|
hello all,
I am a newb when it comes to computers....so bear with me. I have a relatively new computer bought about 3 months ago... and it seems to have major fps drops during the game. The start of the game isnt too bad averaging around 60 fps, then after an hr the fps drops to 30... which i think its noticeably slower and i hate it... I checked the GPU settings and it stays pretty cool and ive turned the settings in Catalsyst to the lowest but everything on ultra in game. I've tried all the tricks i've read on forums like loading in opengl and changing the game variables...(also tried downgrading drivers from 10.7 to 10.5) THese are my specs for my pc(quite a decent pc)
GPU; ASUS 5870 MOBO: asus m4a89gtd pro cpu; amd phenom ii x4 3.12 ghz with after market cooler ram : 8 gigs PSU: 750 watts. soundcard : auzentech forte 7.1 KINgston SSD 128 gb for games 1tb back up HDD
Please help me out as noone seems to know whats wrong....I spent a ridiculous amount of money... and to the bare minimum i want sc2 to run properly
|
What resolution are you running the game at? Don't see why it would cause any problems but maybe your GPU is screwing up at load. A completely random idea, try running the game off of the HDD? Have you run memtest? Those are all the random things i could think of. Also you have to be aware that sometimes there are just problems that are completely unexplainable and that aren't solved for quite a while.
|
yea ive run everything in ultra in game settings, my friend uses the SSD To run his sc2 so duno y thatd be a p[roblem... i can try later, but what is memtest?
|
a few things i think could be the issue:
1. your gpu OR cpu can't handle the load mid-game (mid game = more units & more rendering and computer. try casting mid game) 2. #1 but more because of it, but i think you're at factory clock with that proc, right? 3. what resolution are you running at and how much memory on your 5870? if you're doing 1080p you need 1gb memory on the vid card (i don't even think they make 5870s with 512 ram, but you never know there are tons of non reference cards out there)? 4. is it only noticeable against zerg creep? 5. if that doesn't work, pm me for help.
|
Tell me if im wrong, but i think there was a day i left sc2 overnight wihtout the variables changed...(before i found out about overheating on forums). coulkd this have partially fucked my gpu up?
|
That's not the kind of result you'd expect from overheating damage.
|
Wow, I thought ATI Radeon 5870 was supposed to play ultra settings at at least 70 fps. Yeah, something is definitely wrong with something. Not sure what, but u should definitely get more fps
|
On August 12 2010 21:48 KJH wrote:Tell me if im wrong, but i think there was a day i left sc2 overnight wihtout the variables changed...(before i found out about overheating on forums ). coulkd this have partially fucked my gpu up?
ah that's true
you won't believe this, my GF found out about this before i did and she HATES sc2.
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/starcraft-ii-menu-screen-are-overheating-pcs-20100729/
edit: and clean out your fans. go to harbor freight and get the $150 pressured air blower thing, its like 150 psi LOL. clean out your computer.
|
wtf $150 pressurized air, go buy a $3 can of it and use that to clean your comp
|
mmmm this is so fustrating god...
|
On August 12 2010 22:26 yourwhiteshadow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 21:48 KJH wrote:Tell me if im wrong, but i think there was a day i left sc2 overnight wihtout the variables changed...(before i found out about overheating on forums ). coulkd this have partially fucked my gpu up? ah that's true you won't believe this, my GF found out about this before i did and she HATES sc2. http://www.geek.com/articles/games/starcraft-ii-menu-screen-are-overheating-pcs-20100729/edit: and clean out your fans. go to harbor freight and get the $150 pressured air blower thing, its like 150 psi LOL. clean out your computer.
dude my comps like 3 months old
|
On August 12 2010 21:10 KJH wrote:hello all, I am a newb when it comes to computers....so bear with me. I have a relatively new computer bought about 3 months ago... and it seems to have major fps drops during the game. The start of the game isnt too bad averaging around 60 fps, then after an hr the fps drops to 30... which i think its noticeably slower and i hate it... I checked the GPU settings and it stays pretty cool and ive turned the settings in Catalsyst to the lowest but everything on ultra in game. I've tried all the tricks i've read on forums like loading in opengl and changing the game variables...(also tried downgrading drivers from 10.7 to 10.5) THese are my specs for my pc(quite a decent pc) GPU; ASUS 5870 MOBO: asus m4a89gtd pro cpu; amd phenom ii x4 3.12 ghz with after market cooler ram : 8 gigs PSU: 750 watts. soundcard : auzentech forte 7.1 KINgston SSD 128 gb for games 1tb back up HDD Please help me out as noone seems to know whats wrong....I spent a ridiculous amount of money... and to the bare minimum i want sc2 to run properly
v sync problem?
