Please Help!!!!!!! Frame rates

[sshantt]

My pc runs an i7 proccesor 2.8ghz, 6GB ddr3 RAM, ATI HD 4870 x2 2GB video card,Windows Vista 64 bit, and get a 36 fps on BS even when using all cores, and BS settings maximized. When using average BS settings i get 50 fps, and when i use minimal settings i get 140 fps, all in the cockpit.

What do you advise me to do, because i realy care about cockpit resolution and other BS settings. Is there another way to increase frame rates if not what fps setting should i stick to.

[martinistripes]

With that spec system I think you should be getting much faster speeds, unless you have crazy AA and AF settings.

 

For comparison I have laptop with a 2.5GHz Core Duo, 4GB RAM and a 512MB 9800GTS video card and with maximum (in game) settings and 1920x1200 resolution my FPS will fluctuate between 30 and 50. It sounds to me like your system isn't in tiptop health.

 

When I was tweaking. I found water detail and maximum visibiltiy had a big impact. More so than say difference between 2xAA and 4xAA. Also, resolution changes didn't appear to affect much. And so have these 2 settings on 'normal' and 'medium' to keep things speeding along.

 

Hope this helps.

[Zembla]

My pc runs an i7 proccesor 2.8ghz, 6GB ddr3 RAM, ATI HD 4870 x2 2GB video card,Windows Vista 64 bit, and get a 36 fps on BS even when using all cores, and BS settings maximized. When using average BS settings i get 50 fps, and when i use minimal settings i get 140 fps, all in the cockpit.

What do you advise me to do, because i realy care about cockpit resolution and other BS settings. Is there another way to increase frame rates if not what fps setting should i stick to.

 

Not that it will matter much, but did you disable or enable Catalyst AI in the ATi Control panel? Also, have you updated to the latest drivers, and are you sure there's no resource hogs running in the background?

 

-Z

[sshantt]

Thanks for the reply . I have litraly nothing running in the background almost three icons an the taskbar but i have got all CCC settings maxed out ill change it tonight and reply you. thanks again

[dawestsides]

With such a rig you should get better framerates (look at my sig).

I faced the same problem but running DCSmax along with updating Nvidia drivers with the latest version 185.50 which includes a dedicated BS SLI profile solved the issue.

My fps can reach 70 sometimes,but tends to get in mid 30's when near airfields.

All settings on maximum...

Great experience!

Edited June 8, 2009 by dawestsides

[sshantt]

Well it didnt work, no change in FPS but the graphics went so shi*y i couldnt read TEST under my Hud so i returned ATI graphics to AA highest and so on... But if dawestsides got 70 FPS there has got to be something wrong with my settings. For now im keeping it at 50FPS with The water setting at normal instead of high and im going to try to update my video card driver. if you have a solution or an idea please post:helpsmilie:. Thank you

[Nate--IRL--]

Turn off the mirrors for a start (Gameplay options), and leave the water on Normal. These are unnecessary FPS drains that give little or no benefit. Also set the cockpit display res to in the options to 512, there really is no need to have it higher. I fly with 4xAA and 4xAF, I find a high AF (Ansiotropic Filtering) will bring BS to a crawl. Can't really think of anything else to add.

 

Nate

[dawestsides]

Turn off the mirrors for a start (Gameplay options), and leave the water on Normal. These are unnecessary FPS drains that give little or no benefit. Also set the cockpit display res to in the options to 512, there really is no need to have it higher. I fly with 4xAA and 4xAF, I find a high AF (Ansiotropic Filtering) will bring BS to a crawl. Can't really think of anything else to add.

 

Nate

 

Good tips,but it would be sad to lower settings for an X58-Extreme rig along with a 4870X2.

If he can't run the game at max with an i7 while others can easily do,I'm almost sure this is a driver related issue.

 

sshant what about other games?At what frequency your Ram is?

 

If you're using DCSmax,just be sure affinity is set to all 8 cores.

 

And for driver update,use Driver Sweeper and follow the instructions to eliminate all doubts on the drivers side:

 

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Edited June 8, 2009 by dawestsides

[sshantt]

I got 40-81 FPS on nates advice and i upgraded my video cards driver and i didnt change cockpit resolution cos it didnt make any difference and im using all eight cores (the seven cores and core number zero) and i used driver sweep.

