[fixed] Dragon Age 2 Low Performance on Nvidia Cards [fixed]

[Red Storm]

AA does not play well in this game. Try going from 8x to 2x and you should see about a 30-40% improvement, which is pretty substantial.

Couldn't you say that about any game? 2x to 4x is one thing, but going up to 8x is asking for a performance hit.

 

[TerabyteX]

Interesting. Well, do we know who worked with the devs of DA2, if anybody?

Does it really matter to you? I'm just posting my POV about this situation, regardless if its AMD or nVidia, such dirty tactics are bad for PC gaming community overall.

 

[SirPauly]

I just don't understand for the life of me. How is adding DirectX 11 a bad thing for titles? One IHV may run out-of-the-box better but as time passes, the other optimizes and creates a great experience for their customers. And some-how this is defined as potentially a dirty tactic..........when the title has improved gaming experiences for customers and differentiates itself from the console version.

Could things be more ideal? Sure, but there is so much good over-all and yet another example of how some place idealism as the enemy of good.

 

[TerabyteX]

I'm happy that they're using and promoting DX11, my post is about IF it was a tactic, in the worst case scenario, never said that it is currently happening.

 

[SirPauly]

I'm glad when either AMD or nVidia promote because their developer relations are trying to create PC awareness. I'll take some negatives to gain bigger positives -- the content added.

 

[TerabyteX]

I'm glad when either AMD or nVidia promote because their developer relations are trying to create PC awareness. I'll take some negatives to gain bigger positives -- the content added.

Yeah, but as far as it doesn't affect terribly its competitor hardware performance. It would be pointless for example in an imaginary scenario, abusive and inneficient use of Tessellation to put AMD in a bad light and cut pretty much at least 65% of the DX11 market off to just benefit nVidia users, hopefully, we shall never see such pratices.

 

[SirPauly]

I hear ya to some degree but it would be foolish for nVidia not to try to showcase their architectural strengths; as it would be foolish for AMD not to try to showcase their architectural strengths.

They're big boys and gals and really talented. I like it the way it is -- both talented companies banging heads and fighting -- translates into innovation and value.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

I hear ya to some degree but it would be foolish for nVidia not to try to showcase their architectural strengths; as it would be foolish for AMD not to try to showcase their architectural strengths.

They're big boys and gals and really talented. I like it the way it is -- both talented companies banging heads and fighting -- translates into innovation and value.

As could be seen with Intel and AMD which almost killed AMD.
Dirty fights will hamper innovation and value.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't see the correlation with Intel and AMD. I don't know about any secret agreements and pay-offs to use just nVidia GPU's over AMD GPU's. So nVidia spends resources and may leverage their features for their name-brand but how on Earth is this bad? Nothing is stopping anyone not to do the same things if they choose. One talks about free markets as important; why would anyone desire to stop someone for simply trying to invest into their own name-brands? It's their risk if they fail or if they succeed.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I found the whole DA2 incidents very interesting. First, the game clearly have problems, but not caused by PhysX. Interestingly, PhysX has not been lifted from the game and clearly isn't causing any problems to AMD users, unlike what many believed that PhysX is ONLY for Nvidia users. We actually have one PhysX game that farvor AMD cards. To my surprise, not a single person mention or complain about it.

Actually I don't think Dragon Age 2 uses physX at all.

By chance I was doing a clean install of windows and while Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 refused to launch due to lack of physX drivers installed, Dragon Age 2 on the other hand had no trouble starting.

So I checked the Dragon Age 2 DVD and there is no physX driver installer. Both DAO and ME2 DVDs have the physX installer on the software folder.

 

[alcoholbob]

Couldn't you say that about any game? 2x to 4x is one thing, but going up to 8x is asking for a performance hit.

For the GTX 580 which is averaging 24fps with 8xAA, going to 2x or none could net you to 32-34 fps which is...well...more playable.

 

[Red Storm]

For the GTX 580 which is averaging 24fps with 8xAA, going to 2x or none could net you to 32-34 fps which is...well...more playable.

Well okay, the 580 is obviously experiencing some issues, but I mean with normal performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

ExarKun333

you can see the 6990 is CPU bottlenecked too, thats why the 5970 scores almost the same as the 6990 in 1920x1080 resolution.

To see the GPU's strength at those levels you need to look at the 2560x1600 resolution.

single 580 ~37 fps
single 6990 (dual gpu card) ~ 87 fps.

so having a 2600k @ 4.5 could actually make a difference? (pats self on back)

 

[bryanW1995]

Note that this is only for enemy ranged attacks like arrows. You can still miss plenty, but their arrows pretty much never miss. Though it was like this in DA:O too.

naw, you just need to put everything into dexterity on a rogue. get to 150+ defense and normal guys miss almost every time, and even elite/boss types miss quite a bit as well. drop a glyph of warding/heroic defense and everybody will almost always miss him then.

