4-way SLI 680 and BF3 MP = ~70% GPU Usage

clayton006 said:
It looks like that was short lived. I went back into the game later and performance was horrible. Nothing running in the background, GPU usage was at 10-20 % and no matter what graphics settings I tried performance wouldn't increase. I have to think drivers or something with the game is causing some screwyness.

I don't play the game much at all, but just testing things out for you guys here.
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Yeah, that's some kind of SLI bug. I always make sure to do a fresh reboot before I play BF3 MP because otherwise you get that dreaded 20% utilization bug. It's weird. I've found I can play for hours with normal utilization (around 70%) as long as I do nothing but play BF3 MP. If I start using email, Twitter, etc. it will strike.

Anyway, thank you very much for testing BF3 MP for us. If you didn't get hooked, I'm surprised...but even more thankful that you did it just for testing purposes. :)
 
clayton006 said:
It looks like that was short lived. I went back into the game later and performance was horrible. Nothing running in the background, GPU usage was at 10-20 % and no matter what graphics settings I tried performance wouldn't increase. I have to think drivers or something with the game is causing some screwyness.

I don't play the game much at all, but just testing things out for you guys here.
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yes, i dont play bf3 much anymore either. i just like to know that when i do play, i can play high settings smoothly.

but i uninstalled my drivers and re installed the drivers which came with the cards, 301.42 and my performance has been much better.
can play at stock high settings with about 56 fps. if i put some settings on medium, no motion blur, 8x af i can play and rarely drop below 60.

but now im getting an issue which i got when i first bought the cards where for the first like 5 minutes of gaming, the usage on one of the cards will drop from 98% to 2% so the games pretty much unplayable for about 5 minutes but then the problem just goes away.
 
If flash h/a is enabled in your browser while you are playing then you get 50% utilization in my experience. Either close your browser or disable h/a and try it then. Nasty little nvidia bug that has never been fixed. I stopped playing this game and went back to bc2 myself which is just plain old much more fun.
 
Hey guys.

I too have been working on the low GPU utilization problem on BF3 with my GTX 670 4-way SLI. I have had few different system with my 4 670s to try to get the most out of them. 2500k/Z77, 3770k/Z77, 3930k/RIVE. Many returns later I have my current Asrock Extreme 11 board. Most of my testing has been from campaign in the section were Vega got his 90% GPU utilization scores. As campaign is much easier to reproduce exact comparisons.

Sketch, there is one problem with the BF3 performance overlay graphs that I see. When I was studying my 3770k I found that there is one core that BF3 uses more than others. I believe it was core 1. So my CPU use was only about 70%, but I was seeing a CPU bottleneck as that one core was maxed out. This would be exacerbated as you apply a 6core CPU, and even more when HT is turned on. But in actuality that one core could be holding back your system(bottlenecking) even though your total CPU use is low. I would think this is caused by bad coding by the programmers of BF3. I have not looked closely on what each core is doing on the 3930k during these same situations. So if it were a complete GPU bottleneck than a CPU overclock wouldn't help the framerate, but it does.

Has anyone thought about bad programming by Dice as the problem for the low GPU utilization. How did Vega get his 680s GPU% up in the 90% in the beginning of Swordbreaker as shown on his videos? And why cant anyone reproduce it? Could it be one of Dice's patches they released on the game and Vega was using an older version? In Good Hunting campaign level I'm getting great GPU utilization, in the 90%. And scaling all the way to 4-way SLI is great. Here is my scaling test with my older 2500k/Z77/ 4 670s.

Battlefield 3- Good Hunting. GTX 670s @ stock speeds, 2500k @ 4.5ghz. All settings ultra except FXAA 5760x1080.

I ran just a quick benchmark of the first 1 1/2 min of the stage with Fraps. I did not include the high altitude part of the map where the framerate almost doubles.