 

other games run the same thats why im looking to improve my settings cos i imported this pc part by part because its impossible to find parts like these im my country thats why it wasnt cheap and i wana take advantage of it so is this all i can do to improve my pc's preformance??

Edited June 8, 2009 by sshantt

[dawestsides]

I got 40-81 FPS on nates advice and i upgraded my video cards driver can i get any higher

 

BTW i didnt change cockpit resolution cos it didnt make any difference.

 

This is excellent.

But your rig is supposed to run BS maxing every single setting and getting those fps :pilotfly:

[sshantt]

This is excellent.

But your rig is supposed to run BS maxing every single setting and getting those fps :pilotfly:

 

but what else could be the problem? I updated my VC drivers, fixed CCC settings and used driver sweep to clean my drivers and even my bios is up to date. Is there any other driver i can update to impove frame rates? :dunno:

 

BTW I didnt install windows or previous drivers I sent my PC to a company specialized in ovecloaking PC's for gaming.

[dawestsides]

but what else could be the problem? I updated my VC drivers, fixed CCC settings and used driver sweep to clean my drivers and even my bios is up to date. Is there any other driver i can update to impove frame rates? :dunno:

 

BTW I didnt install windows or previous drivers I sent my PC to a company specialized in ovecloaking PC's for gaming.

 

Overclocked to 2.8Ghz? :huh:

 

You can easily take your i7 to 3.2Ghz without changing any voltages,just adjust your multiplier and run stability tests.You have an Extreme motherboard,take it to the sky dude!

 

Check if your ram is running at its rated speed and timings.I have seen a lot of people getting 1600Mhz rated memory at 1066Mhz or 1333Mhz and complaining about low performances.Have a look at your bios.

 

As BS is a heavy cpu dependant application,this could be the source of your problem.

I can't see other cause...

Edited June 9, 2009 by dawestsides

[sshantt]

thanks cos i realy wana get the most i can out of this pc . where do i check for ram frequency and how do i properly overclock my pc without damaging it . thanks in advance and btw how did you know i had ex58-exteme(let me tell you it wasnt easy or cheap to get:D)

Edited June 9, 2009 by sshantt

[AussieFX]

Those expensive i7 systems don't seem to be bringing much more performance to the game. My AMD processor at 3.2ghz is matching you guys.

I get 70 max and a low of 40 fps. @1920x1200, 4X AA and 16 AF.

Distance is Max and water at medium all other settings are max and mirrors on.

 

I'm finding extra ram helps too, next time I'm near a pc shop I will pick up another stick so I can run 8gb.

[EtherealN]

Aye Aussie, I would say that my machine seems to actually outperform that system with margin. Real explanation for that though is the strengths of the i7 aren't easy to utilize for DCS, since it'll only reside in a single thread. In those cases we are (almost, but not quite) equal-for-clock between the older processors and the i7.

 

However, run more stuff at the same time and you'll start seeing performance differences, and run a CPU-intensive and multithreaded application and the i7 will absolutely slaughter our processors.

 

sshant, a very very good application: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

Lets you check out a lot of parameters. I'll grab a few screenshots of it to illustrate how you would read the information on it (since it's useful for a lot more than just checking the RAM frequency).

 

In the meantime, here's a good article on basic overclocking practices: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13815

[EtherealN]

 

This is the main screen. The really interesting bits in here is in the Clocks section. There you'll have updates on the actual core speed of the processor at any given time, tells you the multiplier if such information is available, bus speed and the FSB rating. Do note however that the i7 does not have an FSB (the Front Side Bus resides on the motherboard, but the i7 moved that function to the processor).

 

Your processor speed is the sum of the bus times a multiplier, in the case of my system it's 425x9,5=4037,5MHz. This FSB is "Quadpumped" and the function of that is the "Rated FSB" number. This is basically the speed at which data traffic to and from the processor is being handled.

 

Most processors today, except for premium enthusiast ones - the "Extreme" processors in the case of Intel, have a locked multiplier. For this reason raising the FSB or equivalent is the only way to overclock whereas previously you could overclock through simply raising the multiplier in the BIOS. (My first ever overclock was raising a PII 300MHz to 450MHZ. That didn't work too well, I had to go back down to 400MHz. Sniffle.)

 

The Core voltage up there is relevant for extreme overclocks, though I've seen reports of CPU-Z sometimes getting erroneous information on it.

