Gtx 460 768mb Interesting dilemma

[im_thinking1]

All righty so when I go to start up games all is dandy until i get into the game fps hang around 30 for every game and the gpu usage goes from 30% to 70% or so , now here's the weird thingy , I alt tab out or alt enter the gpu usage goes up to high 70's through 99 , 70's though 99 is what I want of course since it boost the frames to constant 50's and 60's 60 being the vsync cap.

So my question is , is my card getting stuck in 2d clocks when i first enter games? I check msi afterburner to monitor the clocks and i believe it is skipping between 405 and 800 being my core clock , should i check for the latest video bios for the card or alter them for myself? I'm pretty sure the 2d/3d clock is the problem but I thought i'd ask the question just for more technical info in case there is more to consider.

Thanks , I appreciate all responses/suggestions.

 

[im_thinking1]

No option to run vista sp2 under compatibility i'm on vista 64 bit atm

Edit: tried windows xp sp2 compatibility mode and no change still same gpu usage.

 

[notty22]

Look in your bios for power saving features and try changing them. Do one thing at a time, so you can find what might work and what doesn't.
I don't have this problem. Something is obviously not waking up.
Some flag withing the gpu driver/bios/OS

Do you have it so your cpu set to 100% min / 100% max under power options.
Processor power management.

 

[im_thinking1]

Yeah it's overclocked to 3.6 maximum frequency cool and quiet off

 

[im_thinking1]

Is it worth noting that upon installing the driver package that the first game i pull up and alt tab out of makes the desktop screen resolution 800x600 and i have to reset it to 1980x1050 also here's a horrendous drawing of what it looks like after the first time i alt tab out of a game after installing the driver package

 

[im_thinking1]

I'll go snoop in bios for a second and see what i find then come and see if you have any new suggestion's , thanks for your help btw.

Edit: didnt see anything in bios.

 

[im_thinking1]

Playing in windowed mode seems to work perfect then i alt enter for fullscreen and everything's fine but still i shouldn't have to do that so like you say something isnt registering somewhere at the initial start.

 

[im_thinking1]

Update tried 260.89 drivers didn't make a difference.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

have you tried playing around with "max pre-rendered frames" setting? Also turn v-sync off to see what happens. It kinda sounds like you being capped to the 30fps vsync and then alt tabbing/alt enter is overriding it to no vsync.

 

[im_thinking1]

Tried the rendered frames setting messing around with nothing changed , about the vsyn being 30 there might be some truth to that but why would the usage go to like 30% during lot of activity and drop to 18 fps where if i alt enter get the 90 percent usage they never drop lower than like 28fps and average 45 how do you overide the 2d clocks you gotta use nibitor? Cause thats the only thing left that i can think to try to change

 

[Andon48]

Try the 260.99 beta drivers, I got a noticeable performance increase from them over 260.89.

 

[im_thinking1]

Yeah i've been using the 260.99 drivers since they were released on nvidia main site.

 

[im_thinking1]

Best answer selected by im_thinking1.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey