BF3 CPU bottleneck? Really?

[2is]

Well, you never disagreed... You just got confused and needed it spelled out.

 

[1b0b1]

Well, you never disagreed... You just got confused and needed it spelled out.

Dude, I am trying to be nice with you and not to get into any negative conversations. So please lets end this and stick to the point

 

[Jodiuh]

I'm bringing this back to see if any solutions have been found.

PC:
i5 760 @ 3.8 Ghz
GTX 660 SLI

B2K maps are def the worst, dipping down to 35 from 70~80. GPU usage gets as low as 30% on both cards. There's a post on Guru3d that recommends running mesh on medium. I'll try that tonight.

I was playing that oil pipeline map in the End Game expansion w/ 95% usage across both GPUs.

 

[Termie]

I'm bringing this back to see if any solutions have been found.

PC:
i5 760 @ 3.8 Ghz
GTX 660 SLI

B2K maps are def the worst, dipping down to 35 from 70~80. GPU usage gets as low as 30% on both cards. There's a post on Guru3d that recommends running mesh on medium. I'll try that tonight.

I was playing that oil pipeline map in the End Game expansion w/ 95% usage across both GPUs.

That is because you're completely cpu limited. B2K maps are different from all the others, and you have way more GPU power than your cpu can handle.

I dip below 90% gpu usage all the time with a single 670, and my cpu is a lot faster than yours.

 

[inf64]

Yep, definitely B2K is the worst of the expansion packs when it comes to HW optimization. I gained like 50% more fps when I switched from X4@3Ghz to PD based X4 @ 4.3GHz (2 modules!) on B2K maps! It's night and day now and my GPU stayed the same- Radeon 6870.

 

[2is]

B2K maps have more destruction than the vanilla maps and are heavier on the CPU. I'm inclined to agree with the posts above mine that its a CPU bottleneck and not likely a fixable game bug that can be addressed by changing graphics settings, unless that setting also lowers CPU load by a decent amount.

 

[Jodiuh]

That is because you're completely cpu limited. B2K maps are different from all the others, and you have way more GPU power than your cpu can handle.

I dip below 90% gpu usage all the time with a single 670, and my cpu is a lot faster than yours.

It'll have to wait for Haswell then.

 

[moonbogg]

It'll have to wait for Haswell then.

Don't get your hopes up. Haswell, even when OC'd, will not cure the problem you are describing. I have a 3930k @4.3 and two 670's and I would need about 60% more CPU power to get full video card usage on those maps. Thats not going to happen with haswell, but from what you have it will be much better.

 

[2is]

Compared to an i5 760, an i7 Haswell should provide for a very nice boost. While it may or may not push a pair of 670's to 99% utilization 100% of the time in BF3, it would certainly give him far better minimums than he's seeing now.

 

[moonbogg]

Compared to an i5 760, an i7 Haswell should provide for a very nice boost. While it may or may not push a pair of 670's to 99% utilization 100% of the time in BF3, it would certainly give him far better minimums than he's seeing now.

Yes it would be a big upgrade and well worth it IMO.

 

[Jodiuh]

Don't get your hopes up.

We'll have BF4 by the time I get comfortable w/ Haswell. I've got 1/3rd of my hopes in a new CPU upgrade, 1/3rd of my hopes in BF4, and 1/3rd of my hopes in GRID 2. :awe:

 

[PredatorOCX]

I'm bringing this up to share my findings about the subject, first off, i will list my currently rig setup:

2500K @ 5000Mhz (on H100 cooler)
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
16 GB (2x8) GSkill RipjawsX @ 1600Mhz 9-9-9-24 2T
Plextor M5-PRO 256Gb SSD
Sapphire Dual-X @ 1100/1600 Mhz
Seasonic Platinum 1000W
BenQ XL2411T (144hz)
Windows 7 64-bit


My goal is simple, as of BF3 i try to mantain as much as possible the 144FPS to match with my 144 hz display, i set all settings to LOW in BF3 except for MESH Quality which is set to ultra and Anisotropic Filtering which is set to 16x, FOV is at 70 value, all the rest is set to low, vsync off, FPS cap to 144, and of course no tripple buffering

I manage to handle a constant 144 FPS across most maps but there are certain situations in which i see dips in my FPS

Especially when i try Noshar Canals TDM 64P with tons of C4 dropping from sky and intense fight situations, or B2K maps in example on top of the TV Station looking around the map in Sharqi, i know that's all bound to CPU, and as long as i set low graphic settings i can confirm BF3 multiplayer is being CPU bottlenecked way too much, especially in my case i can notice this as i mentioned above i try to hold a steady 144 FPS and it's not the same power demand to hold 60 FPS vs 144 FPS

