My GPU is self limiting? Nobody has been able to help...can anybody explain why my FPS is so unsteady?

VOID93

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Hello all!

So, I am a very new-to-the-pc scene sort of person and I have had my PC for a good year now at least. I have had a few issues with it over that span of time but nothing that I could not tinker around with and fix. Fast forward to today and I feel as though the level of performance that I have been getting has actually DECREASED. I am not sure why. For example, he main games that I play are Battlefields 1 and 5, Modern Warfare/Warzone, and open world RPGs like The Witcher III. I know that these games are demanding but my build always handled them pretty well and over 120 FPS. Now I barely get over 100 FPS average and I do not know what changed. I play at 1440p 144Hz and I max out ALL settings except for Ray Tracing. My system is as follows:

------------- Ryzen 7 3800x---Corsair H100i Liquid Cooler---EVGA Hybrid Cooled RTX 2080 Super---16Gb (8+8) Gskill Trident RGB Memory 3600---Samsung 970 Evo 500Gb---Seagate Baracuda 3TB---RM850X PSU---ASUS ROG Crosshair Hero VIII -------------

My temps are perfectly normal (deduced from other forum posts and examining the relevant graphs), my usages seem correct (100% GPU on most games and nearly that much on CPU), and my PC is clean and relatively dust free inside since it is not very old. I have the newest drivers and the newest BIOS installed and all of my windows features are 100% updated. I have tried to be thorough with this and I can not find a reason. I should also mention that I run a modest 115mHz core overclock on my GPU and a 300mHz overclock on my VRAM (found using afterburner auto OC). The performance drop is consistent with AND without said overclock though. Benchmarking software like Userbenchmark does not seem to notice any issue with my components either (link below)! Why might I be getting lower average FPS and some stuttering (particularly in the Battlefield titles for the stuttering)? Or is this the level of performance I SHOULD expect out of these components at max setting 1440p?

note: Setting the texture filtering quality to ANYTHING other than prefer maximum performance causes a crash to desktop on launch. Very frustrating. It did not do this a year ago. Preferring max performance does not fix the issue anyway.


https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/27293051

Thank You!!
 
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Have you tried uninstalling the graphics card drivers with DDU and then doing a fresh install?

Failing that, how long has this been going on? Also, how are you actually measuring this? Do you have benchmark run data from a year ago and today to document this, or is this a "I turned on the FPS counter today, and it's lower than I think it should be!" situation?
 
Have you tried uninstalling the graphics card drivers with DDU and then doing a fresh install?

Failing that, how long has this been going on? Also, how are you actually measuring this? Do you have benchmark run data from a year ago and today to document this, or is this a "I turned on the FPS counter today, and it's lower than I think it should be!" situation?
Windows and Game patches could have some effects over time as well...we are talking bf games :)
 
Have you tried uninstalling the graphics card drivers with DDU and then doing a fresh install?

Failing that, how long has this been going on? Also, how are you actually measuring this? Do you have benchmark run data from a year ago and today to document this, or is this a "I turned on the FPS counter today, and it's lower than I think it should be!" situation?

Your reply has made me realize that I actually do NOT have any concrete evidence that it has decreased...I simply intuitively feel as though it has. You assessment is likely accurate, in that it is a "I decided to recently start tracking this data and I think it is too low" situation. For what it is worth, I have been tracking it using MSI afterburner's RTSS on screen display and graphing software. I CAN be sure that it is not a temps issue. Neither component ever breaks 60 degrees Celsius. I do not have previous Benchmarking info unfortunately. I tend to use User benchmark only because it is free and really fast. I guess a more appropriate question would be, since I am pretty new to PC gaming, is this performance what I SHOULD expect out of my build?

Thank you for your reply!
 
Windows and Game patches could have some effects over time as well...we are talking bf games :)

yeah, they do tend to be finicky don't they lol? Also, a new development! Lately I can see that my GPU usage is potentially causing the issue! In BF1 for example when I am in a high octane scenario the usage will shoot to 100% and I will get like 150 FPS. But then, when the dust clears, the usage will drop back to like 75% and my FPS will hit like 90. Why might this be? How can I "force" my computer to ALWAYS do its best?
 
