A pair of 980gtx SLI not running fully in this game(FC4)

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jonneymendoza

Supreme [H]ardness
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Hi. i have the latest Nvidia drivers which are 347.09 and running the most up to date game version of v1.6 of this game.

The issue i am having is that whilst playing the game, both my GPU load uses only half of its power which effectively means i am kind of using just one 980gtx to run this game.

as a result, at 2560x1600 res, i only get around 40fps with every graphics settings maxed out.

At my resolution and the GPU power i have, i should be running this a lot better but it seems this game refuses to use the full load of my graphics card.

Other games tend to use the full load of my graphics card so dont think it is a driver or hardware issue.

Here are the rest of my specs

Intel core i7 920 clocked at 4ghz

9gb DDR3 Ram

850w corsair Gold edition PSU.

Hope someone can help me.

Kind regards
 
Maybe a game issue. Take out of sli and see what 1 card does. If the load is higher...then make an sli profile for the game
 
I think its an issue with the X58 boards. I had 2 780's in an x58 board then upgraded to an X97 and performance went up a good 20% or more clock for clock.
 
Check your Windows power settings and make sure it is set to High performance, SLI seems to dislike Balanced, which is the default mode. This may fix your problem.
 
Going to go ahead and suggest that maybe your more than 6 year old CPU is at play here along with a ram setup that I can't imagine is running in full triple channel.
 
Kor said:
Going to go ahead and suggest that maybe your more than 6 year old CPU is at play here along with a ram setup that I can't imagine is running in full triple channel.
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at first I was wondering how he got to 9GB of ram, then realized it's probably 3x2gb + 3x1GB, which should be fine.

What level of AA are you running? Using the [H] performance review as a reference, they found SMAA to work best, but cranking up the MSAA or TXAA levels could certainly cause performance issues.
 
CrazyRob said:
at first I was wondering how he got to 9GB of ram, then realized it's probably 3x2gb + 3x1GB, which should be fine.

What level of AA are you running? Using the [H] performance review as a reference, they found SMAA to work best, but cranking up the MSAA or TXAA levels could certainly cause performance issues.
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triple channel mate

3 3 3 = 9gb

yea i am using MSAA/TXAA.

still my gpu aint running at max load, only half. fair enough if it was running max load and i got only got that fps.

anyways i will try tonight all of the suggestions so far as i am still at work
 
I have 2 x 980s and am playing at a slightly higher res (3440 x 1440). I get a solid 60 FPS except for some stuttering when operating any vehicle.

There was a well known bug that caused image 'ghosting' when running SLI and SMAA kind of like image burn-in on old monitors. Changing that setting to anything other than SMAA solved that issue. I had this problem but sounds like you are already not using SMAA.

But as far as not getting 60 FPS, I'm not sure. I think the game engine is pretty bad. I loved the game (On the last mission to kill Ming now) but the fact I have to run an 8 core 5960x + 2 x 980s, ALL overlocked, its a bit nuts.

Like others have said, change to balanced power plan (this disables the CPU from slowing down in low demand situations)
 
Armpit said:
Check your Windows power settings and make sure it is set to High performance, SLI seems to dislike Balanced, which is the default mode. This may fix your problem.
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I would go one step further and change the power management setting in the NVIDIA control panel from Adaptive to High Performance as well.
 
jonneymendoza said:
where is that setting under?
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NVIDIA Control Panel -> Manage 3D settings -> Power management mode -> Adaptive|Prefer maximum performance

adaptive_performance.jpg
 
MavericK96 said:
Where are these 3 GB DIMMs of which you speak?
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opps yes i am running 12gb ram. just shows how badly out of touch i am on my own damm pc

Armenius said:
NVIDIA Control Panel -> Manage 3D settings -> Power management mode -> Adaptive|Prefer maximum performance

adaptive_performance.jpg
Click to expand...

cheers i will try that now.

