FPS woes

[FESS67]

New PC.  Cannot get stable FPS and in heavy areas it drops to a slideshow.

CPU - I7 5820 3.3GHz 15MB cache
RAM - 32 GB DDR4 2133MHz
GPU - GeForce GTX980 4GB GDDR5
HDD - SSD
OS - Win 8.1 fully patched

Connecting to a 30" VDU using DisplayPort.  All drivers up to date.  BIOS has a new version available but I do not think this is a root cause.

In the splash screen if I check the vsynch box I can get FPS of up to 750.  As soon as I go in game it drops to 60 in the tower and down to the 20's in multi plane environments with lots of micro pauses.

Running at 512, no skins, updates off, no detailed water, no shadows.

When I back out to the splash screen the FPS do not o back up to the values seen prior to launching the game, they remain at 60.  I would expect to get solid frame rates with this rig.

Any ideas?

Cheers

[The Fugitive]

Post the first third of a dxdiag report. Maybe some of these gurus can spot something in it.

[Chalenge]

Right off the top of my head (before seeing your DXDiag) I would suggest turning off adaptive power profile and adaptive Vsync.

[FESS67]

   Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit (6.3, Build 9600) (9600.winblue_gdr.140330-1035)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
       System Model: To be filled by O.E.M.
               BIOS: F3
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
             Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32596MB RAM
          Page File: 1451MB used, 36264MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.03.9600.16384 64bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
      Display Tab 1: No problems found.
      Display Tab 2: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
        Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
          Input Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D:    0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw:  0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay:  0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow:  0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
          Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
       Manufacturer: NVIDIA
          Chip type: GeForce GTX 980
           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
        Device Type: Full Device
         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13C0&SUBSYS_29803842&REV_A1
     Display Memory: 20249 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 3952 MB
      Shared Memory: 16297 MB
       Current Mode: 2560 x 1600 (32 bit) (60Hz)
       Monitor Name: Dell 3008WFP(DP)
      Monitor Model: DELL 3008WFP
         Monitor Id: DEL4036
        Native Mode: 2560 x 1600(p) (59.860Hz)
        Output Type: Displayport External
        Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 9.18.0013.4416 (English)
     Driver Version: 9.18.13.4416
        DDI Version: 11.1
     Feature Levels: 11.1,11.0,10.1,10.0,9.3,9.2,9.1
       Driver Model: WDDM 1.3
Graphics Preemption: DMA
 Compute Preemption: DMA
           Miracast: Not Supported by WiFi driver
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Supported
     Power P-states: Not Supported
  Driver Attributes: Final Retail
   Driver Date/Size: 9/19/2014 15:59:23, 19954520 bytes
        WHQL Logo'd: n/a
    WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
  Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-5080-11CF-B24A-8D091CC2C435}
          Vendor ID: 0x10DE
          Device ID: 0x13C0
          SubSys ID: 0x29803842
        Revision ID: 0x00A1
 Driver Strong Name: oem4.inf:0f066de3ad09d9de:Section037:9.18.13.4416:pci\ven_10de&dev_13c0
     Rank Of Driver: 00DA2001
        Video Accel:
        DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_VLD  DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD  DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT  
  

[FESS67]

Right off the top of my head (before seeing your DXDiag) I would suggest turning off adaptive power profile and adaptive Vsync.

That may be a winner.  Clean install and I changed those settings.  Getting high frame rates at the moment but not many people on.  I have to set up my controllers again but at least it is a start.

Cheers

[Bizman]

Just in case... You have installed the dedicated motherboard drivers instead of those by Windows, haven't you?

You're right, you should get stable high values with that rig. Remember though that with v-sync off you may see huge steps, but in any case you should be over 60 almost all of the time. When you reach that point, turn v-sync on for a stable 59-60 fps because that's the most your monitor really can do.

[Chalenge]

He indicated that he turned it on in the game, but it was still showing high frame rates at the splash screen, which told me the driver was set to adaptive vsync.  Vsync is good, but adaptive is not good for AH. When both adaptive power and adaptive vsync are on it will usually create awful stutters and long freeze ups. I don't think you have to use vsync, but I would say you should. In games like Crysis 2 it will only make the cut scenes stutter like crazy to have it on.

[FESS67]

Yeah I will turn it off when playing for keeps.  I just needed it on to judge frame rates in game.  I still get big freezes in the tower and hangar when changing between them but I have not been able to test in flight yet.  Will have to wait until tomorrow but thanks so far

[Chalenge]

FESS do you have just the one SSD for a hard drive?

[FESS67]

No I have several other SATA drives but I took them out of the machine to do the rebuild.  They were lifted from my old machine and I needed to be certain they were not causing any legacy issues such as driver conflicts or possible MBR sectors.

They are back in the machine now with no effect on the FPS.

Cheers

[Chalenge]

And they shouldn't. I was going to suggest moving your page file to either one of the hard drives, or another SSD. I would make a few other suggestions, but I don't know how, or for what else you use your computer.

[FESS67]

This is used for photography, AH and general web browsing.

Mainly Lightroom and Photoshop work.  I have another machine for my driving simulator

[Chalenge]

Get ready, because this may easily start an argument.

Don't use a page file on your SSD. Turn it on for every other drive you have, except really slow drives or any that have questionable health (another similar SSD would be fine, but I prefer a speedy platter HD). Allow windows to manage the size of your page files. Leave SuperFetch on.

Since you do not use your system for many different tasks (mixing photos, programming, desktop publishing, music editing can really confuse a good page file) Windows can easily remain optimized for the few operations you do, including playing AH. SuperFetch will optimize the load times for programs you do use. If the time of day that you use the various programs changes randomly then this will also confuse matters. SuperFetch is also intended to make the Windows Defrag improve load times, but with an SSD you do not want to run defrag. Of course, I'm sure you have already read through and optimized for running an SSD, so enough said there.

[Chalenge]

Oh, and move your libraries off to another HDD, especially My Pictures which is one you will probably write to often. You move a lot of large files into that area if you download your raw images and store them before processing. I keep all the libraries on a second drive.

[FESS67]

Yeah I will have a look at those settings when I get home.

I have all my photos on a separate hard drive and the page file was set on another HDD.  I import directly to my photography HDD and try to keep my OS drive (SSD) as clean as possible.

Thanks for the response.