Should I Be Getting This Kind Of Performance?

I've had this gaming rig a while now, and for the most part it serves me perfectly well. The only thing is I'm not sure if it's running as good as it should. The specs are...

RAM: 8GB DDR3
GPU: ATi HD 6970 2GB
CPU 3.20GHZ Quad Core

Team Fortress 2 runs perfectly all the time on max settings, but when I crank up the AA a fairly large FPs drop can be noticed. The game has such simple graphics that I didn't think it should be a problem...

Skyrim is the latest game I got, and it mildly stutters in certain areas and can drop to an estimate of 20 FPs when looking at busy parts. I'm on max settings, playing the game with everything on apart from AA. If I put AA on it becomes unplayable.

Is this rig under performing, or have I just set my expectations too high?

I've had this gaming rig a while now, and for the most part it serves me perfectly well. The only thing is I'm not sure if it's running as good as it should. The specs are...

RAM: 8GB DDR3
GPU: ATi HD 6970 2GB
CPU 3.20GHZ Quad Core

Team Fortress 2 runs perfectly all the time on max settings, but when I crank up the AA a fairly large FPs drop can be noticed. The game has such simple graphics that I didn't think it should be a problem...

Skyrim is the latest game I got, and it mildly stutters in certain areas and can drop to an estimate of 20 FPs when looking at busy parts. I'm on max settings, playing the game with everything on apart from AA. If I put AA on it becomes unplayable.

Is this rig under performing, or have I just set my expectations too high?

sune_Gem

What resolution are you at?InternetSwag

1920x1080. Forgot to mention that sorry.

Are your drivers updated?red12355

Yeah, latest ATi drivers, sound card drivers and the games are all patched and everything.

TF2 should not be dropping any frames. As for Skyrim with AA, it usually varies between 40-60 fps for me (and I have a weaker card then you do). Your build is underperforming.

TF2 should not be dropping any frames. As for Skyrim with AA, it usually varies between 40-60 fps for me (and I have a weaker card then you do). Your build is underperforming.

Socijalisticka

:(

What could possibly be causing it to do so? Any suggestions?

When I speak of turning on AA I refer to having AA on the maxinum ammount it allows by the way.

[QUOTE="Socijalisticka"]

TF2 should not be dropping any frames. As for Skyrim with AA, it usually varies between 40-60 fps for me (and I have a weaker card then you do). Your build is underperforming.

sune_Gem

:(

What could possibly be causing it to do so? Any suggestions?

When I speak of turning on AA I refer to having AA on the maxinum ammount it allows by the way.

Idk it could also be because Skyrim is a mess atm, like the guy above said.

Skyrim is a mess right now. My rig actually gets BETTER performance in Skyrim when I disable crossfire using RadeonPro. Furthermore, I still get about 40-60 FPS in the game (usually 60 FPS, but it does drop in places, especially towns; I've seen it go as low as 22 FPS in one city whose name I can't remember). That's all at 1920x1080 mind you. I suspect this could be due to gross unoptimization for the CPU, since this benchmark (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html) shows that the minimum CPU needed to get 60 FPS average in Skyrim is an i5 2500k @ 4GHz.gameguy6700

Hmm, so you're saying it's a possibility that my CPU is bottle necking my games?

Seems strange though as my friend has a meer dual core running at 2.7GHZ with a Nvidia 9800 and 4GB RAM and is seemingly get the same gaming performance as me here...

I've had this gaming rig a while now, and for the most part it serves me perfectly well. The only thing is I'm not sure if it's running as good as it should. The specs are...

RAM: 8GB DDR3
GPU: ATi HD 6970 2GB
CPU 3.20GHZ Quad Core

sune_Gem

Quad Core what? AMD, Intel?

DDR3 - What speed? Timings?

What do your temps look like across the board?

Drop AA to 4x and see what happens.

[QUOTE="sune_Gem"]

I've had this gaming rig a while now, and for the most part it serves me perfectly well. The only thing is I'm not sure if it's running as good as it should. The specs are...

RAM: 8GB DDR3
GPU: ATi HD 6970 2GB
CPU 3.20GHZ Quad Core

Snotweasel530

Quad Core what? AMD, Intel?