 

[BlockheadBrown]

8GB RAM
Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz (stock)
Nvidia 680i SLi (BFG)
Windows 7 64bit Professional
GeForce 560 GTX-TI (MSI Twin Frozr II/OC)
v267.26 Drivers
1280x720 Dragon Age 2 Very High - All selections except Vsync & No AA.
No performance issues.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

For what it's worth, there was a serious consideration of going to a Radeon 6950 2GB solution, flashing it to a 6970 2GB and possibly OC'ing it. I purchased the 560 Ti hoping it'd last me another 2-3 years. I was initially going to wait until Kepler was released. Realizing that a price friendly version likely was at least a year to a year and a half away, Dragon Age 2 and Battlefield 3 were big enough pulls to get me to purchase my first DX11 card. The main factors in choosing the 560 Ti over the 6850 2GB, were:
- Overall Performance
- Architecture
- Heat Dissipation
- Noise Levels
- PhysX compatibility
- Overclocking performance

I also believed that the DA2 performance issues could be addressed (at least to some extent) by future driver releases.

With the 680i (should I still have it down the road), I could add a second if I'd like one day. That said, I've found it simply better to wait it out for 2 generations and just get a single card rather than SLi (although I love the idea behind SLi).

 

[bryanW1995]

you'll probably be cpu bottlenecked in many/most games with setup and 560 sli.

 

[BlockheadBrown]

you'll probably be cpu bottlenecked in many/most games with setup and 560 sli.

It seems to run everything just fine now. I've been holding off on a CPU/MB upgrade for a while. With Bulldozer and Ivy coming out and looking at the roadmaps past that, I'll sit tight with the q6600 for now. As I implied, I doubt I'd go SLi as it is.

 

[Qbah]

(...)
GeForce 560 GTX-TI (MSI Twin Frozr II/OC)
1280x720
(...)
No performance issues.

You have your answer. That card is total overkill for such a low resolution. You can crank up AA all the way and probably won't notice any performance drop at all.

Going SLi with 2x GTX560 for 1280x720 is just... D:

 

[BlockheadBrown]

You have your answer. That card is total overkill for such a low resolution. You can crank up AA all the way and probably won't notice any performance drop at all.

Going SLi with 2x GTX560 for 1280x720 is just... D:

I don't have an SLi setup. Just an SLi mobo that'd allow for it.

I'm at the resolution I'm at mainly for TV based gaming. At 1360x768 or 1920x1080, I'm far back enough so the text is too small to read.

 

[solarissf]

so is nvidea coming out with a solution... or this is just the way its going to be?

 

[Grooveriding]

so is nvidea coming out with a solution... or this is just the way its going to be?

The drivers for the 550 contain what is thought to be their fix. If you hack the inf you can use them with any card. Nets you about 25% more performance, but still not exactly playable if you try to run the game on its highest settings.

 

[Skurge]

The drivers for the 550 contain what is thought to be their fix. If you hack the inf you can use them with any card. Nets you about 25% more performance, but still not exactly playable if you try to run the game on its highest settings.

Well, nVidia is having problems in shogun 2 as well. Well it could just be that the 550ti is a crappy card, but the 6850 is almost twice as fast.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...alit-and-zotac-review-total-war-shogun-2.html

Also another game that AMD worked with for DX11, but those benches are with DX9 so make of it what you will.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Bug Fix in the Works

Wonder if this will fix some of the issues.

 

[Idontcare]

Actually I don't think Dragon Age 2 uses physX at all.

By chance I was doing a clean install of windows and while Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 refused to launch due to lack of physX drivers installed, Dragon Age 2 on the other hand had no trouble starting.

So I checked the Dragon Age 2 DVD and there is no physX driver installer. Both DAO and ME2 DVDs have the physX installer on the software folder.

I had no idea DAO had Physx in it.

I played DAO with a GTX460, did nothing to change any settings regarding Physx.

So does this mean I experienced Physx in the game without realizing it, or do I need to enable something somewhere in order for Physx to be a factor in the game?

(regardless, whether I was using Physx or not I thought the graphics of DAO were pretty darn awesome compared to Baldur's Gate and NWN)

 

[Keysplayr]

Ah, well that explains a lot. A problem with DX11 in the game code. At least they are aware of it and are working on a fix.