My 5850's performance does not seem right(Crysis Warhead)

[csquared587]

I upgraded my 8800 GTS 640mb to an XFX 5850 today, I and I am getting lackluster results in Crysis Warhead. I just ran benchmarking with Fraps.

1920x1200
Everything on Gamer, no motion blur
DX9
No AA
Average fps=21.231

Pretty damn low, I think my 8800 was doing about that.

My PC
XFX 5850
Q6600 @2.4ghz
4gb ddr 2 ram
Windows 7 32 bit

I know my q6600 is a bit of a bottleneck, but should I be getting that low of an fps? Im going to overclock my CPU to 3.0ghz when I get my new cooler, but I don't think it will help that much when it is performing as pitiful as it is now.

I already ran driver sweep to rid my pc of any nvidia drivers. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[welshmousepk]

yeah, it should be higher. you have the latest drivers?

 

[csquared587]

Yeah. Im running ccleaner and defragging now to see if that helps at all.

 

[samantha10]

I'm sorry to tell you, but your CPU, (Core 2 family) even if OC'd to 3ghz will still bottleneck your GPU. I used to have 3 GTX 280's in 3 way SLI (factory OC'd by XFX) and a QX6700 running at 3.2Ghz and I was only getting an average of 24fps on the same settings as yours. Ridiculous right? But when I upgraded to a QX 9770 (Yorkfield) running @ 4 Ghz with 8GB of RAM @ 1600mhz, my triple 280s in SLI flexed their muscles to 40-45fps on a 2560x1600 res, with all settings on VERY HIGH! (No AA). My point?, your 5850 is very much capable, but if you wanna enjoy Crysis, you'll have to either upgrade to a Core i7/ Core i5 CPU --OR-- get get at least a socket 775 Yorkfield Core 2 quad, like a Q9650 and OC that CPU to 4Ghz..That's the only way to enjoy Crysis my friend.But trust me, even after 3 years, CRYSIS is still THE BEST LOOKING 3D game, PERIOD.In my opinion its worth upgrading to. Hope this helps.

 

[hallowed_dragon]

I'm sorry to tell you, but your CPU, (Core 2 family) even if OC'd to 3ghz will still bottleneck your GPU. I used to have 3 GTX 280's in 3 way SLI (factory OC'd by XFX) and a QX6700 running at 3.2Ghz and I was only getting an average of 24fps on the same settings as yours. Ridiculous right? But when I upgraded to a QX 9770 (Yorkfield) running @ 4 Ghz with 8GB of RAM @ 1600mhz, my triple 280s in SLI flexed their muscles to 40-45fps on a 2560x1600 res, with all settings on VERY HIGH! (No AA). My point?, your 5850 is very much capable, but if you wanna enjoy Crysis, you'll have to either upgrade to a Core i7/ Core i5 CPU --OR-- get get at least a socket 775 Yorkfield Core 2 quad, like a Q9650 and OC that CPU to 4Ghz..That's the only way to enjoy Crysis my friend.But trust me, even after 3 years, CRYSIS is still THE BEST LOOKING 3D game, PERIOD.In my opinion its worth upgrading to. Hope this helps.

^^^ WTF.

@OP. Check the driver and put ALL 3D settings to defaults. It might be that you are not running defaults and that will hinder your performance. Your Quad is alright for the card, maybe with a slight OC to 3GHz it will get a little better.

 

[Pailin]

yup - what sam say's is basically true on this one - add more CPU horse pwr for more fps - or a 2nd card still seems to help here equally oddly enough

Check this out

 

[hallowed_dragon]

yup - what sam say's is basically true on this one - add more CPU horse pwr for more fps - or a 2nd card still seems to help here equally oddly enough

Check this out

... I get higher FPS than him with a lesser card. The problem is elsewhere. Don't push a guy to pay for a new processor to play a mediocre game if you don't know what you are talking about.

@OP

1. Install Windows 7 64 bit. At the moment you are using only about 2.5GB or your RAM.
2. Check the driver settings for 3D.
3. The resolution is high enough so that a stock Q6600 won't bottleneck you much. If you want 10-15% extra performance OC your Quad to 3 GHz.

 

[hallowed_dragon]

On topic:

The problem is not the speed of the CPU. A Quad core should be able to push the 5850 almost to the maximum at that resolution. The fact that I get similar FPS in Crysis with a lesser card suggests the problem is not the CPU.

 

[Pailin]

Indeed it is much more fun to be friendly


I just got a 5850 and will be fitting it later today or tommorrow and can tell you what my system does - going from my 8800GT

 

[marney_5]

Now that the childish bickering has stopped lets focus on finding out how to fix this guys problem! huh?

