i7-7700 + GTX 1080 - Surprisingly low FPS?

[taigianni]

- i7-7700 at stock clock
- Strix GTX 1080
- 8gb DDR4 2400mhz RAM
- MSI B250 PC MATE motherboard
- Corsair CX750M PSU
- Two SSDs and a HDD (Can't remember specific models, OS in on SSD)

I'm getting surprisingly low FPS in games currently, and I've checked the temps and usage of both my GPU and CPU and they seem on average and where they should be when gaming. I have looked everywhere and found so many different 'solutions'. I see people running setups with worse specs getting better FPS in-games. One game in particular, Escape From Tarkov, is renowned for being pretty bad optimisation wise, however I felt little increase in performance when I upgraded from a bloody R9 270x 4gb to a 1080!! I also see people running 1060s getting better FPS on higher settings, I average about 30-40 on medium, with some settings on low, on the bigger maps (Shoreline for those who have played it). Now for EFT this seems reasonable, but that was on 1080p... the GTX 1080 should be able to rip through almost any game from what I've read. It's like when things get 'busy', or there's a lot of stuff to render, it just struggles. It happens in Squad, runs at 70-80 on medium to high on 1.75x scaling, then drops to 40-50 when it starts getting busy in towns or looking in the direction of said 'action'.

I tinkered with all of the NVidia control panel settings and didn't see a massive increase. One thing I could see being an issue is that my OS was carried over from an older build and was also an upgrade from Win 7. It's now having activation issues which is why I wanted to do a fresh install in the first place, but now I come to think of it, it could be the cause of my FPS issues. I'm going to do that fresh install tonight, completely formatting my SSD, running a fresh install of Win 10, as well as all my drivers, so I will update once I've done that.

My question is, are there any other reasons you guys might have for my 'lack of performance'? Any known issues that could be causing problems? Any settings I'm missing? (Tried maximum performance and power settings etc.) My idea is, if the Win 10 reinstall doesn't work then I can come back to this thread by tonight and hopefully have some suggestions.

Sorry for the bible length read, but I feel like I needed detail, most other threads include unrelated information and just become a mess to read through and sort.

Thanks!

 

[Karadjgne]

Many times it's GeForce Experience, it's optimized for game quality on screen, no so much for performance of fps. This'll mean turning off 4k DSR. Also make sure Xbox DVR stuff is disabled.

 

[taigianni]

Many times it's GeForce Experience, it's optimized for game quality on screen, no so much for performance of fps. This'll mean turning off 4k DSR. Also make sure Xbox DVR stuff is disabled.

I'll remember to check that. I've played about with DSR and such, and I have my desktop sat at 1080p but it allows me to bump games into 1440p, so I presume there would be no issues having it on if I apply it per-application? I've seen Xbox DVR mentioned before, do you know where I can disable this from? Or how to disable it?

 

[photonboy]

SOFTWARE issue likely, so W10 reinstall + drivers etc should fix it.

*I recommend you run Unigine Valley and/or Heaven and write down your score (at least the average FPS) along with the EXACT SETTINGS you used. Here's my results:

Unigine Valley
-DX11, Ultra, x8AA, full screen, 2560x1440

GTX1080
- 68.4FPS avg
- 2863
- 32.7fps low
- 140.3fps high

If 1920x1080 it's probably closer to 2x those results.

Other:
CPU is fine if:
a) Intel CPU diagnostic shows good, and
b) Task Manager shows all cores/threads at proper CPU Speed (under load) so if set to show "all logical cores" or whatever in Task Manager you should see EIGHT graphs at maybe 4.2GHz (?) in Prime95 or in Intel CPU diagnostic once it stresses the CPU

OTHER:
For most people any big FPS issues are caused by:
1) CPU bottleneck, or
2) GPU bottleneck, or
3) run out of VRAM or system memory, or
4) settings are higher than similarly tested system

Basically if the BENCHMARK results are correct or close it's likely something about your game SETTINGS that is different.

It's best to compare BENCHMARK programs not games, and especially not ONLINE games to see if the PC hardware/drivers are generally working as they should.

 

[photonboy]

Hate to insult your intelligence, but make sure the monitor is connected to the VIDEO CARD not the motherboard.

I'm also going to run Valley at 1920x1080 and post results below.

