Am I CPU limited?

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SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
My specs:

Opteron 165 at 2.6ghz
8800GTS 320mb at 621 core/1512 shader/945 memory

In UT2004 I'm getting an average of 35fps at 1920x1200 w/ 8XAA. I've read several reviews where they scored at least 80fps at those settings.

I ran task manager on my 2nd monitor while testing, and my CPU utilization never went above 30%. Can I still be CPU limited somehow? A platform bottleneck of some sort?

In UT3, I'm getting an average of 30fps at 1920x1200, this time with no AA. Most reviews have my card scoring close to 60fps at that resolution with settings maxed.

Task manager did show both of my cores running at 100% in UT3, so the CPU limited scenario makes more sense to me here.

Other games like Far Cry, COD4, C&C3, and Doom 3 do not exhibit this type of phenominon.

Any input would be great! :beer:
 
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tuteja1986

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2005
3,676
0
0
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa...05/09/amd_a64x2_4800/4

UT2004 x1600x1200 0xAA 0xAF MaxQ
64 4000+ : 54.8
4800+ : 55.6

So i would say no for UT2004

As for UT2007 , I am using my lan machine :
3850
2GB ram
Intel E6400 @ 2.9Ghz

now i am getting 60FPS with 1920x1200 with everything high with 2 core

Now i disable one core and FPS drops too 50FPS but no enough to make lag.

So your problem lies somewhere else.

I will do more benchmarking :!
 
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tuteja1986

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2005
3,676
0
0
Okay i have found the answer :!

http://www.computerbase.de/art...tt_unreal_tournament_3

UT 3 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF:
ATi Radeon HD 4850 CF : 125
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 : 72
ATi Radeon HD 4850 : 63
Nvidia 9800GTX+ SLI : 58
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra : 40
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX : 35

UT 3 2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 : 26,8
ATi Radeon HD 4850 CF : 21,8
ATi Radeon HD 4850 : 21,5
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra : 14,9
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX : 14,5

UT3 need some major driver tweaking , the result are all whacked up :! Crossfire and SLI work in some case and not in other. When you look at 4xAA/16xAF result you wonder what kind of pain in the ass tweaking for this game would be for both nvidia and ATI.
 
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tuteja1986

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2005
3,676
0
0
1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF:
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ SLI : 166,6
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 : 145,6
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 : 139,0
ATi Radeon HD 4850 CF : 129,3
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX+ : 89,3
ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2 : 86,4
Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX : 81,5
Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra : 80,0
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX : 69,1
ATi Radeon HD 4850 : 65,7

UT 3 mistery solved :!

My recommendation play UT3 with Physicx with 2xAA/16xAF :!

 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Originally posted by: tuteja1986
UT3 need some major driver tweaking , the result are all whacked up :! Crossfire and SLI work in some case and not in other. When you look at 4xAA/16xAF result you wonder what kind of pain in the ass tweaking for this game would be for both nvidia and ATI.
Click to expand...

I have a feeling you're right and it's driver related. What I find very strange are my UT2004 results (and the UT3 score).

Here are my scores, all at 1920x1200, all with AA/AF disabled:

UT2004
Avg: 31.067 - Min: 25 - Max: 39

UT3
Avg: 31.683 - Min: 23 - Max: 44

Doom3
Avg: 56.233 - Min: 19 - Max: 62

FarCry
Avg: 57.567 - Min: 32 - Max: 69

I've reverted to the 175.19 driver from the new 177.41 driver. Unfortunately they both seem to be giving me similar results. I'm considering reverting all the way back to the 168 driver to see if that helps.
 
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SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Well, so far under XP:

UT3
Avg: 56.300 - Min: 42 - Max: 63

That's at 1920x1200 with no AA, but all in-game settings maxed. I'm quite pleased with the performance at this point.

Could Vista have been sucking that much performance out of my machine? Maybe I had some sort of malware.
 
n7

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
UT3 is extremely CPU intensive.

I'd venture to say it's one of the most CPU intensive games out there, & yes, it's a game where having a lower clocked quad > higher clocked dual, even.

I ran UT3 on my Opteron 165 @ 2.6 GHz w/ my 8800 GTX when my Intel mobo at the time was being RMAed.
There is absolutely zero doubt that you are CPU limited with an Opteron in UT3.

I tried every imaginable combination of settings, including lower resolutions like 800x600, & in some spots, the game always chugged due to the CPU. It drove me insane, since no amount of turning down settings worked.

I went back to my E6600 after that, & you could not believe the difference...no more chugging in certain sections, & way more consistent & way higher fps.
Wasn't even remotely close TBH.

You will not be able to run AA in UT3 with your 320 MB either...it'll choke to death on 320 MB...heck, it does even with 768 MB @ higher resolutions.

As for 2k4...8x AA does hit pretty hard in certain maps, so i wouldn't be surprised by your minimum fps.
You should have no trouble with 4xAA though.


