Performance Issues with Borderlands 2, Anybody have them?

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murkris118

Limp Gawd
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Jun 5, 2012
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I had already posted on this forum about the issues meaning performance issues related to Borderlands 2 with High and Medium end cards on the 600 and 500 series but unfortunately that thread got blown away to a different topic and I did not get enough responses related to the topic to conclude the issue and thoughts of other people. Please DO NOT POST HERE if your issue is with saved games or anything other than performance. Sorry if I am sounding harsh but I am having issues with BL2 on my 680 and am quite annoyed with it so please get back....

Issues:
FPS dips to 20! during intense scenes everything Ultra including Physx.
Random crashes with a black screen with Physx on HIGH.
 
problem=physx.

I have GTX 670 Sli, Surround.
medium physx FPS 70-80. At times low 100s. Very smooth and playable.
physx higher= slideshow.
 
back off draw distance to high from ultra, maybe lower FOV a bit if you have it maxed.
 
its a problem with the new drivers revert back to 305.XX uninstall the 306 driver and do a clean install of the 305
its a direct x issue took me forever to figure it out.

Stupid nvdia
 
I am on a 680 with 306.23 and I am not having issues (knock on wood) I have physx on high and most of my video setting maxed. I did make some ini file tweaks. Don't know if that is the difference.
 
I dont think these fixes are permanent. I am not having any issues with other games on the 306.23 driver except for BL2, might work on some cards and not on others. I am pretty confident that these issues happen because of poor optimization with Physx in game on the 600 series cards. Many people report better frame rates with 5xx cards.. Immature drivers, bad Physx optimization are the main culprits which I hope Nvidia resolves with a driver update specifically focused on BL2 or GearBox fixes these issues with a good patch focused on improving performance..... period...
 
I also have the same issue as murkris118. I thought the physx update I downloaded resolved the problem, but during intense scenes I still get insane FPS drops. Ill try dropping the Physx to med and report back.
 
I also have the same issue as murkris118. I thought the physx update I downloaded resolved the problem, but during intense scenes I still get insane FPS drops. Ill try dropping the Physx to med and report back.
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For me Physx on Medium works better than on High. I dont get nearly as bad fps drops during intense scenes but still drops to 45 which is pretty bad considering many other people with considerably less powerful cards get better performance. I am going to try reverting back to the 306.02 beta drivers and see if it fixes this issue. People who are running this game on max settings smooth please get back with the driver version and settings you are using. Please include .ini tweaks also.
 
I have some issues I've been experiencing, let me tell you about my system, and then the problems.

I7 920@4,2ghz
6gb ram
3x640gb WD Blues in raid 0
GTX 670 1275 core, 3425 mem

Drivers I have used:
300.23
300.63(developer drivers-need to double check the driver number)

Issues I've experienced:
Random slow downs, the screen goes black, then comes back, everything appears to be on a very low graphics setting. FPS drops from 60 down to 12-17. This was on the 300.23 drivers. Phys-x on lowest settings, used core optimizations, manually set GPU for physx. No change. I can alt-tab back to windows and go back in, looks great performance comes up, the boom back.

On the developer drivers, plays great until I get to the end of the map and need to travel, then issue above comes back. I can alt tab to windows and back and no issues until I need to travel again.

I have had the same issues with a fresh format. It seems much of the issues happen more often with vnc server installed.
 
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xorbe said:
Sounds like TDR, check/lower your cpu and gpu overclocks.
Click to expand...

Already did to no avail. Even on stock GPU clocks, same thing.

The desktop/gpu can fold 24/7 for weeks at a crack, fah is very good at stressing hardware.
 
It definitely needs some optimization but overall it runs very well. OP - if it makes you feel any better, I'm using a heavily OC'd GTX 680 (1250 MHz boost) and a GTX 580 SC for dedicated PhysX and I still drop to the 20s from time to time @ 1080p. Benches and info here: http://1pcent.com/?p=135.
 
sk3tch said:
It definitely needs some optimization but overall it runs very well. OP - if it makes you feel any better, I'm using a heavily OC'd GTX 680 (1250 MHz boost) and a GTX 580 SC for dedicated PhysX and I still drop to the 20s from time to time @ 1080p. Benches and info here: http://1pcent.com/?p=135.
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That actually does make me feel a little bit better. Thanks for sharing.