 

Next pic:

 

 

We are now looking at memory. The main thing to be aware of here is that you can see my DRAM frequency as 546,4MHz. However, it's dualchannel (DDR2-6400) memory, so I basically get two operations per cycle, making the count of actual operations go to twice that number - 1092,8 MHz. You will note that the FSB is mentioned again in the FSB : DRAM field, giving a "ratio" of 7:9. This is extremely important for overclocking on CPUs with locked multipliers - raising the FSB will increase the speed of both RAM and CPU. So if you are not aware of them you can fry your memory while overclocking your CPU.

 

Fortunately, most enthusiast motherboards - I believe this includes the one you have - allow for something called "unlinking". Before you do anything to handle the CPU frequency you want to make very sure that your memory is "unlinked". That way you can handle the two completely separately and the motherboard BIOS find a ratio that fits your "request". (I got the 1092MHz speed through requesting 1100MHz in the BIOS, and the BIOS then found the closest ratio which placed it at 1092.)

 

Handling the CAS Latency and related numbers is not recommended unless you have some experience. Most enthusiast motheboards are able to do it, but... That brings us to the last of the screens that will be the most relevant one for setting your RAM:

 

 

This is the heavyweight.

 

RAM sticks have a chip called a JEDEC which specifies what settings the RAMchip is rated for. Here we see my Crucial BallistiX Tracer 800MHz sticks. JEDEC #2 is the standard setting - 400MHz times 2 for the Double Data Rate (DDR) is 800MHz, at which speed you see the recommended settings. Diverting from the settings usually does not cause disasters (it may cause instability and crashes in the system, but should not destroy the RAM - but that is "should not").

 

The two EPP settings are basically settings for overclocking that the stick model (not the specific physical stick) has been verified to operate at. One of them is the same clock speed, but lower latency and so on - but higher voltage. The second one runs at higher clock (1ghz) but this requires some tweaking of the other values.

 

So what you want to do is to check what's in your Memory tab, and then check what it corresponds to in the SPD tab. It is possible that your system is being slowed down through the RAM operating at something corresponding to my JEDEC#1 slot, meaning it's underclocked. (This should however increase it's lifetime, so while it can be bad for performance you always have the option of letting it rest to maintain the life of the RAM - but if you have an overclocked CPU that is kind of pointless since the CPU will need a lot of memory access and slower RAM can bottleneck it - meaning added wear on the CPU for no gain.)

 

---

 

Finally, some notes on general overclocking procedure - do it SLOW, and do it one thing at a time. When I overclocked the CPU here, I did it real careful with 20-30 MHz increases on the FSB - AFTER unlinking the RAM from the FSB, this is extremely important - until the system became unstable. When it did become unstable, I reverted my last change and stepped it back a bit. I then ran an application called Orthos which runs something called Prime95 on all cores. This is called a "stress-test" - it punishes the entire Processor-memory infrastructure in a way DCS can't even hope to do. When I am satisfied that it has run for an entire hour without error, I classify the setup tentatively as stable.

 

I then perform the same slow stepping up of the RAM - I took the risk of going beyond the EPP#2 (obviously), and the motherboard found settings that worked. At 1100MHz I stopped though, since my RAMsticks do not have temperature sensors so I could not verify that they wouldn't fry if I continued.

 

These two done, I left the computer on with the Orthos "Torture Test" which makes an effort to really punish both CPU, memory bus and memory sticks. I left this on for 12 hours. This is called the "burn-in". This is where you make real damn sure that the system really is absolutely stable at those settings.

 

If you don't get any warnings or errors from Orthos after this, you are probably all set to go.

 

One note there though: never, ever, EVER, run Orthos without temperature monitors running. Usually your motherboard driver suite includes some monitors. Use those AND find a second application - like Everest - and run both, just to reduce the risk of getting an erroneous report. This cannot be stressed enough, since Orthos can kill a computer that is running with insufficient cooling. When I ran some preliminary tests with the stock cooler, I almost had that happen after some 20 minutes or something. It ran nice but eventually the processor climbed above the 60 degrees celcius range - and once it had done that it raced FAST to and past 80 degrees. I believe I stopped it somewhere around 85.

 

Fortunately, stopping Orthos is a single-click job, so just make sure to keep an eyeball on the temperature monitor during the first tests. Ideally you should be at the computer for the full burn-in, but most temperature-based errors would usually have happened in the one-hour session, the burn-in is mainly to check that the chips are actually working properly.