Personally I think since he came from a Nvidia card to a ATI card then maybe he needs a clean reinstall of windows 7 64 bit (not 32). I had to do this when I went from a 260 to a 5870 because my performance was lagging in Crysis. After the reinstall of windows I gained a 20% performance increase!

I dont think it could be the CPU, then again I could be wrong!

Hope this helps!

 

[hallowed_dragon]

your comment suggests it is entirly the problem of the Q6600

Example:

Q6600 @ 2.4GHz + 4870 = 21fps avg
Q6600 @ 2.4GHz + 5850 = 21fps avg

as you are saying would rather clearly indicate his CPU is the bottleneck.
I think we think it seems there is more to this though which hopefully we can get to the bottom of soon


"At the comment with something more rude....you have no idea. "
that is a matter of opinion to which you are entitled.
Though I am sure you can think of situations where doing the equivilent of that would have unfortunate results...

The problem is that I can get higher FPS than 21 FPS average without OCing. Running the included benchmark I get 30 FPS at 1920x1080. 20+ FPS is estimated from gameplay. And as I said, a bottleneck is present at resolutions below 1680x1050 not at higher resolutions where the GPU plays the higher part. Also a high GPU OC gets me better results than a 300 MHz increase in CPU clocks. Also my GPU has 512 mb of RAM so it can't really handle big resolutions with high detail.
Believe me I have made numerous experiments with my quad to see that increasing the clock with 600 MHz will only give me 10-15% MAX more FPS depending on the game (sometimes no gain whatsoever). In my opinion this doesn't seem to be such a good gain to be worth some of the CPU life.
Testing for a bottleneck is rather easy:
1. Just start the game at the lowest resolution with all the details on low. Record the FPS.
2. Increase the resolution and record FPS.
3. Get max resolution and max details and records FPS.

If the FPS drops with max 5% then a CPU bottleneck is in place. Otherwise the problem is the GPU or the driver.

 

[davedurg09]

I would say its definately not a bottleneck from the CPU, I would say its a driver problem plus the fact you are running 4gb or ram plus 1gb of ram on the card in a 32bit system that only supports a max of 3.25gb. so upgrading to 64bit will greatly improve your framerates and performance.

My specs are the same as yours except I have windows 7 64bit:

Q6600 at 2.4
4gb of ram
XFX 5850
500GB harddrive
Windows 7 64bit

I also bought crysis warhead, i set everything to enthuasiet, 4xAA, turned off motion blur and set the screen resolution pretty high, Im not at the pc now to check exactly what the resolution is at.

The game runs fine for me apart from the odd jitter but thats just cause I need to be realistic and lower the settings slightly lol.

two things to note however:
1. in CCC I set Ati Overdrive to the max to get more performance.
2. I cant seem to play crysis wars at all, as soon as i join a server it get these crazy artifacts all over the screen, im running the latest patch of the game. but i think this is a driver issue as opposed to my card or computer. Here is a link to someone else that is experiencing the same artifacts with the sxact same card

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1483041

On a sidenote to any admins, Y when i click "Edit This Message" make my changes and hit submit it says i cant edit this post but when i click on Quick Edit it works fine.

 

[invisik]

Sorry i don't have time to read what everyone suggested above and i apologize for if i repeat there suggestion.

1st your os is a 32bit your gpu is using 1gig of ram of your 4gig limit so see how much system ram is actually being used. It should be between 2.75-3gig of usage. Could be less if your motherboard has built in gpu. You might need a 64 bit os.

After that overclock the cpu to 3.0ghz+ the slight increase of frames will make the difference.

What speed are is your memory running at?

 

[csquared587]

Thanks for the replies.

I tried some different benchmark settings today in Crysis Warhead.


All of these are with all enthusiasts graphics, no aa.

800x600=30.051 average fps
1400x1050=28.914 average fps
1900x1200=26.597 average fps


I played the same five minute portion in each benchmark.

I also decided to go with 800x600 resolution, no aa, and everything set at minimum. I averaged 77.518 fps with those settings.


Even though at 800x600 I average 30 fps, it was still very difficult to play because it would jump everywhere from 60-11 fps depending on what was going on. Explosions didn't hurt it much, but simple stuff such as aiming down the sights and turning around gave me some substantial dips.


This may be a reach, but could it be because my XFX 5850 is factory overclocked a bit? Could the extra clock speed on the GPU be effecting performance with my system?

