Low CPU/GPU usage BF4 paired with low fps?

[Crazymania88]

Hi Guys,
Please read it, because if it was something easy, I could find and fix it.
but I need your help.

I've an issue in battlefield 4 for long time now,
I actually can fix most of things myself but I couldn't fix this.
It gonna be quite long story but please help me.

My Specs:
AMD FX 8320 @ 4.3 Ghz
Sapphire 7870 XT
G.Skill Ripjawsx 2x4gb 1600mhz Kit 9-9-9-24-2T
Thermaltake PSU 600Watt 70% Efficeny
Samsung HD160JJ 7200 RPM Sata II HDD
Asus m5a97 R2.0 Mobo with latest bios
Latest drivers (I've tried every driver from 13.5beta2 to 13.11betaV9.5 with fresh windows)
windows 8.1

When I play battlefield 4 Multiplayer my GPU usage drops to 50%-60% and same time
I've low FPS.

While GPU usage is 60%, CPU Usage is 60% and none of CPU cores are over 75% usage.
Going on:
The game has an option called "Resolution Scale" it's like Super Sampling.
Strange thing is ->
When I get low GPU usage and Low FPS.

I put this setting to 25% and I have a Mario Looking battlefield and say I've 48 FPS.
I change setting back to 135% and I still have 48 FPS.

We've 1 other system it has->
FX 8320
M5a97 R2.0
Kingston HyperX 1.65V same timing same size kit.
Asus DirectCU II HD 7850 TOP II

This system have 0 issues, it never go under 60 FPS and GPU usage is always 99%,
Even this system is @stock speeds, while other system is OCed to 4.3 still cannot catch this system.
so keep this in mind.

I'll share some screenshots.
https://picasaweb.google.com/116856254276691735034/BF4?noredirect=1
(first time using picasa, tell me if it doesn't work)

3D Mark:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7648032

GPU-Z in 48 FPS sweet spot ->
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/13/11/10/f27.png
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/13/11/10/3gb.png

Higher but still low->
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/13/12/03/9vs.png

Other One:
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/13/12/03/9vs.png

and This'll work I think,
I have it worst in the map called Shangai (because it's not full screen it has 10-15 Less FPS)
http://oi39.tinypic.com/14t64hh.jpg

I couldn't find the picture but also:
I overclocked my CPU to 4.6 ghz and monitored it.
I still got same FPS, low CPU usage and Low GPU usage.

What did I try till now ->
Unparking CPU
Disabling all Power Saving features, I know this wouldn't work.. it didn't
Updated Bios
Overclocked CPU, didn't help
Tried any driver,
Chipset drivers,
Power options under windows.

More info before you ask ->
Ofc we've tried with everything @ stock.
I also ran Memtest for 8 hours, 0 errors, not relevant but just saying.
Prime 95 etc. rock stable I am using this system for months with no BSOD
@ 4.3 ghz, and also as I say we tested @ stock.

Also:
Shutting down 2 cores gives same FPS,
Shutting down 4 cores even just loses 3%-10% GPU Usage.
(if it's 99% when 6-8 cores, it drops to 90%,89 with 4 cores)

Running other games @ backroung gives exact same FPS.
CPU just doesn't push more in battlefield 4, and I cannot find why.


I am sure nothing Throttles, I am dealing with this for a month.
and I monitored all little piece of it.

First we thought it's faulty hardware and as I said we've 2 similiar systems, we ran some benches.

In any bench, game
My 7870 XT system destroys other one, in BF4 I've this issue.

I've found other people with similiar setups having same issue, and other
with similiar setups not having this issue.

But amount of people with this problem is really low against people not having this with same specs.



So guys please help me, I'll pry for you cz I couldn't find a fix.

Thank you.

Or At least an explaination,
Why other 8320s and 8350s doesn't have this.

I hope I gave enough information, I'll just give you anything you want.