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
I have the same card, and similar CPU (Phenom II X6 1090T). I haven't had enough time to actually play long enough to see any kind of performance drop. I'll be doing so this weekend, though. I'll let you know what I find.
|
On August 12 2010 23:29 tofucake wrote: I have the same card, and similar CPU (Phenom II X6 1090T). I haven't had enough time to actually play long enough to see any kind of performance drop. I'll be doing so this weekend, though. I'll let you know what I find.
thanks man greatly appreciated
|
the other thing i am concerned is the fact that a game like left 4 dead 2 runs at 140+ fps on full res with 4 x AA
|
holy crap. lemme post this link again in case you didn't understand wth it wrote. but since you're too lazy to read it, i'll summarize it for you:
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/starcraft-ii-menu-screen-are-overheating-pcs-20100729/
basically, what it is saying is that people can overheat their cards since the menu screen is still rendered at 60 fps and for some reason the menu screen takes like a bajillion resources. your gfx card might already be at 95 C by the time it comes to actually playing the game. then...when ati's crappy catalyst bs kicks in with crappy weird fan settings coupled with your goofy overclock, KABOOM system WAY OVERHEATS and has to drop core voltage which results in underclock --> low FPS. like i said, i don't know why you're overclocking a 5870 to play sc2. bump up your fan to 80% or something, go to factory clock, and see if that doesn't help.
btw...why the heck would you get a phenom II x4 with a 5870. slight bottleneck there.
|
umm actually i didnt tweak any of the overclock settings as i would have no idea how to... secondly i have my fan up to 100% when i play games...
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
On August 12 2010 23:56 yourwhiteshadow wrote: holy crap. lemme post this link again in case you didn't understand wth it wrote. but since you're too lazy to read it, i'll summarize it for you:
Apparently you didn't even bother reading OP:
On August 12 2010 21:10 KJH wrote: I checked the GPU settings and it stays pretty cool and ive turned the settings in Catalsyst to the lowest but everything on ultra in game. I've tried all the tricks i've read on forums like loading in opengl and changing the game variables...
|
and whats wronig with phenom ii x4 with 5870
|
On August 13 2010 00:00 tofucake wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 23:56 yourwhiteshadow wrote: holy crap. lemme post this link again in case you didn't understand wth it wrote. but since you're too lazy to read it, i'll summarize it for you:
Apparently you didn't even bother reading OP: Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 21:10 KJH wrote: I checked the GPU settings and it stays pretty cool and ive turned the settings in Catalsyst to the lowest but everything on ultra in game. I've tried all the tricks i've read on forums like loading in opengl and changing the game variables...
i second that
|
Starcraft 2 actually doesn't utilize your GPU all that much. A majority of the load going to be on your CPU. Even so, SC2 will use 100% of your first core, 50% of your second core, and tickle your 3 and 4. The reason your FPS drop during the mid game have more to do with your CPU than it would be with your graphic card.
|
Iirc, Starcraft II doesn't have a FPS limiter, and some cards have been overheating because in the early game, when not much is going on, the GPU tries to render thousands of frames per second.
Not sure if the patch went in to fix it yet, but there is a temporary solution. Read this article. Also note, if your card is already fried/partially fried this wont help you.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/08/03/starcraft-2-doesn-t-limit-framerates/1
|
I had a similar problem. The problem was that the PowerPlay feature that kicked in and underclocked my card to 400/900 or something. Check your clocks when you open SC2. I fixed it by disabling GPU acceleration for Flash 10.1.
This only happens when I have anything that runs on flash open. ATI drivers makes me a sad panda .
