Bottlenecking, or a faulty cpu?

[DrMrLordX]

I wouldn't count on Wine to help much.

You're still seeing poor GPU utilization. At this point I'd recommend either taking your case to the AMD subreddit or trying a Linux forum to try and figure out how to tackle that problem, though it may be application-specific at this point.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

Yeah, i already tried some (posting one right now), but i don't think i will get any good answers, since my setup seems to be too obscure.

Maybe i will update this when i will get a new cpu+mobo etc.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

As much as i did not want to do it, i quickly installed windows 10 to test out some games and see how they perform in comparison to the linux side. I tried out Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin, Torchlight 2, Age of Wonders and Borderlands 2. Out of all of these Divinity Original Sin was the only game that was practically locked at 60 fps, while others hovered around 50-60, but would often drop frames to the 30 fps range~. Pillars of Eternity and Torchlight 2 were the worst and had frame drops in the same places as linux version. So some games might be cpu bound, it will be more clear when i buy a new cpu.

As an aside note, i really disliked windows 10 (which i promptly removed after the tests), my cpu was working like crazy for no apparent reason (probably installing something without notification) and it just felt like i was an observer to the operating system, rather than the owner. However the amd toolset was pretty slick. My RX 470 had no problems with being undervolted by more than 100 milivolts, and could go lower with the stock clock speeds. It's pretty strange that the default settings are so high, makes me wish for such a tool in linux.

 

[LTC8K6]

As much as i did not want to do it, i quickly installed windows 10 to test out some games and see how they perform in comparison to the linux side. I tried out Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin, Torchlight 2, Age of Wonders and Borderlands 2. Out of all of these Divinity Original Sin was the only game that was practically locked at 60 fps, while others hovered around 50-60, but would often drop frames to the 30 fps range~. Pillars of Eternity and Torchlight 2 were the worst and had frame drops in the same places as linux version. So some games might be cpu bound, it will be more clear when i buy a new cpu.

As an aside note, i really disliked windows 10 (which i promptly removed after the tests), my cpu was working like crazy for no apparent reason (probably installing something without notification) and it just felt like i was an observer to the operating system, rather than the owner. However the amd toolset was pretty slick. My RX 470 had no problems with being undervolted by more than 100 milivolts, and could go lower with the stock clock speeds. It's pretty strange that the default settings are so high, makes me wish for such a tool in linux.

You likely just needed to wait for Win10 to finish updating if it was a fresh install. I see this all the time. People uninstall windows because it's busy, right after they installed it. When they just needed to wait a little while.

 

[SlickR12345]

Your gpu is obviously not being utilized fully. I don't see how you got similar performance on win10, when openGL has like 2x times worse performance than DX11 or DX12. So you should have automatically gotten AT LEAST 20% better performance.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

You likely just needed to wait for Win10 to finish updating if it was a fresh install. I see this all the time. People uninstall windows because it's busy, right after they installed it. When they just needed to wait a little while.

Well i was not going to keep it anyway, since i downloaded an iso from the official windows website without a key. I have tried it twice now, but after linux it just feels like i'm being force fed things i don't like, or need, and the operating system is doing whatever it wants behind my back. The last time i had it (it came with my laptop), i tried to uninstall those pesky apps and it got rid of the bar (or rather messed it up where i could not use it anymore) where the start menu is . I would sort of understand that model if it was free, but for an expensive piece of software (in comparison to linux, which is 100% free with a full set of free tools avaivable for download) that is just inexcusable in my opinion.

Your gpu is obviously not being utilized fully. I don't see how you got similar performance on win10, when openGL has like 2x times worse performance than DX11 or DX12. So you should have automatically gotten AT LEAST 20% better performance.

Where did i say that i got similar performance? It was much better on windows 10, but pillars of eternity, torchlight 2 and borderlands 2 still dropped frames in the same places as the linux version, however not as low. Pillars of Eternity fared the worst in both linux and windows, so it's either the cpu, or i have no idea what is going there. It's the same problem where the game starts to really slow down when there are a bunch of characters and effects like fire enhancements on the screen. Divinity Original Sins was the only one always holding to 60 fps (+- a few fps here and there) pretty much everywhere. Borderlands 2 was 62 fps most of the time, but would drop to 30-40 fps in some places.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I will tell you this much . . . I run Pillars of Eternity on an A10-7870k which is basically the same 4 cores you've got (just on a different stepping). Right now I run it at a constant 4.1 GHz 'cuz I don't feel like running it any faster just now. And I use a 2100 MHz NB speed.