 

[jkteddy77]

Afterburner hates my R9 290, and reads its usage levels all wrong. It also caused crashig issue with BF4 a few months ago, so I uninstalled it. I might try locking my fps to like 65 or so with an ingame command though. I can do that right? lock it with the ingame commands in a config file?

yes you can also use precision X from evga i think it also allow to cap the FPS, or you can just use the console command wich is :
gametime.maxvariablefps 65

You can also edit a.cfg file if you don't want to type it everytime you play...

i can tell you that it makes a very big difference on how smooth the game is running...please try it out for a good 15 minutes, turn it on and off to feel the difference and tell me if it helps...

i tried to cap it at 60fps and i was getting major screen tearing issues like every 5 seconds i had a tear, then i tried 59fps and it does not felt as smooth, 65fps is really the best for me.

Hey, I capped my FPs to 65 with a config file (remembered it when a random guy in a lobby mentioned 65fps) and its helping a ton so far. On all ultra, I still dip below 60 to like 55-57 in Gullin peaks, Altai Range(its an AMD issue that map) and 58fps or so in some of the new naval strike maps in areas, but it seems almost every other map is smooth! That sounds about what you explained (I'm sure I losing a few more frames than you, and my scale is still 100%) but it also streses my CPU less, bringing it down a degree or two, and my GPU has the headroom usage to push a bit harder. I'll have to play with it a bit longer to get used to it, but so far I only see a bit of stuttering every once in a while (unsmooth fps over 60) but that could always be a network issue too.

Guess I'll work with this for now? If I turn down mesh quality to high, it runs over 65fps a lot more as well (can't go below medium, game's only really playable on high or ultra mesh...takes a load off the cpu the most) Thanks for the help, but I'm sure I'll be back on here not too long after... still not enitrely satisfied, but it works for now. I met a guy with an 8350 at 4.5ghz who said his 270x's in Crossfire were only about 50-75 all the time with mantle on, said he got below 30 with DX11 0_o He should get more fps than me, guess I don't have it SO bad...

 

[paitjsu sadff]

Hey, I capped my FPs to 65 with a config file (remembered it when a random guy in a lobby mentioned 65fps) and its helping a ton so far. On all ultra, I still dip below 60 to like 55-57 in Gullin peaks, Altai Range(its an AMD issue that map) and 58fps or so in some of the new naval strike maps in areas, but it seems almost every other map is smooth! That sounds about what you explained (I'm sure I losing a few more frames than you, and my scale is still 100%) but it also streses my CPU less, bringing it down a degree or two, and my GPU has the headroom usage to push a bit harder. I'll have to play with it a bit longer to get used to it, but so far I only see a bit of stuttering every once in a while (unsmooth fps over 60) but that could always be a network issue too.

Guess I'll work with this for now? If I turn down mesh quality to high, it runs over 65fps a lot more as well (can't go below medium, game's only really playable on high or ultra mesh...takes a load off the cpu the most) Thanks for the help, but I'm sure I'll be back on here not too long after... still not enitrely satisfied, but it works for now. I met a guy with an 8350 at 4.5ghz who said his 270x's in Crossfire were only about 50-75 all the time with mantle on, said he got below 30 with DX11 0_o He should get more fps than me, guess I don't have it SO bad...

Glad to hear it help some, for me it really makes a big difference not only in terms of raw FPS but in how smooth the game feel and how fast the frames are displayed on the screen...i think it helps to get better frametime latency or something like that...

Now for the guy with 270x crossfire, no this guy should not get better results than you in BF4, crossfire is unoptimised and don't work that well in most games including battlefield 4 especially under mantle...and even with a very good scalling of 80% or so (it's impossible but let's say it is for today) even then your r9 290 is about 90% faster than a single 270x...so he would need almost 100% improvement in crossfire to reach you and this is never gonna happen my bet is that the best he gets in BF4 with or without mantle is about a 35 to 40% boost MAMIMUM hence the reason why i would never recommand a crossfire to anybody...SLI maybe but the second card must be really cheap....like, real cheap...

