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

[n0x1ous]

What are those ? Oh those three games. Wow, three whole games.

I was too busy playing Batman AA on my 5870 CF setup at frames nvidia couldn't come near to producing on 285SLI.

I had to turn off Physx from High in Mafia 2 because it was too much of a resource hog for 480SLI to handle.

I think that's it actually. There have only been 2 good games that use physx.

Metro 2033 was good, but used gpu physx effects in .05% of the entire game.

Now run off and find another thread to try and derail. Unless you'd like to post an nvidia PR slide first ?

I don't disagree with you on the physx stuff but why are you comparing 285sli to 5870 CF? the 5870 are a generation ahead of 285...

 

[notty22]

What are those ? Oh those three games. Wow, three whole games.

I was too busy playing Batman AA on my 5870 CF setup at frames nvidia couldn't come near to producing on 285SLI.

I had to turn off Physx from High in Mafia 2 because it was too much of a resource hog for 480SLI to handle.

I think that's it actually. There have only been 2 good games that use physx.

Metro 2033 was good, but used gpu physx effects in .05% of the entire game.

Now run off and find another thread to try and derail. Unless you'd like to post an nvidia PR slide first ?

You had no problem with all the other sarcastic joke posts ? Only if they are on topic with your agenda ?
Please, your making the community aware, keep dignity.

 

[Grooveriding]

You had no problem with all the other sarcastic joke posts ? Only if they are on topic with your agenda ?
Please, your making the community aware, keep dignity.

 

[dudeofdur]

Is this a hack and slash type game or what? I still haven't played the first one. I hated the witcher, is it like that? I love oblivion. Should I try the first one?

Its your typical rpg... bioware is mainly a storyline game but the first one's storyline sucked imo. it was too linear in the sense that you had to go through the same story even if you try to branch off. Think of mass effect without the shooting and instead WOW quests... yea... lol. I got bored really quickly at the beginning but later in the game it was ok.

 

[Skurge]

Yes, you are right but my point was that it tanks on AMD with only 4x AF. For 99.9% of games even 16x AF is basically a 2-3% performance hit. So this tells us that either the game is very texture heavy (this specific area is where GF100/110 series have a huge deficit compared to AMD) or the drivers are at fault (or both).

On a 6990:
"This game also has a vast landscape of textures in play, therefore Anisotropic Filtering does have a lot to do in this game, and does go a long way to improving the image quality. We found that the performance hit occurs at 16X, 8X and 4X AF. At 2X AF there is not a big hit, so the best option for image quality and performance right now is to use 2X AF."

On a single 6970, Kyle wasn't even able to use any AF. Since the high-res pack requires at least 1024mb of VRAM to run in the first place, I am leaving towards the fact that this may be a texture deficiency of current generation + a combo of unoptimized drivers.

That was the demo that barely worked, the final game runs much better.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...d-6990-graphics-card-review-dragon-age-2.html

I can't tell you if they used any AF though.

 

[Jionix]

....with a new hit PhysX title

Umm.. That's an oxymoron, right? Physx has never even had an old hit, has it?

 

[Idontcare]

Let's get back on-topic folks, please.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[RussianSensation]

So basically you are going ATI because an OCed 6950 runs Crysis as well as a GTX 580

Let's give the 580 some credit - in preliminary DX9 testing it did beat the 6970 in Crysis 2, but for $480+ I don't think the advantage is worth it.

That was the demo that barely worked, the final game runs much better.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1127/pg9/amd-radeon-hd-6990-graphics-card-review-dragon-age-2.html

With higher resolutions the 570 / 580 SLI setups are basically unusuable with the drivers they tested.

 

[Jionix]

What I don't understand is, how could a game, (apparently) written to an API's spec, (initially) run so poorly on a specific vendors cards? Is this an issue with how Nvidia is implementing DX11, or is it an issue with how Dragon Age 2 was coded in DX11?

Assuming a "hot-fix" is released by Nvidia immediately, it's not a big deal, but interesting that even happened nonetheless.

 

[bryanW1995]

I was super looking forward to Dragon Age 2 and fortunately I am on vacation this week :thumbsup:

Downloaded and installed, played the game in DX11, turned up all the settings, installed the hi res texture pack. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/300/index/6392956

Using the 267.24 drivers with the DA2 profiles.

I'm getting awful performance. With a single card I get about 80% GPU utilization and 10fps, with all three I get about 40% GPU utilization and 15-20fps.

The game looks better, but is nothing impressive at all.

Seems the issue is related to nvidia's drivers and is not just happening to SLI users:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=194951
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/300/index/6405922/1
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=340194

AMD cards are running the game just fine in DX11 with good framerates.

If anyone finds a fix, please advise. Was looking forward to this one.

I just need to install it. I'm using older drivers with for opengl compatibility, I'll let you know if those work better with my gtx 460.

 

[Seero]

You guys should really stop picking on PhysX on every possible occasion, it is getting really old. When PhysX was done in a way that everyone can enjoy, AMD fanboys said "Nvidia can does nothing more." When PhysX was done in a way that Nvidia card does more, AMD fanboys said "Nothing special" or "I have an old Nvidia card for that." When Nvidia stop supporting cross vendor configuration, AMD fanboys said "BLOCKING!"
Seriously, who haven't seen those arguments before? DAO uses PhysX, but done in a way that everyone can use it happily. PhysX, when run on CPU, is not worst then bullet, havok or any other physics engine.

