Almost no GPU load in NTW Battles :(

samthegreat4 · September 27, 2011 05:11 PM

Hey guys,

I got a new videocard: a HD6950 2GB flashed to a 6970 and running at 6970 cores. Processor is AMD phenom 2 x4 920 @ 3.01 Ghz and 4GB DDR2 RAM.

The problem I'm having is that on the settings I'm playing at (high with 2x AA, 16x AF and everything checked), there's almost no GPU load ingame (in the battles). Only when I look to the outskirts of the maps where nothings happening my GPU load rises to max. 47% or something. When doing that my FPS is alright. But when I'm looking at my units and that of the enemy the GPU load is mostly 0 to 18%. Really very, very strange. This results in very unsmooth gameplay, very low FPS and a CPU that's got 1 core bottlenecking itself to around a 100% load and the other 3 cores going around 25%.

It shows that my GPU is downclocked, but that's only because I alt-tabbed out of the game at that moment. Look at the GPU Load...

Anyone?

samthegreat4 · September 28, 2011 02:19 PM

Nobody?

irishron · September 28, 2011 04:30 PM

It's a known fact the way the game uses cpu cores Yours is nothing out of ordinary.

samthegreat4 · September 29, 2011 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by irishron

It's a known fact the way the game uses cpu cores Yours is nothing out of ordinary.

The game is not playable like this. I'm getting crap FPS, even on more moderate settings, with a 3Ghz Quadcore, 4GB RAM and a supernew card.

irishron · September 29, 2011 10:58 AM

Post your dxdiag, then.

samthegreat4 · September 29, 2011 12:49 PM

Ok, here it is

:

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System Information
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Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

irishron · September 29, 2011 01:36 PM

Try these and see if it helps.

1. Try updating the motherboard chipset drivers.
2. Disable the RealTek High Definition sound drivers in Device Manager. They are conflicting with the sound card.
3. disable the AMD HDMI sound drivers in Device Manager if loaded. Same issue as RealTek.

samthegreat4 · September 29, 2011 02:45 PM

Ok, thanks

.
I disabled the 2 drivers. With regard to the mobo chipset: I think that I have the newest driver installed (as the last release from Foxconn was somewhere in 2009).

Gonna try to play now. Do you have some advice with regard to pagefile (maybe that influences performance as well?) and which ingame settings to turn off or on to maximise the GPU load and minimise the CPU load?

samthegreat4 · September 29, 2011 04:05 PM

Katching, that did it thanks

. My GPU load is now not 0 to 18 anymore but constantly around 100% !
Only problem now is that my GPU driver keeps crashing when the GPU has been at full load for some time. So after a while ingame it begins to constantly crash with 2 minutes or something in between. It crashes, game goes back to loading screen with the loading in almost complete stage, loading finishes, battle resumes, 2 minutes, crash, etc.

Maybe it's my PSU that can't handle the 20% powertune and the 6970 flash that I gave it? In other games it's fine with the same 20% powertune and 6970 mode (clocks at 6970 level also)..

Totalheadache · September 29, 2011 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by samthegreat4

Katching, that did it thanks

. My GPU load is now not 0 to 18 anymore but constantly around 100% !
Only problem now is that my GPU driver keeps crashing when the GPU has been at full load for some time. So after a while ingame it begins to constantly crash with 2 minutes or something in between. It crashes, game goes back to loading screen with the loading in almost complete stage, loading finishes, battle resumes, 2 minutes, crash, etc.

Maybe it's my PSU that can't handle the 20% powertune and the 6970 flash that I gave it? In other games it's fine with the same 20% powertune and 6970 mode (clocks at 6970 level also)..

monitored gpu temps in game? sounds like bad driver if all of your other games run fine..

irishron · September 29, 2011 05:46 PM

Run Speedfan and post a pic of ingame conditions. Totalheadache could be right.

samthegreat4 · September 30, 2011 07:34 AM

I'm monitored my GPU temps with GPU-z while in windowed mode (almost full screen, only a little edge left over for GPU-z's temperature sensor). Never went above 89. But I think I can recall that when it hit 89 it crashed yesterday. All other games are fine and Battlefield Bad Company 2 even goes to 91 sometimes. As long as I'm under 95 degrees celcius I should be fine, I think.

dearmad · October 02, 2011 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by samthegreat4

I'm monitored my GPU temps with GPU-z while in windowed mode (almost full screen, only a little edge left over for GPU-z's temperature sensor). Never went above 89. But I think I can recall that when it hit 89 it crashed yesterday. All other games are fine and Battlefield Bad Company 2 even goes to 91 sometimes. As long as I'm under 95 degrees celcius I should be fine, I think.

This is ridiculously hot! Is this the stock cooler??

If so get an aftermarket cooler and replace those crap fans. I did. My card went from 80's tops to 60's top temp now under maximum load. PLUS the fans I bought re nearly silent... it is so sweet and worth it.

irishron · September 30, 2011 07:50 AM

My card is by no means as new as yours nor as powerful as yours, but when it gets over 80, it starts having a mind of its own including screen darkening, artifacts after a while, etc. It starts doing this, for me, it's time to get out for a while. I don't have the money to replace it.

samthegreat4 · September 30, 2011 08:38 AM

Hmm, what card do you have?
AMD states that the max. temp for the 6950 is 95 degrees celcius. When my card is at high loads, like for example in Battlefield Bad Company 2, for a while (around 90%) it hovers around 89 degrees. And in Battlefield I can game for a few hours and nothing goes wrong. However, the moment my card reaches 89 degrees in Napoleon (I think that that temperature is related to the crash) or runs around that temp for a while my driver crashes every 2 minutes.

samthegreat4 · September 30, 2011 09:19 AM

Breaking news..

:
Was just trying to play some battles in Napoleon, newsflash: same problem re-appeared again. Whereas yesterday after I fixed it (somehow) my GPU load was 99/100% ,now my GPU load is very low again (max. 30% very infrequent).
Resulting in crappy FPS of around 15 to 25 even on Grassy Flatland ..

.

irishron · September 30, 2011 09:21 AM

9800GT 512mb. It will run on high settings good. This is where I use what they say as a guideline to go by as every card and every system is different. I found out many years ago, "God said" on things like this is not always true.

Blame it on the game trying to shove everything through the cpu and doing a bad job of it.

samthegreat4 · September 30, 2011 10:11 AM

Breaking news again..

I rebooted and after the reboot NTW ran kinda smooth again (between 30 and 50 FPS). After a while though it stopped running smoothly.
After some fiddling and keeping some factors constant (same map, same settings, same processes running) I tried some stuff. Ultimately I found the culprit.
Seems that Xfire molests my FPS in NTW

..

Turning Xfire on while in-game: dropdown from 40 or so avg. to 26/28.
Turning Xfire off while in-game: nothing

Restarting the game with Xfire turned off: again 40 or so avg.

Strange that such a light program can be so disastrous with regard to performance..
Thanks for the help guys

.

irishron · September 30, 2011 11:57 AM

People were having the same issue with Empire when it was released. Check the old .com forum.

samthegreat4 · September 30, 2011 01:00 PM

Check where?

Almost no GPU load in NTW Battles :(

Almost no GPU load in NTW Battles :(

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