GTX 960 - Very, Very Low FPS on GTA 5

[king_dj2]

I recently upgraded from a GTX 750 ti to a GTX 960 2 GB VRAM thinking it would boost my gaming experience.

It turns out to be quite frustrating actually. On GTA 5 I'm not able to go beyond 30 fps. In fact the FPS keeps decreasing and then rising... 30 fps - 22 fps - 19 fps - 11 fps - 5 fps....and then picks up and the cycle repeats itself.

My system specs :

CPU - i5 6600
RAM - 8 GB
GPU - GTX 960

I have unplugged the Internal Graphics.

I uninstalled the NVidia Drivers and did a clean install.

I've tweaked and played with the settings but to no avail.

My system is relatively new - around 2 weeks old.

What's even more frustrating is that I get this pathetic cycling fps on Cities: Skylines too. The game isn't graphic intensive.

 

[gbb0330]

low RAM ?

 

[king_dj2]

They will not take back the card if it isn't faulty. So, are you saying that GTA 5 will not run with the GTX 960?

 

[gbb0330]

They will not take back the card if it isn't faulty. So, are you saying that GTA 5 will not run with the GTX 960?

clearly it will run, but not as well as you would like it

 

[king_dj2]

I just want it to run without stuttering...and those terrible fps drops to 5 fps, 9 fps, 11 fps......It's disgusting. I won't mind a constant 25 to 30 fps..but not 5!!!

 

[gbb0330]

I just want it to run without stuttering...and those terrible fps drops to 5 fps, 9 fps, 11 fps......It's disgusting. I won't mind a constant 25 to 30 fps..but not 5!!!

well, since you are stuck with the video card, lets take a look at memory usage. open resource monitor, go to the memory tab and keep an eye on it while playing the game. my suspicion is that you are very low on memory. upgrading to 16 is definitely not going to hurt your performance.

 

[maxalge]

I recently upgraded from a GTX 750 ti to a GTX 960 2 GB VRAM thinking it would boost my gaming experience.

It turns out to be quite frustrating actually. On GTA 5 I'm not able to go beyond 30 fps. In fact the FPS keeps decreasing and then rising... 30 fps - 22 fps - 19 fps - 11 fps - 5 fps....and then picks up and the cycle repeats itself.

My system specs :

CPU - i5 6600
RAM - 8 GB
GPU - GTX 960

I have unplugged the Internal Graphics.

I uninstalled the NVidia Drivers and did a clean install.

I've tweaked and played with the settings but to no avail.

My system is relatively new - around 2 weeks old.

What's even more frustrating is that I get this pathetic cycling fps on Cities: Skylines too. The game isn't graphic intensive.

monitor cpu temps, sounds like thermal throttling

 

[ckesimli]

Are you kidding me right now? I was able to play GTA V with a Phenom 2 paired with a GTX 660Ti at high settings 1080p at around 40-50 FPS stable for crying out loud. Please do not give advice to people if you honestly think that a GTX 960 is supposed to give 10-15 FPS in an old game such as GTA V or get back to reality, quickly. Telling people to return their cards and get a better one is proof that you are not qualified to give an advice to ANYONE.

To the OP: Disregard anyone who says LOW RAM to an 8 Gig or GTX 960 is not enough to run it, clearly they have no clue what they are talking about.

It may be a thermal issue, such as bad thermal paste application, bad fan install etc. as maxalge pointed out. Your stock CPU cooler should be enough to keep temps under check if it is installed properly. Just stress test your CPU using Prime95 and monitor your temps and CPU usage with your motherboards software suite or a 3rd party application such as SpeedFan. Should give you a pretty good idea if your CPU is behaving correctly.

If it is not behaving correctly and you see usage decreases after exceeding a certain temp, it means that your CPU is thermal throttling to cool itself down. As I said, the stock fan should be able to handle things for the most part if it is installed properly.

If it is, time to check the GPU (I highly doubt it anythings wrong here since Cities:Skylines is a CPU intensive game) Download Unigine Heaven and run it for 20-30 minutes while monitoring your GPU usage and temps, which should give you an idea how hot your card is running and if it is thermal throttling. Then you can benchmark to compare your score with other users to see if your card is running as it should be.

