Fps Throttling Issue

[-ENTHY-]

First off, specs.

*AMD FX-8350
*GeForce GTX 970
*16.00 GB RAM
*250GB SSD

--- 90% of the time the game runs in 60fps, as it should, but sometimes the game drops down to 50-45 fps for several seconds, for no good reason... On GTX970 it should be 60fps no matter what, I think something is throttling performance.

--- Temperatures are fine on everything, CPU and GPU doesn't exceed 60C

Here's what I've done for CPU throttling:
*Enable HPC mode
*Disable c1e
*Disable cool n' quiet
*Set bios to "high performance" in UEFI.

--- I've tried re-installing drivers and Nvidia GeForce Experience several times, even doing clean install.
 

[taiiat]

can't hurt to check if too many Cores are being parked, as there's a delay on parking and unparking, which will create performance drops if that's happening.

 

 

i'd focus more on the CPU side, Warframe doesn't get that heavy on the GPU side. so it's more likely CPU related.

[Grulos]

Disable VSync?

[-ENTHY-]

can't hurt to check if too many Cores are being parked, as there's a delay on parking and unparking, which will create performance drops if that's happening.

 

 

i'd focus more on the CPU side, Warframe doesn't get that heavy on the GPU side. so it's more likely CPU related.

All CPU Cores are unparked, I forgot to mention that in the OP.

[-ENTHY-]

Disable VSync?

 

I've tried disabling Vsync, but I'm going to try disabling the game-vsync and Enable Nvidia Vsync + adaptive to see if that helps.

[willis936]

*AMD FX-8350

Found your problem.

 

Do you have multithreaded rendering ticked off in the launcher?  You'll get a huge fps bump.  It might introduce crashing.  I used to crash with this setting on so I turned it off.  I turned it back on a few updates later and I haven't crashed since.

 

Also consider overclocking.  AMD chips shine with their OC potential but be warned you will be pulling quite a bit of power so that $30 PSU might pop.  Also you'll need an aftermarket CPU cooler.  A modest $30 will go a very, very long way.

[-ENTHY-]

Found your problem.

 

Do you have multithreaded rendering ticked off in the launcher?  You'll get a huge fps bump.  It might introduce crashing.  I used to crash with this setting on so I turned it off.  I turned it back on a few updates later and I haven't crashed since.

 

Also consider overclocking.  AMD chips shine with their OC potential but be warned you will be pulling quite a bit of power so that $30 PSU might pop.  Also you'll need an aftermarket CPU cooler.  A modest $30 will go a very, very long way.

Yes, I do have Multithreaded rendering rendering checked ON.

I tried turning it off and fps went way down, I'm pretty sure it is in fact a CPU issue of some description.

Also all CPU cores are UnParked, I am also looking into some overclocking settings, just to see if there's any other settings that are holding it back.

 

Oh, and I have liquid cooling on my CPU already.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Enthesis

[willis936]

Noice.  What are you clocked to?

 

 

Also a good way to check if your CPU is maxing out is to open the task manager (ctrl+shift+esc) and click on the performance tab.  Leave that open while playing and alt+tab to it when you get an fps dip.  If you can see one of the cores peaked and windows is reporting nominal clock speed then you're CPU bound without any issues of parking and whatnot.

Edited October 10, 2014 by willis936

[-ENTHY-]

Noice.  What are you clocked to?

 

 

Also a good way to check if your CPU is maxing out is to open the task manager (ctrl+shift+esc) and click on the performance tab.  Leave that open while playing and alt+tab to it when you get an fps dip.  If you can see one of the cores peaked and windows is reporting nominal clock speed then you're CPU bound without any issues of parking and whatnot.

Ok, I'll do that now and I'll post results.

[jonnin]

Good night @ your system ....  you should be able to run 3 copies of the game in parallel without any issues let alone one copy. 

 

You seem to know what you are doing... did you eval your hard disk?  These nonstop patches keep fragmenting my game files, and if it is looking for textures on the disk it could drop framerate briefly.   

 

Also did you run the game for more than a couple of hours without restarting?  My game gets progressively slower over time and when I notice it, I restart and the cycle repeats. 