So that's my input but i would like to ask some questions if someone has experienced the same as i do

There's sometimes i have dips to 110-115 FPS in maps like Capture the Flag in Nebandan Flats, with 10 or 15 people per team populating the server, and just by driving a tank or walking around the map with not much action to say it so, i monitor my CPU usage and temp aswell as GPU with HWInfo and Rivatuner OSD , the strange thing is my CPU cores rarely goes beyond 85% usage across all 4 cores and the GPU sits confortably at 70-75% and i have dips to 110-115 like i said, shouldn't be the CPU stick to 100% usage as i assume it's CPU bound and if i have dips below 144 FPS this should be due CPU lack of raw power, i wonder why my CPU never reaches 100% usage , i have CPU core park disable and nothing working in the background except the monitoring tools

When in Noshar Canals and intense CPU bound situations i can see dips even as low as 90 FPS sometimes, it peaks between 90-110 but still my CPU never reaches 100% usage across any core, and the GPU i have seen it in the range of 60%-75% usage

So as far as i'm concerned CPU bottleneck should show CPU pegged at 100% usage and GPU to 50-60% , i fail to notice such but still have dips

Any thoughts?

 

[Jodiuh]

BF3 was difficult for me because I had no skills. I'm pretty average right now though.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Thread stall, one thread which the rest need to move forward is holding up the rest.

It's the reality of gaming, especially multiplayer. Strong IPC and "enough" cores is all you can do.

Probably has something to do with DX11/Windows API draw calls console bbq.

Realistically you're requesting your processor operate at over twice the speed as 60Hz users, or over quadruple the speed that consoles run at.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm bringing this up to share my findings about the subject, first off, i will list my currently rig setup:

2500K @ 5000Mhz (on H100 cooler)
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
16 GB (2x8) GSkill RipjawsX @ 1600Mhz 9-9-9-24 2T
Plextor M5-PRO 256Gb SSD
Sapphire Dual-X @ 1100/1600 Mhz
Seasonic Platinum 1000W
BenQ XL2411T (144hz)
Windows 7 64-bit


My goal is simple, as of BF3 i try to mantain as much as possible the 144FPS to match with my 144 hz display, i set all settings to LOW in BF3 except for MESH Quality which is set to ultra and Anisotropic Filtering which is set to 16x, FOV is at 70 value, all the rest is set to low, vsync off, FPS cap to 144, and of course no tripple buffering

I manage to handle a constant 144 FPS across most maps but there are certain situations in which i see dips in my FPS

Especially when i try Noshar Canals TDM 64P with tons of C4 dropping from sky and intense fight situations, or B2K maps in example on top of the TV Station looking around the map in Sharqi, i know that's all bound to CPU, and as long as i set low graphic settings i can confirm BF3 multiplayer is being CPU bottlenecked way too much, especially in my case i can notice this as i mentioned above i try to hold a steady 144 FPS and it's not the same power demand to hold 60 FPS vs 144 FPS

So that's my input but i would like to ask some questions if someone has experienced the same as i do

There's sometimes i have dips to 110-115 FPS in maps like Capture the Flag in Nebandan Flats, with 10 or 15 people per team populating the server, and just by driving a tank or walking around the map with not much action to say it so, i monitor my CPU usage and temp aswell as GPU with HWInfo and Rivatuner OSD , the strange thing is my CPU cores rarely goes beyond 85% usage across all 4 cores and the GPU sits confortably at 70-75% and i have dips to 110-115 like i said, shouldn't be the CPU stick to 100% usage as i assume it's CPU bound and if i have dips below 144 FPS this should be due CPU lack of raw power, i wonder why my CPU never reaches 100% usage , i have CPU core park disable and nothing working in the background except the monitoring tools

When in Noshar Canals and intense CPU bound situations i can see dips even as low as 90 FPS sometimes, it peaks between 90-110 but still my CPU never reaches 100% usage across any core, and the GPU i have seen it in the range of 60%-75% usage

So as far as i'm concerned CPU bottleneck should show CPU pegged at 100% usage and GPU to 50-60% , i fail to notice such but still have dips

Any thoughts?

You might see a small improvement with a 2600k, but you would need the same clock speed in order to get that small benefit, and your chances of getting 5ghz with another chip are not 100%. In short, you are doing the best you possibly can at the moment considering your clockspeed.
If haswell OCd well, I would suggest going that route, but it doesn't. You would likely equal your current performance. To be honest, trying to hold 120 and 144hz for our fast monitors is actually quite ambitious. We need to be content with knowing we are doing the best we can, and believe me, you are.

