Minimum FPS in games

[murkris118]

What are the factors that affect the minimum fps in games. ie, sudden fps drops on a high end ethusiast class Graphics card like a 680 or a 7970. Is the game to be blamed of bad coding and optimization or is the CPU being a bottleneck for the GPU to churn out more frames?.

 

[strekship]

Well sudden drops in fps can sometimes indicate that the vram is full and its swapping out textures.

 

[murkris118]

Well sudden drops in fps can sometimes indicate that the vram is full and its swapping out textures.

Will my rig mentioned in my sig be bottlenecked by the 2500k @ stock speeds?. also if it is swapping for textures would the Vengeance ram at 1333MHZ be a bottleneck?. Do you think I should get a higher speed RAM or should I ramp up the speed on this one.

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

Will my rig mentioned in my sig be bottlenecked by the 2500k @ stock speeds?

Depends on the game, depends on the settings. Overclock it and find out. (Why even buy a K processor if you're running it at stock?)

also if it is swapping for textures would the Vengeance ram at 1333MHZ be a bottleneck?

If your VRAM is full, you're already fucked. Performance is going to tank no matter how good your system is.

 

[slh28]

Will my rig mentioned in my sig be bottlenecked by the 2500k @ stock speeds?. also if it is swapping for textures would the Vengeance ram at 1333MHZ be a bottleneck?. Do you think I should get a higher speed RAM or should I ramp up the speed on this one.

He meant VRAM, i.e. on the GPU, not the RAM on your motherboard. VRAM usage goes up with resolution and levels of AA.

 

[murkris118]

Depends on the game, depends on the settings. Overclock it and find out. (Why even buy a K processor if you're running it at stock?)

Why dint I think of that?.... well fyi I bought a H77 mobo out of my own incompetence with an unlocked processor and stuck with it till I find a way to sell the damn motherboard. ..
I just want to get the best possible experience out of the rig at least till I get a mobo with a Z77 or Z68 Chipset.

 

[XTF]

If your VRAM is full, you're already fucked. Performance is going to tank no matter how good your system is.

Unused VRAM is wasted VRAM...

 

[murkris118]

When I play Crysis 2 the VRAM usage crosses 2GB at 1080p with DX 11 and High Res at Ultra as reported by afterburner. I would really like to know why that is happening because that could be the reason for my occasional fps dips as the card has to swap the page memory on the HDD to render the image. I dunno whether this happens in any other games but it surely happens in Crysis 2. 2+ GB of Vram usage in a game? .lol!... If I had nown that before I would have got the 3 GB version of the 680.

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

Unused VRAM is wasted VRAM...

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it...

When I play Crysis 2 the VRAM usage crosses 2GB at 1080p with DX 11 and High Res at Ultra as reported by afterburner. I would really like to know why that is happening because that could be the reason for my occasional fps dips as the card has to swap the page memory on the HDD to render the image.

Even accessing main memory is enough to kill GPU performance when you're doing it from the other end of a PCIe bus. If your card was actually hitting the page file, the whole thing would pretty much grind to a halt...

Can't say for sure that VRAM's your problem - just because the memory's been allocated, doesn't mean it's actually being used - but if you turn the textures down a couple of notches and things improve, you'll have your answer.

 

[whitewater]

Unused VRAM is wasted VRAM...

Unused VRAM is a very good thing - it allows for future games to utilise said RAM with better textures/models/etc, as long as you have the bandwidth to back it up, and if you don't have said bandwidth, then a game can cache objects/textures/stuff that might not be needed now, but could be in the future allowing for a smoother experience.

 

[Antec_Rep]

Around mid 30s FPS is acceptable range for me.

 

[XTF]

Good for you, but off-topic.

Framerate drops / frametime spikes could have all kinds of reasons. Don't think there's a simple way to find out.

 

[Nauseous]

well it could be all kinds of things, like some background program that decides it needs to do its thing now, or who knows hard to narrow it down to just one thing.

 

[dremic]

i used to max out my VRAM on my 1200p monitor with a 570 in BF3.


it resulted in fps drops from in the 50s to 1 or 2. then i replaced the ram and upped how many i had from 4 to 8 gigs.


this resulted in the drops being fixed and the performance to be better but the vram being maxed still was having an effect on the performance, just not so drastic.



now i am having dips from 60 to 30 or 20 in bf3 or guild wars 2 just runs absolutely terribly. still diagnosing whats wrong because i dont have the money to replace the mobo until friday.because im guessing thats the culprit...

BUT anyways i am just rambling now. CPU determines minimum FPS doesnt it?

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

i dont have the money to replace the mobo until friday.because im guessing thats the culprit...

Why? I'd be surprised...

CPU determines minimum FPS doesnt it?

No. Minimum FPS is determined by whichever component is being pushed to its limit when you happen to hit that minimum. Which may well be the CPU, but there's no reason to single it out.

 

[Sinker]

Is there a good way to tell which component is being pushed to the limit during times like that?

 

[jbz7890]

Is there a good way to tell which component is being pushed to the limit during times like that?

Yes, keep task manager open as well as a GPU monitoring program like MSI afterburner. Play a demanding game for a few minutes (without vsync) then alt-tab and look at the performance monitors. Ideally, the GPU will be at 100% usage, which means it's the bottleneck. If it isn't, check the CPU usage, VRAM usage, and RAM usage. Whichever is being taxed the most is likely the culprit.