(GTX 670 X1)
Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
103912, 31, 48, 37


(GTX 670 X2)
Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
103335, 59, 89, 71


(GTX 670 X3)
Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
103865, 84, 125, 99



(GTX 670 X4)
Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
104287, 86, 166, 125



If anyone sees anything incorrect please correct me as I am no professional.
I also have good 4-way scaling on Unengine Heaven shown in my older 4-way thread here, about half way down page. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/355067-33-cooling
 
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ya im about ready to return these cards and get some 7970s.

so if i play on low, medium, or high settings my cards are only used 50-60% and i get avg 40 fps when outdoors. and thats on all three settings.

when i switch to ultra my cards are used about 98% and i get an avg of 40fps.

i can tell i should be able to play on high settings no problem, if my cards would be used 90% at all times. when my cards are used 70% or higher, usually when i go indoors, i get 75fps.

so, game at 1920x1080
2egcmk7.jpg

great performance on everything maxed, never drops under 80fps. i didnt see the gpu usage pass 64%.
the gpu usage would drop 10% every settings i went down, so on low settings gpu usage was 30%

5760x1080
1045gmv.jpg


map is wake island, on the boat im getting 90+ gpu usage and great fps.
soon as i get on land my gpu usage drops to the 60s and my fps goes to shit.
why is my gpu usage dropping when i need it the most?

and again i must stress that low, medium, and high settings are performing the same
ultra gets high gpu usage and fps stays in the 40s.
 
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Can you try overclocking your processor to 4.0ghz and see what happens?

I've found that at a resolution of 5760 x 1080 with two cards in SLI the CPU can actually become a bottleneck (it was actually highlighted in a certain [H]OCP review).

I used to run my heavily overclocked 670 FTW's on an x58 i7 920 @ 4.0 ghz based system and I never experienced the issues you're having.
 
flu!d said:
Can you try overclocking your processor to 4.0ghz and see what happens?

I've found that at a resolution of 5760 x 1080 with two cards in SLI the CPU can actually become a bottleneck (it was actually highlighted in a certain [H]OCP review).

I used to run my heavily overclocked 670 FTW's on an x58 i7 920 @ 4.0 ghz based system and I never experienced the issues you're having.
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im pretty new to overclocking, this is the first pc ive ever overclocked.
and for some reason i cannot get a 4.0 oc, even when following a guide :(

ill do some more research and see what i can do.
 
Globox said:
okay now i'm impressed
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impressed by what?

and i actually think i may have this solved. and yes it has to do with the cpu speed.

i was playing l4d2 and was getting terrible performance, fps dropping to 40s and the gpus were only being used 50%.

So, ive always had a problem with l4d2 where it will randomly cause my pc to freeze and i have to manually restart. and i guess when this happens it will also reset my bios settings, setting my cpu back to stock speeds.

so i re installed the latest drivers and uped back to 3.68ghz, went back into l4d2 and my gpu usage was 70s-90s with fps not dropping under 100.
went on a full game of wake island and didnt see my fps drop under 80 on medium settings.

this is just a theory, but i will report back tomorrow when i get to test it more, i was only able to play a few minutes of bf3 due to the time.
 
Hmm. Well that doesnt work in my case. Im seeing a big difference in performance from stock speeds vs GPU & CPU OC 5ghz. About 15-20% increase in BF3, and its pretty consistent. But still not where it should be.....
 
306.02 and HT off doesn't fix my GPU utilization problems in NV Surround. For me, 4.5 GHz 3960x was the same results as 4.9 GHz 3960x - so that's why I am pretty firmly placing blame on NVIDIA drivers at this point versus lack of CPU power.
 
As stated earlier, I tried for quite some time to get proper scaling in BF3 MP in surround with 3 or more cards in sli, and quite simply I found that any more than two cards in surround playing BF3 MP is broken and two cards are actually faster.

I don't, however, believe the issue lies with NV, I think it's an issue with the coding of the game, as every other title scaled nicely with 3 x 580's in surround.