 

[ewok93]

Yeah, crossfire is rarely worth it unless you get a really good deal on the second card and already have what you need for it. It's poorly optimized because it's so uncommon, so most developers don't bother optimizing a game for .5% of the players. It never doubles your performance either, though a lot of people seem to think that.

 

[jkteddy77]

Yeah, crossfire is rarely worth it unless you get a really good deal on the second card and already have what you need for it. It's poorly optimized because it's so uncommon, so most developers don't bother optimizing a game for .5% of the players. It never doubles your performance either, though a lot of people seem to think that.

Yeah, I shelled out for a 290 for a reason. The prices are actually plummeting back to normal, and I got an 850w PSU, So I'm actually considering CF 290's if I can get another 290 under $350 some day.

Just got a Galaxy S5 so I won't be spending anymore money anytime soon though...

 

[ewok93]

Yeah, a 290 crossfire won't do much at this point. You'll get incredible performance with one, two is overkill. It's always nice to have the option to upgrade in the future, though.

 

[jkteddy77]

Yeah, a 290 crossfire won't do much at this point. You'll get incredible performance with one, two is overkill. It's always nice to have the option to upgrade in the future, though.

If you look into my Specs in my signature, I basically built this thing, spent about $120 more than I needed t, so that I can just throw in new parts over the next few years, and not have to rebuild EVERYTHING again in 3-4 years. Corsair 850w shoud last, the 2TB is nice, and the 8350 should be fast enough for at least another year or two (I want to upgrade to a new Intel by then, since the CPU is probably my main problem here in the first place...)

 

[ewok93]

Yeah, it's wise to spend $120 so you can upgrade instead of spending that on the same parts you'll spend $600 upgrading later anyway.

 

[BinaryCowboy]

If you're having crossfire issues, what helped immensely with that was disabling ULPS. (Ultra Low Power State). You can google for a how-to, or I believe that MSI Afterburner has a tickbox to disable. It also made a difference on the system that uses VirtuMVP. Though, as you said, running crossfire or SLi of any sort is ultimately not a 1:1 performance gain, and not particularly worth it. Especially for any 32-bit or older game... the caching penalty alone between your system memory and video memory in that configuration is going to introduce a lot of issues.

That being said, to anyone running into issues still on a Haswell core, I've managed to finally resolve a large portion of my issues. It seems that most motherboards ability to set a high enough baseline voltage at startup is terrible for haswell cores. Establish what your optimal peak voltages are, and set them as such in bios. Also, if you have a VDroop option, enable that. Somewhere in the 85%-100% range should help. *knock on wood* it has eliminated the random GPU/CPU drops and associated fps issues I was seeing across games. Tested on both aa GTX 770, and R9 280x.

Well... when combined with capping FPS for some games, and enabling vSynch+Triple Buffering for others, that is. It just depends, some games seem to really need vSynch(Diablo3, FFXIV). Others really need vSynch off (Borderlands 2, BF3, BF4, SWTOR, etc.)

 

[jkteddy77]

Hey, I capped my FPs to 65 with a config file (remembered it when a random guy in a lobby mentioned 65fps) and its helping a ton so far. On all ultra, I still dip below 60 to like 55-57 in Gullin peaks, Altai Range(its an AMD issue that map) and 58fps or so in some of the new naval strike maps in areas, but it seems almost every other map is smooth! That sounds about what you explained (I'm sure I losing a few more frames than you, and my scale is still 100%) but it also streses my CPU less, bringing it down a degree or two, and my GPU has the headroom usage to push a bit harder. I'll have to play with it a bit longer to get used to it, but so far I only see a bit of stuttering every once in a while (unsmooth fps over 60) but that could always be a network issue too.