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
On August 13 2010 00:19 Knightlax wrote:Iirc, Starcraft II doesn't have a FPS limiter, and some cards have been overheating because in the early game, when not much is going on, the GPU tries to render thousands of frames per second. Not sure if the patch went in to fix it yet, but there is a temporary solution. Read this article. Also note, if your card is already fried/partially fried this wont help you. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/08/03/starcraft-2-doesn-t-limit-framerates/1 Stop posting that. It's annoying.
|
I would say, check if you have any bad software going on, maybe your antivirus does some funky business when you're not looking.
Idk if an older card used to be in it but I would uninstall drivers, then boot into safe mode to use a driver cleaner like "Driver Sweeper", then reinstall the drivers. Sometimes it fixes stuff.
And there have been reported hiccups with the Kingston SSDnow series during gaming. (Especially the old ones)
|
cool is so subjective...what does that mean? do you have some finite # for us. what might be cool for you, isn't cool for others or for your card for that matter. amd 48xx and 58xx cards do run a tad bit hot. anything lower than 100C and your fine, but higher and you're asking for damage due to overheating. OP can you get us a finite number?
OP PMed me this, " I duno what i did but i went to "ati overdrive setting" and pulled the meter up manually"
|
I'd guess that it's V-sync. Check if it's on under gfx options in-game and make sure it isn't forced on by CCC. Also check that your drivers aren't automatically underclocking your card, whether it's ATI drivers or your BIOS.
|
On August 12 2010 23:56 yourwhiteshadow wrote:holy crap. lemme post this link again in case you didn't understand wth it wrote. but since you're too lazy to read it, i'll summarize it for you: http://www.geek.com/articles/games/starcraft-ii-menu-screen-are-overheating-pcs-20100729/basically, what it is saying is that people can overheat their cards since the menu screen is still rendered at 60 fps and for some reason the menu screen takes like a bajillion resources. your gfx card might already be at 95 C by the time it comes to actually playing the game. then...when ati's crappy catalyst bs kicks in with crappy weird fan settings coupled with your goofy overclock, KABOOM system WAY OVERHEATS and has to drop core voltage which results in underclock --> low FPS. like i said, i don't know why you're overclocking a 5870 to play sc2. bump up your fan to 80% or something, go to factory clock, and see if that doesn't help. btw...why the heck would you get a phenom II x4 with a 5870. slight bottleneck there. Fanboy more please. Those overheating problems that fried a ton of cards were due to shitty fan profile updates in an nvidia patch that caused fans to only run at like 60% when the cards were 80c +. Any video card can sustain itself at full load as long as it's fan speeds aren't hobbled. I think he simply has some sort of unknown software or hardware problem that won't be as obvious as overheating - which if he has been as thorough as he says he would have noticed by now.
Also in a multithreaded game the Phenom II x4 won't be bottle necking the 5870 at all.
|
On August 13 2010 00:19 Knightlax wrote:Iirc, Starcraft II doesn't have a FPS limiter, and some cards have been overheating because in the early game, when not much is going on, the GPU tries to render thousands of frames per second. Not sure if the patch went in to fix it yet, but there is a temporary solution. Read this article. Also note, if your card is already fried/partially fried this wont help you. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/08/03/starcraft-2-doesn-t-limit-framerates/1 thanks for your input, but i wrote in my OP that i changed my variables already..
|
On August 13 2010 05:03 yourwhiteshadow wrote: cool is so subjective...what does that mean? do you have some finite # for us. what might be cool for you, isn't cool for others or for your card for that matter. amd 48xx and 58xx cards do run a tad bit hot. anything lower than 100C and your fine, but higher and you're asking for damage due to overheating. OP can you get us a finite number?
OP PMed me this, " I duno what i did but i went to "ati overdrive setting" and pulled the meter up manually" sorry i should have specified but i was averaging around 40 degrees C with forced fans.
|
also i might add... I've read in other forums about ppl running their sc2 in direct x10... Can i get some input on this, and if its effective can u tell me how to change it to dx 10
|
i googled...and the only thing i found was another post on the amd forums from you. LOL.
sounds like a possible drivers issue to me. however, it seems that some people don't have the issue. try some different driver releases?
|
On August 13 2010 14:50 yourwhiteshadow wrote: i googled...and the only thing i found was another post on the amd forums from you. LOL.
sounds like a possible drivers issue to me. however, it seems that some people don't have the issue. try some different driver releases? hahah sorry im desperate to fix this issue...
|
This is probably a long shot but check if you have anything else running on the same physical hard drive that might read/write periodically or uses CPU resources.