However, my two heavily overclocked 670 FTW's were just as fast with less headaches.

With a 3960x at 4.5ghz, you aren't CPU limited, Bloomfield at low 3ghz clock speeds is a different story however.
 
ya, i dont know wtf is going on. my theory was wrong.
sometimes i get great performance and sometimes i dont i guess.
wake island, im getting 90+ gpu usage at all times but than i got play strike at karkand and get 50% usage and only 40fps on medium settings.

im going to call evga tomorrow and if i cant figure the problem out im just going to return the cards, since i dont see much of an improvement over my 460s.
 
well i think i figured the problem out.
the memory clock on both my cards is 3005, but one of the cards will drop to 324.
i tested the cards individually, the card that mem clock stayed at 3005 would run fine and the other would drop to 324 and would run shitty.

do you guys think this is the reason i sometimes get good gpu usage and some get bad gpu usage?

i will be doing more testing before i rma.
 
xnikx said:
well i think i figured the problem out.
the memory clock on both my cards is 3005, but one of the cards will drop to 324.
i tested the cards individually, the card that mem clock stayed at 3005 would run fine and the other would drop to 324 and would run shitty.

do you guys think this is the reason i sometimes get good gpu usage and some get bad gpu usage?

i will be doing more testing before i rma.
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What bandwidth are you running your cards at? I had a weird problem before where I would get problems and diminished performance when mixing my cards with pci-e 2.0 x16,x8,x8,x8. If I ran all the cards at pci-e x8,x8,x8,x8 = no problems and better performance.

Thats one on my main reason i switch my mobo to the Extreme11 with x16 to all lanes.
 
Swolern said:
What bandwidth are you running your cards at? I had a weird problem before where I would get problems and diminished performance when mixing my cards with pci-e 2.0 x16,x8,x8,x8. If I ran all the cards at pci-e x8,x8,x8,x8 = no problems and better performance.

Thats one on my main reason i switch my mobo to the Extreme11 with x16 to all lanes.
Click to expand...

My performance is pretty similar between PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 on an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. It's better with PCIe 3.0 - but only by approximately 15 FPS (which is significant, but not mind blowing).
 
Swolern said:
What bandwidth are you running your cards at? I had a weird problem before where I would get problems and diminished performance when mixing my cards with pci-e 2.0 x16,x8,x8,x8. If I ran all the cards at pci-e x8,x8,x8,x8 = no problems and better performance.

Thats one on my main reason i switch my mobo to the Extreme11 with x16 to all lanes.
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both are in pci e 2.0 x16
 
sk3tch said:
My performance is pretty similar between PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 on an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. It's better with PCIe 3.0 - but only by approximately 15 FPS (which is significant, but not mind blowing).
Click to expand...

Ya same for me. But the 3.0 framerate was more stable also. Less fluctuation = smoother gameplay.
 
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BF3 update patch out today. No Surround GPU utilization fixes. Sucks!

Damn Armored Kill looks badass though! One more week PC gamers!
 
DarkAngel_ZERO said:
Was this in an email or a forum post?
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Email:

Chris Bencivenga said:
I am very sorry for any inconvenience as we have escalated this driver bug to Nvidia and we are simply awaiting a update to assist with this bug. I have confirmed that this should be fixed in the drivers version 310.XX and pleas allow a little more time for this to be finished and released. Please let me know if you should have any additional questions or concerns.
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Mine is doing much better in running BF3. Make sure after you launch the game that internet explorer isn't running. IE caused major issues with every game I played.
 
clayton006 said:
Mine is doing much better in running BF3. Make sure after you launch the game that internet explorer isn't running. IE caused major issues with every game I played.
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How much better are you talking about?

So far the driver has been buggy as hell for me.

Anyone try out MOH Warfighter?
 
Swolern said:
How much better are you talking about?

So far the driver has been buggy as hell for me.