User benchmark is pretty trashy, stay away from that. Sounds like everything is actually working well except for maybe the stutter. If you're using gsync it sounds like you're right in the zone you want to be except for maybe capping it at 141 fps.
 
User benchmark is pretty trashy, stay away from that. Sounds like everything is actually working well except for maybe the stutter. If you're using gsync it sounds like you're right in the zone you want to be except for maybe capping it at 141 fps.
Also, overlays can cause stutter in some cases.

So the performance outlined in my original is actually what I SHOULD expect? About 90 FPS at max settings at 1440p?
 
So the performance outlined in my original is actually what I SHOULD expect? About 90 FPS at max settings at 1440p?

We can't really know unless we had the exact same HW as you and could test ourselves. If you have some commonly used benchmarking games you can compare against review sites. The 2080 should be around the same results they get.

Try Unigen's superposition benchmark and see how you compare to others with similar HW.
 
We can't really know unless we had the exact same HW as you and could test ourselves. If you have some commonly used benchmarking games you can compare against review sites. The 2080 should be around the same results they get.

Try Unigen's superposition benchmark and see how you compare to others with similar HW.

If that is a free benchmark then I totally will! Is it on steam? I do not mind my FPS being what it is as long as that is what I SHOULD be getting.
Thanks!
 
If that is a free benchmark then I totally will! Is it on steam? I do not mind my FPS being what it is as long as that is what I SHOULD be getting.
Thanks!

Not sure if on steam, free download though. When you look at scores make sure to get a bunch with similar HW so you know the ballpark, you will always see some BS scores on there.
 
We can't really know unless we had the exact same HW as you and could test ourselves. If you have some commonly used benchmarking games you can compare against review sites. The 2080 should be around the same results they get.

Try Unigen's superposition benchmark and see how you compare to others with similar HW.
3DMark has a handy-dandy online comparator thing that checks your scores against others with similar configurations. There is a Steam version of this.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/223850/3DMark/

There are some paid features, but the core thing it does is free. I'm typing this post on a machine with similar hardware to yours. Here's the results of a run I just did.
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/46329066?

Your CPU has more cores than mine, so you should expect a little higher CPU score.

You can get the various Unigine benchmarks from here:
https://benchmark.unigine.com/
Superposition and Heaven are the most common ones.

With all this out of the way, 90-100 FPS doesn't sound like it's all that unreasonable for a 2080 Super with everything dialed up to the max.
 
Not sure if on steam, free download though. When you look at scores make sure to get a bunch with similar HW so you know the ballpark, you will always see some BS scores on there.
3DMark has a handy-dandy online comparator thing that checks your scores against others with similar configurations. There is a Steam version of this.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/223850/3DMark/

There are some paid features, but the core thing it does is free. I'm typing this post on a machine with similar hardware to yours. Here's the results of a run I just did.
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/46329066?

Your CPU has more cores than mine, so you should expect a little higher CPU score.

You can get the various Unigine benchmarks from here:
https://benchmark.unigine.com/
Superposition and Heaven are the most common ones.

With all this out of the way, 90-100 FPS doesn't sound like it's all that unreasonable for a 2080 Super with everything dialed up to the max.


Thank you all! I will try these programs as soon as I can!
 
Sounds like you might be running out of RAM. What kinda programs do you have going on in the background? 16GB might not be enough?
 
Sounds like you might be running out of RAM. What kinda programs do you have going on in the background? 16GB might not be enough?

I have most programs turned off so nothing other than maybe a chrome tab, discord for chat, and my OC/monitoring software. Other than that I can not think of much that would hog my RAM.
 
I can only speak to the BF1/V games and they are still buggy as hell and have been utter trash programming wise. It took Dice a full year to get BF4 right...which is still a fun game to play. My 2080ti still glitches in BF1 and V if I have DX12 enabled. DX11 runs perfectly fine. 16GB is still plenty of Ram for a computer.

