Frame Rate Help

[AGENT_P6]

Hey guys, sorry to just register and start flingin questions around but I browsed this site a bit and you seem to be like a pretty bright community that would be able to help

Let me start off by just saying I don't know a heck of a lot about computers, but I know more than the average person.

So the problem I'm having is with framerate cap. I think my computer should be able to run games at higher than 30fps. One game (black ops) runs at a steady 60fps but the rest of my games don't. Just a couple examples: Fear 3, Oblivion TES 4, Killing Floor, Fallout New Vegas, Metro 2033, all cap off at 30fps, sometimes dropping down to low 20's, but never below 20. For some reason Black Ops just runs nice. I've tried with all settings on high, low, medium, changed the resolution, switched off vsync, etc etc. I run fraps on standby (not recording) just to see what my framerate is. btw all games are purchased off steam as opposed to disc version, in case steam version vs. disc version differs in performance in any way.

So here's my setup so you know what I'm working with. It's not a hardcore gaming computer, but it is quite respectable for a stock, store-bought PC.

HP Pavilion HPE h8-1011 (below is a link to the product from the HP canada website)

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en...&lang=en&cc=ca

-12GB DDR3
-1GB GDDR5 Radeon 6770 (although my computer seems to recognize it as a 5770 since my latest driver update, which apparently is essentially the same video card anyway but meh)
-AMD phenom II 1065T six core @2.9
-Windows 7 64bit
-I coulda swore the SATA was 7200 but the link shows it as 5400?
-Power supply I believe is 450, although the link doesn't say

Another important thing to mention is that I'm running my video and audio out via HDMI to a Samsung 7.1 surround, where the audio of course is gleaned, then HDMI out from the reciever to a 40" samsung 120hz LCD. However, apparently anything over 60hz in any standard lcd tv is, in essence, artificially rendered, and thus not native which I mention since this whole issue is about framerate.

So with all the specs and stuff out of the way, I want to ask the question of why I'm getting 20-30fps on average. Again my computer isn't ridiculously awesome, but I believe I should be able to get a much better framerate, especially if i lower the settings and resolution.

There must be some kind of bottleneck somewhere. Could it be:
-CPU? (not too likely since I've viewed the performance and each core always has plenty of room for more juice)
-Graphics Card? (I'm pretty sure the 6770 can handle more than 30fps tho)
-Reciever somehow may be bottlenecking, although I believe it supports a completely free passthrough
-5400rpm hard drive?
-tv??? which raises another question: do PC monitors generally support a higher framerate than tv monitors? (my train of thought here is that tvs are meant for either 60hz, 30hz (tv, movies etc) or 24hz for bluray. Computer moniters on the other hand, would logically be more likely to support a higher framerate for gaming and such.

I hope I've provided enough information, and thanx in advance for any thoughts or suggestions to help improve the quality of mah gamin!

 

[DirkGently1]

You have vysnc turned on. Either in-game, or in the Driver Control Panel.

Turn it off.

 

[AGENT_P6]

I already mentioned that I disabled
F3ar, for example has an in game option to turn off vsync a d override both that method and Ctrl alt delt

 

[AGENT_P6]

Sorry lol that last post was written in a groggy stupor when I just woke up.
Basically I meant to say I explained in my first post that I have had vsync disabled and it's not giving me a higher framerate. Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[know of fence]

I have no experience with a similar PC or TV. But there is plenty of things you could try: you could eliminate a lot of doubts by hooking up any monitor (or your TV) with DVI or VGA directly and see how that works. If i had to bet on a culprit, I'd bet HDMI.
How long are those HDMI cables approximately?

Alternatively, even though you mentioned lowering settings and resolution, if you don't get better frame rates on lower resolutions then something is wrong for sure. This is easily tested. Do you run 1920x1080?

Finally it might be the same problem for all console ports that are not created with multi core CPUs in mind and thus CPU bottlenecked. Other than that Metro 2033 is notoriously badly optimised and rough on hardware according to Anandtech.

 

[AGENT_P6]

Cumulatively the hdmi's are about 4 metres/yards. (2 of them; 1 from computer out to reciever in, 1 from receiver out to tv in) I always thought HDMI was a superior cord for video and audio transmission than all others on the market. Is DVI or VGA more capable then?

Yes I do run 1920x1080 cuz its a standard sized HDTV with a 16:9 ratio...does 16:9 vs 16:10 vs 4:3 affect framerate performance at all?

I guess I'll try the VGA directly to the tv tonight after work and see what happens

 

[know of fence]

Cumulatively the hdmi's are about 4 metres/yards. (2 of them; 1 from computer out to reciever in, 1 from receiver out to tv in) I always thought HDMI was a superior cord for video and audio transmission than all others on the market. Is DVI or VGA more capable then?

Yes I do run 1920x1080 cuz its a standard sized HDTV with a 16:9 ratio...does 16:9 vs 16:10 vs 4:3 affect framerate performance at all?

I've had some trouble (screen going off and on) using HDMI, untill Intel released new drivers for integrated graphics. Also there are limitations on what signal output (resolution) it supports, especially audio. And there are different versions of cables available. Even though VGA signal may get blurry and distorted with a badly shielded cable, it always works.

Because many graphical effects apply on a pixel per pixel basis, performance scales to the total pixel number. Basically ~2 Megapixels for 1080p and 1 Megapixel for 720p. Modern PCs may be 10 times more capable than consoles, but they also do sometimes render those games at 10 times higher resolutions, (compared to 640x360 = 0.2 MP) which on consoles are scaled up to fit any screen.