Rig upgraded but no fps gain

[Mrgud]

Guys, it's me again! :(

 

As I stated it CPU overheats thread, I upgraded my PC but there is no FPS gain. I have barely 2 fps more than before.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=131459 → (CPU overheating thread)

 

Old configuration:

 

Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 - 3Ghz

GeForce 9600GT - 512MB (ddr3)

4GB RAM (ddr2)

 

 

New configuration:

 

Xeon X5460 - 4 cores at 3.16Ghz

NVidia GTX650 - 2GB / ddr5

8GB RAM (ddr2)

 

At this moment my options in DCS are at lowest possible and I get some 20-25 fps. When I upgraded RAM (nothing), than CPU (nothing but I though that my old GPU was to blame) but today I put new GPU and gained only 2 fps! I know that GTX 650 is a low-end GPU compared to what you guys have but it still should be better than six years old 9600GT. I don't expect to run DCS at high level of details, but I would like to have some 30 fps on medium settings.

 

Question:

 

I have six years old BIOS, so should I update it? Can new GPU be inhibited by some BIOS or other software settings?

 

2 cards comparison:

 

Edited September 29, 2014 by Mrgud

[cichlidfan]

Your new GPU is a fairly low end card. It may well be a significant factor in your lack of FPS gain.

[kontiuka]

Not that I know much about this stuff, but where are you getting 20-25 fps? In cockpit? Flying low over cities? Lots of AI units? Mirrors on? Really, just curious.

[KLR Rico]

I'd still lean towards a CPU bottleneck. DCS is basically single threaded (audio has it's own thread), so clock speed has a greater influence than core count, so the 160 MHz you gained probably won't add up to much (5.3%).

 

 

I see on the specs that both your rigs have 1,333 MHz FSB's. I wonder if that's also a choke point...

[Corrigan]

Weird. I would have guessed that you saw more than 10% difference. I agree that you need to post your settings though.

 

EDIT: I agree with the above, you're probably processor-limited.

[Archer7]

Come on… upgrade your motherboard and CPU already!

 

Your graphics card is in the weaker side of things (a 760 is the gaming standard as of 2013… I haven’t bothered checking what’s new this year) but other components look much more problematic.

Such a significant graphics card update without fps increase points towards the graphics card not being the issue at all.

 

8GB memory is definitely enough but DDR2 could be very slow seeing as how DDR3 has been the standard for many years.

 

It seems to me that you should stop clinging to that whatever old motherboard you have.

[Rhinox]

I'd like to know which in-game settings you have. If you are on low/med, then CPU is your bottleneck. And the truth is, there is not much difference between X5460 and E8400 (from DCS-point of view): the same "core" architecture, nearly the same clock-speed. Yes, you have 4 cores now, but DCS can not use more than 1 and 1/2 cores (one for DCS physics/gfs, the other partially for sound).

 

If you try higher in-game gfx settings, you might see higher difference.

[eFirehawk]

I'd say it's a CPU bottleneck really. Happened to me this week. I retired my GTX 570 and got a GTX 980 Superclocked. Most of games shooted up from 30FPS average to 120FPS+ ( such as Assetto Corsa, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2 ), while in DCS and City Car Driving ( another poorly coded game ) there was almost no difference at all. :noexpression:

 

My processor is an i7 930 overclocked to 3.5Ghz and I got 12 gigs of DDR3 1600.

Edited September 29, 2014 by eFirehawk

[Corrigan]

I'd say it's a CPU bottleneck really. Happened to me this week. I retired my GTX 570 and got a GTX 980 Superclocked. Most of games shooted up from 30FPS average to 120FPS+ ( such as Assetto Corsa, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2 ), while in DCS and City Car Driving ( another poorly coded game ) there was almost no difference at all. :noexpression:

 

My processor is an i7 930 overclocked to 3.5Ghz and I got 12 gigs of DDR3 1600.

 

Why would you spend that much on a GPU while neglecting your CPU like that? Or are you in the process of upgrading?

 

I'd like to know which in-game settings you have. If you are on low/med, then CPU is your bottleneck. And the truth is, there is not much difference between X5460 and E8400 (from DCS-point of view): the same "core" architecture, nearly the same clock-speed. Yes, you have 4 cores now, but DCS can not use more than 1 and 1/2 cores (one for DCS physics/gfs, the other partially for sound).

 

If you try higher in-game gfx settings, you might see higher difference.

 

Yeah, I was about to say: a test worth doing might be to turn the resolution WAY down, as low as it can go, and see if you get any performance gains. If you don't, it's probably the CPU limiting you.

[EtherealN]

The Xeon X5460 is not really an upgrade as far as CPU goes. It's a shrink of the Core architecture you already had, with some gains potentially from having "spare" cores for the OS and extra caches and suchlike, but also potential drawbacks from it being a server/workstation-optimised chip.

 

Basically, if CPU-bottlenecked on a Core2 Duo 8400, a move to Xeon X5460 would not be expected to give much (if any) improvement.

