low GPU usage with i5 2500K and gtx 560 Ti, any ideas?

[Mjolnir]

If they're claiming not to have *ANY* FPS slowdowns during full combat, yes they're lying.  Now they may slow from 120 to 90, but they're still getting a decrease.

Just saying.  It's a pretty universal problem.

What I am talking about here is from 60 fps (which I average most of the time when the GPU usage is 95+%) to down to 20 FPS or lower in some extreme cases (usually it drops to around 30), and only in intense combat. I would imagine someone who experiences a drop from 120 fps down to 90 FPS would be experiencing this do to the GPU not being powerful enough to sustain 120fps, not whatever is causing my problem (which does not seem caused by my GPU at all). The fact is that I can't think of any reason why my hardware would drop me down to 20 fps (which is not because of the GPU) while other people with similar hardware or older i7 CPUS (which should perform similarly to mine in MWLL) would not go below maximum GPU usage.


Are there any specific nvidia driver settings I should check? This honestly to me sounds like more of a driver issue if anything, since my CPU should not be bottlenecked at only 30% usage (which means it isn't even using the 2 cores it should to the full extent).

[MrAgmoore]

Re-post your question and this thread link into the Hardforum GPU section:

http://hardocp.com/

[TwinkleToes]

It looks like you're asking somebody for the easy answer.  Unfortunately you're going to have to find the solution to your specific problem and system on your own.  Start by mixing different drivers.

[Mjolnir]

It looks like you're asking somebody for the easy answer.  Unfortunately you're going to have to find the solution to your specific problem and system on your own.  Start by mixing different drivers.

I'm not looking for an "easy answer;" I have spent countless hours trying to figure this out. My setup isn't really uncommon in any way that I can think of, and it has had these performance issues regardless of drivers (I update them regularly).

My point is that my "specific system" is one of the most common setups around right now; the i5 2500K is just about the most popular CPU right now among performance users as is the Z68 for motherboards and the GTX 560 Ti for GPUs.

Would someone be so kind as to post their config file, just so I can rule out that as a source of the problem?

[Freeborn_Toad]

CCC level 4ish settings at 1920x1200 will use 1.2-1.7GiB of VRAM depending on map and number of players. If you have less than this, you may run into situations where GPU utilization and frame rate tank as crap is swapped in from system memory.

Also, turn of vsync if you have it enabled. I have not for the life of me been able to get triple buffering working correctly in recent versions of MWLL, and vsynch without triple buffering is considerably more annoying than screen tearing, IMO.

[Mjolnir]

Sometimes my memory usage approaches 1GB, but I don't think that is the cause of my problems. I lowered the resolution to 1600 x 900 (i'm using a 1080P monitor right now) and my framerate still dropped to around 30 or lower in heavy combat.
Also I have never had vsync on. Before I had 2 8800gt's in SLI, and I would get issues with running out of memory where the game would completely freeze for half a second or so as it swapped stuff out from the system memory. I don't think this is what is happening this time, since I don't experience any freezes like that, just lower FPS.

[ratbuddy]

Is the GPU clock staying at full 3D frequency when you see the utilization % go down? I'm running the same CPU as you (at 4.6) and it manages to keep a pair of 460's fully loaded even during heavy combat. With my old processor, a single 460 only saw ~30-60% loads which was enough to make it go into low power 3D mode, resulting in big frame drops. Might not be your issue, but it couldn't hurt to check.

[Bear]

Power Management Options in the Windows Operating system, as well as your GPU's Service Utility. Check them.

Maybe you have, but Just throwing it out there. All power saving features must be turned off to avoid unwanted intentional downclocking from software to save power.

Also try using command prompts to set your Physics core and VSync in game. I had a recent discovery that it (In my specific case) my Autoexec configuration was not working at all. I had to set them in game via the in game command prompt. I'd suggest setting other things in game as well and experimenting to see what results you get.

[Perigren]

I read on tomshardware.com that the z68 has issues. Search z68 on their site to find the info.

[ratbuddy]

I read on tomshardware.com that the z68 has issues. Search z68 on their site to find the info.

Link or it didn't happen.

[Mjolnir]

I have disabled every single power saving setting that I can find, both in the Nvidia control panel and with EVGA precision. I constantly monitor the GPU clocks, and the FPS drops don't correspond to any sort of gpu downclocking. I have tried setting the physics to each core and none of them produced better performance. However I have not tried vsync.


Also you are going to have to be more specific about reading that the Z68 has "issues;" from a quick search of tomshardware I don't see any threads leaping out at me saying "THE Z68 IS BROKEN DON'T BUY IT!!!!1111;" could you please be more specific?

[Rwembee]

I have a similar setup.  I've been kind of frustrated getting steady high fps, toned back several settings and gave up.  It's normally pretty good, but on the quick SA(usually worse than normal maps) test I was getting ~50's combat 85 vsync(out of 100hz monitor?!)

I think I have all the C# state options in bios turned on, though many OC threads say leave them off. Otherwise I do 10% current capacity and whatever asus "optimized" voltage phase control is.

2500k@4.0  OC by all cores(be careful, voltage seems to be the only way to kill the sandy bridge chips, and I seem to do 4.3 stable at 1.17v
gtx460 evga
p67 asus
8gb 1600 corsair
win7x64 dx9

1280x1024 using ccc 3, sharp shadows, vsync(i hate cooking my card at 500fps in the menu), and physics on 3.

 nvidia crysis.exe settings:
AF and AA = app controlled
AA transparency = off
single display
power= max performance
anistropic optimization = off
quality = quality
negative LOD = allow
trilinear = on
thread = on
triple = on
vsync = app control

Hope this helps some how.