Can Anyone Run MAX Everything?

[zack1234]

I have just spent £2000 on a gaming pc it will arrive on saturday

 

[Gman]

That is great advice Pudgie.  I tried this, setting the AA in the AH2 opening screen to "off", and then forcing the video card controls in Nvidia's control panel to "force application", and set it to 8x, and then set the transparency setting to something similar, and the performance gain over the AH2 controlling it is huge.  This really surprised me, as I figured it would be likely the same diff.  It certainly is the way to go, and I recommend anyone with a 670 or 680 series car to run AH2 this way.

[Changeup]

That is great advice Pudgie.  I tried this, setting the AA in the AH2 opening screen to "off", and then forcing the video card controls in Nvidia's control panel to "force application", and set it to 8x, and then set the transparency setting to something similar, and the performance gain over the AH2 controlling it is huge.  This really surprised me, as I figured it would be likely the same diff.  It certainly is the way to go, and I recommend anyone with a 670 or 680 series car to run AH2 this way.

What about 660Ti?

[Chalenge]

In helping users to figure out why their systems are not giving the expected results it became obvious that two options that confuse people on the driver settings are the antialiasing setting "Override any application settings" and the "Adaptive" setting under power management. If a user chooses to override the antialiasing setting so that they can make use of their cards' optimized routines (rather than standard anti-aliasing) then they need to be aware that the setting also might override the vsync setting.

The "Adaptive" setting for power management is supposed to allow for cooler and quieter operations but for Aces High this is NOT a good idea. You want the card set to maximum performance at all times. The clock speed of the card itself are controlled with this setting and you might very well be forcing your video card to slow down when you dont want it to (you never want it to).

When someone says "I can get..." it is not a very scientific statement because "can" clearly is saying there is a time when "cannot" occurs.

Been saying something like this since the days of the Fermi.

[Pudgie]

My 670's set up in NCP using driver 310.70:

AO-Off
AF-16x
AA(FXAA)-Off
AA(GC)-On
AAMode-Override any application settings
AASetting-16xQ CSAA
AATransparency-8x(supersample)
CUDA-GPU's-All
Max Pre-rendered Frames-2
MultiDisplay/mixed GPU acceleration--Single display performance mode
Power Management Mode-Adaptive
TF(ASO)-On
TF(NLB)-Clamp
TF-Quality
TF(TO)-On
Threaded Optimization-Auto
TB-On
VS-On

In-game:
Video Settings:
AA-None
Textures-1024
Graphics Preferences:
Both sliders full left
Horizon enabled
Ground Clutter enabled
Disable Clutter in Flight enabled
Advanced Options:
All boxes checked
Reflections slider-(w/ 4096 shadow tex-3/4; w/ 8192 shadow tex-1/4  can't settle on 1 or the other)
ShadowTextures-either 4096 or 8192  can't settle on 1 or the other)

Vid card stays locked at max boost speed of 1228 98% of the time-lowest dip to 1150 w/ mem speed at 3105 100% of the time (most of this was observed w/ 4096 shadow tex w/ 3/4 reflection slider set) w/ vid card at all stock settings for EVGA 670 FTW w/ 2Gb mem. Pretty much maintains the set FR of 59 FPS.

This is running on a Asus Rampage IV Gene w/ Intel 3820 I7 SB-E (cooled by an Artic Freezer I30F HSF) all at stock settings on 16Gb of Corsair Vengence DDR3-1600 mem (4x4 to enable Quad Channel mem w/ mem speed set off SPD @ 1600) w/ Win 7 HP SP1 w/ 2 OCZ Vertex4 256Gb SSD's (non RAID) housed in internal hot-swappable docking station powered by a Cosair TX 850 V2 PSU all packed in a CM Storm Scout case & viewed on a HP 2710m LCD 27" monitor set at 1920x1080x32 @ 59Hz RR.

Just so y'all know what platform my 670 is running on........................... ....

 

PS-I know that y'all gurus know that I'm using the 64bit vers of Win 7 HP SP1.....forgot to add this. 

[Changeup]

So you think mine will run it that well with those settings on my 660Ti?