Anyone try out MOH Warfighter?
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Better as in I can play it now without major issues (turning off MSAA and SSAO). Before this driver release it was unplayable for me. Also another thing that made an issue for me was IE running in the background. It would cause horrible framerates in all of my games.
 
310.33 has been a complete disaster for FB2 engine me :mad: BF3 & MOH, other games have improved.

BF3 MP 301.42 = @ 100 fps avg
310.33 = @ 15fps avg. YES FIFTEEN!
MOHW all drivers have been bad.

I dont get it Clayton you rig is very similar to mine, except 4gb vram, but im using FXAA!

Anyone have the link to Nvidia for driver complaints/issues?
 
Swolern said:
310.33 has been a complete disaster for FB2 engine me :mad: BF3 & MOH, other games have improved.

BF3 MP 301.42 = @ 100 fps avg
310.33 = @ 15fps avg. YES FIFTEEN!
MOHW all drivers have been bad.

I dont get it Clayton you rig is very similar to mine, except 4gb vram, but im using FXAA!

Anyone have the link to Nvidia for driver complaints/issues?
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Same here, BF3 runs very poorly. Crysis 2 is good, though.

Here's a run in BF3:

nVidia_310.33_gpu_usage_002.png
 
No problem :D
I saw other SLI users too complaining about poor or less GPU utilization in BF3 with the 310.33 driver.
 
4 way sucks for 7970s and looks to be the same for Nvida.. Note to self. DONT BUY 4 cards ever again! Stick with 2 as it seems every company is dreaming that there tech can handle 4 cards!

Spent the most ever on a PC build almost a year ago and what did i get? A mess.. in the end i've gone months and months without even using it cause of the fustraition. I would'nt doubt if i have less then 40 hours of total use from it.

Made the mistake of ordering Win8 Pro yesterday thinking that the drivers would be all good by now and i could find something to do this winter.. haha.

AMD should refund me for the 4th card and water block sitting in my case that never works right with there drivers!
 
eclypse said:
4 way sucks for 7970s and looks to be the same for Nvida.. Note to self. DONT BUY 4 cards ever again! Stick with 2 as it seems every company is dreaming that there tech can handle 4 cards!

Spent the most ever on a PC build almost a year ago and what did i get? A mess.. in the end i've gone months and months without even using it cause of the fustraition. I would'nt doubt if i have less then 40 hours of total use from it.

Made the mistake of ordering Win8 Pro yesterday thinking that the drivers would be all good by now and i could find something to do this winter.. haha.

AMD should refund me for the 4th card and water block sitting in my case that never works right with there drivers!
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I wouldn't 100% agree in regards to Nvidia. There is a level of diminishing returns, but 4 cards vs 3 has allowed me to take Skyrim to a more playable level at 7680x1600, as well as borderlands 2 and a few other games in surround. Granted, it's not a perfect experience, but I've felt the difference personally and for me it has been worth it.

In fact, the four cards I have allow me to play Sleeping Dogs at 2560x1600 at MAX everything. GPU utilization mostly sits in the mid 90's and high 80's at the lowest peaks. I think some of this is very driver / game dependent.

From a price perspective I agree, not really worth it to most who aren't running an extreme setup.
 
i bet you if we just had the ability to disable that dynamic boost bullshit nvidia implemented we wouldn't have this issue right now
 
Thats a good idea dinlee23. Anything you have seen that would lead you to believe the D.boost is an issue?
 
I just purchased three 670 FTW 4GBs for surround, specifically for this game.. I am having the same problem as others. Low GPU utilization. 3930k @ 4.6GHz.

I've been monitoring my cores and none of them individually hit 100% while playing. The green line graph of the performance overlay is always above the yellow. Can't be my CPU..

The setting that helps the most is Mesh. Only if I turn this on low can I stay above 60fps., and it just puts GPU utilization even lower.. But then trees look crappy and there is lots of pop-up.

This is multiplayer only experiences.

Tried several drivers, all seem to have the same type of problem.
 
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