Example would be backup script, Itune updates or whatever.
Which Kingston SSD do you have? Some of the earlier ones are absolute crap.
|
On August 13 2010 18:09 haduken wrote: This is probably a long shot but check if you have anything else running on the same physical hard drive that might read/write periodically or uses CPU resources.
Example would be backup script, Itune updates or whatever.
Which Kingston SSD do you have? Some of the earlier ones are absolute crap.
its a kinstong snv425s21 128 gb
|
and yea i dont have any other updates that could possibly be running.... the only programs i have are windows essential/malwarebytes and a few games..
|
You say that after an hour the game plays at 30 fps, is it steady 30 fps or does it vary and just average 30?
After an hour does it stay at 30 fps even if you start a new game? or do you mean it drops to 30 fps during heavy loads like during mid/late game fights? I'm running a Phenom ii x4 3.4 GHz and see ~30-35 fps during large battles.
|
Update your drivers same thing happend to my friend and that fixed it. There were new ati drivers released when SC2 came out try that
|
buy a second 5870 imo :D but still, shouldnt drop at 30 fps.
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
10.7b only adds AA to SC2. I have 10.7 and my computer runs fine.
|
|
I have similar specs (PhenomII955@3.45, HD5870), and the answer to your issue is the CPU, dont know really why, but SC2 dont like AMDs very much, try OC the CPU, 3.2~3.4GHz, and set to low some CPU intensive aspects of the game, like physics and reflections, now SC2 should be running smoothly (I recommend enabling vsync)
|
On August 14 2010 14:33 eLFootman wrote: I have similar specs (PhenomII955@3.45, HD5870), and the answer to your issue is the CPU, dont know really why, but SC2 dont like AMDs very much, try OC the CPU, 3.2~3.4GHz, and set to low some CPU intensive aspects of the game, like physics and reflections, now SC2 should be running smoothly (I recommend enabling vsync) would the amd x6's do much of a difference in performance
|
On August 14 2010 02:51 Klapdout wrote: You say that after an hour the game plays at 30 fps, is it steady 30 fps or does it vary and just average 30?
After an hour does it stay at 30 fps even if you start a new game? or do you mean it drops to 30 fps during heavy loads like during mid/late game fights? I'm running a Phenom ii x4 3.4 GHz and see ~30-35 fps during large battles.
umm, yea doesnt matter if i start a new game or not... regardless if its heavy loads of fighting... I mean when mothership comes out or some shit like that,.. yea it does slwo down abit... but seriosuly at the start of the game shuoldnt have low fps... its kinda random.. sometimes good sometimes bad
|
On August 14 2010 16:44 KJH wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2010 14:33 eLFootman wrote: I have similar specs (PhenomII955@3.45, HD5870), and the answer to your issue is the CPU, dont know really why, but SC2 dont like AMDs very much, try OC the CPU, 3.2~3.4GHz, and set to low some CPU intensive aspects of the game, like physics and reflections, now SC2 should be running smoothly (I recommend enabling vsync) would the amd x6's do much of a difference in performance
I wouldn't think so, the x6 do have turbo core though but SC2 is not multithreaded that well.
Post your entire spec here and run all test. do memtest first.
www.memtest.com
get a cheap usb drive and burn the memtest image onto it then boot into usb. run the test overnight and see if it produce any errors. it should have ZERO errors.
|
On August 14 2010 14:33 eLFootman wrote: I have similar specs (PhenomII955@3.45, HD5870), and the answer to your issue is the CPU, dont know really why, but SC2 dont like AMDs very much, try OC the CPU, 3.2~3.4GHz, and set to low some CPU intensive aspects of the game, like physics and reflections, now SC2 should be running smoothly (I recommend enabling vsync)
i dont think so. Based on the CPU benchmark, Phenom II X4 965BE does have a very good result, it comes in third place witch is very good. Note that they are using a geforce GTX 480 for the benchmark. Also, i have a geforce card and a phenom II x4 940BE and i play just fine. ATI has driver issues, lower the details for a good FPS and wait for another driver release
edit: forgot the benchmark link http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,766589/Starcraft-2-CPU-benchmarks-Intel-on-top-quads-without-performance-benefit/Practice/
|
It sounds like what is happening is that you have V-Sync on without Tripple Buffering.
