything close to 60FPS. Those with less than these specs will likely get a very playable 45FPS on Ultra, but for 60FPS you're going to need to lower the settings to High. VRAM usage is a non-issue. All modern cards come with 2GB VRAM, and that's about the most you're going to need on normal resolutions. 1440p and higher can see usage above 2GB, but rarely, usually in a huge city or vast open area with water. The game is very much designed to be beautiful, and use what power it can get to achieve it, unfortunately that leaves little wiggle room with your wallet.

I've seen people successfully play it on midrange cards and older quad cores, but settings dictate something along the lines of low-mid video options. It sort of feels like a betrayal though, playing the game without it looking its best.

What we liked

• Great texture compression
• Fully multi-threaded

Not so good

• GameWorks cripples performance
• Massive Ultra requirements

I was speaking in general . There are other options mentioned .

As for memory speed , might be checked by CPU-Z and multiply by 2 cus it is double data RAM

Also most of the modern cards come with 4GB VRAM at least . .

 

[JrockTech]

Overclock your 8320 if you haven't already, and have some cooling.

BDO runs great on my setup. It uses all 6 cores, but doesn't exceed 75% CPU usage. My GPU is utilized 100%

Maybe it's a software issue? Try a clean driver install.

 

[JRodz]

Overclock your 8320 if you haven't already, and have some cooling.

BDO runs great on my setup. It uses all 6 cores, but doesn't exceed 75% CPU usage. My GPU is utilized 100%

Maybe it's a software issue? Try a clean driver install.

Just did a clean driver install with latest nvidia driver. Tried over clocking the CPU but at stock it is already running at 50c so I do not dare to OC until I get better cooling.

Are you running SLI or CF? I don't know if this problem was present without SLI.

 

[JrockTech]

Just did a clean driver install with latest nvidia driver. Tried over clocking the CPU but at stock it is already running at 50c so I do not dare to OC until I get better cooling.

Are you running SLI or CF? I don't know if this problem was present without SLI.

Yes I agree with you do not overclock an 8 core unless you have proper cooling.

I'm running a single card- R9 380. There's a huge chance SLI is causing issues for you.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I was speaking in general . There are other options mentioned .

Naaah, not really. OP lists 3 games specifically he has problems with. When you reply "in general" that badly coded games using 1 or 2 cores, that's a specific answer to a very specific problem he has. You making a general comment that you've not researched doesn't help him.

 

[little cat]

Naaah, not really. OP lists 3 games specifically he has problems with. When you reply "in general" that badly coded games using 1 or 2 cores, that's a specific answer to a very specific problem he has. You making a general comment that you've not researched doesn't help him.

Sounds groundless , bluffing .

If I sum , he knows his problems .

 

[rtwjunkie]

Whatever, dude. I can't fault your enthusiasm for wanting to help, but your facts need more attention.

Nothing I said was groundless. Your initial response had you basically telling the OP his problem probably existed in part, bc the 3 games he listed dont use CPU properly. I merely showed the OP to take what you say with caution, because on the first game I looked up your "general" statement was completely false.

So no, not groundless, Sir.

 

[OneMoar]

I ran the TW3 on my 7970 on high-ish at 1080p its not nearly as much of a dog as it was on launch
need more info gpu-z/cpu logs
and @little cat is what is technically known as a n00b
don't listen to him
I keep seeing threads with people complaining about how black desert online runs those free2play games usually aren't the most well optimized things in the world and dark souls 3 is famous for being a bastard to run on ultra settings at high resolution (eats a lot of vram so a 970 is gonna have trouble at above 1440p remember sli doesn't multiply your vram you still only have 3.5GB to worth with)

 

[JRodz]

I ran the TW3 on my 7970 on high-ish at 1080p its not nearly as much of a dog as it was on launch
need more info gpu-z/cpu logs
and @little cat is what is technically known as a n00b
don't listen to him
I keep seeing threads with people complaining about how black desert online runs those free2play games usually aren't the most well optimized things in the world and dark souls 3 is famous for being a bastard to run on ultra settings at high resolution (eats a lot of vram so a 970 is gonna have trouble at above 1440p remember sli doesn't multiply your vram you still only have 3.5GB to worth with)

Seems to be the case, in Mass Effect 3 also de GPUs runs at 70% - 95% until. This is at 1440p all settings maxed and a lot of shit cranked up in Nvidia inspector. Min fps I am getting is 90. I know this is not a new game but falls in line with the results I get with dying light.

