Unsure about BF4 FPS with GTX 670 SLI i5 3570k

[MrSniperTrifle]

Hi community!

I'm a little unsure about the FPS I get in Battlefield 4, I recently added another GTX 670 to my setup which I was convinced that I would be able to max out all of my games no worries. But in the weeks following my purchase, I was not completely satisfied with the outcome. In a 64 player server in Operation Locker, I am experiencing FPS as low as 45! This was the sort of FPS I experienced with my single 670 setup.
Im pretty sure there is not a bottleneck as I have the following setup:

i5 3570k @4.2 Ghz Vcore 1.265 (BF4 and other games crash when clocks are any higher)
Corsair H60i (Max temps are around 60-70 degrees dependant on games)
MSI Z77 GD80
8GB Kingston HyperX Predator @1866Mhz
ASUS GTX 670 DC2 SLI @1200Mhz (Tried both 331.82 and 331.93 drivers)
Samsung 840 120GB (boot drive)
OCZ Vertex 4 120GB (Games)
750 Watt OCZ ZS PSU
Tons of fans (8 fans in the PC)
Windows 7 64bit OEM
Asus VG278HR 144Hz version (Got this as I was expecting constantly over 60 fps in games)

I'm unsure about possibly upgrading to Windows 8.1 as people say that there can be up to 10-20 fps increases on Battlefield 4.

I will be extremely grateful if anyone can reply with some possible solutions!
Thanks! 😉

 

[mike789]

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2955065670145885303/ maybe this can be helpful

 

[photonboy]

Windows 8 and 7 performance is essentially IDENTICAL for most games.

BF4 is an anomaly for some reason, though I suspect whatever the issue is will be solved or is possibly solved already. You may know BF4 has had a lot of bugs and performance issues that are STILL being addressed.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/24/battlefield_4_windows_7_vs_81_performance_review/4

It's also not a huge difference, as you can see the GTX780 goes from 58FPS in W7 to 61.7FPS in W8.1 (average).

SLI and 45FPS:
This may indicate a CPU bottleneck. Despite you having a great CPU, these multi-player maps can be very CPU intensive. If your frame rate at OTHER times has gone up a lot indicating SLI is working, then the CPU as the issue is almost certain.

Single Player:
The best way to confirm if it's a CPU bottleneck is to play a SINGLE PLAYER campaign, with VSYNC OFF to monitor the actual frame rate. You should be averaging over 90FPS apparently, though your SLI may affect this slightly but at least 80FPS average I'd say: http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

Windows 8 and 7 performance is essentially IDENTICAL for most games.

BF4 is an anomaly for some reason, though I suspect whatever the issue is will be solved or is possibly solved already. You may know BF4 has had a lot of bugs and performance issues that are STILL being addressed.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/24/battlefield_4_windows_7_vs_81_performance_review/4

It's also not a huge difference, as you can see the GTX780 goes from 58FPS in W7 to 61.7FPS in W8.1 (average).

SLI and 45FPS:
This may indicate a CPU bottleneck. Despite you having a great CPU, these multi-player maps can be very CPU intensive. If your frame rate at OTHER times has gone up a lot indicating SLI is working, then the CPU as the issue is almost certain.

Single Player:
The best way to confirm if it's a CPU bottleneck is to play a SINGLE PLAYER campaign, with VSYNC OFF to monitor the actual frame rate. You should be averaging over 90FPS apparently, though your SLI may affect this slightly but at least 80FPS average I'd say: http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

Hi there!
Thanks for the quick replies!
I just played a good hour or so on the campaign of BF4, I didn't manage to play on the same mission that was in the benchmarks that you sent me. But I'm glad to say that I did get around the 90 FPS average, if not exceeding it in some places. I Also tried the possible fix that mike789 posted. I'm going to now play some multiplayer and try the same map and I'll tell you how it goes!

 

[mr91]

I suggest you sell your 670's and get a 78o ti - that should solve your problems.

i'm getting 60-90fps on the big maps in multiplayer mode - on rare occasions the game dips to 58 fps.

I'm using a 1440p monitor on ultra settings

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

I suggest you sell your 670's and get a 78o ti - that should solve your problems.

i'm getting 60-90fps on the big maps in multiplayer mode - on rare occasions the game dips to 58 fps.

I'm using a 1440p monitor on ultra settings

Thanks for your contribution but I just bought this card, I'm fairly reluctant to sell both graphics cards at a loss (I would have to sell them at around 200 Euros a card at most, and a GTX 780 Ti is about 620 Euros. Which means I would be paying ~200 Euros for another 5-10 fps if any improvement) considering that having done lots of research about the second card as I'm pretty sure that these cards can achieve decent FPS which can be more or less equivalent to the GTX 780 Ti.