Double buffering is the "default" because.. it's just how it works. One frame is displayed at a time while another is being drawn in the buffer, when the next frame is ready they flip. The finished one is now displayed, previous frame cleared and your video card has started work on the next frame.
This flipping repeats as fast as possible unless there is some kind of limit imposed by the program or if you have V-Sync on. If images were not buffered the screen would flicker because you would get: frame, clear, redraw.
V-Sync as most people should know is used to lock the rendered frames to your monitors refresh rate so it is as smooth as possible and you don't get screen tearing.
Let's say you had V-Sync on and only double buffering. Your Video card drops below 60 fps, even if it is only to 59. Your video card will "throttle" to 30 fps to stop screen tearing because it can't keep up with drawing the amount of frames needed. If it can't keep up with 30 it will drop to 15 and so on. This is just how V-Sync works by design.
Tripple buffering improves performance with V-Sync by allowing division of the refresh rate by 3 (45, 30, 15) instead of just 2 so drops in performance are less noticable but you still get the benefits of V-Sync.
To test if the issue is caused by V-Sync and double bufferering just disable V-Sync in game and in the CCC. If this is the issue then try V-Sync and tripple buffering and see if the drop in performance is less noticable. All comes down to personal preference in the end. I dislike screen tearing but I hate FPS drops even more. In SC2 I have V-Sync off.
Edit: I also have a HD 5870 running on Ultra.. I do get dips in performance in some single player missions and during large multiplayer battles but it is not all that noticable because I have V-Sync off.
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
So yeah...I played (admittedly, a bit intoxicated) 4v4s for about 4 hours last night, and my FPS dropped below 50 only when a Mothership cloaked 6 attacking Carriers. I've got a 5870 with X6, 8GB RAM...so yeah. Pretty strong ^^
|
mmmm...i just have a feeling i have some hiddne problem. coz as i said left4dead runs at 150 fps
|
On August 14 2010 22:47 haduken wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2010 16:44 KJH wrote:On August 14 2010 14:33 eLFootman wrote: I have similar specs (PhenomII955@3.45, HD5870), and the answer to your issue is the CPU, dont know really why, but SC2 dont like AMDs very much, try OC the CPU, 3.2~3.4GHz, and set to low some CPU intensive aspects of the game, like physics and reflections, now SC2 should be running smoothly (I recommend enabling vsync) would the amd x6's do much of a difference in performance I wouldn't think so, the x6 do have turbo core though but SC2 is not multithreaded that well. Post your entire spec here and run all test. do memtest first. www.memtest.com get a cheap usb drive and burn the memtest image onto it then boot into usb. run the test overnight and see if it produce any errors. it should have ZERO errors. can u explain this abit further as i have never done a memtest before and is it www.memtest86.com?
|
im actually thinking of getting a 5970/... i wonder if this makes a difference
|
On August 17 2010 19:28 KJH wrote: im actually thinking of getting a 5970/... i wonder if this makes a difference
No, your video card is not the problem, my gtx 260 can play this game on ultra and I'm CPU limited in fps, so your 5870 is far more than needed.
You said its random, sometimes performance is fine, sometimes its not, even at the start of the game your fps can be low right? If your temps are fine it sounds like either Cool 'n; Quiet is throttling your CPU, or a background process is screwing you.