So it's looking like it's not exactly my setup. Thanks a lot guys!

 

[OneMoar]

run gpu-z in the backround and look at the vram usage that will tell you if you are maxing it out
performance tanks on the 970 when vram usage gets above 3.5GB

 

[JRodz]

run gpu-z in the backround and look at the vram usage that will tell you if you are maxing it out
performance tanks on the 970 when vram usage gets above 3.5GB

I'll do that

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Where to start.....

GPU: GTX 970 SLI
CPU: AMD FX 8320
Ram: 8 GB Corsair (2x4GB sticks) 1066Mhz
MB: Sabertooth 990FX R1
PSU: Ultra X4 1,050W 80 plus
Storage: SSD

First off your CPU is too week to handle GTX 970 SLI
8GB of RAM is considered minimal these days especially with a dual high end GPU setup, you need 16GB RAM as a minimum...
Your PSU is questionable..... I don't recognise the brand and am betting it isn't a 1.05KW unit when tested properly.

I'd start with the PSU, RAM and CPU in that order

 

[Caring1]

First off your CPU is too week to handle GTX 970 SLI
8GB of RAM is considered minimal these days especially with a dual high end GPU setup, you need 16GB RAM as a minimum...
Your PSU is questionable..... I don't recognise the brand and am betting it isn't a 1.05KW unit when tested properly.

I'd start with the PSU, RAM and CPU in that order

Increasing Ram speed to 1600 minimum would help too, anything over that is a bonus.
I like 2133MHz Ram but that's just personal preference.

 

[JrockTech]

Where to start.....

GPU: GTX 970 SLI
CPU: AMD FX 8320
Ram: 8 GB Corsair (2x4GB sticks) 1066Mhz
MB: Sabertooth 990FX R1
PSU: Ultra X4 1,050W 80 plus
Storage: SSD

First off your CPU is too week to handle GTX 970 SLI
8GB of RAM is considered minimal these days especially with a dual high end GPU setup, you need 16GB RAM as a minimum...
Your PSU is questionable..... I don't recognise the brand and am betting it isn't a 1.05KW unit when tested properly.

I'd start with the PSU, RAM and CPU in that order

The typical response on this forum. Your 8 core CPU is too WEAK for your 70 series card. Only the most prestige I7's can handle those GPU's. Lol...

 

[OneMoar]

The typical response on this forum. Your 8 core CPU is too WEAK for your 70 series card. Only the most prestige I7's can handle those GPU's. Lol...

your drivers might be out of date I know for a fact that TW3 had horrible SLI support on launch and a patch/driver update mostly fixed it
and yes the 8350 will be a bottleneck but you should be getting more fps then you are
I don't think SLI is scaling correctly and thats likely 80% of your issues
TW3/BDO/DS3 all have issues with SLI ,welcome to owning a SLI setup ...

 

[JRodz]

Ok guys, I got one question:

If I were to upgrade my system for smoother gameplay, what option would you recommend?

1- upgrade CPU/Motherboard to Intel I5 or I7

2- Get a Gsync 143hz 1440p monitor (current is 1080p 120hz).

I still have my reserves on the CPU bottleneck part since I haven't seen a single core get to 100%. I know that eventually it is going to be a bottleneck but right now it does not seem to be holding back my system.

What do you guys think?

 

[NdMk2o1o]

The typical response on this forum. Your 8 core CPU is too WEAK for your 70 series card. Only the most prestige I7's can handle those GPU's. Lol...

For a GTX 970 SLI setup yes, my points stand, and at least I chimed in to actually respond to the OP unlike yourself who just likes to try and pull others opinions apart whilst providing no opinion of your own... muppet.

 

[OneMoar]

there is no point in having high refresh-rate if you can't run at that frame-rate
at this stage I would sell the 970's and get a 1070/1080
single card > sli

 

[JRodz]

there is no point in having high refresh-rate if you can't run at that frame-rate
at this stage I would sell the 970's and get a 1070/1080
single card > sli

In the games were SLI is optimized, I am getting very good fps. I previously had SLI system and I know the downsides. So if was not into changing the video cards yet, what would be the next good choice?

 

[OneMoar]

In the games were SLI is optimized, I am getting very good fps. I previously had SLI system and I know the downsides. So if was not into changing the video cards yet, what would be the next good choice?

figure out why SLI is not working,then worry about how much of a bottleneck you actually have
judging by the fps you posted only one of the cards is working so likely a broken sli profile