Pretty nice review there.
 
Holy cow! so you drop to the 20`s even with a 680 and a 580 for Physx, that is freaking bad man!!.. hope they solve it soon. Do any of you have any idea when the next driver update is gonna be because this is my first Nvidia card. :D..
 
murkris118 said:
Holy cow! so you drop to the 20`s even with a 680 and a 580 for Physx, that is freaking bad man!!.. hope they solve it soon. Do any of you have any idea when the next driver update is gonna be because this is my first Nvidia card. :D..
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Well, to be fair - it dropped to 20s, but that was only in the benchmarks. In terms of the gameplay "feel" - it was spot on and performed awesome.

Solhokuten said:
That actually does make me feel a little bit better. Thanks for sharing.

Pretty nice review there.
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Thanks - glad I could help. Don't forget that the GT 640 is the Borderlands 2/PhysX choice right now, IMO. Bang/buck and efficiency...
 
Well then I guess for now a dedicated Physx card seems to be the only option if you want to play BL2 without crappy frame rates maxed out because of poor Physx implementation in game or the drivers have not matured enough for the 600 series cards so as to not take advantage of Hardware Physx properly.. god only knows.... Please give us a good driver that fixes all issues for god sakes!!. :mad:
 
murkris118 said:
Well then I guess for now a dedicated Physx card seems to be the only option if you want to play BL2 without crappy frame rates maxed out because of poor Physx implementation in game or the drivers have not matured enough for the 600 series cards so as to not take advantage of Hardware Physx properly.. god only knows.... Please give us a good driver that fixes all issues for god sakes!!. :mad:
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When playing with the GTX 680 alone, the game also performed great. Just because it drops into the 20s "occasionally" does not mean there is an issue. You can certainly dial down certain options if you're concerned about the dips. The game also has some options for framerate targets, etc. that can be explored.

Bottom line: don't let your fear of performance dips keep you away from this great game. At 1080p you can play this game to the fullest with a 660 Ti or higher, pretty much.
 
My old GTX470 runs fine @ 1920x1200 with everything maxed out--and here I was fearing I'd have performance problems!
 
Rumor is that Gearbox is working on an nVidia-specific performance patch.
 
When playing with the GTX 680 alone, the game also performed great. Just because it drops into the 20s "occasionally" does not mean there is an issue. You can certainly dial down certain options if you're concerned about the dips. The game also has some options for framerate targets, etc. that can be explored.

Bottom line: don't let your fear of performance dips keep you away from this great game. At 1080p you can play this game to the fullest with a 660 Ti or higher, pretty much.
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You are right but not able to max out a DX9 game with a 680 is just pathetic and I did not buy the highest end single gpu till date to dial down the settings. It just shows how how lethargic these developers are when they develop games for the PC. They just dont deliver right from the start, patches, updates etc to make them perform better. The only game I have played till date that performed awesome on PC from the start was Battlefield 3. I used to get good frames with High settings even on my Envy 17 I previously had with a 5850m. Shame on you game developers!:D
 
murkris118 said:
You are right but not able to max out a DX9 game with a 680 is just pathetic and I did not buy the highest end single gpu till date to dial down the settings. It just shows how how lethargic these developers are when they develop games for the PC. They just dont deliver right from the start, patches, updates etc to make them perform better. The only game I have played till date that performed awesome on PC from the start was Battlefield 3. I used to get good frames with High settings even on my Envy 17 I previously had with a 5850m. Shame on you game developers!:D
Click to expand...

Battlefield 3 was hell for Crossfire systems, and may still be- I jumped ship.
 
MavericK96 said:
Rumor is that Gearbox is working on an nVidia-specific performance patch.
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I hope so.

Roomate has 2x 560 in sli and plays like a champ and looks much better than my gtx 670 as well as performs better..