 

[SammChisnall]

Put it this way my i7 4790k runs at pretty much full load running GTA on High/Ultra so depending on your settings it could be the CPU thats struggling. Also check the advanced settings to see how much VRAM the game is using.

 

[RobCrezz]

Are you kidding me right now? I was able to play GTA V with a Phenom 2 paired with a GTX 660Ti at high settings 1080p at around 40-50 FPS stable for crying out loud. Please do not give advice to people if you honestly think that a GTX 960 is supposed to give 10-15 FPS in an old game such as GTA V or get back to reality, quickly. Telling people to return their cards and get a better one is proof that you are not qualified to give an advice to ANYONE.

To the OP: Disregard anyone who says LOW RAM to an 8 Gig or GTX 960 is not enough to run it, clearly they have no clue what they are talking about.

It may be a thermal issue, such as bad thermal paste application, bad fan install etc. as maxalge pointed out. Your stock CPU cooler should be enough to keep temps under check if it is installed properly. Just stress test your CPU using Prime95 and monitor your temps and CPU usage with your motherboards software suite or a 3rd party application such as SpeedFan. Should give you a pretty good idea if your CPU is behaving correctly.

If it is not behaving correctly and you see usage decreases after exceeding a certain temp, it means that your CPU is thermal throttling to cool itself down. As I said, the stock fan should be able to handle things for the most part if it is installed properly.

If it is, time to check the GPU (I highly doubt it anythings wrong here since Cities:Skylines is a CPU intensive game) Download Unigine Heaven and run it for 20-30 minutes while monitoring your GPU usage and temps, which should give you an idea how hot your card is running and if it is thermal throttling. Then you can benchmark to compare your score with other users to see if your card is running as it should be.

+1
Well said.

 

[king_dj2]

Thanks for the responses!

How do I monitor GPU usage with all these programs while playing a game?

 

[ckesimli]

MSI afterburner or ASUS gpu tweak

 

[king_dj2]

Okay, so I installed and ran MSI afterburner.

I monitored CPU and GPU stats on Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim. This is what I got -

GPU: 42%, 47 degrees Celsius, 47%, 44% (I don't know what these last two % mean)

CPU: 90 degress Celsius!!! 61%

MEM: 882 MB

RAM: 2840 MB

I hadn't added Fan speed to the OSD but I noted that it was set to 44% in the MSI interface.

 

[sizzling]

Wow looks like you have a serious cpu overheating problem. That will be causing the cpu to underclock itself to stop it from getting any hotter. You need to check your cooler and thermal paste.

 

[RobCrezz]

Yeah your CPU is overheating and throttling, causing the performance issues. Agree with the above.

As your system is very new, I suspect the cpu cooler hasnt been fitted correctly. Some of the push pins may not be locked in, holding it down.

 

[king_dj2]

I wonder if I should fit the cooler in myself or get help, being the impatient person that I am. I don't even know what it looks like being that I wasn't even present when the technician was setting up the system.

The overheating is happening very quickly it seems. Because, hardly a minute into the games, the FPS starts to tank to 1-5 FPS.

I mentioned that I noticed the fans speeds set at 44% in the MSI Afterburner interface. Do you think that the fans have been set to under-perform? Should I set them to 100%?

Do I need to change any settings in BIOS?

 

[RobCrezz]

No, the GPU temperature is fine. Its the CPU cooler. Get the tech who built it to fix it.

 

[ckesimli]

It doesn't hurt to check the BIOS for some irregularities, I am sure you can find some default configurations for your BIOS and CPU, compare it to what you are running currently. Check your CPU fan profile, core voltage and frequencies in the BIOS. If it heats up that quickly, your fan may not even be plugged in.

 

[tas_kuris]

Well, with my old gtx 760 and high settings suggested by geforce experience I was running at ~70 fps no problem. I just had to change dx11 to dx10 to run it smooth with no fps dips to 30 as it was with dx11. And since i don't see any drastic difference in game its ok for me.

 

[king_dj2]

I will try to send a picture of the system. How do I send the picture?

I can confirm that the tech that put it together did not apply any thermal paste at all.

Won't the CPU have a built-in fan to cool it? I did get a separate fan but the tech felt that it wasn't necessary because the CPU already had one and it's just lying about my room.

 

[king_dj2]

okay...will take a picture and post one as soon as possible....

 

[Mousemonkey]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3210751/cpu-overheating-understanding-bios-reading.html