I would run DDU and completely uninstall graphics drivers and delete the game cache files for video (BF is located in the documents folder and go into the settings folder and delete everything) Reinstall the latest WHQL drivers. Also, it won't hurt to drop your overclocks backto default. I know on my VII on my work computer I had to drop the voltage on that a bit for it to become stable. And turn off all overlay in all games as they are a pain in the ass.
 
BF games have never been known to be very consistent, not to mention the random nature of large online multiplayer rounds. You could just be expecting to much from the latest BF games is my opinion. They fix one issue and create another after every patch. Me personally im not giving dice any more money until the next 2142/bf4 redux comes along. (which i fully expect to come loaded with bugs, as always)
 
In addition:
Discord app is Electron based, which is a sandboxed Chromium build + extra frameworks.
Some games are so odd (?), game menus may also be rendered by a browser. Looking at Blizzard and DICE, here...
didnt know about discord, never used it.
 
I can only speak to the BF1/V games and they are still buggy as hell and have been utter trash programming wise. It took Dice a full year to get BF4 right...which is still a fun game to play. My 2080ti still glitches in BF1 and V if I have DX12 enabled. DX11 runs perfectly fine. 16GB is still plenty of Ram for a computer.

I would run DDU and completely uninstall graphics drivers and delete the game cache files for video (BF is located in the documents folder and go into the settings folder and delete everything) Reinstall the latest WHQL drivers. Also, it won't hurt to drop your overclocks backto default. I know on my VII on my work computer I had to drop the voltage on that a bit for it to become stable. And turn off all overlay in all games as they are a pain in the ass.
BF games have never been known to be very consistent, not to mention the random nature of large online multiplayer rounds. You could just be expecting to much from the latest BF games is my opinion. They fix one issue and create another after every patch. Me personally im not giving dice any more money until the next 2142/bf4 redux comes along. (which i fully expect to come loaded with bugs, as always)
chrome's a known ram hog. turf it too(while playing).
didnt know about discord, never used it.


Thank you all! I will continue to troubleshoot. I ended up lowering my OC a bit, reinstalling my GPU drivers, and resetting all graphics settings to default. Seems to have at least helped a bit. Modern warfare still gives me DEV error 6068 when using RTX unfortunately though (a shame since I really like the idea of ray tracing). Usages are closer to 100% now but will still fluctuate. I will continue troubleshooting as I go and will keep the thread up to date.

Thanks for all of your input!
 
Is it possible that you're just CPU bound?

Are you seeing less than 100% GPU duty cycle when you see this unacceptably low framerate? You'd probably also see something like "idle" as the perfcap reason in the GPU-Z sensors page.

Edit: You can't really trust the CPU utilization numbers as reported by most software, as it doesn't account for games relying heavily on one thread. You can be CPU bound and have windows say that CPU utilization is only 13%.
 
Is it possible that you're just CPU bound?

Are you seeing less than 100% GPU duty cycle when you see this unacceptably low framerate? You'd probably also see something like "idle" as the perfcap reason in the GPU-Z sensors page.

Edit: You can't really trust the CPU utilization numbers as reported by most software, as it doesn't account for games relying heavily on one thread. You can be CPU bound and have windows say that CPU utilization is only 13%.

That would be quite unfortunate if I was. I have friends with worse rigs than mine who are not CPU bound. I was under the impression that the 3800x was MORE than enough for a 2080 super. Could something be wrong?
 
Also, new development. I just started getting an error on all Battlefield games that tells me that I have removed my graphics card? What? It then crashes to desktop. No other games crash this was. Modernwarfare has a different crash message. Any thoughts?
 
I think your GPU is failing.
Remove EVERYTHING that's nonstock, don't leave even a 5mhz overclock, turn the power limit down to 100%.

Go to event viewer, what error messages do you see?
 
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I think your GPU is failing.
Remove EVERYTHING that's nonstock, don't leave even a 5mhz overclock, turn the power limit down to 100%.

Go to event viewer, what error messages do you see?

So, I lowered the OC and went into my registry editor and performed a fix that I found on a battlefield forum and I have not been able to replicate the error since. As a result I can not provide an exact copy of the error. If it happens again I will absolutely share it here!

