The Division - clean Driver reinstall w/new GTX 980 Ti = Huge jump in fps...

n33k

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May 5, 2016
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I am sure there will be some that are like "umm, yeah you always do a clean reinstall with a new card... "
But just to save anyone some time if they are seeing 'meh' fps with their 980 ti in The Division...


I got a new Strix 980 Ti this week, and my "old" GTX 970 is being mailed to a friend with s*it graphics. So being the eager beaver I was, and trusting in this driver package that "should" cover down on all 900 series GTX cards, I ripped out the 970 and slapped the new 980 Ti in. I went through the nVidia control panel, and the GeForce Experience panel, GPUTweak II, etc... all reported the correct graphics card, and all seemed to have auto-adjusted to the 980 TI appropriately. So what the heck, seems fine.. no need to clean reinstall.

I then went ahead and did some benchmarking with 3DMark just to make sure everything was running fine, my scores were good - much faster than the 970, much higher FPS... etc. So I was thinking it was pretty safe to say... No need to do a clean-reinstall of the driver package.

Enter Tom Clancy's The Division...

The 970 did really well on Division with High settings, I left it at that because I enjoyed the solid FPS and smooth performance. When I got the Strix 980 Ti I was expecting no less than 100+ fps with all setting on the most ultra, of the ultra. I was very confused when I was seeing "High" fps in the 30 - 70 range in The Division with this brand new Strix card. So I hit the forums, and what I found was kind of funny... Seems like people would rather meddle with individual settings and disable graphics qualities their card should be able to handle no problem, instead of trying reinstalling the drivers (clean install) with the new card - this seemed like the most logical first step.

Drivers clean-reinstalled...

Now with every setting I can customize, on the highest setting possible in the Division - getting 120+ fps during normal game-play, with my strix 980 ti. Interestingly enough however, I went back through 3D Mark, wondering if my benchmarks would be better - and there was no difference, this seemed to be a fix that affected the Division's performance only. Ah well, I got my FPS back... and faith restored in the new card.

System: i7 4790, Strix 980 ti, 32gb Ram, tt 750w psu, Samsung 850 Pro SSD(s)

- N

edited to correct psu wattage...
 
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post settings and benchmark screenshots. what you are describing is not possible.
 
Ok so cleaning out drivers or doing clean installs when switching video cards actually helps performance. Who would have thought? lol
 
Especially since the 970 is gimped and probably has a bunch of driver hacks to keep to 3.5 gb mem usage
 
Well, congrats on the new card.

If you are @ 1080p...which it may seem like it, you will get that huge gain going in w/ a 980ti.

Are you using the newest drivers?
 
Well, congrats on the new card.

If you are @ 1080p...which it may seem like it, you will get that huge gain going in w/ a 980ti.

Are you using the newest drivers?
Yeah, I am rockin the 1080, runs really well.
 
To the interested parties, here is a series of screenshots. The settings as scrolled in Division, and subsequent Benchmark results.
Card is OC'd a bit with some custom settings using Asus GPU Tweak II.

Intel Core i7 4790 (water cooled), Asus Strix 980 Ti, 32gb Ram, 750w psu, Samsung 850 Pro SSD's.

- N
 
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