[EtherealN]

while in DCS and City Car Driving ( another poorly coded game ) there was almost no difference at all. :noexpression:

 

This is not about good or bad "coding". This is about what kind of computation a given game requires. "FPS" is _NOT_ just about graphics cards. Shooters and suchlike have graphics as their key workload, meaning that graphics card upgrades will almost always have the biggest effects.

 

However, the graphics routines need to be told WHAT to draw before the graphics card(s) can do anything at all. In most games, this is no big deal, since those routines on the CPU will be fairly easy. However, in simulations you typically have a LOT of very heavy computation that needs to be done before each frame can even start to be rendered. DCS is an example of this. Before your graphics card can do anything at all about the next frame, the CPU needs to calculate everything related to where things should be in that frame - with the actual simulation bit being a huge issue.

 

There are improvements that can be done and are being done, but the only _really_ effective one is to migrate to an inherently multithreaded engine. This is not easy, you typically want this done at the design stage before you've written a single line of code.

[c84]

i would say something really wrong with your pc. My is even weaker e5800, gtx650 1gb,4 gb ram and i get 60+ fps (mig-21 30+) on medium setts. you provided very little info about your rig, anyway my wild guess - something wrong in Win.

[eFirehawk]

@ Corrigan: To be honest I have the cash laying around to get a 4790k and a new motherboard, ( was going to upgrade everything really ) but given the fact that only the graphics card itself enabled me to max everything out even with some iterations of DSR on most of the games I play, I'll just leave the the budget getting some interest and wait for Skylake, now with that HUGE jump in framerates and a minimum of 60 on everything, I really don't see why not keep the 930 and wait 1 year for Skylake. ( unless GTA IV or even EDGE ruins the day for my 930 ). The 570 was really showing its age, and I got a good free 5 year warrany for the 980 and I believe it will last a long while even in my next build. ( Oculus could kill it though, let's see )

 

@ EtherealIN: I think I used the wrong choice of words really, what I meant was poorly optimized ( or inadeqaute ), I'm sorry. I understand that the graphics card can't do anything if you have lots of AI and extremely elaborate stuff to be processed, however in case of City Car Driving it is indeed poor optimization ( GTA 4 has a lot more going on, way better graphics, is older, and being a crappy PC port it was never an example of good optimization and now runs flawlessly, while CCD runs like crap ) and as much as I agree that DCS is doing the best it can given its current limitations and has a lot of stuff to calculate, it really is a bit inadequate. No multi-thread support as you said, has the whole map loaded up all the time, among other things... For me that sounds very inadequate and is not well optimized. I understand why it is and its limitations, doesn't change the fact that it just is, though. :noexpression: I compared the frame-rates flying solo, no AI units, cockpit view.

[Mrgud]

Thanks guys for answers, I really appreciate it!

 

A friend from our (Croatian) forum bought Xeon X5460 for himself, overclockeed it to 4ghz and he is very satisfied wizh the result. Ok, he has Gainward 570GTX GS but he runs DCS and other titles like Titanfall (I don't even know what it is - I don't play anything except DCS) on very high details and on multiple monitors. So, if proccesor is so weak, I don't think he could do that.

 

So, I decided to buy one for myself. I'm at work right now so I don't remember name of M/B but it's Intel DT43?? (something like that). But My new gtx650 must be stronger some 30% that 9600GT - or am I wrong? I will try with minimum resolution when I get home and post a screen of my settings in DCS.

 

I measured fps in MiG-21, alone at the rampstart. No AIs, and not over city. Just me. I know that MiG is most demanding for PC, but it's all I'm interested right now. I will try with a Mustang and see how it goes.

 

@c84 - wow - you are a lucky man! :huh: Other friend has PC similar to my old rig, I had 20-25 fps, he had 2-7! So something is wrong.

 

To ask again: should I consider BIOS upgrade? Because new GPU is PCIE 3.0 and M/B supports 2.0 or for any other reason?

[outlawal2]

I'd say it's a CPU bottleneck really. Happened to me this week. I retired my GTX 570 and got a GTX 980 Superclocked. Most of games shooted up from 30FPS average to 120FPS+ ( such as Assetto Corsa, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2 ), while in DCS and City Car Driving ( another poorly coded game ) there was almost no difference at all. :noexpression:

 

My processor is an i7 930 overclocked to 3.5Ghz and I got 12 gigs of DDR3 1600.

 

570 to a 980 and no difference at all? Come on I went from a 560 to 770... A MUCH smaller jump than you made and there was a huge difference.. You might want to search the forums for optimizing ideas because that ain't right!

[galagamo]

Your new GPU is a fairly low end card. It may well be a significant factor in your lack of FPS gain.

Can confirm this hypothesis. My PSU died a few months ago so Ive had to remove my GTX580, and replace it with an old 9600gt even with my cpu @4Ghz and everything turned down as low as i can get it the fps will not go above 35 and averages 15 whereas with the 580 I would get the steady 30fps with all the bells and whistles

[KLR Rico]

You can also run performance monitoring software to see the load the CPU and GPU.