I7-950
Asus Sabertooth x58 MB
12 gig Corsair XPS 1600
850w corsair gold 80
nVidia GTX 660Ti

I'll try those settings tonight.  Why adaptive power setting?  Why not Max Performance?

[Pudgie]

Hi Changeup,

What I found out w/ my card is that when I put it in Max Performance the card wouldn't downclock back to 2D speeds once I closed the game & I didn't like that so I put it back to Adaptive.

With the Kepler's dynamic speed/power control the only time the card would clock down off max GPU boost speed is if the load on the GPU was sufficient to slow it down once the power had hit 100% w/ GPU & mem offsets set at 0% (this is my card's stock settings....since my card's GPU temps are still below the 70*C throttling range I could raise the GPU/mem offsets & power target range & get even more out of it) but this happens so rare that I really don't see the need to mess w/ it (max GPU usage that I've seen in Precision was 87%).

But this is w/ a GTX 670 FTW. I would think that your 660Ti would respond somewhat similar as it is a Kepler GPU using the same control regime. The rest will depend on the system capabilities that you're running the vid card on.......that is why I posted my card's settings both in NCP & in-game as well as my system set up so that all could see.

 

[Changeup]

Hi Changeup,

What I found out w/ my card is that when I put it in Max Performance the card wouldn't downclock back to 2D speeds once I closed the game & I didn't like that so I put it back to Adaptive.

With the Kepler's dynamic speed/power control the only time the card would clock down off max GPU boost speed is if the load on the GPU was sufficient to slow it down once the power had hit 100% w/ GPU & mem offsets set at 0% (this is my card's stock settings....since my card's GPU temps are still below the 70*C throttling range I could raise the GPU/mem offsets & power target range & get even more out of it) but this happens so rare that I really don't see the need to mess w/ it (max GPU usage that I've seen in Precision was 87%).

But this is w/ a GTX 670 FTW. I would think that your 660Ti would respond somewhat similar as it is a Kepler GPU using the same control regime. The rest will depend on the system capabilities that you're running the vid card on.......that is why I posted my card's settings both in NCP & in-game as well as my system set up so that all could see.

 

It performed better.  When it did hit 38-48 fps, there was zero stuttering.  It was a smooth 38-48.  The rest of the night it ran 57-60.  I never hear it run though...it never seems like its being pushed at all and I guess I'm waiting for it to crank up and I guess it doesn't work that way, lol.  I just can't run the settings wide open though.  I bet I have too much running in the background.

[Pudgie]

Changeup,

Don't know if you're using Precision/Afterburner to monitor your card's vitals......if not you may want to do so.

I would have Precision/Afterburner running when I was in-game recording the card's vitals then when I exited the game I would pull the info up in Precision/Afterburner to see how the card was performing then based on what I saw I made adjustments at the driver level &/or in-game until I got what I was satisfied with. The card should start out at max GPU/mem boost clock speeds & stay there until you either max out on power or exceed the temp threshold (throttling back). Reading into what you posted it would seem that you're not having temp issues (you would have heard the fan cycling) so if true you may have some headroom to up the power range & GPU/mem offsets (IOW overclock) & get more out of your card, but the data from the Precision/Afterburner graphs will tell you for sure.

Only reason why I'm bringing this up is that you didn't post any data concerning the card's GPU base/boost clock speeds or mem clock boost speeds or temps, etc. This data will show you how the card is handling the game at the settings that you choose.

Hope this helps you. Enjoy!

 

[Changeup]

Changeup,

Don't know if you're using Precision/Afterburner to monitor your card's vitals......if not you may want to do so.

I would have Precision/Afterburner running when I was in-game recording the card's vitals then when I exited the game I would pull the info up in Precision/Afterburner to see how the card was performing then based on what I saw I made adjustments at the driver level &/or in-game until I got what I was satisfied with. The card should start out at max GPU/mem boost clock speeds & stay there until you either max out on power or exceed the temp threshold (throttling back). Reading into what you posted it would seem that you're not having temp issues (you would have heard the fan cycling) so if true you may have some headroom to up the power range & GPU/mem offsets (IOW overclock) & get more out of your card, but the data from the Precision/Afterburner graphs will tell you for sure.