 

Now, I know there's a lot of places here where it can sound dangerous and all that, but it really isn't as long as you take the precaution of taking everything in small steps. Small runs of Orthos between each overclock (remember the temp monitors) step gets you a good idea of how things are going. But do ensure to read a few more articles on overclocking beyond the one I linked - second and third opinions always help you get a broader picture of what actually happens in your system when you tinker with it.

 

I will not touch on overvolting at all, since that is a step you should not, ever, take on your first overclock. Don't even think about it. Just raising the clock speed will usually only cause the system to crash if you do it too fast or too high. Overvolting, however, can actually completely melt your CPU or RAMstick in two seconds flat if you go too far - that is, you won't even get booted into windows before you are sending yourself to the store to purchase replacement parts. Do not overvolt until and unless you are comfortable with the concept.

 

Any questions, ask away. :)

 

(And yes, I am an enthusiast. :P )

Edited June 9, 2009 by EtherealN

[BTTW-DratsaB]

sshantt, pretty basic suggestion but have you got the "full screen" option checked under graphics options? The game still runs full screen when this is unticked but it really hurts performance.

[dawestsides]

thanks cos i realy wana get the most i can out of this pc . where do i check for ram frequency and how do i properly overclock my pc without damaging it . thanks in advance and btw how did you know i had ex58-exteme(let me tell you it wasnt easy or cheap to get:D)

 

Man it's on your sig :lol:

[dawestsides]

OC'ing isn't that difficult.

 

This is a very good guide for dummies that will take you step by step to higher frequencies:

 

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=716108

 

Go slowly and watch your temps

[sshantt]

Thanks first of all for explaining the overclocking procedure for me ofcourse i will have to read it about twenty more times. I went ahead and took pics of CPU-Z but im curious could my pc or anything in it overheat with my motherboards cooling??and i would realy apreciate it if you could help me every step of the way ,ofcourse im going to research about it as much as i can, but its much easier for someone to help me along the way. thanks

 

(Forgot i changed my sig)

Edited June 9, 2009 by sshantt

[EtherealN]

As a spontaneous thought: you should not touch that if you feel you need guidance with the steps. The risks aren't too high as long as you follow safety procedures like monitoring temperatures and so on, but since there is theoretical possibility of frying your equipment (very low probability, but it is there) you should only do it when you've read up enough on it to feel confident with trying it out.

 

Obviously though, questions here and there about various parameters, ratios and so on is another thing. But you should read up enough on it to decide that "yeah, I can do this" in sort of the same way as you'll have done the first time you drove a car.

 

I'll take a look at those screens and see if I can help out with some pointers.

[EtherealN]

I went ahead and took pics of CPU-Z but im curious could my pc or anything in it overheat with my motherboards cooling?

 

Judging from those pictures, it's not your memory that is slowing you down. It is running at a proper speed. The third setting in the list does however indicate that there are factory-designed specification that your memory sticks should cope with without problem. (Remember though: should. Don't go directly there, small steps of 10MHz is recommended - though since it's three-channel memory that would equate to 30MHz steps in some BIOSes. Basically - if your BIOS displays your current memory speed as 539, do it in 10MHz steps. If it shows it as 1600, doing it in 30-50 MHz steps is fine.

 

However, one note: I would like to know what you paid for the overclock job. Because that is a very very weak overclock on your CPU.

 

And yes, if still using your standard CPU cooler, overclocking can cause an overheat. However, as long as you run temperature monitors you should be able to spot this in time (and with time to spare). For example, I've seen reports of Intel E6xxx processors being overclocked above a gigahertz while still using the stock cooling fan and heat sink.

 

However, for overclocking a good aftermarket cooler is always recommended. I use the Zalman listed in my sig and I've seen tests where it competes well with commercial water cooling kits that cost several times as much. (It's between 50 and 80 dollars.) That fan is what allowed my CPU overclock, and where it stands right now I never ever go above 60 degrees celcius on the CPU in spite of going from 3.16 stock to 4GHz. Basically, once I got that fan I am more worried about my motherboards FSB than the CPU. It is a very good purchase and it does have the smartest cooling paste solution out there (basically a nail-polish container with brush, which works perfectly and is very easy to use). However, if you elect to get a new fan, do purchase a specialized cleaning agent aimed towards removing cooling paste.

