[SOLVED] FPS Drops/Performance Issues - is my GPU (1060) faulty?

[mjmcdonagh1]

TLDR; Having performance issues with a lot of games. Sometimes I come across a game I just can't run. I picked up Red Dead 2 on the Steam Sale last week, and even at 720p low settings I am peaking at 19FPS. Spec and troubleshooting steps below. I know it's not exactly the most modern or high end kit, but I don't think I should be seeing performance as poor as I am? If anyone can work out what is going on (especially if it doesn't involve me buying a new graphics card...) I'd be very grateful!

Windows 10 Pro 20H2 19042.631 (x64)
Core i7 7700k @ 4.9GHz
Corsair H100i RGB PRO XT
ASUS Prime Z270-P
32GB (4x8GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz
GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (Palit)
Thermaltake Rome 750w 80+ Gold PSU
Disk 1 (OS) - Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD, 500GB
Disk 2 (Game Library) - Samsung 860 EVO SSD, 2TB
Disk 3 (Projects) - Samsung MZ-VPW1280 NVMe M.2 SSD, 128GB
Disk 4 (File Store) - Seagate Barracuda HDD 7200RPM 64MB Cache HDD, 1TB

I've watched the Digital foundry videos on Red Dead settings, and tried them every which way. Even on 720p low it's unplayable. Running the builtin benchmarking tool I see I'm peaking around 19FPS, averaging 8FPS, and dropping to 4FPS.

I had hoped the issue was that, previously, my Game Library was on a partition of the (now quite old) 1TB HDD. I decided to replace this with an SSD, and ended up replacing the PSU (previously a woefully underpowered Corsair 350w unit), CPU Cooler (previously a Cooler Master ML240L), added 16GB of the RAM, and both of the Samsung EVO drives.

I did a clean install of Windows (which was previously on the 128GB SSD) and flashed the BIOS. After setup, I reinstalled Red Dead 2 (I didn't copy any of the game library over, so this was a clean install and the first game on the SSD).

I am playing on my Samsung TV (connected by HDMI) as my desk is currently been taking over for working from home (not that I have a gaming monitor or anything anyway!). It's a UE40J5100, so 40" 1080p.

Most games (like Jedi Fallen Order than I picked up in the same sale and completed earlier this week) run mostly fine at around 25-30FPS with some drastic drops during more demanding sequences. Though I don't have exact FPS numbers.

A few months ago I downloaded Call of Duty Warzone to play online with my brothers. And had the same experience as I am having with Red Dead 2.

This morning I've reinstalled Warzone to test (peaking around 15FPS, low settings, just on the menu...) and the Spyro Reignite Trilogy as I suspect that is a lot less demanding for comparison. I can run Spyro on 1080p Ultra and it's mostly very smooth. Though if I charge and too many enemies are on the seen it slows all the way down...

I'm concerned that maybe my GPU is dying? Or could it be the CPU? Any advice or suggestions are very much welcome and appreciated. Thanks!

 

[erifino10]

i think the system supposed to be getting way above 60 on games like jedi fallen order, try to run userbenchmark's benchmark to know which part is the cause

 

[mjmcdonagh1]

i think the system supposed to be getting way above 60 on games like jedi fallen order, try to run userbenchmark's benchmark to know which part is the cause

Thanks for the reply! So, embarrassingly - I didn't realise I could do that with UserBenchmark. Outstanding results for everything except the Graphics card which is "Very Poor" and in the 0th Percentile. My PC got a rating of "Nuclear Submarine" as a Desktop, but as a gaming machine it got "Surfboard".

Question answered anyway, looks like I'll have to consider a new GPU sometime.

Thanks again!

 

[erifino10]

Thanks for the reply! So, embarrassingly - I didn't realise I could do that with UserBenchmark. Outstanding results for everything except the Graphics card which is "Very Poor" and in the 0th Percentile. My PC got a rating of "Nuclear Submarine" as a Desktop, but as a gaming machine it got "Surfboard".

Question answered anyway, looks like I'll have to consider a new GPU sometime.

Thanks again!

np, also, have u tried clean install of the drivers?

 

[mjmcdonagh1]

np, also, have u tried clean install of the drivers?

I had yeah, I'd done a full clean install of Windows. I managed to source an EVGA GeForce GTX1060 3GB (so same GPU, just lower VRAM as the Palit GTX1060 I had) second hand for cheap. Having run the UserBenchmark again I'm at 59% "Gunboat" rating as a Gaming machine (up from 24% "Surfboard" ) and 102% "UFO" for Desktop (up from 97% Nuclear Submarine).

Running the Red Dead 2 Benchmark on 1080p, with the slider at the highest end of "balanced":

Original Card - Min 5.45687, Max 8.48538, Avg 6.98208
New Card - Min 24.3515, Max 53.4545, Avg 35.203

So it's made a huge difference. Guess the Graphics card was just faulty. Thanks again for your help, really appreciated!

 

[erifino10]

ok, nice to hear! Also, do you remember the evga 1060's score on userbenchmark? Because I want to compare the real world performance to my overclocked rx570, since i managed to get 55% score on the gpu itself

 

[mjmcdonagh1]

ok, nice to hear! Also, do you remember the evga 1060's score on userbenchmark? Because I want to compare the real world performance to my overclocked rx570, since i managed to get 55% score on the gpu itself

Absolutely - results below

Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB-£190
442,211 User benchmarks, average bench 53%
EVGA(3842 6162)
CLim: 2012 MHz, MLim: 2002 MHz, Ram: 3GB, Driver: 461.09
✓ Performing above expectations (81st percentile)

Bench - 54%
Above average

3D DX9
Lighting 65
Reflection 70.1
Parallax 63.5
52% 66.2 fps

3D DX10
MRender 66.8
Gravity 69.5
Splatting 64.3
56% 66.9 fps

3D DX11
<blank>

 

[erifino10]

Absolutely - results below

Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB-£190
442,211 User benchmarks, average bench 53%
EVGA(3842 6162)
CLim: 2012 MHz, MLim: 2002 MHz, Ram: 3GB, Driver: 461.09
✓ Performing above expectations (81st percentile)

Bench - 54%
Above average

3D DX9
Lighting 65
Reflection 70.1
Parallax 63.5
52% 66.2 fps

3D DX10
MRender 66.8
Gravity 69.5
Splatting 64.3
56% 66.9 fps

3D DX11
<blank>

holy shett, i did it lmaoo, my rx 570 4gb that has been oc d got around 54.4%, btw thx tho for replying me )