Can't get much better than 60 fps no matter what I do

(aviynw) #1

I just bought an nvidia gtx 590 and have a quad-core core i7 920 not overclocked (2.67ghz).

No matter what I do with the graphics settings in intense battles my fps drops to as low as 60 fps. I see hardly any difference in my fps when switching between 1680 1050 resolution with max settings and 800500 resolution with minimum settings, which really makes me think there is a problem, rather than it just being a really demanding engine.

I thought maybe my non state-of-the-art cpu was a bottleneck, but I looked at the cpu usage in the windows control panel while I played and it was only at like %50.

Are other people with high-end rigs able to consistently get much higher than 60 fps? I heard someone say in another thread that ID tech 4, and Brink’s modification of it, simply isn’t designed to get higher than 60 fps, is this true or was this guy just spewing crap?

Are there any signs that splash damage is looking to fix this? The game runs just as well on my gtx 270 as it does on my gtx 590. I want to know if I should just sell my gtx 590, as I don’t plan to play many other games besides this one.

Thanks.

And no one dare tell me my eye can’t tell the difference past 60 fps because you couldn’t be more wrong.

(dlux) #2

Is Vsync on or off?

(Kurnuttaja) #3

Lol, this must be the case.

(Deadwalking) #4

I would guess that V-Sync is off as he states that the FPS drops to 60.

In intense battles your FPS will drop add in the fact that you might be outside then absolutely. If it only drops to 60 FPS in the firefights outdoors and your FPS climbs indoors. From what I read around here you are probably doing better than most for FPS. What is the highest FPS you see in game?

I am not saying that the FPS and how the game renders can or cant be tweaked. But the game runs pretty smooth for me and my FPS varies from maximum I have ever seen was around 160 briefly, and minimum I usually see outdoors in a firefight of around 9-10 players is 45 FPS. I average around 70 - 90 thru out a map.

Hopefully with some more tweaking the game SD can make it perform better, but it is rare to see any game always push 120 FPS in every situation. I dont own nor have I owned any Crosffire or SLI setups so I can not say what those systems will perform at, but for single video cards on every game I own no matter how good you tweak settings, unless you want the game to look like poop while you play, can you achieve a solid 120+ FPS.

If someone can shed some light on some screenshots of outdoors play in firefights in other games producing a solid 120 FPS please do so. Or better yet 30 sec to 1 min video clips of the same I would like to see.

Win 7 X64 Home Premium
AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.84
ATI SapphireTech 5850
ASUS M4A79X-TD EVO AM3 MOBO
8GB G.Skill RipJaw 1600Mhz
Razer Tarantula 1ms keyboard
Cyborg R.A.T. 7 1ms mouse

Brink, BF2, 2142, TF2, CoD4, WaW, CS:S, R.O., Frontlines, GTA’s, Guild Wars, NFS’s, BC2, Arma 2 + OA + BAF + PMC, FarCry + FarCry 2, BioShcock 2, Doom 3.

All games I have played regularly over last 10 years on different build machines. Not even my current machine can kick out a solid 120 PFS on CS:S. Granted it is one of the more stable games for FPS and usually sits above 60 for sure, but never does it always stay at 120. Bf2/2142 I can achieve a pretty solid 100 FPS thru out a map, but no idea what it maxes at as I keep the FPS cap on.

Optimal machine performance can be dtermined by a game that when in the prime of its processing sits around 95% CPU usage, and with a video card you want to see the same 95% GPU usage. Once you hit 100% for either it would be difficult to squeee any more FPS out of your machine. So by watching your Task Manager, and by using a tool GPU-Z you can monitor both your CPU and GPU usage.

So with 50% CPU usage on your I7, your CPU is handling the game no problem. Now using GPU-Z would help to determine how well the GPU is handling the game. If you are pegged at 100% then adjusting some settings down may benefit you some FPS, try getting it to run at 90-95% usage and see how that goes. If you run GPU-Z and find that the game is only using lets say 50% GPU then you would want to crank up the settings until you can get the card to around 90-95% usage. Everytime the GPU caps at 100% you will see FPS loss, and on the same note if the card is only using 50% you have the potential of getting a substantial FPS boost if you can get the card to work a little harder. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO LOOK AT WHILE CHECKING THE GPU IS TEMPERATURE, all video cards have a safe operating temperature and finding out what that is can help determine if you should push the card more or not. If your temps are getting above the recommended operating temp then you should not push your video card anymore for the sake of not burning it up.

As far as what to tweak with Brink I couldn’t really say for sure as it runs in OpenGL and I have only fiddled with a few graphics settings. If your GPU is running at low usage % then you would certainly want to push more thru your video card to get it to work a bit harder, if it can handle the temps.

(Nail) #5

Have you tried the EVGA SLI fix ?

