Sudden FPS drop and low GPU usage

[8ax]

System specs:

 

Intel Core [email protected]

4GB DDR3 1080MHz

Gainward GTX660 2GB

2.5TB of disk space

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit SP1

 

I used to have a Radeon HD6850 1GB which is a significantly less powerful card than the 660, and I used to get constant 56fps vsynced on all high settings, draw/detail at 30, 1080p60.

 

After I found out my CPU was unstable at 4GHz, I downclocked it to 3.78GHz, and that's where the problems started.

I started getting massive FPS drops with enabled shadows, from 56(+)fps, to 40-45fps which were very annoying.

I supposed this was because I downlclocked my CPU, but such a big difference is very odd compared to a 5% reduction in frequency.

 

I recently bought a Gainward GTX660 2GB, and I decided to give GTAIV another shot.

This time, I used MSI Afterburner to check the GPU usage.

 

With settings on very high, draw/detail at 70, 1080p60, non-vsynced, I easily got 70+ fps in areas without many cars, but when there were a lot of cards FPS dropped to around 40 with the GPU usage dropping to 50-60%, indicating that it's being bottlenecked by the CPU.

 

I run the newest versions of all drivers and have tried reinstalling the game.

 

What should I do?

Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT: After trying the commandline memory leak fix, the game now crashes no matter what. (While on the character image loading screen, the game suddenly minimizes and cannot be restored, and it still uses CPU time as seen in task manager)

I tried reinstalling the game because of this issue before, and it didn't fix it.

Xliveless fixed this problem until I tried this fix.

Edited July 1, 2013 by 8ax

[Andreas]

GTAIV is a CPU-heavy game, hence the performance problems appear when you slightly underclock the processor. But I'm not sure if it really drops that much just because of 220MHz lower frequency. The graphic-card is not bad, it's definitely good enough for high settings with an acceptable framerate. I don't get why you're getting worse results with the GTX660, considering that the GPU is not only faster, but it's also a nVidia GPU contrary to your previous GPU. I presume it has to be an issue with the processor. When you had to reduce the frequency of the processor, did you still have the HD6850 or is it a recent problem that occurs since around the time you have bought the GTX660 or even later? If you have reduced the frequency when you still had the HD6850, did it affect the performance as much as it does now?

[unc13bud]

sounds more like to me its power supply or heat related - don't know why, but the crashing during game loading - stress testing screen made me notice. post a picture of the inside of your computer and list more specifications

[Andreas]

The i7 920 is usually clocked at 2.67GHz, but 8ax has overclocked it to 4GHz, and then lowered it to 3.78GHz as it wasn't stable before. I assume that he has used a custom cooler for it, instead of the stock cooler, as it should be. Heat may be the problem. But on the other hand, it's possible that the power supply doesn't provide enough power, for example because it's not from the best manufacturer (mildly described). Maybe, both scenarios are spot on.

 

@8ax: Do you use a custom cooler for your processor, and which model exactly? What power supply does your PC have?

Edited June 30, 2013 by Carl CJ Johnsons Brother Brian

[unc13bud]

he really stressed his machine running those shadows, so now even starting gta IV makes his PC act a fool. my dream GTA IV machine (sarcasm) had nforce northbridge overheat and bluescreen when playing GTA IV. i eventually bought this

http://www.crazypc.com/products/CLC0051.html

but by that time had moved onto other PC builds.

[luceberg]

It is normal for the game to fluctuate in fps. It may have been that when the i7 was at 4Ghz, that the graphics card was bottlenecking, holding fps down to a steady figure.

 

All the same, I think it is picky of you to complain about drops to 40-45fps.

[8ax]

Northbridge hit 70°c max in a stress test.

 

Rest of specs:

 

Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 w/ Papst 1200rpm fan

4GB Kingston HyperX Genesis Blue 1080MHz CL7

Foxconn Bloodrage

Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB (game is installed here)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB (OS is installed here)

Hitachi Spinpoint 250GB

Thermaltake Soprano case

Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W w/ Custom 1200rpm fan

 

The system passes 8h OCCT without an issue.