Guess what, DA2 still uses PhysX, but this time AMD is on the helping seat, and so far it is clear that it can be done. It isn't bias towards Nvidia has fanboys will like to believe. When AMD is willing to spend resources to help developers, their gears will shine too, and Nvidia's gear will look like crap. No conspiracy. This is a good start. Suppose AMD now find ways to utilize their gear which outforms Nvidia, then as a counter-action Nvidia will either find ways to do it, or find other things to do. At the end, we, as gamers will see new ideas, new tech, and a reasonable price.

Imagine one day, a game evolved into the way it meant to be played.

 

[Lostpc]

Hello Everyone,

Regarding the HI-Res texture pack. Is there really big difference with it installed? I just wondering if it worth downloading it. Thank you.

 

[notty22]

Hello Everyone,

Regarding the HI-Res texture pack. Is there really big difference with it installed? I just wondering if it worth downloading it. Thank you.

I would grab it.

Dragon Age II high-res PC texture pack compared

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20040757-1.html#ixzz1G814uru5
​

 

[bryanW1995]

Higher CPU utilization, GPU utilization issues, scolding hot VRMs, driver related issues out the wazoo. Never again will I subject myself to this . Does not help I have an AMD chipset, thankfully I'm not a fan of dragon age.

its just the beginning of a major launch. I believe a chill pill is in order.

btw, NV has known about this for a while, I had this issue with the demo as well while amd cards all ran dx11 just fine.

 

[bryanW1995]

Outside of BattleForge, almost every DX11 game I can think of barely looks better in DX10/11 over DX9 and runs significantly slower. I think DX10/11 were created to sell more videocards :hmm: (*obviously not but the performance hit vs. increased visual quality tradeoff isn't really there!).

I am anxiously awaiting how much performance hit Crysis 2 DX11 patch will bring (i.e., can you say 64 billion tessellation factor?).

civ 5 is markedly faster in dx11

 

[bryanW1995]

Is this a hack and slash type game or what? I still haven't played the first one. I hated the witcher, is it like that? I love oblivion. Should I try the first one?

dao was marketed as the spiritual success to baldurs gate. I don't think it was that good, but if you liked the BG series you should enjoy dao a lot.

 

[RussianSensation]

civ 5 is markedly faster in dx11

Really? You tried toggling DX10 vs. 11 on your 460 and you get higher performance in DX11? Fermi cards are very fast in Civ 5 to begin with .

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, civ5 has 2 codepaths when you start the game: dx9 or dx10/11. if you have a dx10/11 card it recommends using that codepath. A big feature of dx11 is that tessellation can/should speed up gpu performance when utilitzed correctly. in civ5 they did this, it is a slideshow at the same settings for me in dx9.

 

[Idontcare]

dao was marketed as the spiritual success to baldurs gate. I don't think it was that good, but if you liked the BG series you should enjoy dao a lot.

Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Fable, etc...for me Dragon age was more of the same old same old, but I like same old same old so I liked Dragon Age. I mean there is only so much you can do with an RPG and still have it be an RPG.

 

[Lostpc]

I would grab it.

Dragon Age II high-res PC texture pack compared

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20040757-1.html#ixzz1G814uru5​

Wow, thanks for the link. I can definitely see a difference.

 

[alcoholbob]

Bioware games always run like ass on the PC. Their ability to implement new technology features has been pretty horrific and their stuff always looks dated.

ATI "worked" with Bioware, but in reality all that did was just give passable DX11 performance. I drop to the 20fps in cutscenes occasionally and some areas drop to the 30s on 1080p Maxed on XFire 6970s.

And crossfire scaling isn't that great on this title either, it's around 15-30%, and even then I'm sure the FRAPS counter is borderline lying, because it often doesn't even feel like I'm getting the
reported framerate.

For example, Crysis feels like a breeze at ~30fps. This game feels like I'm tapping the brake constantly on my car.

 

[Red Storm]

Running DA2 on my 5870. Was crashing to desktop every few minutes, then I realized I was running older drivers. Once updated (and the high res texture pack applied), I've enjoyed a very smooth game experience.

Edit: Specific settings used:

1920x1200
4xAA
16xAF
DX11 codepath
High res textures

 

[bryanW1995]

huh, I'll have to use fraps because when I played it a few minutes ago on my single gtx 460 768 @ 1680x1050 it was perfect; no slowdowns during large battle scenes,etc. I do pause a lot to give tactical orders, but camera turning, zooming, etc was extremely smooth as well. 4xAA, dx11 codepath, but obviously I can't use the high resolution texture pack. I don't have AF forced however, and I didn't notice a setting for it. I'll try it tonight with that on and see if it makes a difference. remember however that I'm using older drivers, let me know if you want the number.

@astrallite: I thought that DAO ran great, it doesn't need a great gpu but it does require some serious cpu horsepower.

 

[alcoholbob]

The worst part of Dragon Age 2 is the cutscenes. Whenever there is dynamic lighting or smoke going on in the background the framerate crawls.

Alienage in Lowtown at Night is the worst. One a single card whenever you look into the horizon it drops to like 35fps. There's a cutscene there where it runs at 11fps on a single card and 21 fps on Crossfire. Except on Crossfire it looks exactly the same, which just shows that if one card in Crossfire is choking, both cards together will choke and the framerate counter becomes an inaccurate judge of performance (microstutter?)

 

[bryanW1995]

I don't disagree with you on the physx stuff but why are you comparing 285sli to 5870 CF? the 5870 are a generation ahead of 285...

because the 5870 spent more time competing with gtx 285 than it did with gtx 480...