(Metal-Geo) #6

Well the thing is, most computer monitors are 60Hz. Unless you’re playing on a TV/monitor that goes beyond that, you wouldn’t be able to notice it anyway.

(kilL_888) #7

yea. try to disable vsync. if your monitor has a refresh rate of 60hz, you wont get a higher framerate that that.

another question for the techies. your game renders with 120fps. your monitor has 60hz, which means 60 pictures per second, which means 60 frames per second.

can you tell the difference between 60 and 120 fps? why can you tell, why cant you?

(Metal-Geo) #8

If you’re watching a 120fps video on a 60Hz monitor, then no, you can’t tell the difference. You’re only fooling yourself if you say otherwise.

If you’re watching a 120fps video on both a 60Hz monitor and a 120Hz monitor, then yes, you can tell the difference.

(Deadwalking) #9

His FPS drop to 60FPS so if it is above 60FPS then v-sync would have to be off unless his monitor or TV handles more than 60Hz

@kill_888
Refresh vs FPS in game.

I can feel the difference in FPS above 60. Mouse and KB are more responsive to issued commands and movements. Can I see the difference from 60 - 120 meh, a little at times and depends on the game engine.

Drop below 60 and I tend to get the whole choppy feel no matter if it is solid 50 or a solid 30, the chop just gets worse as the FPS drops.

@Metal-Geo
Watching a video and running a game are completely different. Videos are all predetermined on what is happening next and are generally capped at a certain FPS. where as a game movements are next to never identical for each time you play a map. In a game world where 1 player has 75 FPS and another has 60 FPS the player with the 75 FPS will have a faster PC response than the player with the 60 FPS. Then you calculate in who is using 1ms response time hardware and having the higher FPS can be game winning. And obvously FPS vary depending on where you are and how much action is going on. So having a higher FPS is only a good thing, unless you are seeing drastic fluctuation of FPS 30-200 at any given time then it can be harmfull to your gameplay due to the environment is never stable. So then you cap your FPS(if we could in Brink) so it isnt fluctuating to high.

Not a very thorough explanation, but it gets the point across.

(aviynw) #10

What’s the evga SLI fix? I’m using the latest nvidia drvier (now I’m actually using the beta driver, no difference)

Yeah, should have mentioned mine is 120hz (it’s one of the nvidia 3d ones)

I’ve tried with both

Yeah, that’s right, if anyone wants a more in depth explanation you can check out http://whisper.ausgamers.com/wiki/index.php/How_many_FPS_human_eye_can_see

@Deadwalking In certain spots when there isn’t a lot going on I get over 200 fps. Thanks for the GPU-z link, I’ll check it out, but I’m pretty sure I’m not losing fps because my gpu is maxed out, because if I reduce the resolution from 16801050 to 800500 as well as reduce settings I see basically no difference in fps. My GTX 590 just replaced a GTX 270, and based on my memory with the 270 it seems there is very little improvement with my 590 when there is a lot going on, though in vacant scenes I don’t remember getting close to 200 fps with my 270.

Thanks for all the helpful responses. I’ve tried doing tweaks like removing shadows etc. but I don’t see how that will help when reducing the resolution significantly and lowering all the in game settings has a very small effect, if any.

(Nail) #11

[QUOTE=aviynw;328285]What’s the evga SLI fix? I’m using the latest nvidia drvier (now I’m actually using the beta driver, no difference)

Yeah, should have mentioned mine is 120hz (it’s one of the nvidia 3d ones)

[/QUOTE]

SLI Fix

try uninstall 3D drivers as well

(Deadwalking) #12

Your welcome. Even if you find that tweaking settings dosnt benefit you much in the way of GPU load it is a good tool for tweaking any game you run.

With the game in OpenGL it is hard to say if it will make a difference in adjusting resolution and some other cvars for graphics, a lot of posts on here about how changing settings visually does nothing and dosnt net any performance boost.

You have to pick and choose the right cvars some help others do nothing. r_shadows 0 and I think it is g_showPlayerShadow 0 help a decent amount from what I experienced. AA did adjust quality for me but no real big change in performance so I leave it on. image_filter makes a pretty big difference in performance, but found all other settings from default for me which was GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR to be to ugly to play on. I use m_smooth 1(lowest setting) the rawinput for mouse which I dont remember.

All in all the Brinkkit tool from erode is a good tool. it has a lot of good cvars in it.

And if you make a lot of changes in the Brinkkit tool then I recommend you to rename brinkconfig.cfg to 1brinkconfig.cfg so you have a backup and let the game remake it with the new autoexec.xfg loading.

not sure if I put this up above, I skimmed but didnt see it.
I believe the commands is cvarRestart, it will reset all cvars to default.

(Nail) #13

with that rig, he shouldn’t have to turn off anything