System doing well in benchmarks, but badly in games

[manwithnoshoes]

I recently upgraded my computer, going to a 980 Ti for my GPU and an i7-4790k for the CPU. I tested it out in Fire Strike and got this: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9950428, which I'm told is a good score. However, when I try to play Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion and Total War: Rome II, I get significant FPS drops when there is a lot of action on screen. Only these two games seem affected. How can I ascertain what is going on?

 

[Grogar123]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

 

[BadActor]

I think everyone suffers frame drops in those games, there's nothing wrong with your PC. Bad optimization.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

System temps and loads seem alright. Nothing that seems like it would cause a problem

 

[ST0RM91]

Check system load and temps. Games with a lot to render put more strain on your system.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

The only problem is that other people with systems close, but slightly worse than mine are saying that they can run the game better than I can. Something funky is up with my system.

 

[Grogar123]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

The only problem is that other people with systems close, but slightly worse than mine are saying that they can run the game better than I can. Something funky is up with my system.

Your friends could possibly be Overclocking their components. Which can make them get better performance than you. Do you mind giving me a full specs of your PC?

 

[manwithnoshoes]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

The only problem is that other people with systems close, but slightly worse than mine are saying that they can run the game better than I can. Something funky is up with my system.

Your friends could possibly be Overclocking their components. Which can make them get better performance than you. Do you mind giving me a full specs of your PC?

OS: Windows 10
PSU: 850 W
GPU: GTX 980 Ti
CPU: i7 4790k
RAM: 16 GB

I have an SSD, but I do not run either game on it. Putting those games on it didn't help anyway. Also, here is the benchmark I took earlier: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9950428

 

[Grogar123]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

The only problem is that other people with systems close, but slightly worse than mine are saying that they can run the game better than I can. Something funky is up with my system.

Your friends could possibly be Overclocking their components. Which can make them get better performance than you. Do you mind giving me a full specs of your PC?

OS: Windows 10
PSU: 850 W
GPU: GTX 980 Ti
CPU: i7 4790k
RAM: 16 GB

I have an SSD, but I do not run either game on it. Putting those games on it didn't help anyway. Also, here is the benchmark I took earlier: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9950428

It could be Windows 10 but like I stated before games with a lot of small things to render always have frame drops there is nothing wrong with your computer its just the game itself. What other games do you play? And are these the only games you have frame drops on?

 

[manwithnoshoes]

This is because when there are a lot of units on the field it is very hard for the CPU and GPU to keep up because it has to render each individual unit on maximum settings which I presume you are running at on both games. So thus it cause your game to lag. Even the most advanced CPUs and GPUs get frame drop you aren't always going to have a steady high frame rate.

The only problem is that other people with systems close, but slightly worse than mine are saying that they can run the game better than I can. Something funky is up with my system.

Your friends could possibly be Overclocking their components. Which can make them get better performance than you. Do you mind giving me a full specs of your PC?

OS: Windows 10
PSU: 850 W
GPU: GTX 980 Ti
CPU: i7 4790k
RAM: 16 GB

I have an SSD, but I do not run either game on it. Putting those games on it didn't help anyway. Also, here is the benchmark I took earlier: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9950428

It could be Windows 10 but like I stated before games with a lot of small things to render always have frame drops there is nothing wrong with your computer its just the game itself. What other games do you play? And are these the only games you have frame drops on?

No other games seem to be having the problems these two have. Fallout 4, League of Legends, Metro: Last Light, and World of Tanks all run fine. I did notice that Homeworld Remastered seemed to drop a little more than usual. All 3 games I've noticed drops on have been RTS games. My biggest issue with it is that I did not have these problems before upgrading.

 

[Grogar123]

No other games seem to be having the problems these two have. Fallout 4, League of Legends, Metro: Last Light, and World of Tanks all run fine. I did notice that Homeworld Remastered seemed to drop a little more than usual. All 3 games I've noticed drops on have been RTS games. My biggest issue with it is that I did not have these problems before upgrading.
[/quotemsg]

Do you run everything at max settings? and do you have V-sync on or off?

 

[manwithnoshoes]

No other games seem to be having the problems these two have. Fallout 4, League of Legends, Metro: Last Light, and World of Tanks all run fine. I did notice that Homeworld Remastered seemed to drop a little more than usual. All 3 games I've noticed drops on have been RTS games. My biggest issue with it is that I did not have these problems before upgrading.

Do you run everything at max settings? and do you have V-sync on or off?[/quotemsg]

In Sins, which seems to be the worst offender, I do not have V-sync on, and it suffers the fps drops regardless of the settings.

 

[Grogar123]

Did you start experiencing these frame drops when you upgraded to windows 10? And if you get good performance in all your other games i doubt 100% it is not your computers hardware it is the game. So dont worry about having to replace or re-buy parts.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

 

[Grogar123]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

Usually this happens when the drivers are to new and the game just isn't compatible with newer drivers. This happens a lot. For example lets says I have x4 Titans and a 5820k intel processor does not mean im am going to get 200 fps in every game you will actually get low frames and a lot of micro stutter. Basically your PC is overkill for the game you are running.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

Usually this happens when the drivers are to new and the game just isn't compatible with newer drivers. This happens a lot. For example lets says I have x4 Titans and a 5820k intel processor does not mean im am going to get 200 fps in every game you will actually get low frames and a lot of micro stutter. Basically your PC is overkill for the game you are running.

