Recently upgraded to a 660Ti and haven't been getting the performance I was hoping

J

Jesus_Faction

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 31, 2005
Messages
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My system:

Win 7 64 bit
12 GB DDR3 (2x8gb and 2x4gb)
Evga 660ti 2 GB (stock)
i7 860 (stock speeds and stock cooler)

I just upgraded from a GTX 260 and was hoping to be able to max out every game now. I've been watching my hardware monitor while playing games and the load doesn't really exceed 50% on the GPU or the CPU, but my FPS still tanks. I just updated to the newest nvidia beta drivers and that hasn't helped either. Temps have been under 60C for the CPU and under 55V for the GPU so I don't think over heating is the issue. Any advice?
 
What performance were you getting and what performance were you hoping to get? What resolution are you gaming on?

Higher resolution removes some of the CPU bottleneck, more AA too. Could help if you only get 50% load on the GPU. On some drivers, there has been a bug where you in some games need to make sure "prefer maximum performance" under power options is selected in Nvidia CPL (Two worlds 2 is one of the games if I remember correctly).

Some games are more CPU dependent and you'll see higher FPS with higher clock on the CPU.

Nothing wrong with temps.
 
One thing to try is, select "prefer max performance" in the nvidia control panel.
 
I play at my monitor's native res of 1920x1080. In borderlands 2 I can run everything on high except I have to have PhysX on low other wise it get bogged down during fights. In Natural Selection 2 sometimes I get bogged down to about 30 FPS, and most of the in game settings are turned off.

The game that spurred me to make this post was the new Need for speed: Most wanted. I've hard to set most of the in game settings to mid or low and the game still goes down to 40 FPS at points.

I have been using prefer max performance in the ctrl panel.
I feel like I should be able to run games at a solid 60 FPS so this is a bit irritating.
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
 
Jesus_Faction said:
My system:

Win 7 64 bit
12 GB DDR3 (2x8gb and 2x4gb)
Evga 660ti 2 GB (stock)
i7 860 (stock speeds and stock cooler)

I just upgraded from a GTX 260 and was hoping to be able to max out every game now. I've been watching my hardware monitor while playing games and the load doesn't really exceed 50% on the GPU or the CPU, but my FPS still tanks. I just updated to the newest nvidia beta drivers and that hasn't helped either. Temps have been under 60C for the CPU and under 55V for the GPU so I don't think over heating is the issue. Any advice?
Click to expand...

I assume you mean 2x4GB and 2x2GB in your system RAM configuration. I would try removing the 2GB sticks. Mixed memory configurations can do strange things.
 
i feel your frustration
i have two 680s and have had similar issues
my gpu usage would not go over 60% on both cards causing bad fps.
it feels like v sync is on even though you have it forced off?

im using the 306.97 drivers and it seems to be working fine.
you may try overclocking your cpu, 2.8ghz is pretty low.
 
xnikx said:
i feel your frustration
i have two 680s and have had similar issues
my gpu usage would not go over 60% on both cards causing bad fps.
it feels like v sync is on even though you have it forced off?

im using the 306.97 drivers and it seems to be working fine.
you may try overclocking your cpu, 2.8ghz is pretty low.
Click to expand...

I experienced something similar to the v sync always on thing when i first got this card. Driver sweeping and doing a "clean install" when installing the drivers seemed to clear that up though.

I'm afraid to OC my CPU too much since I'm still on the stock cooler and I don't wanna push the temps into the 70s if I can help it.
 
Are you using hyper threading? If you are, it distorts how hard your processor is actually working. It may only read 50% usage because the four threads granted by HT aren't doing anything.

Until you get a better cooler and try to overclock, I'd suggest at least making sure turbo boost is enabled. That will get you to 2.9GHz while all four cores are loaded, and higher if you are in a less demanding situation.
 
jolli said:
Are you using hyper threading? If you are, it distorts how hard your processor is actually working. It may only read 50% usage because the four threads granted by HT aren't doing anything.

Until you get a better cooler and try to overclock, I'd suggest at least making sure turbo boost is enabled. That will get you to 2.9GHz while all four cores are loaded, and higher if you are in a less demanding situation.
Click to expand...

Yeah turbo boost is on, it hits 2932 Mhz. I do have HT enabled as well. I'm more concerned with my new GPU only being utilized 50%, but I guess I'm basing a lot of it on a newly released console port of a game.
 
If you play older engine based games or weak graphically advanced there's not much that can be done to get a GPU to use 99 percent. For example...If I force everything I can in TF2 I can only get up to 50 percent GPU usage not a percent more. Now in BF3 I can easily hit 50 percent on all low settings and 99 on Ultra. Force supersampling and Ambient Occlusion in Nvidia Profile and then put in game video options settings as high as possible and see if it goes up. Yeah maybe also get out your mobo manual and look up your memory slot configuration and double check you have them in the optimal slots.
 
On a related topic... is there a way to force higher clocks when GPU usage is lower? Like on the first Mass Effect (that I'm still trying to finish lol), clocks are at around 500 on my 660Ti, but as a result, the FPS occasionally dips to 40...

Damn Kepler. Stop saving power! I want to see 300FPS! >:D
 
Ajiki-kun said:
On a related topic... is there a way to force higher clocks when GPU usage is lower? Like on the first Mass Effect (that I'm still trying to finish lol), clocks are at around 500 on my 660Ti, but as a result, the FPS occasionally dips to 40
Click to expand...

xorbe said:
One thing to try is, select "prefer max performance" in the nvidia control panel.
Click to expand...

3char
 
Ajiki-kun said:
On a related topic... is there a way to force higher clocks when GPU usage is lower? Like on the first Mass Effect (that I'm still trying to finish lol), clocks are at around 500 on my 660Ti, but as a result, the FPS occasionally dips to 40...

Damn Kepler. Stop saving power! I want to see 300FPS! >:D
Click to expand...

There's an option in Nvidia Control Panel you have to select "choose maximum performance" maybe under power settings tab I can't remember offhand, but more than likely Nvidia defaults to the "adaptive power" setting...which is very dumb imho...who wants lowered fps anyway? yeah check that setting and apply it sometime. Then it wont downclock your gpu core like that. ;)

adaptive power and adaptive vsync are 2 different options as well try not to get them confused.
 
Well that was easy. Now I feel silly. Thanks for that; now the game runs a little too fast. I like it. :D
 
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