Pillars of Eternity can get pretty bogged down in some spots, though I'm not using a 470. I'm using the iGPU. In my case I may be GPU-bound.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

I will tell you this much . . . I run Pillars of Eternity on an A10-7870k which is basically the same 4 cores you've got (just on a different stepping). Right now I run it at a constant 4.1 GHz 'cuz I don't feel like running it any faster just now. And I use a 2100 MHz NB speed.

Pillars of Eternity can get pretty bogged down in some spots, though I'm not using a 470. I'm using the iGPU. In my case I may be GPU-bound.

Let's find out!

1) Are you running it on windows, or linux?
2) Does changing the graphical slider do anything to your fps?
3) Have you entered Defiance Bay already, if so what kind of fps are you getting there (mostly the first area that you enter in the city)?
4) Do the number of npc's and fire enhancements have a huge impact on the fps you are getting?
5) What kind of fps are you getting generally and how does it change?

 

[DrMrLordX]

1). Windows 10.

2). Well here's the problem, the iGPU itself is limited by RAM bandwidth. I'm already maxed out at DDR3-2400. So increasing clockspeed is not going to help much, if at all. Changing CPU clockspeed might help some.

3). Oh yeah, I've been all over the place, including all the White March I/II lands. I've beaten it twice and now I'm on a Path of the Damned playthrough playing a wacky Chanter + 5 Ranger party for yuks. They all have bears named after the Gummi Bears. I haven't recorded any actual FPS numbers yet, but you can usually tell when you go below 30. Things get chunky. I'm not running it in Steam or anything so I can't measure fps that way, and there appears to be no in-game widget for monitoring fps . . . I'm too lazy to bother with stuff like Razer.

4). Extra actors seems to slow things down, but the stuff that really brings things to a crawl are certain spell/spell-like animations like summoning ogres via Chanter powers or Will-o-the-Wisps attack animations that make a huge surge of electricity (I think bitter spirits can use the same attack animation).

5). See 3).

 

[DidelisDiskas]

Ah, that's a shame. It's kind of hard to guess the fps in this game unless it's doing 50-60~. But if you are getting 30 and over fps, then you are doing better than my r7 360 (haven't played enough with the rx 470 to have a good average, but in the white march forge area, with combat it is often bogged down to the same 18 fps the r7 360 is getting.

 

[DidelisDiskas]

After quite some time i finally got a new cpu+mobo+ram:

r7 1700 currently at stock freq
asrock ab350 pro4
dual Corsair Vengeance LPX 8gb at 2667 mhz freq
PowerColor Red Dragon RX 470 4gb

For a reminder, my last configuration was:

x4 860k
asrock FM2A88X Pro+
8gb ddr3 1800mhz(something like that)
PowerColor Red Dragon RX 470 4gb

I haven't yet done any benchmarking, but i overviewed the performance of a couple of games (with a couple of programs running in the background):

Age Of Wonders 3:

Team Fortress 2:

Borderlands 2:

Pillars Of Eternity:

From what i gathered in this short frame of time that i have the cpu, is that compared to the previous experience the performance is smoother and the fps is higher in almost all situations. Having said that the only game of the ones i tried with this new cpu -Team Fortress 2 (well and Insurgency, which is also based on the same engine) pushes the gpu near it's limit. The other ones are not even pushing the gpu enough for it to go over 60c degrees while the fans are not running. Since Team Fortress 2 pushes the gpu over 1000mhz and is super smooth, it seems to me that this is a problem with either the amd gpu drivers or game optimizations on many linux ports (or both). Pillars of Eternity seems particularly unfriendly to linux+amd combination. I have no idea what the hell is pushing that single core so much in that screenshot situation, but i'd think it should not be like this, considering this game can be ran on dual core laptops with igpu's.

I will try out some benchmarks and more games when i will have more time with this. While the game situation irks me a bit, but otherwise am very glad with my purchase, everything runs super smooth now and i haven't even heard the stock spire cooler ramp up even once, just seems like the system is running on idle all the time, based on the noise (compared to the jet fighter x4 860k+stock cooler).