Thank you!!
 
So, I lowered the OC and went into my registry editor and performed a fix that I found on a battlefield forum and I have not been able to replicate the error since. As a result I can not provide an exact copy of the error. If it happens again I will absolutely share it here!

Thank you!!

This sort of thing is often a result of changing the graphics card driver. The game will compile all the code that runs on the GPU the first time it runs, and this process relies on the specific version of the graphics card driver. If the driver changes, suddenly all of its previously compiled shader code is no longer usable, and it needs to recompile again. Most games handle this gracefully, but I've heard tell that the Battlefields and Call of Duty's sometimes don't.

That would be quite unfortunate if I was. I have friends with worse rigs than mine who are not CPU bound. I was under the impression that the 3800x was MORE than enough for a 2080 super. Could something be wrong?

It's not really a matter of the CPU being "enough" for the graphics card. It's a matter of the CPU being fast enough on an individual thread basis to keep up with the demands of the game at whatever framerate you want.

It may be that in the games you play, the 3800X is at its limits at 90-100 FPS. There are plenty of games where this is the case. DCS World is one such example - even my water cooled 9900K, which is the fastest gaming CPU on the market, can't really get any higher than about 80-100 FPS in that game, because it's a very complex (and inefficient) game that relies heavily on one or two threads. In contrast, that same CPU can hit 200FPS in Doom 2016, which is an extremely efficient game.

You can test this by turning the resolution down really low, say to 1200 by 800, and playing the game. If the framerate doesn't go up significantly, you're CPU bound.
 
This sort of thing is often a result of changing the graphics card driver. The game will compile all the code that runs on the GPU the first time it runs, and this process relies on the specific version of the graphics card driver. If the driver changes, suddenly all of its previously compiled shader code is no longer usable, and it needs to recompile again. Most games handle this gracefully, but I've heard tell that the Battlefields and Call of Duty's sometimes don't.



It's not really a matter of the CPU being "enough" for the graphics card. It's a matter of the CPU being fast enough on an individual thread basis to keep up with the demands of the game at whatever framerate you want.

It may be that in the games you play, the 3800X is at its limits at 90-100 FPS. There are plenty of games where this is the case. DCS World is one such example - even my water cooled 9900K, which is the fastest gaming CPU on the market, can't really get any higher than about 80-100 FPS in that game, because it's a very complex (and inefficient) game that relies heavily on one or two threads. In contrast, that same CPU can hit 200FPS in Doom 2016, which is an extremely efficient game.

You can test this by turning the resolution down really low, say to 1200 by 800, and playing the game. If the framerate doesn't go up significantly, you're CPU bound.

Thanks! That is actually a really good tip! I will try the game with a lower resolution and see how it goes! Side note, this forum is amazing!
Thanks for all your help!
 
That would be quite unfortunate if I was. I have friends with worse rigs than mine who are not CPU bound. I was under the impression that the 3800x was MORE than enough for a 2080 super. Could something be wrong?

FWIW, I’m running a 3700x with a 1070Ti and I can max BF1 on my 1440p monitor without finding I’m getting unsatisfactory performance. Your 3800x is likely fine in most cases, assuming it’s not getting too hot and thermal throttling as a result.

As some of the others said, this is where third party benchmarking software like Unigine or 3DMark can be quite useful. If your benchmarked numbers are in alignment with what others with similar specs are reporting with their systems, you’re probably fine.
 
Also, new development. I just started getting an error on all Battlefield games that tells me that I have removed my graphics card? What? It then crashes to desktop. No other games crash this was. Modernwarfare has a different crash message. Any thoughts?

Is it that one where it says your video card has been physically removed from the system? Lol I get that every once in a while playing Apex. I have a modest OC and think it's related to that. I would not worry about it.
 
This sort of thing is often a result of changing the graphics card driver. The game will compile all the code that runs on the GPU the first time it runs, and this process relies on the specific version of the graphics card driver. If the driver changes, suddenly all of its previously compiled shader code is no longer usable, and it needs to recompile again. Most games handle this gracefully, but I've heard tell that the Battlefields and Call of Duty's sometimes don't.