Only reason why I'm bringing this up is that you didn't post any data concerning the card's GPU base/boost clock speeds or mem clock boost speeds or temps, etc. This data will show you how the card is handling the game at the settings that you choose.

Hope this helps you. Enjoy!

 

Standby....doing it today and will post them.  Based on my system, do you see any reason for such drops in fps?

[Changeup]

Changeup,

Don't know if you're using Precision/Afterburner to monitor your card's vitals......if not you may want to do so.

I would have Precision/Afterburner running when I was in-game recording the card's vitals then when I exited the game I would pull the info up in Precision/Afterburner to see how the card was performing then based on what I saw I made adjustments at the driver level &/or in-game until I got what I was satisfied with. The card should start out at max GPU/mem boost clock speeds & stay there until you either max out on power or exceed the temp threshold (throttling back). Reading into what you posted it would seem that you're not having temp issues (you would have heard the fan cycling) so if true you may have some headroom to up the power range & GPU/mem offsets (IOW overclock) & get more out of your card, but the data from the Precision/Afterburner graphs will tell you for sure.

Only reason why I'm bringing this up is that you didn't post any data concerning the card's GPU base/boost clock speeds or mem clock boost speeds or temps, etc. This data will show you how the card is handling the game at the settings that you choose.

Hope this helps you. Enjoy!

 

Temp never exceeded 59C, GPU usage was 100% at times and held at non busy fields to 50% but generally ran at 92%+ (above 92%, the FPS went to around 39-55) the very moment I entered an area where there were friendlies or cons.  This was at 2048 shadow textures with 3/4 update slider.  What's funny is that when I backed off the in-game settings, it still gave me roughly the same spikes at the same places on the map.  We fought last night, all night, at the same base.  Same course ingress and egress vs basically the same cons (nice fights Triton28, AlBundy, Cobra83, etc).

Also, I cant seem to retrieve the log file from Precision.  I know it saved somewhere but oh well.  I'll get more familiar with Precision and post some more.

[Pudgie]

Temp never exceeded 59C, GPU usage was 100% at times and held at non busy fields to 50% but generally ran at 92%+ (above 92%, the FPS went to around 39-55) the very moment I entered an area where there were friendlies or cons.  This was at 2048 shadow textures with 3/4 update slider.  What's funny is that when I backed off the in-game settings, it still gave me roughly the same spikes at the same places on the map.  We fought last night, all night, at the same base.  Same course ingress and egress vs basically the same cons (nice fights Triton28, AlBundy, Cobra83, etc).

Also, I cant seem to retrieve the log file from Precision.  I know it saved somewhere but oh well.  I'll get more familiar with Precision and post some more.

Interesting...............

On the whereabouts of the log file storage that Precision created just look under the Monitoring tab in Precision in the bordered box just under the checkbox for log history to file...should show the syntax for where the log was saved (C:\Program Files (x86)\...........\............), that is, if you checked the box to log it to file..............

From my testing the areas of the Nvidia driver that constitutes the lion's share of the load on the GPU's performance will be AA, TransparencyAA & Texture Filtering. AF to a lesser degree.

You may try the FXAA (supposed to use the cuda cores-shaders-to do the AA to offload the GPU some) to see if that helps any. I tried it on mine & I didn't see where it helped my card....but my card wasn't nowhere near 100% GPU usage either.

The in-game graphics settings under Graphics Details seem to work like a fine tune of the driver settings w/ the biggest impacts coming from the objects detail rendering level (top slider), the distance from the center of FOV to render objects (lower slider) & the object shadow rendering settings (the checkboxes within the Advanced folder) w/ resolution of the shadow textures (1024, 2048, 4096, 8192). I thought that the info that you gave concerning reducing the in-game graphics settings not reflecting any significant changes in relation to the areas of the game mapping to the card's GPU loading was interesting..........would be curious to know which in-game settings you changed when you noted this. 1 thing I watched w/ my card is the amount of on-board vid card mem Precision shows being used by the card....example: with all set as posted, when I used 4096 w/ 3/4 reflection the amount of mem used was around 830-855 Mb. When I used 8192 w/ 1/4 reflection the amount of mem used jumped to around 1.17-1.21 Gb. This is a relation of how much data per frame the GPU has to render.....larger means more work per GPU clock cycle. This is why I tend to stay w/ 4096 w/ 3/4 reflection. I might try going to 2048 w/ full reflection to see what the results would be.