Other:
- Unigine Valley does show some incorrect settings as well
- If you use an ONSCREEN DISPLAY application for "GPU Usage" it should show 95% or higher for most of the Unigine Valley scenes (will drop between scenes and a third or less do drop due to CPU load at times in the scenes)
- GPU frequency should be somewhere between 1800MHz and 2050MHz under load depending on your overclock (unless CPU bottleneck or VSYNC/FPS cap creating an FPS bottleneck)

 

[taigianni]

SOFTWARE issue likely, so W10 reinstall + drivers etc should fix it.

*I recommend you run Unigine Valley and/or Heaven and write down your score (at least the average FPS) along with the EXACT SETTINGS you used. Here's my results:

Unigine Valley
-DX11, Ultra, x8AA, full screen, 2560x1440

GTX1080
- 68.4FPS avg
- 2863
- 32.7fps low
- 140.3fps high

If 1920x1080 it's probably closer to 2x those results.

Other:
CPU is fine if:
a) Intel CPU diagnostic shows good, and
b) Task Manager shows all cores/threads at proper CPU Speed (under load) so if set to show "all logical cores" or whatever in Task Manager you should see EIGHT graphs at maybe 4.2GHz (?) in Prime95 or in Intel CPU diagnostic once it stresses the CPU

OTHER:
For most people any big FPS issues are caused by:
1) CPU bottleneck, or
2) GPU bottleneck, or
3) run out of VRAM or system memory, or
4) settings are higher than similarly tested system

Basically if the BENCHMARK results are correct or close it's likely something about your game SETTINGS that is different.

It's best to compare BENCHMARK programs not games, and especially not ONLINE games to see if the PC hardware/drivers are generally working as they should.

Hate to insult your intelligence, but make sure the monitor is connected to the VIDEO CARD not the motherboard.

I'm also going to run Valley at 1920x1080 and post results below.

Other:
- Unigine Valley does show some incorrect settings as well
- If you use an ONSCREEN DISPLAY application for "GPU Usage" it should show 95% or higher for most of the Unigine Valley scenes (will drop between scenes and a third or less do drop due to CPU load at times in the scenes)
- GPU frequency should be somewhere between 1800MHz and 2050MHz under load depending on your overclock (unless CPU bottleneck or VSYNC/FPS cap creating an FPS bottleneck)

Don't worry, intelligence not insulted It's definitely connected to the GPU, although just to clear my conscience I will check when I get home. Knowing me, that's definitely a mistake I'm capable of making (On a bad day, I promise).

I will test using Unigine before I change anything when I get home. I'll copy the results down as well as the settings, then do the fresh install of windows and try again once all the drivers are installed etc. I wouldn't expect it to be a bottleneck on the GPU or the CPU, but i'll keep it in mind. I will be annoyed if the Win 10 reinstall doesn't do anything the Unigine results are close, because I will be forever stuck in a loop of trying to figure out why my performance lacks and what the hell i'm doing wrong

Thank you!

 

[photonboy]

Many times it's GeForce Experience, it's optimized for game quality on screen, no so much for performance of fps. This'll mean turning off 4k DSR. Also make sure Xbox DVR stuff is disabled.

I'll remember to check that. I've played about with DSR and such, and I have my desktop sat at 1080p but it allows me to bump games into 1440p, so I presume there would be no issues having it on if I apply it per-application? I've seen Xbox DVR mentioned before, do you know where I can disable this from? Or how to disable it?

Adding DSR options like 2x simply adds RESOLUTION choices to games. FPS will be almost identical to the same resolution on a monitor with those actual pixels (game renders at chosen resolution then just downscales to native monitor resolution so essentially a form of anti-aliasing).

GAMEDVR is:
start->settings-> Gaming-> GAMEDVR

Just make sure auto record is off. ("record in the background while I'm playing a game")

 

[taigianni]

Brilliant, I'll check that and report back!

 

[photonboy]

Unigine Valley at 1920x1080, DX11, Ultra, x8AA, full screen (GTX1080):

106FPS average
4429 score

If your score is close that (I'd expect within 5%) then reinstalling Windows won't help performance. In which case it's probably a game setting though your EFT results don't seem to bear that out.

Anyway, start there. Also, do a clean start of Windows and don't run a web browser.

*there are weird cases where the GPU is stuck in "2D" mode or otherwise stuck at a low frequency due to a software/driver issue. Installing Windows would likely fix that.

I've seen that issue caused by overclocking or other GPU software, and sometimes DDU then Nvidia reinstall (custom-> clean option) fixes that.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

GEFORCE EXPERIENCE:
I'd never use this. It basically tries to apply settings for games within this program that are listed based on the NATIVE RESOLUTION (i.e. 1920x1080) that aims for 40FPS VSYNC OFF, though if it maxes the settings you can go above 40FPS.