DDR3 - What speed? Timings?

What do your temps look like across the board?

Tempratures are always fine, my PC is actually freezing inside!

DDR3 RAM is 1600 MHZ.

The Quad Core is a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition.

Drop AA to 4x and see what happens.

NailedGR

Skyrim at 4 samples of AA instead of 8 is running at about 25 FPs, still not good...

Timings on the ram? I would suggest downclocking the RAM to the Phenom II's native 1333 and tighten up the timings. 9-9-9-24 and bump up the FSB inch by inch

Timings on the ram? I would suggest downclocking the RAM to the Phenom II's native 1333 and tighten up the timings. 9-9-9-24 and bump up the FSB inch by inch

Snotweasel530

I know how to lower the RAM frequency, but what exactly do you mean by tighten up timings? I'm not familiar with such settings.

Download CFF explorer find the TESV.exe open it with CFF, click on file header bottom of the small window characteristics column click "click here" a new window will open check APP can handle >2gb , exit and save that will solve the sudden drops in FPS , but also make sure you use FXAA over normal AA in game. 04dcarraher

I was using both FXAA and AA at the same time. Also, it's not only Skyrim, it's multiple games.

Also, I put my RAM down to 1333MHZ and I didn't really notice a difference.

[QUOTE="Snotweasel530"]

Timings on the ram? I would suggest downclocking the RAM to the Phenom II's native 1333 and tighten up the timings. 9-9-9-24 and bump up the FSB inch by inch

sune_Gem

I know how to lower the RAM frequency, but what exactly do you mean by tighten up timings? I'm not familiar with such settings.

They're the latency timings that are most likely printed on the side of your DIMMs. Lower latency, faster RAM. You can change these in the bios. You can't get the low timings at 1600 that you can at 1333, or hell even at 1066 with super tight timings might be able to outperform slower timings at 1600. The faster the clock speed of your ram, the less stable it will be with low timings. Ex. 1333 with 7-7-7-24 > 1600 9-9-9-24.

SO. If you're stable at 1333 7-7-7-24, slowly bump up the FSB until you're not, back off one and give the voltage an ever so slight increase. Takes a little time to find the sweet spot.

And you are using quality RAM of course? 1 bad stick may not show its ugly self. Memtest may sound like the polar opposite of fun, but worth while if you're spend the time trying to optimize.

[QUOTE="sune_Gem"]

[QUOTE="Snotweasel530"]

Timings on the ram? I would suggest downclocking the RAM to the Phenom II's native 1333 and tighten up the timings. 9-9-9-24 and bump up the FSB inch by inch

Snotweasel530

I know how to lower the RAM frequency, but what exactly do you mean by tighten up timings? I'm not familiar with such settings.

They're the latency timings that are most likely printed on the side of your DIMMs. Lower latency, faster RAM. You can change these in the bios. You can't get the low timings at 1600 that you can at 1333, or hell even at 1066 with super tight timings might be able to outperform slower timings at 1600. The faster the clock speed of your ram, the less stable it will be with low timings. Ex. 1333 with 7-7-7-24 > 1600 9-9-9-24.

SO. If you're stable at 1333 7-7-7-24, slowly bump up the FSB until you're not, back off one and give the voltage an ever so slight increase. Takes a little time to find the sweet spot.

And you are using quality RAM of course? 1 bad stick may not show its ugly self. Memtest may sound like the polar opposite of fun, but worth while if you're spend the time trying to optimize.

I put the CPU FSB up from 200 to 210. The Ratio is at x17 now too running at 3570 MHZ while it was running at 3200 MHZ. The CPU-NB Frequency is running at 2100 up from 2000. I don't know anything about RAM timings and I can't find a setting that is recognisable to what you're talking about on the BIOS. So I would rather not mess with that.

I'm using a stock cooler, are these settings safe?

EDIT: I just noticed something. When using CPU-Z it says my DRAM frequency is 700 MHZ. Is this normal? Is it possible to place the RAM in slower sockets on the MB?