It's not really a matter of the CPU being "enough" for the graphics card. It's a matter of the CPU being fast enough on an individual thread basis to keep up with the demands of the game at whatever framerate you want.

It may be that in the games you play, the 3800X is at its limits at 90-100 FPS. There are plenty of games where this is the case. DCS World is one such example - even my water cooled 9900K, which is the fastest gaming CPU on the market, can't really get any higher than about 80-100 FPS in that game, because it's a very complex (and inefficient) game that relies heavily on one or two threads. In contrast, that same CPU can hit 200FPS in Doom 2016, which is an extremely efficient game.

You can test this by turning the resolution down really low, say to 1200 by 800, and playing the game. If the framerate doesn't go up significantly, you're CPU bound.
FWIW, I’m running a 3700x with a 1070Ti and I can max BF1 on my 1440p monitor without finding I’m getting unsatisfactory performance. Your 3800x is likely fine in most cases, assuming it’s not getting too hot and thermal throttling as a result.

As some of the others said, this is where third party benchmarking software like Unigine or 3DMark can be quite useful. If your benchmarked numbers are in alignment with what others with similar specs are reporting with their systems, you’re probably fine.
Is it that one where it says your video card has been physically removed from the system? Lol I get that every once in a while playing Apex. I have a modest OC and think it's related to that. I would not worry about it.

So, I tried the resolution test and after lowering the game to 720p at the same graphics settings I saw maybe a 5 to 10 FPS increase? I assume that means that I am likely CPU bound then. It just is so frustrating because SOMETIMES I can SEE that when the GPU hits 100% usage I get like 150 FPS! And then it just...drops to 70% and 90 FPS seemingly without reason. Also, is the Heaven Benchmark 4.0 good? I already have that one so I was wondering if I could use that too. Also, yes it IS the one where it says the device was removed. Doesn't happen all the time but it is very frustrating when it does lol.

Thanks all!
 
So, I tried the resolution test and after lowering the game to 720p at the same graphics settings I saw maybe a 5 to 10 FPS increase? I assume that means that I am likely CPU bound then. It just is so frustrating because SOMETIMES I can SEE that when the GPU hits 100% usage I get like 150 FPS! And then it just...drops to 70% and 90 FPS seemingly without reason. Also, is the Heaven Benchmark 4.0 good? I already have that one so I was wondering if I could use that too. Also, yes it IS the one where it says the device was removed. Doesn't happen all the time but it is very frustrating when it does lol.

Thanks all!
not sure about the rest but the device remove thing is usually a driver crash from an unstable gpu oc. up that voltage a bit or drop it* the oc back a bit. if your not ocing your gpu try upping the power limit a bit.
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So, I tried the resolution test and after lowering the game to 720p at the same graphics settings I saw maybe a 5 to 10 FPS increase? I assume that means that I am likely CPU bound then. It just is so frustrating because SOMETIMES I can SEE that when the GPU hits 100% usage I get like 150 FPS! And then it just...drops to 70% and 90 FPS seemingly without reason. Also, is the Heaven Benchmark 4.0 good? I already have that one so I was wondering if I could use that too. Also, yes it IS the one where it says the device was removed. Doesn't happen all the time but it is very frustrating when it does lol.

Thanks all!

If your GPU is not running at 100%, then it’s possible something else is limiting. It could be the CPU, it could be another system component. What stress is your CPU under when your GPU is at 70%? Also, was this in Battlefield 1? I would personally be surprised if a 3800x is causing performance issues in Battlefield 1. I also wouldn’t use any Battlefield title as a performance gage.

Heaven is a good benchmark. I use it myself. Anything that has a good database of things to compare it to should help.
 