 

While DCS is running, you're pretty much always going to have one core maxed out, so look for that first of all. Start with the graphics on the lowest settings and monitor the GPU load. I started increasing the details and testing in an A-10 campaign mission (they're all very "busy" missions) until I hit ~90% GPU load. The 90% target gives some buffer if you ever run into missions that need more polys or if weather/effects cause an extra load.

[JMasterFlash]

MSI Afterburner actually works pretty well, it will even give you an fps graph for seeing when your slow and fast points are. I'm absolutely convinced that your CPU is the biggest hang up. The Xeon was designed for the exact purpose that DCS does NOT support.

 

Another big factor that I want to make sure you aren't missing are the Low Med and High buttons. They set ALOT more settings than you select in the menu. They control preload distance, viewing angle preload and many other things that you don't see. Click the low one and then set all the visible settings how you want and see how it affects your results.

[JMasterFlash]

In a few days I am doing an upgrade, maybe, if ya like, I can post some results to see what is going on in terms of DCS resource usage. I have a triple core AMD @ 3.1 GHz. I have tried swapping cards from a Radeon HD5830 to my buddy's 7970 and had no measurable difference. Come to find out, my 5830 is only running about 45% capacity.

[theGozr]

Why Xeon ?

[Nopileus]

Because it's a really cheap upgrade on LGA775. (if you don't have a quad already)

 

People have found way to use LGA771 Xeons on LGA775 with a slight modification, those xeons go for pretty cheap prices on ebay because they're being phased out from datacenters.

[JMasterFlash]

Guys, it's me again! :(

 

 

 

As I stated it CPU overheats thread, I upgraded my PC but there is no FPS gain. I have barely 2 fps more than before.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=131459 → (CPU overheating thread)

 

 

 

Old configuration:

 

 

 

Intel Core 2 Duo e8400 - 3Ghz

 

GeForce 9600GT - 512MB (ddr3)

 

4GB RAM (ddr2)

 

 

 

 

 

New configuration:

 

 

 

Xeon X5460 - 4 cores at 3.16Ghz

 

NVidia GTX650 - 2GB / ddr5

 

8GB RAM (ddr2)

 

 

 

At this moment my options in DCS are at lowest possible and I get some 20-25 fps. When I upgraded RAM (nothing), than CPU (nothing but I though that my old GPU was to blame) but today I put new GPU and gained only 2 fps! I know that GTX 650 is a low-end GPU compared to what you guys have but it still should be better than six years old 9600GT. I don't expect to run DCS at high level of details, but I would like to have some 30 fps on medium settings.

 

 

 

Question:

 

 

 

I have six years old BIOS, so should I update it? Can new GPU be inhibited by some BIOS or other software settings?

 

 

 

2 cards comparison:

 

 

 

 

 

Any luck? Did you try turning down the res and checking results?

[Mrgud]

I did it today.

 

Here are the news:

 

When I turned to lowest possible resolution ( 1024x768 ) I had 37 fps in Mig and 47 in Mustang. That's 12 fps gained. I was on the ramp start, no mission, just few soldiers around and one static plane. Nobody moving or shooting. I usually run at 1680x1050.

 

I tried to take a screenshot of my settings in DCS but I get Desktop picture, so, imagine all the settings on lowest possible (I clicked LOW before) only preload radius on 100 000. I tried to reduce even that to 100 and gained no fps at all. Ok, I wasn't moving so maybe that's why I didn't notice any difference.

 

But, I think that I found the problem but I need your opinions.

 

When I opened MSI Afterburner, I noticed that my GPU core is running at 700mhz instead of 1058. And my GPU memory clock is 1600mhz. But first, what does the memory specification 1250mhz (5000 effective) means? At what speed should my memory run? In Afterburner I can increase GPU clock up to 910mhz and memory up to 2080 but I think something is wrong with computer not recognizing new card like it should. During the card change, I uninstalled and deleted old GPU's driver in safe mode and installed new GPU's drivers without any problems. But it seems that my new card is working like my old one.

 

Another strange thing is that CPU-Z sees nothing about my new card. Only name and that it has 2048mb of ram. Other fields are empty!

 

 

These are my GPU's readings:

 

 

Idle - DCS

 

voltage 0.9V-1.1

temperature 30-63 (Celsius)

Fan speed 60%-60%

FB usage 0%-40%

Shader clock 800-1800mhz

Memory clock 300-1600mhz

 

 

Ok guys, what should I do?

 

P.S. once again thanks to all involved in solving this problem!

Edited October 1, 2014 by Mrgud

[tobyeez]

Why would you waste money upgrading your computer for DCS when in its current state is not properly coded to take advantage of it. My friend I hope you didn't spend too much.

[Corrigan]

The fact that you gain about 50% performance when you turn the resolution down (I understood that correctly, right?) suggests to me that you are GPU-limited. Does anyone agree?