I ran a test on my set up last night. With all set up as I had posted earlier I went in NCP & reset the TF setting from Quality to High Performance & left all else as set then flew awhile...game ran fine as always but when I checked the Precision graphs of my card I saw that the driver had downclocked the GPU from the max boost clock level to the base clock level & boosted the GPU clock speed upwards as it needed instead of being pinned at the max boost clock level when the driver was set at Quality. This is telling me that the GPU dynamic load is affected the most from the TF settings in the Nvidia driver. Need to test this more.

Even on the box that I have you can see that I'm not running the game at max everything. What I see from your data is that your X58 platform is doing just fine running the game.

 

[Skuzzy]

<snip>
You may try the FXAA (supposed to use the cuda cores-shaders-to do the AA to offload the GPU some) to see if that helps any. I tried it on mine & I didn't see where it helped my card....but my card wasn't nowhere near 100% GPU usage either.<snip>

Just FYI, if the GPU is at 100% utilization, it means the CPU is fast enough to supply the video card data quicker than the video card can process it all.  Or, the GPU is having resource issues.

If you GPU does not get above 90% utilization, then the CPU is too slow for the GPU, when running Aces High.

A well balanced system will have a CPU fast enough to keep the GPU at 90%, or higher, utilization.

Now, when you start dinking with the resource controls in the video driver, all bets are off.

[Changeup]

Just FYI, if the GPU is at 100% utilization, it means the CPU is fast enough to supply the video card data quicker than the video card can process it all.  Or, the GPU is having resource issues.

If you GPU does not get above 90% utilization, then the CPU is too slow for the GPU, when running Aces High.

A well balanced system will have a CPU fast enough to keep the GPU at 90%, or higher, utilization.

Now, when you start dinking with the resource controls in the video driver, all bets are off.

Last nights map was a different story.  My card was running at 92 - 100% all night and 1.4 gig mem usage but the temp went to 77C.  I backed off the in-game settings to no shadows on anything and 1024 textures with 1/2 Updates.

I'm trying to figure out how/why my card and my system won't run the game max'd.  The eye candy in the game is not THAT candy-ish.  There are a ton of games that are prettier that I can run full tilt so I just want to try.  I also think there are in-game advantages to seeing better/everything.  

[Skuzzy]

Last nights map was a different story.  My card was running at 92 - 100% all night and 1.4 gig mem usage but the temp went to 77C.  I backed off the in-game settings to no shadows on anything and 1024 textures with 1/2 Updates.

I'm trying to figure out how/why my card and my system won't run the game max'd.  The eye candy in the game is not THAT candy-ish.  There are a ton of games that are prettier that I can run full tilt so I just want to try.  I also think there are in-game advantages to seeing better/everything.  

It is about resources.  It is easier to run a game, with better appearing graphics, when those games limit the view distance to really short values.

That is one component.  The next is the shadow texture size, when used with ant-aliasing.  As a rough figure, take the shadow texture size, and multiply the size by the anti-alias value, then you come up with one texture using X amount of video RAM.  That does not take into account the rest of the game requirements.

Example:  2048 shadow texture size = 128MB of video RAM for that one texture.  Now, set you anti-alias to 4x.  Now that one texture can take approximately 512MB of video RAM.
Of course the rest of the displayed textures also incur a like increase in video RAM usage.

Aces High can chew through video card resources, quite easily.  The biggest single reason is the view distance we have (17 miles, a minimum of about 2,500 vertices, which does not include any terrain objects).

Also keep in mind that real time environmental wrapping is very, very expensive, both on the CPU and GPU side.