I love buying $400 paper weights as much as I love getting hit in the balls.
 
sc0tty8 said:
I hope so.

Roomate has 2x 560 in sli and plays like a champ and looks much better than my gtx 670 as well as performs better..

I love buying $400 paper weights as much as I love getting hit in the balls.
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I have GTX 670s in SLi running 5670 x 1200 landscape with all settings on their highest except physx (medium)...........the game runs like a champ. Rarely there are some glitchy spots when there is alot of particle stuff and lots of enemies.......but the game has been superbly playable......my average FPS has been 70-80.

I have to admit, the physx does add another layer to the game that I did not see when using my AMD machine.:D
 
Well good for you, sad that many other people including me are not as fortunate to have a good experience with their card on this game. Seems the issue is isolated to specific setups and does not happen to everybody. I have also heard many people say they run this game buttery smooth even on a mid range card so yeah, depends.
 
I have GTX 670s in SLi running 5670 x 1200 landscape with all settings on their highest except physx (medium)...........the game runs like a champ. Rarely there are some glitchy spots when there is alot of particle stuff and lots of enemies.......but the game has been superbly playable......my average FPS has been 70-80.

I have to admit, the physx does add another layer to the game that I did not see when using my AMD machine.
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Well good for you, sad that many other people including me are not as fortunate to have a good experience with their card on this game. Seems the issue is isolated to specific setups and does not happen to everybody. I have also heard many people say they run this game buttery smooth even on a mid range card so yeah, depends.
 
On my 680 certain areas definitely bottom out for me (1920x1080, maxed out). While smooth most of the time, The Thousand Cuts area tends to be spotty in general. Ditto with the dragon mountain level and the whirlpool section of the Bloodshot hideout.
If there are a lot of enemies or large view distances, the turret rockets are a bit chaotic, too.
 
Does BL2 scale PhysX effects based on the card? (ie, this is a 680 so +30% particles, etc.) This is just a WAG random thought, don't even have the game yet.
 
I am currently running a single 660ti and it runs at 72fps nearly always at max in game settings except FXAA because I hate it.

1920x1080
 
I have not had any issues at 1920x1080. Using a 580 GTX with the 306.23 drivers. I have everything maxed out and cap the framerate at 60. I leave fraps running so I can monitor the FPS.

I havent felt or seen any major dips in the FPS lowest I've seen is around 48 or so.

I'm still pretty early in the game I'm at the Firehawk section so maybe I have'nt got into the "intense" areas your talking about. I also have only played single player so I dont know if having more players and more particle affects would cause this to change. I'm guessing it would.

I hope you get it figured out.
 
Although I can get the idea of games not running properly on some setups but how can it be that the same game runs on a 660ti well and not on a 680?... I am baffled. my setup literally crawls even at Medium Physx and drops to 30-35 fps during intense gameplay. That is just pathetic. Any thoughts from people who are experiencing issues on this game about this?.
 
The only thing I could think of for you murkris118 is your CPU. Try overclocking it? I have a pretty much identical setup to yours (reference GTX 680 but OC'd to 1250 MHz) but my i5 2500k is at 4.7 GHz. Runs great.

You could also consider getting a dedicated PhysX PPU...perhaps a GT 640? ~$100 and it'll raise your performance considerably. But really, not sure why at 1080p you're having problems. I have dips to the 20s but nothing that represents that other than a number. The "feel" is pretty damn smooth and I'm consistently over 60 FPS.
 
The only thing I could think of for you murkris118 is your CPU. Try overclocking it? I have a pretty much identical setup to yours (reference GTX 680 but OC'd to 1250 MHz) but my i5 2500k is at 4.7 GHz. Runs great.

You could also consider getting a dedicated PhysX PPU...perhaps a GT 640? ~$100 and it'll raise your performance considerably. But really, not sure why at 1080p you're having problems. I have dips to the 20s but nothing that represents that other than a number. The "feel" is pretty damn smooth and I'm consistently over 60 FPS.
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I am considering buying one for dedicated Physx but I am really disappointed that I have to buy another card just to play one game smoothly. There are barely any titles that support Physx at the moment and it is doubtful whether the investment would be worth for future games as I dont see any future games that supports Physx. I think I am better off buying a different mobo with overclocking capabilities perhaps a Z77 or a Z68 and overclock the CPU and see some gains. I really feel that I should have done some more research before buying the P8H77-V.