Try disabling Cool 'n' Quiet in your motherboard BIOS and see if it fixes the issue, if it doesn't try a virus scan, and if nothing else works I'd try a fresh windows install.
|
51138 Posts
yeh don't blow money on another graphics card, please =[
|
OPs PSU might blow. 750Watts doesn´t mean it has enough juice in it´s 12v rail(s), bottlenecking the GPU
Or it´s the CPU -> OC like mad
|
So I posted this earlier:
On August 16 2010 21:12 cyclone25 wrote: I have a similar issue too. Athlon II X4 620 ~2.6Ghz Radeon HD 4850 at 512mb (latest drivers). 4Gb ram (but only 3.3 used due to XP @32bits)
The FPS drops alot when I get some decent sized army and it becomes impossible to play during big battles (usually it drops to 5-11FPS). In the first minutes of the game the FPS ranges from 50 to 115. The temperatures are fine, and I run the game at low/medium settings with 1920x1080 resolution. I have no idea why my PC runs SC2 so bad ... is it the low CPU cache that these X4 620 come with? (my knowledge isn't great when it comes to PC hardware). What fixed it for me was disabling Cool 'n Quiet from BIOS as Klapdout suggested. Now I can run the game at medium settings with a constant 60fps (it's limited) and 45-55fps during big battles. I also made a small test running programs like winamp, flash videos, skype in background while playing and the game still runs great
|
On August 17 2010 20:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote: OPs PSU might blow. 750Watts doesn´t mean it has enough juice in it´s 12v rail(s), bottlenecking the GPU
Or it´s the CPU -> OC like mad
pretty sure i have enough amps for it..
|
just as a side question for all.... whenever im in bios and browse through the settings, it freezez there.... what does this mean?
|
Could be USB keyboard shenanigans (I use a PS/2 for that reason)...otherwise, it could be something far worse. When you freeze, do you actually have to restart to get out of BIOS? The one and only time I've had a BIOS screen freeze is when my flash went bad. This is back when I was a noob in 2002, and basically bricked my mobo haha.
Regarding the PCGameHW bench, that is quite a different benchmark then the techspot. Techspot was a true "worst case scenario" with both human and AI players, in a 4v4 setting. PCGameHW's bench, on the other hand, is only 2v2.
Also techspot uses a longer, 5min demo, while PCGameHW only uses 60s to get its framerates. So less stressful and a far shorter duration...not the most ideal for getting good numbers for a "worst case" scenario. Additionally, note the e8400 (a 2-year old Core2 CPU) and the sadly discontinued PhII X3 720BE in the charts.
|
Haha, I have absolutely the same issue.. I dont know if the game is so demanding or what, but I cant get over 30-35 fps during those big battles.. I have Gigabyte 5870 1GB, Phenom X6 1090T, 8G Ram.. I tried all of those things like 10.7 drivers, capping fps at 30, resp 60 in variables.txt, etc.. I just dont know. Does actually anyone have like 60-70 fps during 200v200 battles? Im checking for Bios updates, etc.. Im going to give up pretty soon.
edit: Oh and btw of course I tried lowering my setting, hell I tried everything on low, v-sync on/off, diseable sound, overclock my card..
|
Hyrule18778 Posts
I was getting about 50 fps in 3v3s while streaming last night with the same setup you have. I will post my settings later.
|
I simply dont get it.. I think there is some problem in Bios or somewhere that is not letting my card and cpu perform as it should. In other games I have no issues at all.. I wonder if reinstalling whole system would help.. Im on Win 7 proffesional 64..
Also Im experiencing this flickering from time to time. And sometimes it freezes completly showing screen full of stripes.. I might give a shot to Bios update, but Im a bit scared. :-)
|
That's artifacting - I would manually raise your GPU fan speed before you play again.
|
Ok, I made this change.. In Bios I enabled Asus core unlocker, that raised my fps from 120 to like 340.. But my system crashed several times. This "artefacting" happened. So I raised fan to 50% which was a huge sound, but it still crashed.. Gonna try a few more times.
|
|
ati catalyst 10.7 drivers are bugged get the version 10.6. at least this worked for me.
|
Well this memory check found exactly 0 errors, which Im not surprised, because I bought my PC like month back. Ill try 10.6, but Im pretty sure that this is not the problem. Im playing for example Torchlight 1680:1050 maxed out without any problems.. It just seems that SC2 doesnt like my system. :/
|
Nothing works, 10.6 makes no difference.. Bit sad with this result, because I was pretty sure my configuration would run SC2 very well.
|
make sure you have the latest drivers, I have the same gpu but with an intel processor and no SSD and 6gb ram with no FPS problems on ultra, you should not have FPS problems
|
anybody find a solition to this?
|
Stop playing at ultra settings and you will have even more fps
|
|
|
|