I've never found it to be ideal since often dropping a few settings in demanding games gets similar quality but allows 60FPS VSYNC ON (I hate VSYNC OFF too as I hate screen tearing so eventually I'll just get a GSYNC monitor).

40FPS to me would be fine if:
a) game was slower-paced (i.e. Tomb Raider), and
b) GSYNC monitor so no screen tearing, or high-refresh rate monitor (i.e. 144Hz) which would show less screen tearing than 60Hz

 

[Karadjgne]

DSR is a Dynamic Super Resolution. Basically, to get a better, cleaner picture the cpu sends the game code to the gpu, which then renders the picture in 4k (most common setting) and then downgrades the picture to the set resolution, in your case that's mostly 1080p with some 1440p. In layman's terms, the gpu is working 4x as hard to render the picture, then is adding a further step to downgrade. End result is a huge amount of wasted effort if fps is what is more important.

 

[taigianni]

DSR is a Dynamic Super Resolution. Basically, to get a better, cleaner picture the cpu sends the game code to the gpu, which then renders the picture in 4k (most common setting) and then downgrades the picture to the set resolution, in your case that's mostly 1080p with some 1440p. In layman's terms, the gpu is working 4x as hard to render the picture, then is adding a further step to downgrade. End result is a huge amount of wasted effort if fps is what is more important.

I was still having my FPS issues even before I considered turning on any form of DSR, so everything I was running, was running at 1080p. I didn't see any difference in FPS running games at 1440p using DSR.

 

[taigianni]

Unigine Valley at 1920x1080, DX11, Ultra, x8AA, full screen (GTX1080):

106FPS average
4429 score

If your score is close that (I'd expect within 5%) then reinstalling Windows won't help performance. In which case it's probably a game setting though your EFT results don't seem to bear that out.

Anyway, start there. Also, do a clean start of Windows and don't run a web browser.

*there are weird cases where the GPU is stuck in "2D" mode or otherwise stuck at a low frequency due to a software/driver issue. Installing Windows would likely fix that.

I've seen that issue caused by overclocking or other GPU software, and sometimes DDU then Nvidia reinstall (custom-> clean option) fixes that.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

GEFORCE EXPERIENCE:
I'd never use this. It basically tries to apply settings for games within this program that are listed based on the NATIVE RESOLUTION (i.e. 1920x1080) that aims for 40FPS VSYNC OFF, though if it maxes the settings you can go above 40FPS.

I've never found it to be ideal since often dropping a few settings in demanding games gets similar quality but allows 60FPS VSYNC ON (I hate VSYNC OFF too as I hate screen tearing so eventually I'll just get a GSYNC monitor).

40FPS to me would be fine if:
a) game was slower-paced (i.e. Tomb Raider), and
b) GSYNC monitor so no screen tearing, or high-refresh rate monitor (i.e. 144Hz) which would show less screen tearing than 60Hz

Well, I did a Unigine benchmark, my results using the exact same settings as you;
- Average FPS: 76.5
- Max FPS: 152.8
- Min FPS: 8.8
- Score -- 1928

Then I realized that I did a Unigine Heaven benchmark, so I downloaded Unigine Valley and gave that a go. Results are as follows;
- Average FPS: 66.7
- Max FPS: 125.1
- Min FPS: 23.8
- Score -- 2789

And I think the temperature maxed around 68-70 degrees (Celsius). So yeah, exact same settings as you. Almost 2000 less score. Definitely gonna be reinstalling windows. Might shift my GPU to a different slot if possible, see if that makes a difference. *I think* this has simplified the problem a little bit. It also stated it was running off a Windows 8 platform, even though under System in control panel it says i'm running a 64 bit Windows 10 Pro. Only makes me think it is the OS after all.

 

[photonboy]

Huh... assuming those results are correct I can only conclude one of two reasons:

1) CPU bottleneck (highly unlikely, especially if you run Intel CPU diagnostic and it passes), or

2) GPU frequency stuck low due to NVidia driver conflict with Windows 10 or other software

Other:
It's highly unlikely changing the PCIe slot would help as even PCIe v3.0 x4 (instead of PCIe v3.0 x16) bandwidth would give higher results.

If the slot was actually defective it would be causing other problems not simply a lower FPS.

OTHER:
If you have a spare SSD or HDD that's at least 60GB you could:
a) unhook all other HDD's and SSD's
b) install W10 clean
c) let MS Updates finish (Start->Settings->Update & Security)
d) install the latest NVidia drivers, Unigine Valley then retest

Or just plan for a clean install regardless, especially since there could be OTHER issues due to moving an OS drive from one PC to another without a clean install.

