CPU bottleneck in TC The Division at 3440x1440?

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kol12

kol12

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Jan 26, 2015
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I've just got my 34" ultrawide G-Sync and the 1080 Ti FTW3 and I'm having some trouble with Tom Clancy's The Division with frequent fps drops detracting from the smooth 90 fps gameplay I'm looking for.

I'm uncertain whether it's a CPU or GPU bottleneck but the CPU avg usage of 85% is a lot higher at this 3440x1440 90 fps than it was at lower res 60 fps. I have the 4690k at 4.3 Ghz...

I've dropped the settings in The Division all the way back to medium but the judders continue, so I wonder if this is pointing more to a CPU bottleneck?
 
Solution
atomicWAR
Yeah at this point more threads, not a platform upgrade to same number of threads, is usually the answer. I am so glad this worked out well for you.
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I'm just curious if you are using the DirectX 12 or 11 renderer? Have you tried both and have a preference for one or the other?
 
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@clonazepam

I'm using Direct X 11 and I've never tried DX12 with The Division but I certainly can give it a go. My understanding when trying both DX11 and DX12 in BF1 based on widespread reports was that DX11 was still better but things could constantly be changing. Last time I enabled DX12 in BF1 I could hardly see any difference in fps and CPU usage seemed roughly the same...

So I had a good play through The Division last night with 3-4 other players in the Dark Zone with a mix of med-high graphics settings and there was a lot of fps drops in battles usually between 70-90 fps. Now I noticed in those situations that the CPU was pegging at 100% almost constantly rather than the GPU which was at 80-90% sometimes a little higher but only very briefly and never 100%. I'm going to take a guess that these pvp and team playing situations hit the CPU hard and is likely what's causing the 70 fps lows, thoughts?

Another thing noticed was what appeared to be server lag which hit the fps even harder sometimes halting down to 10-20 fps briefly. The 70-90 fps I think appear more to be a hardware bottleneck and I'm leaning on the CPU...
 
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@atomicWAR

So do you think Intel has been adjusting some of the upcoming X299 and Coffeelake CPU's in response to AMD's Ryzen? Most of this stuff was in the works before AMD Ryzen was announced right?

Do you think AMD Ryzen will be forcing dev's to start developing for higher cores/threads? I'm guessing 4C/8T will become entry level mainstream pretty soon...
 
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The short answer to all of that is yes. They increased the core count for HEDT (x299) then moved up coffee lake by a quarter or three. With AMD forcing the core war and Intel quick to answer, I believe devs will be quick to start utilizing those cores/threads. I have been saying since the launch of Ryzen that 4C/8T was going to become the new entry level to gaming for mainstream and 4C/4T will be much like 2C/4T has been prior...just barely enough to game. This was already happening in part due to the 8 core consoles as games prted to PC like BF1 can already take 8+ threads no problem. Having a core war will only speed up the rate at which devs utilize them properly.
 
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@atomicWAR

I take it you mean moved up Coffee Lake as in delayed it to make adjustments? I thought the rumor that Coffee Lake would introduce a mainstream 6 core CPU had been around for some time, but I forget now if this was after or before the launch of Ryzen... If this is true I guess the 6C/12T will be the new i7... It will be interesting and I'll have to think carefully about what CPU might be most appropriate when it appears a new build becomes necessary and I'm guessing this is going to slowly start happening from now on.

I've managed to pick up a not to used 4790K for a reasonable price. The pattern of fps drops since I got my 1080 Ti and ultrawide seem to indicate the CPU bottlenecking (4690K). It was a very minor bottleneck back on my 1920x1200 but appears to be more a medium level bottleneck on the new setup, never the less still a top chip and not sure whether I'll sell or keep it.

Because the 4790K is still a very good chip it's used price is holding steady right now... Hopefully this will buy me some upgrade time and improve my current setup in the mean time...

 
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I am glad to see adding 4 more threads fixed your situation in the mean time. I hate telling i5 owners their chips are a bottle-neck in some games but as you have seen the sad truth is, they are. Fortunately it is not a lot of games, yet. I think 4C/8T owners like yourself will have a year or two more before being forced into an upgrade. I was in a thread yesterday where someone was encouraging a i5 7600K over an i7 7700K for a gaming build. Unless budget dictates strictly otherwise, I could not in good faith make that kind of recommendation to a gamer in this day and age. I respond to too many threads like yours where simply adding a few more threads fixes performance issues. It's nothing huge frame rate wise but going from a stuttering mess to smooth even if it is only 2-10 FPS makes a big difference in your game experience. Anyways sorry for the spread out posts. Had just got up and my day was a little fragmented. Regardless enjoy your smoother gaming experience!!
 
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Well the CPU only just arrived today so I haven't installed yet and I've brought a Corsair H110i for it to replace my H80i which hopefully should keep it cooler and quieter.

If the benchmarks I've seen are anything to go by the i7 can mean the difference from 10-20 fps in highly threaded games and this makes more a difference in higher framerates. This was a 4690K/4790K benchmark comparison I saw. If I were still running a 1070 at 1200/1440p I think the 4690K would still do the job, clock it higher and it will probably gain some headroom. It was really only a minor bottleneck at that resolution even on some of the 8 threaded games. It's only now that I'm running a 1080 Ti at ultrawide between 75-100fps that I ca see the need for the extra horse power.

Two years is about what I'd hope to get out of the 4790K, AMD Ryzen and upcoming Coffeelake, X299 does appear to be the beginning of a change, probably more from a core/thread perspective. I'm not sure what is expected in terms of IPC increases in the future?

Yeah looking forward to getting the 4790K in there, I'm sure it will make a smoother gameplay, will write back after it's installed. BTW the Asus PG348Q is a beautiful monitor to game on and the 1080 Ti is a monster!
 
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I've got the 4790K and H110i up and running and sure enough the 4790K is exactly what was needed. I played The Division for over an hour and my frame rate never once budged from 85 fps even in large battles with other players which is where I was having trouble, the difference in smoothness is hugely clear, I felt invincible lol. Then had a quick play of BF1 MP and it was just as rock solid at 80 fps. I think I'm a happy chappy.
 
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The guy I brought the 4790K off had upgraded to a 7700K system only to realise he couldn't see much real world difference between the two CPU's and that the 7700K was only faster in benchmarks. I'm glad I saved myself the trouble and what a huge difference. Cheers!
 
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