[QUOTE="Snotweasel530"]

They're the latency timings that are most likely printed on the side of your DIMMs. Lower latency, faster RAM. You can change these in the bios. You can't get the low timings at 1600 that you can at 1333, or hell even at 1066 with super tight timings might be able to outperform slower timings at 1600. The faster the clock speed of your ram, the less stable it will be with low timings. Ex. 1333 with 7-7-7-24 > 1600 9-9-9-24.

SO. If you're stable at 1333 7-7-7-24, slowly bump up the FSB until you're not, back off one and give the voltage an ever so slight increase. Takes a little time to find the sweet spot.

And you are using quality RAM of course? 1 bad stick may not show its ugly self. Memtest may sound like the polar opposite of fun, but worth while if you're spend the time trying to optimize.

sune_Gem

I put the CPU FSB up from 200 to 210. The Ratio is at x17 now too running at 3570 MHZ while it was running at 3200 MHZ. The CPU-NB Frequency is running at 2100 up from 2000. I don't know anything about RAM timings and I can't find a setting that is recognisable to what you're talking about on the BIOS. So I would rather not mess with that.

I'm using a stock cooler, are these settings safe?

EDIT: I just noticed something. When using CPU-Z it says my DRAM frequency is 700 MHZ. Is this normal? Is it possible to place the RAM in slower sockets on the MB?

If your temps are ok, then it's safe. I would suggest you change your CPU multiplier back to 16 though. When you increase the FSB, you increase the clock speeds of everything. The DRAM freq you see there is 1333 + (FSB change) / 2. That's normal. Your RAM is running at 1400 instead of 1333. Heres a link for more on RAM timings. They ARE important and worth learning about. Consult your mobo manual for bios instructions:

Looks like GS hatin on mozilla imbedding links copypasta this: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Understanding-RAM-Timings/26

I'm ready to give up, I've tried everything! I've fiddled with RAM timings rather aimlessly, increased my CPU's and Graphics Card's speed, got monitoring programs which show nothing abnormal and have changed the CCC settings around a tonne and yet my PC still can't play Team Fortress 2 and Skyrim on maxinum settings when apparantly it should be able to run them with full AA on and everything!

This is really putting my off PC gaming... :evil:

fps is probably so high that your game is moving ultra slow to you.. this is a common problem.

go watch the tf2 1000fps video's on youtube.

Is it possible my CPU isn't up to scratch with the rest of the hardware? What power supply would you think I would need to run if all efficiently?

[QUOTE="Socijalisticka"]

TF2 should not be dropping any frames. As for Skyrim with AA, it usually varies between 40-60 fps for me (and I have a weaker card then you do). Your build is underperforming.

sune_Gem

:(

What could possibly be causing it to do so? Any suggestions?

When I speak of turning on AA I refer to having AA on the maxinum ammount it allows by the way.

I just played DiRT 3 on absolute max settings with no slow down at all. Just Cause 2 benchmark test was at 60 FPs all the way throughout, yet when I played the game simply looking at this one mansion shot my frames down to like 20. Any other place it was perfectly smooth.

What's going on here? Why is my PC getting higher frames on certain games? Why does it seem to be anytime I look in a direction, be it a city on Skyrim or a building on Just Cause 2 that my frames drop then?

Come to think of it Team Fortress 2 and Skyrim both run on DirectX 9, and they're the games I have the most problems with...

Yeah, there's no way I'm getting those frames on those settings. Something is wrong and it's really bugging me...

Can anyone please give more suggestions?

Do you have vsync turned on? Try turning it off if you haven't. In game as well as system global settings

Do you have vsync turned on? Try turning it off if you haven't. In game as well as system global settings

Snotweasel530

The game gives no such setting. When vsync is forced on in CCC with triple buffering the game textures break down and green flashes occur on everything. With vsync forced off and triple buffering not turned on the FPs seems the same but atleast everything works with no flashing. That is on Skyrim anyway.

Guys, I just made a big discovery! I had a 6950, not a 6970. I don't know what led me to believe it was a 6970 but it wasn't. Is the FPs I'm getting more understandable on a 6950?

I haven't been getting the wrong drivers as ATi has you download drivers to the card series, like HD 6*** so that still wouldn't explain lower frames.