 

[felang]

Isn´t Mesh quality one of the most CPU intensive settings? I´ve had people recommend that setting be lowered for a noticeable decrease in CPU usage with a very slght change in GFX quality. Also, unless the game was completely scripted their is no way you could peg all cores at 100%.

Also, not be to be a dick, but why would you play at low settings just to achieve 144fps? Are you a competitive gamer or something? It must look awful.

 

[Makaveli]

Isn´t Mesh quality one of the most CPU intensive settings? I´ve had people recommend that setting be lowered for a noticeable decrease in CPU usage with a very slght change in GFX quality. Also, unless the game was completely scripted their is no way you could peg all cores at 100%.

Also, not be to be a dick, but why would you play at low settings just to achieve 144fps? Are you a competitive gamer or something? It must look awful.

I think he just want to have his FPS = to the hz of his monitor.

However there is no cpu and gpu combination out that will allow you to keep a steady 144 fps in most games at the resolution people would actually play at so 1080p and greater with quality settings on.

 

[moonbogg]

I think he just want to have his FPS = to the hz of his monitor.

However there is no cpu and gpu combination out that will allow you to keep a steady 144 fps in most games at the resolution people would actually play at so 1080p and greater with quality settings on.

Yeah exactly. If you get over 100fps, chances are the game is old because CPUs won't pull those frames on new games maxed out very often.

 

[PredatorOCX]

What i want is the smoothness gameplay possible , the game doesn't look awful with low settings, it's not even close look like consoles, i even barely notice any big difference to quality set all to ultra, maybe i'm used to low settings heh

in no way i'm a pro player, i just prefer motion smoothness over IQ, i owed one of those 27" IPS 1440p Korean monitors which looks superb, but once i tried the 144hz, now 60hz feels laggy for me and i can't look back, and believe me, color quality from the benq to the IPS is night and day, still i choose the 144 hz for gaming


maybe i will try to set some graphic settings to a higher level so it might stress the CPU a bit more? the GPU sits quite comfortably it nevers reaches 100% yet i'm quite confused as to why the CPU core usage never reaches even 90%, sometimes one of the cores peaks up to 90% but that's the max i have seen, it might sound ironic but what if i push the graphic settings so the CPU needs to pull more usage and that way i get a bit more minimum FPS?

it's a crazy theory but i will try anyway xD


a few things i forgot to mention, the graphics card is a 7970, and playing at 1080p, i'm sure you guys assumed this already though, but i missed these details xD

oh and thanks everyone for their input here, really appreciated

 

[Mondozei]

This is is a fascinating thread for me, because I have an OC'd i5 Haswell(and yes, I have seen a significant FPS improvement in MP) and two 290s in Crossfire.

I'm thinking of upgrading to a 27" 1440p Freesync 144 Hz monitor. I think my GPUs have enough horsepower for most games but BF3 is still a very fun game, that is played by a lot of people. I'm likely going to get Hardline when it gets out too, which is much closer to BF4.

Here's what a guy who bought the G-Sync ROG Swift showed me, he plays BF4 in MP.

This is with AA:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8FKbT_dWmoldlU5OFBxUUNtQnc/view?pli=1

And this is without AA:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pu11c50e48462dq/no_aa.zip?dl=0

An almost 50% improvement with no MSAA 4X in average frame rates. He stated that he didn't miss AA at 1440p. At my current 1080p 144 Hz monitor, I do miss AA if I turn it off, but I still do because of the massive FPS gain. Does anyone with a ROG Swift, do you feel you miss AA?

Also, is BF4 as CPU-bound as BF3?

 

[moonbogg]

Update. With windows 10, FPS is pegged at 100FPS due to Gsync. Didn't bother to turn it off. I have a different CPU, but its not fast enough to account for the massive FPS increase and the GPU wasn't the issue to begin with. Also, the game code hasn't changed I don't think. The new operating system has made all the difference.
I reach my hand through a passage of time to resolve this bottleneck issue of mine.

/thread

 

[tweakboy]

Lets try BF4 next time. Thanks chief.

 

[Jodiuh]

Update. With windows 10, FPS is pegged at 100FPS due to Gsync. Didn't bother to turn it off. I have a different CPU, but its not fast enough to account for the massive FPS increase and the GPU wasn't the issue to begin with. Also, the game code hasn't changed I don't think. The new operating system has made all the difference.
I reach my hand through a passage of time to resolve this bottleneck issue of mine.

/thread

WHY AM I GETTING A NOTI FOR THIS THREAD! DIE!