Need for Speed Rivals terrible framerate

[rh71]

I know they locked it to 30fps because it's a port and others have increased it manually but all it does is play the game at double speed if set at 60fps (not true for me - read on). My problem is I'd start out at 30fps and then after 1-2 mins I'm dropping to 10-15fps (from fraps) even though I have literally everything set to lowest, even at just 1280x720 resolution and windowed mode (full screen doesn't change anything).

My system: Radeon 6850, Q6600 quad core, 4GB RAM, Vista64.

MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows Vista SP2 32-bit
DirectX: DirectX 10
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Equivalent
Memory: 3 GB
Hard Drive: 18 GB
Graphics card (AMD): 512 MB RAM ATI Radeon 4870 or higher performance
Graphics card (NVIDIA): 512 MB RAM NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT or higher performance
Sound card: DirectX Compatible
Keyboard or Gamepad or Steering Wheel
DVD Rom Drive
Online: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection

RECOMMENDED
OS: Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
DirectX: DirectX 11
Processor: 3.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Equivalent
Memory: 4 GB
Hard Drive: 18 GB
Graphics card (AMD): 1024 MB RAM ATI Radeon 6950
Graphics card (NVIDIA): 1024 MB RAM NVIDIA GeForce GTX560
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Keyboard or Gamepad or Steering Wheel
DVD Rom Drive
Online: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection

It's pretty much unplayable it's moving so slow. I notice Vista64's Radeon drivers are version 13.4 (April 2013) but if I have WIN7 I can get the latest version 13.9. Also they recommend WIN7 anyway. Would this do anything to help me?

The fact that it started ok (not every time) then drops led me to think it was a heat issue - I notice it goes up to 70C under high load. But then I switch over to NFS Most Wanted (2012) and it runs perfectly fine at 50fps+. BF4 runs a bit choppy at low-med settings. But still, I'd expect this to at least run at 30fps. Maybe it's just bad optimization between the frostbite 3 engine and these drivers?

 

[felang]

Is your Q6600 overclocked?

 

[rh71]

No it's not O/C'd. Problem seems to have resolved itself or because of a patch they threw out on day 2. I also threw in a slot fan directly under the GPU and that is keeping temps down. Still stutters from time-to-time - hard to see why considering other racing games (like Grid 2 also) run so smoothly.

 

[BSim500]

It's just a VERY bad PC port. 2.8/10 Metacritic scores (28% averaged over 200 user reviews) are low for a reason. As are 2/5 Amazon scores. Ignoring the absurd hard-coded 30fps limit, Frostbite 3 seems way overhyped IMHO if all it can do is run a series of poorly optimized "next gen" games at 30fps with little to show for it and half its features missing (like FXAA) out of "design choice" (consolization)...

Is this the effect you're experiencing:-

"UPDATE: This was worse than I thought. I forced some anti-aliasing on in the NVIDIA control panel to play around (which works - FXAA and a bit of MSAA added in don't appear to break anything) and, after turning it up, found out that it appears *THE GAME ACTUALLY RUNS IN SLOW MOTION IF YOUR FRAME RATE DROPS BELOW 30 FPS.* That's right, folks. It appears that the speed at which the game simulates the world depends entirely on the frame rate. 30 fps = real time. 15 fps = half speed. 60 fps = double speed. If your computer is slow and runs the game at 20 fps, the world - your car, everything - dips to 2/3 speed. If you uncap the frame rate and run the game locked at 60 fps, the world will run at 2x speed. If you have a lot of cars and particles on screen and your frame rate dips to 25 fps, your car in game will take longer to get from 0 to 60. How this works with multiplayer racing, I have no idea."

Taken from this review:-
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-...R15ABLN7172PHN

 

[Aikouka]

Yep. I think TotalBiscuit linked to a post where someone showed off another command line switch that enables true 60 FPS play. So, you need two switches to make it work properly; however, the person went on to say that if you enable that but cannot maintain 60 FPS, the game will run poorly.