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Do lower resolutions cripple GPU performance?

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beautypc

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Apr 12, 2012
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I'm using a 5770 playing TF2 - all settings on low with 4xAA 8x AF and manage only 25-40fps at best..

the resolution of my monitor is 1024x768 and my cpu is X2 5600+

Does using this low res affect my gpu ability to perform? gpu load in gpuz always less than 10%
 
How's the framerate? Do you vsync turned off? It simply means that either the:

1) game or driver is screwed up

or

2) the GPU simply doesn't need that much horsepower to maintain 60/120 fps (with vsync on)

Given that you're 25-40 fps that means that more than likely, the game is poorly coded or your driver is old.
 
Vsync off

using latest driver on fresh install of windows 7


-----

I just decreased AA and AF to 2x and 4x and the frame rate shot up.. I put the model detail on high, texture on high, shadow low, shader low.. frames jumped up to over 80--

vsync must be broken because when i turned it on I was getting over 60fps


---
 
Short answer yes. Its not always as simple as just resolution. At higher resolutions the GPU tends to do more and the CPU do a little less. You say your GPU load is around 10% what is your CPU load? If its high then your bottleneck is your CPU.

You could get a cheap 1080p monitor, but a cpu upgrade could help as well. I had a X2 3800 years a go and I upgraded to a Phenom X4 9950, the performance was rather drastic.
 
Driver clean.

You might have a setting in the drivers that's killing performance. TF2 can run on this system fine.

Also look into over clocking your CPU.
 
You should be aware that TF2 is very CPU-heavy, bad at multicore, and notoriously finicky, so you may just be out of luck.
 
For ships and jiggles I brought in an old CRT monitor from the garage which has a native res of 1280x1024

Huge difference. Now on High settings with 2x aa 8x AF Im averaging over 100fps with a few players and about 40 when there are about 13-16 players (which that must be cpu related for sure)

not to mention, i forgot how great crt's look.. im just going to use this until i can afford a better monitor.
 
I was going to point towards CPU limitations also. Overclock it and see if you get better performance.
 
So with higher resolution you get better performance? I'm trying to understand how this works?
 
melk said:
So with higher resolution you get better performance? I'm trying to understand how this works?
Click to expand...

You can get better performance from the video card.But its not as simple as just increasing your resolution you automatically get better performance. The CPU is also part of the equation. As stated in the OP the GPU usage is at 10% which means the GPU is pretty much doing nothing in this instance.
 
Most peoples systems are GPU limited, so the speed of the gfx card determines the maximum framerate.
ie the CPU is fast enough for most situations to keep the gfx card running at max or at the target framerate (usually 60fps).

The higher the framerate, the more CPU is needed.
The higher the framerate, the more GPU is needed.

The lower the resolution, the more the GPU is freed up so can give higher framerate if the CPU isnt maxed.
The lower the resolution, the more CPU will be used if the GPU isnt maxing out.
If any CPU core is maxing out (around 90%), it becomes the bottleneck and will reduce the maximum framerate possible.
(note any "core", it doesnt need the whole CPU to max out)

If you use vsync and you hit the monitors refresh rate, that can become the bottleneck and you can still have free cpu and gpu power left over.

If you reduce the resolution, you will likely have a lot of untapped GPU power which can be used to increase the framerate.
Reducing the resolution increases CPU load, so you may become CPU limited but at a higher framerate.


Higher resolution puts more demand on the gfx card but will reduce load on the CPU if the framerate drops much.
If the gfx card is maxing out, it will reduce the maximum framerate possible.
But if you were already limiting the max framerate with vsync, you may have enough power left to support an increase in resolution while still keeping at vsync framerate.


The more gfx cards you use (ie crossfire/SLI), the more CPU is needed.
Some game quality settings use more CPU and more GPU.
 
The slight bump in res from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 has made a big difference for me. The game is very playable and I've even been able to increase image quality settings.
 
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