Unfortunately after trying the possible fix that Mike789 provided me the minimum framerates were still in the mid-low 40's in some maps, this framerate drop isn't a half-quater of a second drop, I can experience this for a good couple of seconds up to 20 second when I am in the middle of a fight which is very off-putting.

Also I'm not sure how I can check what my GPU's are doing in Battlefield 4 as the MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner OSD will not show up. As of current I have no indication of whether my GPU's are working their balls off trying to hit 60fps, or chillin', twiddling their thumbs. The only real indication of how my GPU's are running is when my pc suddenly gets loud when the graphics cards get over 60 degrees! (I set my cards to go to 80% fan when the GPU gets over 60 degrees)

I have noticed that there are a few types of settigns, AFR, AFR2, SFR etc... I was wondering what the difference was between them and how if enable AFR(1 or 2) in Battlefield 4 my framerates go to around the low 20's...

Mr91, what CPU do you have? Becuase I have noticed that my CPU is sometimes around the 80% and occasionally the low 90% usage when playing Battlefield 4, I just tab out every so often to check Task Manager and I see the graph fluctuating significantly above and below the 50% mark. I remember in the Battlefield 4 Beta whenever my CPU reached 100% the game would get a quick FPS drop to about 20 FPS or even lower. I'm starting to wonder if I'm experiencing driver or CPU related problems and if Battlefield 4 is really starting to utilize octa-cores/hyperthreaded quad cores...

Thanks for the contributions guys, I really appreciate all the help I can get!

 

[t21]

bf4 is bad optimized you would see people with more better system and still problems every were same as every year games getting far worse optimisation than the previous year things start to get out of hands

 

[mike789]

Just some extra thoughts...

1. Your bf4 experience is -still- better than consoles
2. Sli and Xfire are not really for gaming every title, they work good in some, but imho its benchmarking only reasons or multi display setups that take advantage of it.
3. No matter what kind of hardware you get, after some time there will be titles (1-3 years) that with max settings you wont be able to maintain >60 fps
4. Some new titles, ex. ac series, bf series and open world games will always need the latest hardware to play on highest settings (thats the creators fault)

And a couple of recommendations..
Since I mentioned benchmarking, its always better to test any new hardware configuration with 2 or 3 benchmarking utilities, heaven, 3dmark, passmark or other to test their functionality, b4 going into games.
New game titles are always better 3-6 months after their release.. (cheaper, patched, new drivers, etc.)

 

[bishopi5]

Just throwing it out there, i have a heavily overclocked 680 4gb SLI setup with same CPU that is running @ 4.4 watercooled, I also can get under 50fps at times, its the game, it will be fixed with drivers/updates, Hope this helps

 

[hypergon]

Locker with 64 players is a total moshpit 😀
IMO worst map for 64 players and got pretty much the worst fps in that situation

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

Hi everyone!
I just rendered out some 4K BF4 (played in 1080p) footage in Flood Zone with a GPU and CPU monitor running in my second screen so i could get an idea for how well my GPU and CPU are doing. Looking at the results during some fps drops my CPU is around 95%+ and my GPU's are down at a measly 50%. Does this indicate a CPU bottleneck?
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTaMB9k1QvY
Note: the noticeable FPS drops are from 40 fps when I look at the entire map. I mean, shouldn't both GPU's always be near 100% usage??? Mine rarely reach 95% usage, is this a driver issue or an actual CPU bottleneck?

Also is there any other game that I can play which could help diagnose a possible issue with this pc?

Thanks for the help guys, I really really really appreciate you taking time out to help me!

 

[t21]

play source game or more optimized game like crysis

 

[photonboy]

Hi everyone!
I just rendered out some 4K BF4 (played in 1080p) footage in Flood Zone with a GPU and CPU monitor running in my second screen so i could get an idea for how well my GPU and CPU are doing. Looking at the results during some fps drops my CPU is around 95%+ and my GPU's are down at a measly 50%. Does this indicate a CPU bottleneck?
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTaMB9k1QvY
Note: the noticeable FPS drops are from 40 fps when I look at the entire map. I mean, shouldn't both GPU's always be near 100% usage??? Mine rarely reach 95% usage, is this a driver issue or an actual CPU bottleneck?

Also is there any other game that I can play which could help diagnose a possible issue with this pc?

Thanks for the help guys, I really really really appreciate you taking time out to help me!

Hey,
You've got a great system there.
Other people are having similar issues with BF4. Your test in SINGLE PLAYER as I recommended shows your GRAPHICS section is doing great. Thus, your frame rate drops in MULTIPLAYER are CPU related.

You have a CPU that is in the TOP 1% of the market. If you're having issues, others are having much, much worse.

The problem is the GAME itself. I don't know when or if they'll patch it but considering there aren't any CPU's that are much faster than yours there's really little you can do for now.

VIDEO:
You need to learn a little bit about making videos for Youtube. First, there's no point in a 4K and upscaling after the fact does little, and secondly it was BLURRY at all resolutions (unless that was just me).