In older software versions sometimes power saving plan would get stuck on. I havent noticed it with latest chipset drivers from Amd
 
With EA based games you can also repair the game via origin. Click the game -> settings -> repair

EA is trash and I've had to repair Apex more than once to get rid of inconsistent issues including stuttering and crashing/not loading. A 3800x should be plenty for a 2080 super at 1440p with details maxed.
 
not sure about the rest but the device remove thing is usually a driver crash from an unstable gpu oc. up that voltage a bit or drop it* the oc back a bit. if your not ocing your gpu try upping the power limit a bit.
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If your GPU is not running at 100%, then it’s possible something else is limiting. It could be the CPU, it could be another system component. What stress is your CPU under when your GPU is at 70%? Also, was this in Battlefield 1? I would personally be surprised if a 3800x is causing performance issues in Battlefield 1. I also wouldn’t use any Battlefield title as a performance gage.

Heaven is a good benchmark. I use it myself. Anything that has a good database of things to compare it to should help.
In older software versions sometimes power saving plan would get stuck on. I havent noticed it with latest chipset drivers from Amd
With EA based games you can also repair the game via origin. Click the game -> settings -> repair

EA is trash and I've had to repair Apex more than once to get rid of inconsistent issues including stuttering and crashing/not loading. A 3800x should be plenty for a 2080 super at 1440p with details maxed.


So I did some trial and error and lowered to OC a bit and it seems to have stabilized it a lot. GPU usage seems to fluctuate some but not as much. I still have no idea WHY the usage would EVER be less than 90% when running 1440p at max settings. Will continue testing and will keep the thread updated!

Thank you all!! :)
 
So I did some trial and error and lowered to OC a bit and it seems to have stabilized it a lot. GPU usage seems to fluctuate some but not as much. I still have no idea WHY the usage would EVER be less than 90% when running 1440p at max settings. Will continue testing and will keep the thread updated!

Thank you all!! :)
There is no perfect gpu driver and even nvidia is some what lacking on this and that games....i have had rare games that were lucky to hold 70% usage and other games holding down 99% start to finish. Mix in newer game patches and newer windows builds and its is what it is. Sure what ever it is could likely just be patched in the driver to correct it, if they ever got around to it.
 
There is no perfect gpu driver and even nvidia is some what lacking on this and that games....i have had rare games that were lucky to hold 70% usage and other games holding down 99% start to finish. Mix in newer game patches and newer windows builds and its is what it is. Sure what ever it is could likely just be patched in the driver to correct it, if they ever got around to it.

Ah, interesting. Mainly, I was worried about something being wrong with my PC. Knowing that others have had similar issues in various games with great hardware is comforting and reassuring.

Thanks!!
 
Ah, interesting. Mainly, I was worried about something being wrong with my PC. Knowing that others have had similar issues in various games with great hardware is comforting and reassuring.

Thanks!!

Let us know how your scores on benchmarks like 3DMark or Uniengine stack up to systems with similar specs as yours. I’m curious to see what results you get.
One thing I like to do is run a benchmark suite stock when I build a new PC to get a baseline of performance so I can understand the impact of things like overclocking are having on the performance of my system. 3DMark actually stores all of my results online so I can refer to them later.

One other thing to never rule out is how some software evolves over time and how that reacts to your hardware. For example, with my previous build, I noticed over time that Battlefield 1 was starting to degrade in performance and stutter. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I did some reading online and discovered that the game was being optimized to work with 6 core processors, and any pure 4 core processor was getting hit hard. I had an i5-4670k under the hood, checked my numbers, and yep, CPU under 100% usage, GPU was looking bored at 65% usage, and I wasn’t able to improve things much by adjusting graphics settings because the CPU was still getting wrecked. In your case, the hardware is new, so I don’t suspect things would start to get worse via optimizations this soon, just something to keep in mind down the road.

Another useful piece of software to download is HWInfo64 to track all of the sensors in your PC. You can see here if anything is getting too hot which can result in thermal throttling as the computer slows itself to lower the temperature in an effort to protect the system components.

What motherboard are you using?

Is this a PC you built yourself?
 
There was a theory once that Nvidia make sther new driver more heavy so it kind of force you to buy new cards.
A guy on youtube tested it back on the 970 gtx cards days and it was true what he showed us.

He installed a old driver and got better score then the new drivers
Just a heads up
 
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