 

anything else running that might cause it?   Maybe window's decided it was a good time to index your disk for faster searches or some other useless task?

 

 

[-ENTHY-]

Noice.  What are you clocked to?

 

 

Also a good way to check if your CPU is maxing out is to open the task manager (ctrl+shift+esc) and click on the performance tab.  Leave that open while playing and alt+tab to it when you get an fps dip.  If you can see one of the cores peaked and windows is reporting nominal clock speed then you're CPU bound without any issues of parking and whatnot.

 

Ok, so while playing the game it normally only has 4 cores utilized, They never really go above 60%.

now, what's interesting is that when the fps Drop occurred a FIFTH Core was suddenly being utilized for like 50% of it's power... odd, I'm beginning to think there's nothing wrong with the game or the GPU, but something is funky with my OS, or I have something doing processing in the background.

[-ENTHY-]

Good night @ your system ....  you should be able to run 3 copies of the game in parallel without any issues let alone one copy. 

 

You seem to know what you are doing... did you eval your hard disk?  These nonstop patches keep fragmenting my game files, and if it is looking for textures on the disk it could drop framerate briefly.   

 

Also did you run the game for more than a couple of hours without restarting?  My game gets progressively slower over time and when I notice it, I restart and the cycle repeats. 

 

anything else running that might cause it?   Maybe window's decided it was a good time to index your disk for faster searches or some other useless task?

 I use a Solid State Drive, so I don't believe any of this really applies to me.

 

I optimized my game cache via the Launcher so loading textures is less of an issue, I see it happen often and it doesn't cause any drops in performance.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Enthesis

[jonnin]

 I use a Solid State Drive, so I don't believe any of this really applies to me.

 

I optimized my game cache via the Launcher so loading textures is less of an issue, I see it happen often and it doesn't cause any drops in performance.

 

I don't know how SSDs work but most of these issues on a standard disk are due to mechanical delays which you do not have, so it seems unlikely to be the issue. 

 

running the game too long could still be an issue -- you cant out-hardware a software flaw.  Does the issue come up right away or after playing for a while? 

 

5th core is a big clue.  Try process explorer and watch it to see if it is a game thread or OS "background" job or something?  Could be anything, virus scanner, OS,  various software seeing if it needs updates, or other stuff. 

[taiiat]

Ok, so while playing the game it normally only has 4 cores utilized, They never really go above 60%.

hmm, that's worrying. it's not really related to this (well, theoretically it could be, but it's unlikely since there aren't thousands of performance issue threads daily). but Warframe only being able to utilize 4 Cores on an AMD CPU.... :/

AMD relies on being able to utilize as many of it's Cores as possible to make up for their funky package design that focuses on more Cores over more powerful Cores.

i don't know if wanting every Developer to support ∞ Threads would be a fruitful goal, but... it still should be one.

 

 

 

Jonnin's got a more likely culprit though.

[willis936]

Another thing to check is the power state of your GPU.  I know my 770 got in a funky state where it wouldn't go above 560 MHz.  Restarting my computer fixed this.  Use nvidia inspector (there's no install dw) to check GPU power state if you don't have a tool for it already.

[-ENTHY-]

can't hurt to check if too many Cores are being parked, as there's a delay on parking and unparking, which will create performance drops if that's happening.

 

 

i'd focus more on the CPU side, Warframe doesn't get that heavy on the GPU side. so it's more likely CPU related.

 

This was right from the very beginning, I figured out that my cores are still parked, and it's them unparking and sometimes parking mid-gameplay that's causing the issue.

Here's what's messed up, I can't get them to unpark, I've tried 2 different CPU Unpark tools, and even editing the registry, I can't seem to unpark my CPU...

[-ENTHY-]

This was right from the very beginning, I figured out that my cores are still parked, and it's them unparking and sometimes parking mid-gameplay that's causing the issue.

Here's what's messed up, I can't get them to unpark, I've tried 2 different CPU Unpark tools, and even editing the registry, I can't seem to unpark my CPU...

 

I've solved the "un-unparking" problem, it was a simple but stupid fix, just had to switch parking on then off again...

So now, even with all 8 cores unparked, the problem still persists... 35-45 FPS during throttle, all core temps are fine, and voltages are all fine.