You should try SHADOWPLAY instead. It has a preset 1080p @60Hz but you can change the quality. On HIGH it seems to average about a 5% hit for me.

SUMMARY:
- Your system is fine. Game has issues.
- Use SHADOWPLAY?

 

[hypergon]

Tbh top 1% CPU is totally exaggerated, but for gaming 3570k and 4670k and their 'upgrades' 3770k and 4770k are very common.

BF4 is just NOT optimised for anything at all, and multiplayer is quite CPU intense (especially with 64 players all at one place)

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

Hi everyone!
I just rendered out some 4K BF4 (played in 1080p) footage in Flood Zone with a GPU and CPU monitor running in my second screen so i could get an idea for how well my GPU and CPU are doing. Looking at the results during some fps drops my CPU is around 95%+ and my GPU's are down at a measly 50%. Does this indicate a CPU bottleneck?
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTaMB9k1QvY
Note: the noticeable FPS drops are from 40 fps when I look at the entire map. I mean, shouldn't both GPU's always be near 100% usage??? Mine rarely reach 95% usage, is this a driver issue or an actual CPU bottleneck?

Also is there any other game that I can play which could help diagnose a possible issue with this pc?

Thanks for the help guys, I really really really appreciate you taking time out to help me!

Hey,
You've got a great system there.
Other people are having similar issues with BF4. Your test in SINGLE PLAYER as I recommended shows your GRAPHICS section is doing great. Thus, your frame rate drops in MULTIPLAYER are CPU related.

You have a CPU that is in the TOP 1% of the market. If you're having issues, others are having much, much worse.

The problem is the GAME itself. I don't know when or if they'll patch it but considering there aren't any CPU's that are much faster than yours there's really little you can do for now.

VIDEO:
You need to learn a little bit about making videos for Youtube. First, there's no point in a 4K and upscaling after the fact does little, and secondly it was BLURRY at all resolutions (unless that was just me).

You should try SHADOWPLAY instead. It has a preset 1080p @60Hz but you can change the quality. On HIGH it seems to average about a 5% hit for me.

SUMMARY:
- Your system is fine. Game has issues.
- Use SHADOWPLAY?

Thanks for looking at the video photonboy!
I just felt like rendering the video out in 4K just for the hell of it! I recorded the video using my camera just to show you guys the real framerate, so you could get a proper idea of how many FPS I get. I used to use Shadowplay lots, but until a few weeks ago (maybe an update caused it) whenever I recorded with Shadowplay I would receive the 5% performance hit but I would get a horrible FPS stutter down to lower than 5 FPS for some reason. On the topic of recording, my friend has an i7 3770k @stock clocks with a GTX 680 and a very fast WD Black. He can flawlessly record gameplay in FRAPS @1080p 60FPS. Whereas I cannot record 1080p 60FPS it will just lag and drop around 20 - 30FPS (note I used an SSD for recording).

Would an upgrade to the i7 3770k give me better recording performance in Shadowplay/FRAPS/Dxtory, editing/rendering and gaming? I have a friend who would be interested in the i5 and some of my things. In the end I would only have to end up paying around 100 Euros for the i7 3770k. Would I notice a large enough performance increase to warrant the 100 Euros? (Considering I use lots of 3Ds MAX and After Effects)

Thanks 😉

 

[mr91]

I have a 3570k

I suggest you try setting your cpu and gpu's back to stock, it looks like either you overclocked your CPU too much or your power supply isn't stable enough for the OC.

You might want to sell you 670's and upgrade to a 780 non ti because it will probably give you a better experience.

I like your video - more videos should support 1440p and 4k.

Many people are saying the game is broker however I don't think it's that bad for me especially compared to some other games out there. EA has been good at fixing the problems lately and think it's because they are being sued by the stock holders.

 

[BroHamBone]

Just want to add

I run better fps with single 780 classified vs sli classified in bf4 on 120hz screen. It's not your system, it's the game.

 

[photonboy]

MrSniperTrifle

Re: the i7-3770K

Your SHADOWPLAY issues are not related to CPU performance. That sounds more like a glitch related to using Shadowplay via SLI or some other software issue.

The i7-3770K can achieve a maximum of a 30% increase in tools that can fully utilize every thread. Handbrake, on certain settings, can probably get close to this.

As to OTHER PROGRAMS/GAMES you'd have to investigate that. There are plenty of benchmarks out there that compare the i5-3570K and i5-3770K (or i5-4670K and i7-4770K) for the programs you mentioned.

Only you can determine if an upgrade is worth it. For games, IMO the answer is NO, as you may get a 10% at best currently which might mean 55FPS instead of 50FPS for example.

As for the programs, again, you can look at the benchmarks and decide.