Edited July 1, 2013 by 8ax

[8ax]

bump

[8ax]

bump

[luceberg]

What is the problem again? 70°C is a bit on the hot side for the northbridge. It should not go over about 60°C.

[unc13bud]

i've been thinking about the problem for a while now, but don't believe in just posting supposition. some sopranos are just like antec sonatas with terrible cooling, even with the fan slots populated. but i remembered reading something about those bloodrage boards a while back, couldn't remember where:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2699

and i saw this review on newegg, usually i take newegg reviews with a grain of salt, but what homeboy is saying i have seen before myself sort of - i already talked about my experiences with gtx 285 and relatively current drivers and gta iv

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813186163

its entirely possible for that card not to work with that motherboard, do you have other videocards laying around to try out? even a gt 240 would be good to help isolate the issue

[8ax]

i've been thinking about the problem for a while now, but don't believe in just posting supposition. some sopranos are just like antec sonatas with terrible cooling, even with the fan slots populated. but i remembered reading something about those bloodrage boards a while back, couldn't remember where:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2699

and i saw this review on newegg, usually i take newegg reviews with a grain of salt, but what homeboy is saying i have seen before myself sort of - i already talked about my experiences with gtx 285 and relatively current drivers and gta iv

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813186163

its entirely possible for that card not to work with that motherboard, do you have other videocards laying around to try out? even a gt 240 would be good to help isolate the issue

I had the same problem with 1 HD6850, 2 HD6850s and the GTX660.

[unc13bud]

what about a gtx 260 or 295? have you tried those? your board may just be snakebit though. i have a crappy ecs s775 motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813135027

that won't work with ANY nvidia card. if i try to use a nvidia card, the computer not only won't boot, but has knocked it completely out for different lengths of time, sometimes for weeks.

[8ax]

 

what about a gtx 260 or 295? have you tried those? your board may just be snakebit though. i have a crappy ecs s775 motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813135027

that won't work with ANY nvidia card. if i try to use a nvidia card, the computer not only won't boot, but has knocked it completely out for different lengths of time, sometimes for weeks.

I don't have any other cards at hand.

 

Just bought another 2GB of RAM today, I'll see how it performs with 6GB Triple-Channel.

 

I don't think it'll change a lot because it's a 32-bit program, so it can use 4GB of ram at most.

[unc13bud]

huh, i was under the impression that you can only run socket 1366 with three channels of ram. i know from experience my 1156 motherboards make me use dual channel (all the reason to make me like my amd machines more - i run one bank populated all the time)

[8ax]

huh, i was under the impression that you can only run socket 1366 with three channels of ram. i know from experience my 1156 motherboards make me use dual channel (all the reason to make me like my amd machines more - i run one bank populated all the time)

Nah, you can run 1 or 2 sticks if you want, but the memory bandwidth is decreased.

 

Anyway, I bought the GTA Complete Pack on Steam and I'll see how it works out since I have the retail version.

[unc13bud]

let us know. i just hope that board ain't snakebit. foxconn can be iffy when they delve into enthusiast class motherboards

[radioman]

What is the problem again? 70°C is a bit on the hot side for the northbridge. It should not go over about 60°C.

Actually, even 60 is a little hot for this game, cause as seen here in this screenshot with the game running the CPU temp is only 29 and GPU is only 27-and this is with Firefox still running and after almost an hour of game play..Here's the Ram and CPU usage during same game play..I think this is pretty much normal for this game, right?

 

For the record, those who say Patch 7 does not have Social Club is apparently wrong, cause as seen here, on the Steam version with Patch 7, the Social club still comes up when you start the game...?

[8ax]

I downloaded EFLC from Steam a few days ago.

I have the same issue.