Guess I'll work with this for now? If I turn down mesh quality to high, it runs over 65fps a lot more as well (can't go below medium, game's only really playable on high or ultra mesh...takes a load off the cpu the most) Thanks for the help, but I'm sure I'll be back on here not too long after... still not enitrely satisfied, but it works for now. I met a guy with an 8350 at 4.5ghz who said his 270x's in Crossfire were only about 50-75 all the time with mantle on, said he got below 30 with DX11 0_o He should get more fps than me, guess I don't have it SO bad...

Glad to hear it help some, for me it really makes a big difference not only in terms of raw FPS but in how smooth the game feel and how fast the frames are displayed on the screen...i think it helps to get better frametime latency or something like that...

Now for the guy with 270x crossfire, no this guy should not get better results than you in BF4, crossfire is unoptimised and don't work that well in most games including battlefield 4 especially under mantle...and even with a very good scalling of 80% or so (it's impossible but let's say it is for today) even then your r9 290 is about 90% faster than a single 270x...so he would need almost 100% improvement in crossfire to reach you and this is never gonna happen my bet is that the best he gets in BF4 with or without mantle is about a 35 to 40% boost MAMIMUM hence the reason why i would never recommand a crossfire to anybody...SLI maybe but the second card must be really cheap....like, real cheap...

So... I got Low fps in BF3 as well... like drops to 30-40fps, and around 55-75 on average... what is going on! its still only BF3 and BF4. Bad company 2 runs fine. I panicked and played like every game in my library... Just BF3 and BF4... It must be something with DX11 or something, cause when it happens, I drop GPU usage to 50%, and lag the hell out. CPU clocks stay as they should, GPU too... just the GPU essentially stops pumping in its performance... neither are overheating either.

paitjsu sadff, did you ever find a fix? this problem is driving me nuts and is getting out of hand...

 

[paitjsu sadff]

no i havnt worked on it since i don't play BF3 now just BF4 so i don't really care but i know there is something really wrong with it, my bf4 run's flawlessy bbut BF3 is choppy as hell as i shown you in a video already...i bet this is the key to answer all you problems but i cant find it...

 

[jkteddy77]

no i havnt worked on it since i don't play BF3 now just BF4 so i don't really care but i know there is something really wrong with it, my bf4 run's flawlessy bbut BF3 is choppy as hell as i shown you in a video already...i bet this is the key to answer all you problems but i cant find it...

We have entirely different GPU's, so its odd that both of our rigs have the same issue. Does your GPU usage load drop in BF3 as well? It must have something to do with our FX 8-cores...

 

[jkteddy77]

no i havnt worked on it since i don't play BF3 now just BF4 so i don't really care but i know there is something really wrong with it, my bf4 run's flawlessy bbut BF3 is choppy as hell as i shown you in a video already...i bet this is the key to answer all you problems but i cant find it...

Well this is disheartening man....
http://www.overclock.net/t/1420963/fx-8350-paired-with-evga-sc-gtx-770-sli

His only fix was a full reformat... Theres gotta be some fix for it... Right? what is messed up in both our rigs?

 

[paitjsu sadff]

can't tell but i know for sure that i had this BF3 games running at 110FPS with lows in the 60fps on ultra with a radeon HD7950 on my FX 8 core and then i swapped to a much better card (GTX 780) and now my FPS are 30 to 75...i don't know...but BF4 run's fine, much better than with the 7950 and i get lows at 65fps and highs at 100FPS on ultra...it's wierd something is wrong, i wouls assume that a re-format and complete re-install would fix this for me but i can't be sure and will not do it i don't play BF3...

 

[jkteddy77]

can't tell but i know for sure that i had this BF3 games running at 110FPS with lows in the 60fps on ultra with a radeon HD7950 on my FX 8 core and then i swapped to a much better card (GTX 780) and now my FPS are 30 to 75...i don't know...but BF4 run's fine, much better than with the 7950 and i get lows at 65fps and highs at 100FPS on ultra...it's wierd something is wrong, i wouls assume that a re-format and complete re-install would fix this for me but i can't be sure and will not do it i don't play BF3...