That makes more sense than anything else I've heard. It fits in perfectly with Fallout 4 running well and Sins running terribly. Is there a reason why? Just curious now. Couldn't hurt to learn why such things happen.

 

[Grogar123]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

Usually this happens when the drivers are to new and the game just isn't compatible with newer drivers. This happens a lot. For example lets says I have x4 Titans and a 5820k intel processor does not mean im am going to get 200 fps in every game you will actually get low frames and a lot of micro stutter. Basically your PC is overkill for the game you are running.

That makes more sense than anything else I've heard. It fits in perfectly with Fallout 4 running well and Sins running terribly. Is there a reason why? Just curious now. Couldn't hurt to learn why such things happen.

Yes this usually happens when the game doesn't get updated usually those small updates on steam are usually to help optimize the game more. Usually. Also it could mean that the devs do not update their game any more.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

Usually this happens when the drivers are to new and the game just isn't compatible with newer drivers. This happens a lot. For example lets says I have x4 Titans and a 5820k intel processor does not mean im am going to get 200 fps in every game you will actually get low frames and a lot of micro stutter. Basically your PC is overkill for the game you are running.

That makes more sense than anything else I've heard. It fits in perfectly with Fallout 4 running well and Sins running terribly. Is there a reason why? Just curious now. Couldn't hurt to learn why such things happen.

Yes this usually happens when the game doesn't get updated usually those small updates on steam are usually to help optimize the game more. Usually. Also it could mean that the devs do not update their game any more.

Huh. Well, thanks for the help.

 

[photonboy]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

1) I can't recommend going back to W8. There's nothing in W10 that will make your game run noticeably worse. The fact that the benchmarks and other games works validates the hardware works fine as do your drivers.

2) come back to "haunt" you?
Not sure what you mean there.

3) Performance drop...?
Normally I'd say a CPU issue but your benchmarks results are good so that shouldn't be a problem. Again, other games work so...

I'm a little baffled as it really seems to be the game itself but then you say it was better before.

*When you say performance drop, by roughly HOW MUCH are we talking in a somewhat repeatable scenario?
(Dropping from 80FPS to 20FPS or 80FPS to 60FPS or what?)

Summary:
I really can't think of a good reason based on your explanations so far why this would happen. My guess would be that the performance is actually identical and you're just looking at a different section of the game or something, but I'm not there so it's hard to say.

 

[Grogar123]

My pleasure.

 

[photonboy]

Update:
Some people appear to have had issues related to the PAGING FILE settings. That surprise me a bit..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3fm7m8/windows_10_is_very_laggy_and_slow_after_the_update/

*I would suggest running Task manager whilst showing the amount of System Memory and see if you're running out when gaming. I've seen issues like that causing game slow-down. There may be a memory leak somewhere..

So:
1) Reboot
2) open Task Manager (in W10 right-click Start)
3) Performance-> Memory
4) May be roughly 3GB depending on how much you have (I have 16GB)
5) If game feels abnormally sluggish stop or alt/tab to see if you were running out of memory (I'd expect a warning first, but I'm not an expert)

6) Check CPU usage as well in case some other process was eating it up.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

I upgraded to 10 right as I bought the new parts. I'm in the process of going back to 8 right now (updates are being difficult), so I'll see if that does anything. I'm just worried that this is some underlying issue with my parts that will come back later to haunt me.

Also, just wondering, what could cause newer hardware to run less efficiently with a certain game? The game's engine?

1) I can't recommend going back to W8. There's nothing in W10 that will make your game run noticeably worse. The fact that the benchmarks and other games works validates the hardware works fine as do your drivers.

2) come back to "haunt" you?
Not sure what you mean there.

3) Performance drop...?
Normally I'd say a CPU issue but your benchmarks results are good so that shouldn't be a problem. Again, other games work so...

I'm a little baffled as it really seems to be the game itself but then you say it was better before.

*When you say performance drop, by roughly HOW MUCH are we talking in a somewhat repeatable scenario?
(Dropping from 80FPS to 20FPS or 80FPS to 60FPS or what?)

Summary:
I really can't think of a good reason based on your explanations so far why this would happen. My guess would be that the performance is actually identical and you're just looking at a different section of the game or something, but I'm not there so it's hard to say.

I'm just worried that this is some hardware issue that has to do with RTS games, specifically how they have a lot of elements onscreen at once. I don't want to have to deal with this again later. The performance drop always happens when there is a lot going on, and is usually from 60 to about 35 and everywhere inbetween.

 

[manwithnoshoes]

Update:
Some people appear to have had issues related to the PAGING FILE settings. That surprise me a bit..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3fm7m8/windows_10_is_very_laggy_and_slow_after_the_update/

*I would suggest running Task manager whilst showing the amount of System Memory and see if you're running out when gaming. I've seen issues like that causing game slow-down. There may be a memory leak somewhere..

So:
1) Reboot
2) open Task Manager (in W10 right-click Start)
3) Performance-> Memory
4) May be roughly 3GB depending on how much you have (I have 16GB)
5) If game feels abnormally sluggish stop or alt/tab to see if you were running out of memory (I'd expect a warning first, but I'm not an expert)

6) Check CPU usage as well in case some other process was eating it up.

That's where it gets weird. My CPU and memory usage never get above 20%. I think the max they hit is around 18 or 19. Nothing that could cause any kind of slow down, but yet I still lose anywhere from 10 to 30 fps. But the card can clearly perform. Maybe something is preventing it from running at its full potential?