I tried it via the usual windows control panels power management and it made no difference.

i then checked my cpu usage and it seems it running at stock and not at 3.8gh that i thought i had it set? anyway it the load is strange. on the first core its using 33%, on the 2nd and 4th core it uses noe but in the 3rd core its using all of it ie 99%??

I jut got a xeon 5670 but not slapped that on yet. wanted to try these suggestions first just to make sure it not a GPU issue?
 
jonneymendoza said:
i then checked my cpu usage and it seems it running at stock and not at 3.8gh that i thought i had it set? anyway it the load is strange. on the first core its using 33%, on the 2nd and 4th core it uses noe but in the 3rd core its using all of it ie 99%??

I jut got a xeon 5670 but not slapped that on yet. wanted to try these suggestions first just to make sure it not a GPU issue?
Click to expand...
The high core 2 usage is normal in this game, and is perhaps the reason it stutters. Some people have contemplated that Ubisoft did this intentionally to force the quad-core requirement.

Getting your CPU overclock will definitely help with the performance in this game, but it probably won't fix the low GPU usage issue. The Xeon has a good IPC, but sadly I don't think it will do anything for you in terms of performance with this game. It will probably help with SLI scaling in general, though. You'll have to let us know how it goes.
 
Armenius said:
The high core 2 usage is normal in this game, and is perhaps the reason it stutters. Some people have contemplated that Ubisoft did this intentionally to force the quad-core requirement.

Getting your CPU overclock will definitely help with the performance in this game, but it probably won't fix the low GPU usage issue. The Xeon has a good IPC, but sadly I don't think it will do anything for you in terms of performance with this game. It will probably help with SLI scaling in general, though. You'll have to let us know how it goes.
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Enable hyper threading if not already, that could help with the Cpu bottleneck.
 
If your processor is sucessfully OC'd to 4 Ghz, it should definitely not be bottlenecked. Your RAM should be fine too. Seems to be something else.
 
deasnutz said:
Enable hyper threading if not already, that could help with the Cpu bottleneck.
Click to expand...

An i7 920 at 4 GHz probably isn't going to like HT being on. I could never get mine stable even at 3.8 GHz with HT on.
 
The High performance profile should not be necessary. In Win7 at least it has pretty bad defaults that cause higher power use as essentially all the power saving features are disabled. Just use balanced and maybe tweak its settings a bit. The main one is the processor power management. It should have min 5%, max 100% settings.

I also haven't seen any benefit from using the high performance setting in Nvidia control panel. The cards are meant to adjust their frequency based on load.

I run FC4 with 2x 970 at 1440p and it runs really nicely. Don't know the exact FPS but it runs very smoothly. The game still has a stutter issue with texture streaming that in my experience can only be mitigated by running it off a SSD. There's also still issues with PCSS and SMAA so those should be avoided. Personally I use Bolotaur's SweetFX injector to add SMAA (which doesn't have the burn-in bug with SLI).

If you have made any edits to the GamerProfile.xml files, try moving those files somewhere else and let the game regenerate them.

If all else fails, try uninstalling your Nvidia drivers with the Display Driver Uninstall tool and then reinstall the latest Nvidia drivers.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Hi. i have the latest Nvidia drivers which are 347.09 and running the most up to date game version of v1.6 of this game.

The issue i am having is that whilst playing the game, both my GPU load uses only half of its power which effectively means i am kind of using just one 980gtx to run this game.

as a result, at 2560x1600 res, i only get around 40fps with every graphics settings maxed out.

At my resolution and the GPU power i have, i should be running this a lot better but it seems this game refuses to use the full load of my graphics card.

Other games tend to use the full load of my graphics card so dont think it is a driver or hardware issue.
Click to expand...

This is a Ubisoft game. This problem is common in Ubisoft games. I have problems getting Assassin's Creed Unity and Watch Dogs to use my full GTX 980 SLI power.

Ubisoft can't code for shit.
 
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