 

This sounds complicated, it's not. It's about as difficult as applying glue to a traditional Airfix plane kit - probably even easier, and if you have gotten a good cleaning solvent (about 10 dollars) you'll have the ability to try it again if you think you failed.

 

However, before doing that, do check your temperatures. Everest has a shareware version, and of course your motherboard should have a control app that can feed you the temperature data as well.

 

My end analysis really is that your processors is a really powerful one, but it's powerful in a way that DCS is not capable of using. Raising the clock frequency will give an almost linear performance boost, is my estimation, and I've seen processors of that model running at 3.8 Gigahertz when they're equipped with a good cooler - in fact the same cooler as I'm using on my E8500. However, do check temperatures first and then we can give advice on whether it's safe to overclock further without a heatsink replacement or whether an aftermarket heatsink is desired.

 

Checking temperatures would then be done through loading your motherboard admin software's temperature monitor, or Everest, and then running a full test through the Orthos application (or something similar). If it gets to 70+ degrees celcius where you are right now, you do need a better cooling solution to go anywhere further.

 

If it approaches 85 degrees celcius where you are right now, you need better cooling to be where you are. (However, if that is the case on that current setting, I would suspect that it's not the cooling solution itself, it's the installation, that is the problem.)

 

(EDIT: Also, sorry for doing multiple posts in rows there. I'm having DNS server failures so everything URL-based is being spotty right now.)

[sshantt]

so the bottom line is , I tweek my cpu/RAM settings using bios, come back to windows test the stability and then tweek again and test again untill i find the pc unstable and stop. am i right?

 

My stress test temp's on stock settings are

MAX

83

81

81

80

 

MIN

47

46

46

43

 

Should i overclock or get a better cooling solution??

Edited June 9, 2009 by sshantt

[dawestsides]

Ether is right.

 

-Don't OC using stock cooler,change it and you will see those temps below 60 when stressing.Try Coolermaster V8 (my sig) Noctua or Thermalright.

 

-Your ram is not running at its rated speed (PC3-10700 1333Mhz) because the memory ratio selected is 2:8 which means 1066Mhz,it should be 2:10 as your base clock is 133.As I can see on CPU-Z you have Turbo mode enabled,which gives you a multiplier of 21.

21 x 133 = 2793Mhz= 2.8Ghz

 

-Keep your ratio as it is (2:8 ),raise your base clock by 5 ,watch the temps and test using Prime95 (64bit version) with no other changes.I'm sure you'll reach 3.2Ghz without any other tweaking.I did it on my EVGA X58:

21 x 155 = 3.25Ghz with eveything on Auto and 60 max temp.

 

-Read again and again Shansmi's guide,it's the best one I've found for i7.

 

Last thing:

 

Sue the company that OC'ed your pc

Edited June 9, 2009 by dawestsides

[EtherealN]

Ether is right.

 

Thanks. :)

 

I agree with dawestides - don't overclock with stock cooler. The E8xxx series and E6xxx series usually was able to do it quite far with stock, but if you are at 80+ degrees celcius you don't want to proceed until you have replaced the cooler with one that has higher capacity. Read comparative reviews - the site of the basic overclock guide I linked has a bunch that pits 10+ coolers against each other. Though obviously - read more than that one.

 

This is somewhere around a 50 to 80 dollar expense. I like my Zalman for reasons already stated, and I am partial to air coolers made out of copper. However, there are some very impressive aluminum-based coolers as well. The key here is that high-performance coolers while being pretty cheap (relatively speaking) do take a lot of space. Take the time to verify that you have space in your computer case and that it supports your socket. (Socket 1366LGA.)

 

Most performance coolers out there support pretty much all sockets, but there are exceptions.

 

On the RAM ratio I do have to raise the question to dawestides though: why maintain the ratio? I'd rather unlink it and specify it to the speed. Or does the linkage work differently on the i7 platform? (I've never run an i7 system.)

 

On the RAM speed at current, good call dawestides. I completely overlooked details of that. I would still say that it's better to keep the RAM where it is at first (IF there is a decision to further advance the CPU) and do the CPU separately first. But that aside I do have to acquiesce a bit to your experience since you actually have an overclocked i7, whereas I "only" have a C2D, and with the socket change and move of the FSB in-chip there are things that have changed and they might have done so in ways that are hard for me to predict.