 

However, I noticed my CPU usage is low as well - Core 1 is almost maxed out, 2 and 3 are at around 75%, and 4 is around 60%.

[yoječ]

GTA4 cannot utilise more than 3 cores, so the CPU usage doesn't seem abnormal.

[brian.]

The target of the game is 30fps. So whatever you can do to avoid dips and keep it closer to that at all times, the better.

You can probably higher some settings, use command line and lock it to 30hz and do vsync or something - then tweak settings, it should be able to be maxed on there with no problem if you lock it to 30 or 40.

Edited September 6, 2013 by brian.

[8ax]

Update.

Now I get lag spikes every few seconds when moving.

 

Not only it lags, but since I play in windowed mode to prevent crashing while loading, the game disappears from the taskbar for a split second and sometimes the whole window disappears for a split second, and then the game window turns black until everything gets rendered again (I can see object popping in very quickly) in 1/10 of a second.

 

I've updated my graphic card's drivers to no avail.

 

Then I suspected it's my hard drive not being able to cope with the game, so I copied the game to my second hard drive, but that didn't do anything.

[unc13bud]

i think its your motherboard, dude. disconnect everything (from the power supply) you can except what's necessary to run the game

Edited October 26, 2013 by unc13bud

[8ax]

i think its your motherboard, dude. disconnect everything (from the power supply) you can except what's necessary to run the game

Why would it be my motherboard?

The only thing I can disconnect from my power supply and keep the PC working is my backup hard drive, and I don't believe it's causing any issues.

[unc13bud]

google "buggy foxconn motherboards", iirc, they made all the main components in those socket 1366 acer predators that were catching fire

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/some-of-acers-predator-pcs-recalled-theyll-set-your-games-on/

also some foxconn 1156 sockets had CPUs burning up

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859

[8ax]

I recently updated to an i7-4820K overclocked to 4.6GHz and an ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, but downgraded my GPU to a 256MB GeForce 7900GS as I sold the old one.

 

EFLC now doesn't start at all, when I start it from Steam it's in the process list for a few seconds using around 200MB RAM, and then just disappears. I tried verifying the integrity a few times but it hasn't helped.

 

EDIT: I managed to get it running in XP compatibility mode, but it minimizes when I press play in TBoGT and I can't restore it.

EDIT2: It runs in windowed mode after installing xlive as it complained about something related to GFWL and then crashed, but at only ~20fps at 800x600 and auto settings (low/medium).

However, when I try to further decrease the settings, the fps drops to 8-10 regardless of the resolution.

The shadows also look really odd, very dark and angular, I'll add a screenshot later.

 

I've also moved the GPU from an 8x slot to a 16x slot, but it didn't do anything.

 

Edited April 6, 2014 by 8ax

[unc13bud]

it looks like you been modifying the game. its anyone's guess what you've actually done to your install now. i think you put that 7900gs in to test how CPU-heavy gta iv is

[8ax]

I haven't modded the game, I only use the simple native trainer.

I used the 7900GS because I had sold my GTX660.

 

I just got a Radeon R9-280X, which should easily max out the game, and yet I get 65-80fps with 50-60% CPU usage on 1920x1080 very high, draw/detail 60, car density 32.

 

I got 53.69fps in the benchmark with Draw and detail distance reduced to 50, with gpu usage around 95%, so I guess I should reduce the graphic settings.

I still can't understand why do I get such low performance in normal gameplay.

 

EDIT: I've started getting even lower performance, ~40FPS all the time no matter what settings I use; 50-60% CPU usage and 50-70% GPU usage

Edited April 28, 2014 by 8ax

[arjunkumar]

Please rewfer to http://gtaforums.com/topic/710162-read-this-how-to-fix-gta-iv-lag-on-slow-medium-pcread-to-find-outeasyily-fix-it/

[SlaveZer0]

this guy doesn't know a damn thing... don't listen to him, he will mess up your game even more