[SOLVED] Am I bottlenecking somewhere?

Dec 27, 2019
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Hello,

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with my system right now. I think I might be bottlenecking somewnhere (my guess is the CPU) and I was hoping some of you would be able to help me figure out what I should be upgrading if anything.

First here are my specs:

stock DDR3 HP Pavilion motherboard (Pegatron Memphis-S to be more specific)
Intel i7-4790 CPU (not overclockable)
2 sticks of hyperx fury 8gb DDR3 RAM (16gb total)
Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 3GB graphics card (overclocked)
Samsung 850 EVO SSD (500GB)
WD Black HDD (2TB)
Stock HP Pavilion case with a single 120mm intake fan I added on the front with some holes drilled in the case for ventilation.
2 monitors: 1x 144hz 24" BenQ 1920x1080 monitor and 1x 60hz 24" Asus VS247H-P
500w Power Supply (maybe this is the problem?)

So here's what's going on:

In Lord of the Rings Online (I know, super old game) I can't get my fps up to 144hz to take advantage of my lovely 144hz monitor. Here's a screenshot from in game with the RivaTuner Statistics thingy on. My character in game is in a typical environment (The Shire) with lots of grass and trees and a few other npc models walking about. This screenshot was with my normal settings I play on that I've found to be the most playable without sacrificing too much. (The insert images thing isn't working for me if someone can tell me how else I can put it in)

View: https://imgur.com/yLvyLeL


As you can see, I've got it to 115fps, but both my cpu and gpu are only pushing around 20%. If they're only at 20% why don't I have fps up to the cap I put on it with Rivatuner at 144hz?

From what I understand about LOTRO, it is a very CPU bound game which makes sense since the game is old and the graphics aren't that great. So does that mean my cpu is holding back itself and also my graphics card? That's my theory, but I'm asking here to hope for some more informed guidance.

Here is a screenshot with the game at max or ultra settings

View: https://imgur.com/5AJTgfM


As you can see, neither component is anywhere near maxing out % usage. So what is holding my system back?

When I play WOW Classic, my game never dips below 144hz and my cpu usage looks about the same as these, but my GPU goes up to about 77% usage and the game looks and plays great, but I believe I was running WOW back in the day on a potato laptop, so that doesn't surprise me.

What should I upgrade or is there something else going on here? I might try an experiment later with a more modern game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and see how that goes. But I was hoping this information will be sufficient to come up with a solution. I get paid on friday and I'm ready to replace the motherboard, cpu, and ram if i have to or get a new graphics card or whatever is necessary.


My ultimate goal is to play every game as close to 144fps as possible.



UPDATE: Here's a test I did with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Here's on custom settings with various things turned down to make the game run smoother

View: https://imgur.com/UwrJmef


And here's on max settings

View: https://imgur.com/qaSZCth



I kind of expected as much with a newer Directx 12 game The game was actually playable on max settings at 59fps but when you have a 144hz monitor 59fps or ever the 80 whatever on lowered settings isn't going to cut it for me.

In general, my system seemed to run as expected with Modern Warfare, but for some reason LOTRO has it acting strange. Maybe it's just because LOTRO isn't optimized for modern systems idk. What do you guys think?
 
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Solution
I found this on reddit and it explains how poorly LOTRO is setup for modern computers and is probably the reason I'm getting low cpu and gpu usage. Which is kind of a relief that maybe my system isn't to blame. Also my experiment with Modern Warfare proved that my cpu is handling the games just fine at 60% whereas my graphics card is topping out at nearly 100% suggesting that if I want to get higher fps in modern gpu intensive games, I will need to upgrade my gpu. Here is the thing I found on reddit:

Whmagill

Gladden- Valamar -OTG11 points · 2 years ago

You are correct. Your "beefy" hardware has minimal impact on LOTRO performance.
The LOTRO game engine is a 32-bit client, basically designed and written in roughly 2006...
Dec 27, 2019
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Added some more details to my original post. I'm wondering if my 500w power supply is too low since i added a few extra things to my computer. I put all my components in a power consumption calculator and it said my computer should draw around 563w which is over my 500w power supply. Maybe I should start there?
 
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Dec 27, 2019
12
0
20
I found this on reddit and it explains how poorly LOTRO is setup for modern computers and is probably the reason I'm getting low cpu and gpu usage. Which is kind of a relief that maybe my system isn't to blame. Also my experiment with Modern Warfare proved that my cpu is handling the games just fine at 60% whereas my graphics card is topping out at nearly 100% suggesting that if I want to get higher fps in modern gpu intensive games, I will need to upgrade my gpu. Here is the thing I found on reddit:

Whmagill

Gladden- Valamar -OTG11 points · 2 years ago

You are correct. Your "beefy" hardware has minimal impact on LOTRO performance.
The LOTRO game engine is a 32-bit client, basically designed and written in roughly 2006, for XP and DX9.
Consequently, it can only use one core of any multi-core processor, and knows nothing about contemporary graphics cards.
The primary items impacting LOTRO performance - "TODAY" - is that you have 4-8 GB of memory, and a Solid State Drive. The nature of the "Land Block" system used by the game-engine means that you are constantly doing I/O as you move across the landscape.
Performance in high population areas, such as Bree or the Moors are impacted by everybody else, not just your character. All the assorted graphics "frills" -- glowie hands, flowing capes, mounts, pets, etc. -- all require that position and activity data is constantly being transmitted back and forth between your system and the servers AND EVERYBODY ELSE's SYSTEMS!!! Consequently, your performance is impacted by the SLOWEST system being displayed in your Land-block.
We (LOTRO Players) are hoping this may change in the near future. Hopefully, the next Producer's Letter, expected around the turn of the year, will announce a new 64-bit game-engine (game-client), which will address many of theses issues. . . but don't hold your breath! We've been waiting for this since 2012 when the 32-bit Mac client was introduced for 64-bit Mac OSX! Sigh.
 
Solution