Far Cry 3 CPU Bottleneck

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

Are your dips happening when the GPU usage drops? If so, then yeah it might be a CPU bottleneck, and if that's the case, there is probably nothing you can do because I doubt you'll hit 5GHz stable without some serious modification to your cooling. i.e. delidding

Yeah, my dips happen when GPU usage drops! After I tried SLI bits 0x080942F5 usage never drops below 80%, so driver optimization helps a lot!

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

3930K @ 4.3
2X 670 SLI
16gb DDR3 @ 1600
SSD

I can't recall exactly, but it goes below 60 at times. Its mostly between 60-100 but this is from memory. I will find a spot on the map and tell you my FPS as well as where that spot is and you can compare. All settings maxed with 4xAA & HBAO.

EDIT: Also, the default SLI profile is absolute garbage and WILL tank your FPS like nobody's business. You must modify it with the new bits as has been stated in this thread I believe. I'll get back to you when i get home.

Thank you! You're really helpful!

 

[-Slacker-]

Do you have the latest 310.70 whql drivers? They're supposed to improve performance in FC3 by over 30%.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Do you have the latest 310.70 whql drivers? They're supposed to improve performance in FC3 by over 30%.

You mean 310.90 as latest

 

[frozentundra123456]

Just lower the resolution, FC3 doesnt scale well its graphics in high resolutions. Lower the res to 1366x768 with optimal graphics settings and it will play butter smooth.

I dont understand why lowering the resolution would alleviate a CPU bottleneck. If the FPS goes up when you lower the resolution, wouldnt that indicate a GPU bottleneck?

That is, if the OP thinks to GPU use is too low already, would not lowering the resolution make the GPU use even less?

Anyway, each to his own, but you will always be bottlenecked by something, and it seems to me that with a machine this strong, it will take a herculean effort to get even a minimal increase FPS.

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

You mean 310.90 as latest

Of course I have 310.90

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

I dont understand why lowering the resolution would alleviate a CPU bottleneck. If the FPS goes up when you lower the resolution, wouldnt that indicate a GPU bottleneck?

That is, if the OP thinks to GPU use is too low already, would not lowering the resolution make the GPU use even less?

Anyway, each to his own, but you will always be bottlenecked by something, and it seems to me that with a machine this strong, it will take a herculean effort to get even a minimal increase FPS.

Yeah, if I turn down vieo quality GPU usage is even lower. By simply using 2 MSAA my usage goes down to 40%!!!
If I increase MSAA to 8x GPU usage goes up to 98% and creates a bottleneck.
In some CPU heavy areas having 8 or 4 MSAA gets me the same FPS, as the GPU is fully utilised, while the CPU doesn't do its job.

 

[moonbogg]

I do not believe it is a CPU bottleneck in this case. SLI does not work perfect in this game, even with modified bits and the GPU usage falls off hard once in a while for no apparent reason. I'll be home in about 2 hours and do some FRAPS runs.

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

I do not believe it is a CPU bottleneck in this case. SLI does not work perfect in this game, even with modified bits and the GPU usage falls off hard once in a while for no apparent reason. I'll be home in about 2 hours and do some FRAPS runs.

Can you try this?

1) Fast travel to Amanaki Town and exit the door.
2) Stand in front of the door. How many fps are you getting?
3) Go to the video quality settings and set Water to Low. How many fps are you getting? Did you gain around 8 fps?

I think that water quality is severely bugged and hugely affects performance even when there's no water in the scene!

 

[tweakboy]

There is no CPU bottleneck. Games use 20 to 50 percent CPU usage. The single threaded performance Intel crushes AMD. Anything from a 2500 to ivy 3770k will give similar results. Dont cry bottleneck please... thats insulting the CPU.

Your GPU is more then enough. I think what you need to do after reading the posts is scale down your resolution to 1680x1050 and put 8x CSAA 16x AF and enjoy.

I guess Crysis 3 is gonna chug along....

 

[moonbogg]

Can you try this?

1) Fast travel to Amanaki Town and exit the door.
2) Stand in front of the door. How many fps are you getting?
3) Go to the video quality settings and set Water to Low. How many fps are you getting? Did you gain around 8 fps?

I think that water quality is severely bugged and hugely affects performance even when there's no water in the scene!

Benchmark starts inside the spawn point at Amanaki Town, facing the red door. I exit the door, walk around the village and then go north up the road. I shoot some dogs, get attacked by pirates in the jungle and kill them. I stop the benchmark.