This is the 5850 I purchased. I got the slightly overclocked one because the normal one was sold out atm and came to the same price with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150455&cm_re=5850-_-14-150-455-_-Product

 

[Pailin]

that is very unlikely, those speeds are a very mild OC for this card.
Stock :725 / 4000
ur XXX :755 / 4500

is not uncommon for people to get

950 / 4800

or slightly more on their OC's - maybe with a little GPU vcore adjustment.

I'd be a little more patient and see how it goes when your new cooler arrives and you take your CPU from 2.4 --> 3GHz

Might clear these slowdowns - will one of the biggest bottle necks.
or might be as someone pointed out your RAM limitation from your 32bit Win7 install. Go for 64bit and free up that extra RAM

as after your GFx 1GB and maybe some for your soundcard? - your system is left with less than 3GB RAM...

 

[Pailin]

or maybe you could try a:

Crysis Warhead Tweak Guide

as in games not all settings bring much of a visual improvement and can add quite a large performance load to your system.

Is a matter of knowing which settings to enable for best combination of performance and visuals

Check it out. Many sites do such guides.

Good Luck ^^

 

[nrnx]

I personally think there is nothing wrong with your card or CPU as I use a 3.0ghz processor and 2x 5770 (about equal to a 5870), and get around 29-30FPS. However, this is with enthusiast/gamer settings DX10 64Bit at a resolution of 1920x1080 2xAA. Perhaps you are running a 64 Bit OS but the 32 Bit Crysis Warhead?

 

[strangestranger]

He has no ram limitation, He will have the same free ram amount regardless of 32 or 64 bit systems as he only has 4GB of ram and the same amount of components.

I don't know what people think 64 bit os's do but they don't create extra ram. They are capable of addressing more ram but the amount of ram that can be used is the same. You are not going to address a location that doesn't exist, the system would crash.

 

[Pailin]

He is running Win7 32 bit.

He has 4GB RAM + 5850 with 1GB + maybe some dedicated Sound RAM

This means his OS will only get to see 3GB System RAM because the total addressable RAM of a 32bit OS is 4GB.

if he upgrades to Win7 64bit he will have full access to his 4GB RAM for his OS

 

[strangestranger]

As has been explained here before, not all ram is mirrored for hardware devices. 1GB of ram on a device is not reserved in main memory by default. Also, he will not have any more ram reserved for the OS than in a 32 bit system, the kernel may even reserve more I am not sure but the available amount for programs remains the same.

Also, if he has 4gb of ram and he can address that with a 32 bit os, then he is not missing out on anything.

The ram will have to be reserved even in a 64 bit system correct me if I am wrong so if he has 4gb of ram, then there needs to be x amount of ram physically reserved, not going to be held in virtual memory, for the kernal, devices and anything else system critical.

The problem as far as I can see is that windows display the total ram, and not the available ram regardless of what is physcially addressable.

if you can show why this is not the case I will happily read it.

 

[hallowed_dragon]

The physically addressable RAM is going to be 3 GB. That is it. So the programs will consider that he only has 3GB of RAM installed.

 

[strangestranger]

The OP has not said how much free ram he has available, don't know where the 3GB's comes from He mau have more or less than that.

Either way the 32 bit OS is not a problem.

 

[hallowed_dragon]

The OP has not said how much free ram he has available, don't know where the 3GB's comes from He mau have more or less than that.

Either way the 32 bit OS is not a problem.

I am not talking about the free ram. The operating system can address only 3GB or less of RAM. Out of those 3GB most probably the OS uses 1GB, leaving browsers, games etc. with only 2GB of RAM which can be addressed.
I agree that is not the problem.

 

[Pailin]

A HP paper states:

The PCI memory addresses starting down from 4 GB are used for things like the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and video/graphics cards. The BIOS takes up about 512 KB starting from the very top address. Then each of the other items mentioned are allocated address ranges below the BIOS range. The largest block of addresses is allocated for today’s high performance graphics cards which need addresses for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card. The net result is that a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated.

Info Found Here

 

[hallowed_dragon]

A HP paper states:

The PCI memory addresses starting down from 4 GB are used for things like the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and video/graphics cards. The BIOS takes up about 512 KB starting from the very top address. Then each of the other items mentioned are allocated address ranges below the BIOS range. The largest block of addresses is allocated for today’s high performance graphics cards which need addresses for at least the amount of memory on the graphics card. The net result is that a high performance x86-based computer may allocate 512 MB to more than 1 GB for the PCI memory address range before any RAM (physical user memory) addresses are allocated.

Info Found Here

As I said earlier. But as SS said, this is only a limiting factor not a FPS blockage.