One more problem that I have is that the "feel" of the game as you say is very choppy when the frame rate dips to anything below 60 fps even 59.... I can see a sudden difference in smoothness and this happens to me in every game. Is it just because I used to play at 30 fps on a laptop before and moved to high end desktop config now that I have got used to 60 fps all the time and can tell the difference when the frame rate dips to anything below 60 or am I doing something wrong here?. Have I gotten more susceptible to frame rate drops below 60 because when I used to play games on my Envy I felt 30fps really smooth but now 30 seems like a slideshow !.
 
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What would be a good card for Physx along with the 680. I have been looking for some good deals that I can afford and these two seemed good.

GT 630 (96 Cuda cores "Fermi") and 640 (384 Cuda cores "Kepler"). I am also on the lookout for a GTS 450 if its on budget. I am still skeptical about the performance of BL2 even with a dedicated Physx GPU as I still dont know whether the problems I am experiencing are due to CPU bottleneck, Driver or game issues or something else. I do not waste money on another GPU just for Physx and still see crappy performance.
 
The GT640 has double the compute power of the GT630. I would definitely go for the GT640 if you need to get a second card.

20fps will most certainly not be a CPU bottleneck. The CPU usually can handle 60+ fps when the GPU is doing PhysX. You can easily check that by setting PhysX to low. Your fps will be way higher in intense firefights.
 
The GT640 has double the compute power of the GT630. I would definitely go for the GT640 if you need to get a second card.

20fps will most certainly not be a CPU bottleneck. The CPU usually can handle 60+ fps when the GPU is doing PhysX. You can easily check that by setting PhysX to low. Your fps will be way higher in intense firefights
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Thanks, I have to try setting Physx to low and see how many frames I get. If I get high fps as you said then it is most probably a GPU bottleneck although I am lost on how a GTX 680 cant handle High Physx and requires a second card to do its job on a DX9 title.
 
I should add that compute power is the ONLY thing that matters with PhysX. VRAM size or bandwidth are of very little importance.

I don't understand how your GTX680 struggles so much. In this review here they used a not yet released integrated PhysX benchmark (will come later via patch) and the 680 got 50fps min:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Borderlands-2-PC-234034/Tests/Borderlands-2-Physx-Test-1026921/
This was a worst case - mostly your fps should be even higher at 1080p with FXAA.

Maybe something else is amiss?
 
boxleitnerb said:
I should add that compute power is the ONLY thing that matters with PhysX. VRAM size or bandwidth are of very little importance.

I don't understand how your GTX680 struggles so much. In this review here they used a not yet released integrated PhysX benchmark (will come later via patch) and the 680 got 50fps min:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Borderlands-2-PC-234034/Tests/Borderlands-2-Physx-Test-1026921/
This was a worst case - mostly your fps should be even higher at 1080p with FXAA.

Maybe something else is amiss?
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It depends on the area of the game. I see 20 FPS dips even with my GTX 690 and a GT 640 as a dedicated PhysX PPU: http://1pcent.com/?p=151.

CPU is seemingly the only thing different about his system versus mine with the GTX 680. So that was my only point there.
 
My GPU usage never crosses 50% in Borderlands 2, that I have noticed with Vsync On. Could that be creating problems or is it RMA time?.. I dunno because many people with weaker setups report better frame rates.
 
It depends on the area of the game. I see 20 FPS dips even with my GTX 690 and a GT 640 as a dedicated PhysX PPU: http://1pcent.com/?p=151.

CPU is seemingly the only thing different about his system versus mine with the GTX 680. So that was my only point there.
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But I have to ask how your 690 chokes to the 20`s with a dedicated Physx card?. Does your game feel smooth during those dips or are you just not concerned about those dips as much as I am?.
 
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