Settings:

All settings maxed out completely
4X AA
1920x1080
HBAO

Standing inside the room, looking straight at the red door, I get 73fps. I click "E" and do nothing else at all, leaving me standing right outside the door staring at the village, I get 60fps.

Avg: 83.658 - Min: 58 - Max: 111
EDIT: GPU Usage 75-99% on both GPUs. Usage is about 80% when looking at village from the road and about 90% when looking at jungle.

 

[YBS1]

I'm of the opinion FC3 loves more cpu power (cores?) as well. I just in the past few days went from a Xeon W3520@4ghz (same as i7 920) to a 3930K, was and still am using two 680GTX Lightnings. While my displayed FPS were usually pretty decent on the W3520, the game did hitch and chug quite frequently just as reported by virtually everyone else. The 3930K stomps my old setup into the ground. The game runs basically as smoothly as a COD title now. This is at default frequencies on both the cpu and gpus. The other variable is I switched to Win8 from 7 with the new rig, so either the game likes cores or Windows 8.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm of the opinion FC3 loves more cpu power (cores?) as well. I just in the past few days went from a Xeon W3520@4ghz (same as i7 920) to a 3930K, was and still am using two 680GTX Lightnings. While my displayed FPS were usually pretty decent on the W3520, the game did hitch and chug quite frequently just as reported by virtually everyone else. The 3930K stomps my old setup into the ground. The game runs basically as smoothly as a COD title now. This is at default frequencies on both the cpu and gpus. The other variable is I switched to Win8 from 7 with the new rig, so either the game likes cores or Windows 8.

I have a 3930k @ 4.3 with two 670s and Far Cry 3 doesn't run like a COD title, but it does run perfectly well except for the occasional unoptomized moments here and there. COD titles get like 300fps. For instance, looking at those special red rocks that let you do a mission or something cause epic lag when looking at it.

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

Benchmark starts inside the spawn point at Amanaki Town, facing the red door. I exit the door, walk around the village and then go north up the road. I shoot some dogs, get attacked by pirates in the jungle and kill them. I stop the benchmark.

Settings:

All settings maxed out completely
4X AA
1920x1080
HBAO

Standing inside the room, looking straight at the red door, I get 73fps. I click "E" and do nothing else at all, leaving me standing right outside the door staring at the village, I get 60fps.

Avg: 83.658 - Min: 58 - Max: 111
EDIT: GPU Usage 75-99% on both GPUs. Usage is about 80% when looking at village from the road and about 90% when looking at jungle.

We have the same results, but I have 2 680s and a 3770k @ 4.7 Ghz. I also get the same card usage.
Can you try 1 last thing? Can you run the same benchmark with water quality set to low? That will show you how poorly optimized the game is.

 

[lakedude]

I dont understand why lowering the resolution would alleviate a CPU bottleneck. If the FPS goes up when you lower the resolution, wouldnt that indicate a GPU bottleneck?

That is, if the OP thinks to GPU use is too low already, would not lowering the resolution make the GPU use even less?

Anyway, each to his own, but you will always be bottlenecked by something, and it seems to me that with a machine this strong, it will take a herculean effort to get even a minimal increase FPS.

^ This

 

[YBS1]

I have a 3930k @ 4.3 with two 670s and Far Cry 3 doesn't run like a COD title, but it does run perfectly well except for the occasional unoptomized moments here and there. COD titles get like 300fps. For instance, looking at those special red rocks that let you do a mission or something cause epic lag when looking at it.

I didn't mean to imply that I get the fps of a cod title, just that it runs smooth like you expect a cod game to run. Completely unlike before.

 

[brooklonsfinest]

Just lower the resolution, FC3 doesnt scale well its graphics in high resolutions. Lower the res to 1366x768 with optimal graphics settings and it will play butter smooth.

Super Late But, I disagree somewhat.

I am playing Far Cry 3 on an Alienware m17 that is configured with x9100 dual core 3.06 and 3870x2 using ATI 10.5 drivers (I know, super old, but stable).

Playing the game with 1900x1200 resolution. My in game configuration is set to "High". The only options I can't max out are Shadows (low) and PostFx (low). To achieve a smother experience I turn FXAA off and SSAO off. Although I can keep both of these options on, I prefer not to. My average FPS is about 33-35 fps. Many places I hit the 40's and 50's but the frame rate is capped at 30 using radeonpro, vsync and triple buffering.