So odd. If it was a Driver error, how could it be? You are on Nvidia and I am on Ati... I'm actually not sure when mine started playing like this, as I also pretty much just play BF4 now, but I'm scared that it is affecting other games without me knowing. For example, in almost every game I play, I only really gain like 10fps by playing on low setting instead of ultra... that applies in TONS of games, and that can't be right. I should be like 100-180fps on low in BF4 should I not? Instead, I'm 60-150. In Crysis 2, I run 40-75 in almost all of the game, whether its lowest or max settings. I'm trying Crysis 3 today. Is the Processor bottlenecking these high FPS levels on lower graphics or... do you have this issue too?

 

[Viking2121]

This is kinda old I know, Have you found a fix?

Return your CPU to 3.5ghz and see if that fixes your problem, Some users have reported throttling issues with your motherboard on the 8 core, its only a 4+2 Phase Power Design, which isn't good for 8 cores as it is.

Just a thought.

 

[jkteddy77]

This is kinda old I know, Have you found a fix?

Return your CPU to 3.5ghz and see if that fixes your problem, Some users have reported throttling issues with your motherboard on the 8 core, its only a 4+2 Phase Power Design, which isn't good for 8 cores as it is.

Just a thought.

I actually had all of my problems fixed by switch just the Mobo and CPU to a Asus Z97 Pro and a 4790k. Nothing I possibly changed in my Bios, drivers, or windows changed a thing. Switching to intel instantly fixed every issue, I gained 10-20fps in like all of my games, and my minimums gained significantly more. Never under 60fps, even 70 in BF4 now.

It could have been the mobo, but I've seen people run 9590's on that Asus 990fx Pro R2.0 without issue (or so they think). It didn't seem to be throttling thermally, and I tried giving it more/less voltage. It did nothing to help. The Asus 990Fx Pro is only a step below your board and the Sabertooth/Formula boards.

You don't see any bottling of your GTX 760's with your 8320? Almost every person I've talked to with anything over the 780/290 or CF/sli cards like yours reports significant gains after switching to an i5 or i7.

 

[Viking2121]

Good to hear that you got everything sorted out.

I did in windows 7 x64, though the GPU's would hit 99% in menus at times, but most of the time 70 - 90s. Windows 8.1 I see both cards pegged out at 99% all the time in bf3 and bf4. But mind you I do have my CPU at 5ghz. I havn't tested this at stock clocks which I assume would be a problem. Both my cards are OC'ed as well. 1.3ghz core 1800mhz mem (7.2ghz effective).

Windows 7 idk what the deal is, but it was the same story with my 2x HD5850's, I couldn't use the cards at 100% on windows 7. Win 8.1 fixed it. I never seen FPS lower then 90 at 1080p ultra with 4xMsaa. But I mean I already had a AM3+ system built so I picked up the FX8320 for $99 2 years ago to upgrade my old 1100T.

 

[jkteddy77]

Good to hear that you got everything sorted out.

I did in windows 7 x64, though the GPU's would hit 99% in menus at times, but most of the time 70 - 90s. Windows 8.1 I see both cards pegged out at 99% all the time in bf3 and bf4. But mind you I do have my CPU at 5ghz. I havn't tested this at stock clocks which I assume would be a problem. Both my cards are OC'ed as well. 1.3ghz core 1800mhz mem (7.2ghz effective).

Windows 7 idk what the deal is, but it was the same story with my 2x HD5850's, I couldn't use the cards at 100% on windows 7. Win 8.1 fixed it. I never seen FPS lower then 90 at 1080p ultra with 4xMsaa. But I mean I already had a AM3+ system built so I picked up the FX8320 for $99 2 years ago to upgrade my old 1100T.

You're 90+ with 2 760's on all ultra? that's not bad, considering dual 780's can run like 120-160fps.