Oh, P.S.
Pretty much all UT3 reviews are useless, since they never show minimum fps, which is where your CPU is choking so badly.
If you look at average fps, it seems things aren't that bad.
But minimum fps difference between Opty @ 2.6 GHz vs. C2D @ pretty much anything = enormous.
 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Originally posted by: n7
UT3 is extremely CPU intensive.

I'd venture to say it's one of the most CPU intensive games out there, & yes, it's a game where having a lower clocked quad > higher clocked dual, even.

I ran UT3 on my Opteron 165 @ 2.6 GHz w/ my 8800 GTX when my Intel mobo at the time was being RMAed.
There is absolutely zero doubt that you are CPU limited with an Opteron in UT3.

I tried every imaginable combination of settings, including lower resolutions like 800x600, & in some spots, the game always chugged due to the CPU. It drove me insane, since no amount of turning down settings worked.

I went back to my E6600 after that, & you could not believe the difference...no more chugging in certain sections, & way more consistent & way higher fps.
Wasn't even remotely close TBH.

You will not be able to run AA in UT3 with your 320 MB either...it'll choke to death on 320 MB...heck, it does even with 768 MB @ higher resolutions.

As for 2k4...8x AA does hit pretty hard in certain maps, so i wouldn't be surprised by your minimum fps.
You should have no trouble with 4xAA though.


Oh, P.S.
Pretty much all UT3 reviews are useless, since they never show minimum fps, which is where your CPU is choking so badly.
If you look at average fps, it seems things aren't that bad.
But minimum fps difference between Opty @ 2.6 GHz vs. C2D @ pretty much anything = enormous.
Click to expand...
Well, seeing as my framerate more than doubled in XP, my guess is that there is a UT3 bug in Vista64. I haven't tested UT2004 in XP yet but I expect it to be twice as fast as well.

I'm averaging 55fps in UT3 now, with 40 minimum and 62 maximum. I'm guessing that with a better CPU I'd be pegged near 62, but really I don't think my situation warrants a platform upgrade (yet).

In Crysis I'm averaging 30fps with mixed settings at 1920x1200. I have textures on high, shaders and objects on medium, physics, sound, and motion blur on high, and the rest on medium. It chugs in places but I'm impressed that I can run this game with such high visuals on my 320mb card. With objects and shaders on low I average near 60fps. :Q

Unfortuately I'm going to school part time during the next two years so I don't think I'll be upgrading my computer for quite some time.

I'm gonna test some other games to see what my minimum fps is like. Thanks for the info; I was unaware that the minimums had so much to do with cpu bottlenecking. :beer:


 
n7

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
Well, CPU doesn't affect things much in your average game.

But UT3 is a CPU hog, & depends on it alot.

I haven't used XP forever, so it's possible my issues were somewhat due to Vista, but i kinda doubt it.
Going to an E6600, even at stock, "fixed" the problem pretty fast.

If want a good place to test, in Shangri-La, hang out around the shock rifle area.
It's horrible for fps there, especially in the demo. (On a weaker CPU.)
Try your Opteron at stock perhaps, then overclocked...i suspect you'll see a difference even at higher resolutions.
 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
Originally posted by: n7
Well, CPU doesn't affect things much in your average game.

But UT3 is a CPU hog, & depends on it alot.

I haven't used XP forever, so it's possible my issues were somewhat due to Vista, but i kinda doubt it.
Going to an E6600, even at stock, "fixed" the problem pretty fast.

If want a good place to test, in Shangri-La, hang out around the shock rifle area.
It's horrible for fps there, especially in the demo. (On a weaker CPU.)
Try your Opteron at stock perhaps, then overclocked...i suspect you'll see a difference even at higher resolutions.
Click to expand...
I actually used Shangri-La for most of my benchmarks and I know what you mean. I find that my fps dips into the 40s whenever I'm on the periphery looking toward the lower centre portion of the map where the bridges are.

I've been playing the campaign and I'm finding that the large outdoor maps with the tanks and vehicles are killing my fps (sometimes into the 30s).

What kind of minimum fps are you getting with your cpu?
 
O

octopus41092

Golden Member
Feb 23, 2008
1,840
0
76
Try disabling one of the monitors while you're playing. Sometimes that causes the video card to lag a lot.
 
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Candymancan

Member
Jul 3, 2008
26
0
0
If im not mistakend UT2004 is using the ut2003 engine, and that game was out when the 6800's were new and the only good CPU was a Athlon 3000+ Barton and a Pentium 4 lol.

Somehow i highely doubt your really "cpu limited" specially having a duel core A64 "opteron".

Your problem is your running the game at that resolution with AA enabled on a 320mb video card. Regardless of the game being old the 8800GTS 320m doesnt do nearly as well on video games at that resolution specially with AA compared the the 8800GTS 640.

Altho even with that the game is still really old and i dont know if it actually uses that much memory. As you said tho your getting double the fps on XP over vista64 so it was probly the 64bit version of Vista doing it.

Thats like playing Doom which is ment to be run in dos in Windows XP. Yours gonna have issues
 
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