Other:
Most GAMES do not need to be redownloaded if you do things properly. For example, with STEAM you can:
a) just copy the "Steamapps" folder if it's on the OS drive
b) reinstall Steam
c) create a new folder from within Steam settings on secondary drive (i.e. "E:\Steam") and copy the folder into that

UPlay, Origin and Blizzard are a bit trickier. Blizzard is mostly just pointing to the proper link if the folder is still there, UPlay is similar, and Origin is a bit tricky... I generally COPIED the entire game folder, then let the game start the download again (which may or may not delete the game contents), PAUSE the download, copy back over the initial folder, then VERIFY the content... worked every time (oh, then delete the copied folder).

GAME SAVES are usually in the "Documents" folder somewhere (Google specific game save locations) so I'd just copy the entire thing then copy back on a per-game basis if there wasn't a cloud backup that just restores the save anyway.

 

[taigianni]

So, I ran the benchmark again after reinstalling windows and adjusting all of my power settings to high performance, in both Windows itself and nVidia control panel. These are the results;

In 1080p
- Average FPS: 108.5
- Max FPS: 205.9
- Min FPS: 28.8
- Score -- 4541

In 1440p
- Average FPS: 107.5
- Max FPS: 203.2
- Min FPS: 20.2
- Score -- 4496

So, A LOT better, but it still drops down very low. HOWEVER, I watched both benchmarks, and the only time I witnessed it drop below even 60 fps (which is rarely got close too) is in between the scenes, on the fade-in fade-out. I'm unsure whether this is important or not, i'm not sure.

One thing that surprises me is that there is minimal difference between a 1080p render and a 1440p render. I should note I was not using DSR, I selected 1440p from the options within the benchmark engine itself.

I will run diagnostics on my CPU, and seeing as i've done a fresh install of Win 10 AND the nVidia drivers I would expect them to be working fine, unless i've gotten ridiculously unlucky. I will also try the PCIe slot because, well... why not?

It's looking up.

 

[taigianni]

Update:

Run a diagnostic test. Passed with flying colours. Maybe in that areas my system is slightly deficient hardware wise, RAM maybe? I dunno, but i'm pretty happy with the results. Will test a game with it and post the details.

 

[Karadjgne]

Almost all games range between @3-12Gb of system ram usage. 8Gb is the recommended minimum, 16Gb the recommended maximum. Funny how that works out since kits only come in either 8Gb or 16Gb, nothing in between. If the game is especially ram heavy, which is a strong possibility and maxing out that 8Gb, you'll get notices of 'memory hard faults' in event viewer. That not an error or anything damaging, it's the windows name for when it accesses the virtual ram swap file on the hdd. Anything above @7Gb ram usage can do that. It'll definitely slow things down.

Unfortunately there's only 1 fix for hard fault errors, buy more ram.

 

[taigianni]

Almost all games range between @3-12Gb of system ram usage. 8Gb is the recommended minimum, 16Gb the recommended maximum. Funny how that works out since kits only come in either 8Gb or 16Gb, nothing in between. If the game is especially ram heavy, which is a strong possibility and maxing out that 8Gb, you'll get notices of 'memory hard faults' in event viewer. That not an error or anything damaging, it's the windows name for when it accesses the virtual ram swap file on the hdd. Anything above @7Gb ram usage can do that. It'll definitely slow things down.

Unfortunately there's only 1 fix for hard fault errors, buy more ram.

Yeah, RAM is definitely on the list of things to upgrade, maybe a little further down the line though. It's nice that I will be getting what I need out of my system. Problem is, now that my system is actually running on full power, i've noticed a PSU fault. So I will be replacing that in less than a week from now, and I will be buying a legit key for Windows 10 Pro as I only installed the 'free' version hoping it would activate with my old dodgy copy, unfortunately not. Then... hopefully... I wont have anymore faults with my system, I think I will always be stuck in a loop of thinking something is wrong when I cannot max it, it's like a new mindset I have after spending so much. It'll be hard to deter from thinking that it's always my system that is buggered, and not just poor optimisation etc... I'll get over it

Thank you for all of the help guys, no doubt I will be back here with an update if anything happens, or once I have my new PSU and a activated copy of Windows (Looking forward to getting rid of that crappy background). I'll activate it with a Microsoft account linked so hopefully if anything happens I can just relink it and be okay.

Again, thanks all! I'll brb