I again express my opinion that your hardware is very good and there's little reason to change anything. Don't get sucked into the game of upgrading too often unless you are well aware of the performance gains and deem it a worthwhile cost to upgrade.

(If you want to buy my i7-3770K it's on offer. It's only $4000 because I really want a SteamOS machine that just runs Linux games... sorry, just saw a link about some of the SteamOS machines with 2xTitan cards for the living room which don't even support any of the Windows games unless you install Windows and dual-boot.)

 

[Reflex135]

I posted in a similar thread also, but my minimum FPS @ 1080p Ultra (motion blur usually off but it doesn't change) is in the 60s, I'll have to double check when I'm home. 670 SLI and 4.7 Ghz 3570k. 120 hz monitor, and the game runs like butter. I haven't seen one dip that caused any stuttering. Seasonic X750 Gold PSU. Friend has 680s and has no problems either (I've played on his setup).

I know some maps in BF3 had spots that had terrible fps even on empty servers on all setups. maybe you've found one in BF4?

 

[mr91]

You have a better PSU and you probably have a CPU that overclocks better because it's seems that the OP CPU doesn't overclock well that's why
the cpu usage is so high. I found when I upgraded psu to a ax 860i it improved my overclocking however I didn't do well in the silicon lottery so I set my cpu to stock settings.

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

I posted in a similar thread also, but my minimum FPS @ 1080p Ultra (motion blur usually off but it doesn't change) is in the 60s, I'll have to double check when I'm home. 670 SLI and 4.7 Ghz 3570k. 120 hz monitor, and the game runs like butter. I haven't seen one dip that caused any stuttering. Seasonic X750 Gold PSU. Friend has 680s and has no problems either (I've played on his setup).

I know some maps in BF3 had spots that had terrible fps even on empty servers on all setups. maybe you've found one in BF4?

Hi there!
Thanks for the response, I get FPS dips in basically all maps where there is a large fight going on...

 

[Reflex135]

I posted in a similar thread also, but my minimum FPS @ 1080p Ultra (motion blur usually off but it doesn't change) is in the 60s, I'll have to double check when I'm home. 670 SLI and 4.7 Ghz 3570k. 120 hz monitor, and the game runs like butter. I haven't seen one dip that caused any stuttering. Seasonic X750 Gold PSU. Friend has 680s and has no problems either (I've played on his setup).

I know some maps in BF3 had spots that had terrible fps even on empty servers on all setups. maybe you've found one in BF4?

Hi there!
Thanks for the response, I get FPS dips in basically all maps where there is a large fight going on...

I only get a min of 43 FPS on Siege of Shanghai when/after the skyscraper falls I believe. Everything else is a minimum of 60 or higher.

Locker:
Frames: 112167 - Time: 871078ms - Avg: 128.768 - Min: 62 - Max: 200

Siege of Shanghai building falling and aftrer:
Frames: 108020 - Time: 1336102ms - Avg: 80.847 - Min: 43 - Max: 156

Second worst map Paracel Storm:
Frames: 18080 - Time: 209822ms - Avg: 86.168 - Min: 59 - Max: 144

I posted similar things here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1970419/bf4-bad-fps-gtx-670-sli-3570k-ghz-bottleneck.html#xtor=EPR-8809

 

[shm0wie]

Get Windows 8.1! Trust me! DirectX 11 cannot push your video cards properly in BF4 .. notice how your GPU usage drops down when your framerate drops? This shouldn't happen.

DirectX 11.1 fixes this - see here http://imgur.com/a/9jQ9z

Not only did Windows 8.1 shave off ~5ms frametime on both GPU and CPU, it also gives much better performance (no stuttering) and bumps up my framerate huge! There was parts of maps I was dropping below 40fps in Win7 - same areas are over 70fps in Win8.1

Specs:
i7-860
P55-UD6
GTX670
Vertex 4 SSD
16GB Dominator plat

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

Get Windows 8.1! Trust me! DirectX 11 cannot push your video cards properly in BF4 .. notice how your GPU usage drops down when your framerate drops? This shouldn't happen.

DirectX 11.1 fixes this - see here http://imgur.com/a/9jQ9z

Not only did Windows 8.1 shave off ~5ms frametime on both GPU and CPU, it also gives much better performance (no stuttering) and bumps up my framerate huge! There was parts of maps I was dropping below 40fps in Win7 - same areas are over 70fps in Win8.1

Specs:
i7-860
P55-UD6
GTX670
Vertex 4 SSD
16GB Dominator plat

damn......
Just spent too much on an i7 (well, only 85 euros), now people are telling me Windows 8.1 was the way to go! Thanks for the response, at least I know there is a solution! I'll think about it!
Thanks people!

 

[MrSniperTrifle]

FIX

WINDOWS 8.1 HAS DRASTICALLY INCREASED MY FPS!!!!!!

Thanks for all the help people