Should my PC be lagging this much on BF4?

[cjtulowiecki]

Hi, i'm sure there are a thousand of these threads, but I'm not exactly sure which website to post to, so here it goes:

I recently purchased BF4 and when I play it (with on-screen cpu/gpu graph + fps) i get ~45 fps (guesstimate of avg frames) , and the cpu/gpu percentages stay relatively low (~30 for the gpu and ~40 for cpu). However, i get lots of HUGE spikes in the graph when any sort of explosion goes off.

Basically i'm wondering if my specs aren't up to par (even though im pretty sure they are above minimum req.) or if there is something else causing a problem.

Specs:

AMD Athlon II x3 450 @3.2 Ghz
4GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512mb

And i'm running the game on lowest settings, motion blur off, dx11 turned off (card can only support 10.1 i think) and at a resolution of 1280x1024.

Does this seem adequate to run the game in any usual case?

Thanks in advance!

 

[simon12]

You are quite borderline with the minimum requirements so I suspect that is the issue there may be a future patch that improves its performance and check if there are any other settings you can lower and make sure you close any background programs.

 

[cjtulowiecki]

You are quite borderline with the minimum requirements so I suspect that is the issue there may be a future patch that improves its performance and check if there are any other settings you can lower and make sure you close any background programs.

I had a suspicion that this was the case. However, from running the game with the graphs on, the cpu usage was always higher than the gpu, so I think that the cpu is probably less compatible than the gpu. In either case they both need to be upgraded, which I planned on doing soon.

I was comparing prices of graphics cards vs. benchmark scores from Passmark.com and saw that the GTX 480 was far cheaper than other cards that had near identical benchmark scores. It seems like the GTX 480 is the best card for the money right now. I don't have 200/300+ to spend on a gtx 7xx or 6xx so i think this will be my choice.

For example, the HD 7870 is right underneath the 480's benchmark score , yet it cost upwards of 200 on ebay. The 480 is only around 100-150 on ebay.

Any thoughts on this? It seems logical to me to buy the 480.

 

[simon12]

If your power supply and case cooling can handle a 480 and you don't mind it being very inefficient on power then its a good buy (I assume you are talking in US Dollars). I am in the UK and saw a 7870 LE version for £127.99 yesterday which includes VAT (20%) making it only $150-160. Also if you are only gaming at 1280x1024 and don't plan on getting a better monitor soon a $110 7790 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129275 or $120 7850 will be fine http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150642 but a 460 for the same price if you can deal with the powerf and heat is a bargain.
If the game is borderline playable at the moment trying to unlock an extra CPU core &/or overclocking your CPU (and GPU) may push it to a playable level for free.

 

[cjtulowiecki]

If your power supply and case cooling can handle a 480 and you don't mind it being very inefficient on power then its a good buy (I assume you are talking in US Dollars). I am in the UK and saw a 7870 LE version for £127.99 yesterday which includes VAT (20%) making it only $150-160. Also if you are only gaming at 1280x1024 and don't plan on getting a better monitor soon a $110 7790 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129275 or $120 7850 will be fine http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150642 but a 460 for the same price if you can deal with the powerf and heat is a bargain.
If the game is borderline playable at the moment trying to unlock an extra CPU core &/or overclocking your CPU (and GPU) may push it to a playable level for free.

well i overclocked my 4850 to 675 MHz core/998 MHz mem and i went to the test range on bf4 to try things out while running some monitor programs in the background and i noticed an immediate effect on fps. i was able to keep it constant at my 45 fps cap except for when the cpu would spike. On my AMD system monitor graphs, the GPU never reached 100% load, only about 85% max. However, it was the CPU whose graph was peaking at 100% several times. Also my gpu never got over 77 Celsius. CPU im not sure, i didn't have a temp program running for the cpu.

SO now this definitely makes me thing my cpu is holding back the bf4 performance. Ive previously unlocked my 4th core, and was able to boot into windows 7 for some time with no errors or bluescreens. I think it might throw the cpu temps off when i unlock the 4th core, but it recognizes the cpu as a phenom b50 (pretty sure thats it) quad core @3.2Ghz and i also think the voltage readings are off, but not sure.

Im not sure how to find out if my 4th core is stable enough to use for many reasons, mainly that i cannot be certain whether the temperature / voltage readings are right. Does anyone know how i should go about "testing" this core, or if it would be better to do a little overclock on my 3 cores and leave the 4th disabled. for reference, my 3 cores idle at ~30 C.

 

[simon12]

BF3 & 4 like more cores so having the 4th will likely benefit more than overclocking if you can get it stable. Unlocking disables the core temps from being monitored but the motherboard should have a socket sensor. I use HWmonitor and it does a good job at recording all temps + highs and lows. Set the CPU voltage manually in the bios, if you have a good cooler you can set it to a max of 1.5V but use only 1.45 unless you need more and the temp permits, if you are using the stock cooler use a max of 1.4V and only that much if the temps are OK. To see if its stable run Prime 95 for a few hours or Intel burn test for 20 ish runs on max settings (much quicker than prime and generates more heat so you can get the absolute max readings). 4 of the 5 Athlon x3s I built could unlock the 4th core and were stable with it and 1 unlocked L3 cache as well making it a true Phenom.

 

[cjtulowiecki]

Okay that would explain the mis-matched voltages ( set it to 1.4v in BIOS and CPU-z reads 1.125v).

If im understanding you correctly, you're saying that it's impossible to read the actual core temps while in "unleashed mode (4th core)," and that I can only read the socket temps instead, using HW Monitor. So what is a safe temp for the socket temp? Also which of these temps listed on HW Monitor is the socket temp?

 

[simon12]

Sorry no I cannot explain your voltage readings as they all look wrong my Athlon II 445 reads them as:
1.15 Volts (CPU VCORE)
0.86 Volts (VIN1)
3.36 Volts (+3.3V)
5.04 Volts (+5V)
11.71 Volts (+12V)
My best guess is the motherboard feeds the wrong info to HWMonitor
Also your TMPIN0,1 & 2 readings are called SYSTIN CPUTIN & AUXTIN.
I think you should just assume the voltage is what you set it to in the bios and to see which reading is the CPU temp from the motherboard run prime 95 or IBT as see which rises in line with the core temps

 

[cjtulowiecki]

Okay. I unlocked the 4th core, changed the cpu voltage to 1.40v in BIOS and ran IBT 20 times successfully.

I've drawn blue arrows to show which temps correlated to one another between HWMonitor and SpeedFan readings. And I also circled what appears to be the correct voltage readings for my cpu. As you can see, the max voltage reading is what i set it as in bios , (1.40v).

Now based on these results, what conclusions can we draw? I'm not sure which of the temperatures are correct, and whether they are safe temps or not. Your help is greatly appreciated. If you need more information let me know.

 

[simon12]

the 2 main conclusions I would make are the 4th core is stable but the CPU is running to hot (I think 72C is the official max). Since IBT raises the temps far above what gaming will you are likely OK to play a bit to see if it gives you the performance boost you need but you need a better cooler to run it long term, a cooler master 212 evo would be a great option for the price but even the TX3 should get the temps low enough to run and is smaller and doesn't require you to remove the motherboard to fit. You could try lowering the CPU voltage and checking stability again which would lower the temp but only a few Cs which is not enough.