Low FPS with c2d and 660 GTX TI

jp777cmoe · January 2013

I'm getting really low fps in this game somehow I manage to get recommended settings:

<a href="http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Natural_Selection_2#System_requirements" target="_blank">http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Natural_Selec...em_requirements</a>

My specs:
CPU: e8400 core 2 duo 3.0ghz
RAM: 4 GB RAM OCZ Blade
GPU: Gigabyte 660 Gtx Ti 2gb
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
PSU: Corsair TX650

but still I get 20 fps in fights (sometimes lower). Is this normal for this game? I'm using the latest drivers from nvidia.

MiniH0wie · January 2013

Overclock that SOB!
What resolution are you running?

jp777cmoe · January 2013

1650x1080

I tried with 1024x768 but it didn't change much

MiniH0wie · January 2013

If you're getting that low of FPS even at 1024x768 I'd say it's your processor.

Just for reference I run at 1024x768, i5-2500K @ 4GHz, and a HD4850 512MB.

Here is a graph of my fps.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v359/Zick/Junk/PC/ns2fps_zps93e54172.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

As you can see, I only drop down to 40fps in late game. You have a much better video card than I do so your CPU is probably holding you back.
Have you disabled Speedstep? Maybe your CPU is downclocking during game play for some reason.

You should really crank that puppy up as I hear those E8400 like to OC well.

IronHorse · January 2013

C2d with a 660? thats like a corvette body kit on a VW engine

Processor is your issue.
Even if you OC that thing to insane amounts you wont get much more, that line is 7 years old! your exact model is 5.

<a href="http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E8400+%40+3.00GHz&id=955" target="_blank">http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=In...0GHz&id=955</a>

Scorpion571 · January 2013

That's odd. I have the same processor and have pretty decent performance.

<b>My specs:</b>
My specs:
CPU: e8400 core 2 duo 3.0ghz
RAM: 4 GB RAM Kingston Hyper-X
GPU: Radeon 6870 1GB
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
PSU: Corsair TX750

I play at max resolution, but have the following graphic adjustments (rest on either "on" or maximum):

Texture: Medium
Particle: Low
Infestation: Minimal

I usually have decent FPS and most big battles are fine. What are your graphic options set to?

jp777cmoe · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>As you can see, I only drop down to 40fps in late game. You have a much better video card than I do so your CPU is probably holding you back.
Have you disabled Speedstep? Maybe your CPU is downclocking during game play for some reason.

You should really crank that puppy up as I hear those E8400 like to OC well.</div>

I will check in BIOS to see if it's enabled. I can't overclock my system. There is something odd about it. Whenever I try to change something in the BIOS, my system crash. See here for more info:

a thread made by me on another forum
<a href="http://www.overclock.net/t/1350044/is-my-psu-failing" target="_blank">http://www.overclock.net/t/1350044/is-my-psu-failing</a>

Right now I'm doing a memtest. I will post results here also.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>That's odd. I have the same processor and have pretty decent performance.

My specs:
My specs:
CPU: e8400 core 2 duo 3.0ghz
RAM: 4 GB RAM Kingston Hyper-X
GPU: Radeon 6870 1GB
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
PSU: Corsair TX750

I play at max resolution, but have the following graphic adjustments (rest on either "on" or maximum):

Texture: Medium
Particle: Low
Infestation: Minimal

I usually have decent FPS and most big battles are fine. What are your graphic options set to?</div>

I have set everything on low, shadows disabled, multicore rendering on. Nothing is on medium or high. I turned down everything in the 3d settings in the Nvidia control panel.

What's ur average FPS?

edit: Ran memtest for 9h25 , 16 pass 0 errors.

Scorpion571 · January 2013

Tested on a full 20 player server. These are my approximate FPS reports with their varying ranges.
<b>Ready room after joining a game and nobody else in the ready room</b>: ~125-150 FPS
<b>Average FPS throughout the game</b>: ~43-56 FPS
<b>Big Battles (exos, MACs, etc.).</b>: ~31-40 FPS

I did notice a drop in FPS when multiple ARCs were used. A big battle + 5-6 ARCs had me in the mid 20s for FPS.

jp777cmoe · January 2013

I will try a new test with net_stats 1 and r_stats and post the results monday

xtal · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scorpion571 @ Jan 18 2013, 09:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2062756"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Tested on a full 20 player server. These are my approximate FPS reports with their varying ranges.
<b>Ready room after joining a game and nobody else in the ready room</b>: ~125-150 FPS
<b>Average FPS throughout the game</b>: ~43-56 FPS
<b>Big Battles (exos, MACs, etc.).</b>: ~31-40 FPS

I did notice a drop in FPS when multiple ARCs were used. A big battle + 5-6 ARCs had me in the mid 20s for FPS.</div>

It's funny cause I get a bit worse performance with:
i3 3220 (2x3,3 Ghz)
HD5770
Windows 7 64bit
how's that possible?

<b>Ready room after joining a game and nobody else in the ready room</b>: ~100-130 FPS
<b>Average FPS throughout the game</b>: ~45-65 FPS
<b>Big Battles (exos, MACs, etc.).</b>: ~20-40 FPS

Scorpion571 · January 2013

Hmm

Looking at benchmarks, your processor (i3 3220) beats my E8400.
<b>Source</b>: <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=56" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=56</a>

Looking at benchmarks, my GPU (6870) beats your 5770.
<b>Source</b>: <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=540" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/538?vs=540</a>

Out of curiosity, what resolution and graphic settings are you using in NS?

xtal · January 2013

Everything low / minimum except:
Anisotropic Filtering = ON
Multicore rendering = ON
Resolution 1440x900

I play with such resolution for "waiting for GPU" parameter in r_stats to be 0ms 99,9% of time. I had two games where close to the hive with lots of aliens structures I had constant ~22fps but "waiting for GPU" was 0ms, one of those games was on ns_docking near departures hive.

Your processor got 6MB cache memory vs 3MB on mine, maybe that what makes difference? NS2 got very poor memory optimization?!?

rockypockyteriyaki · January 2013

games like ns2 with old dx9 engine then bumped up with lots of stuff which makes engine cant handle itself. theres a benchmark called super-pi for cpus which depends on cpu cycles (mhz). this is exactly whats going on with ns2. engine needs optimizations but then you need to overclock that cpu to play the game. I had e5200 c2duo oc'ed to 4.4ghz so you should be sitting at least 4.5ghz or more with that e8400.
you see buying an i5 computer won't solve fps drops with ns2. you need to overclock - thats the key.

xtal · January 2013

E5200 on 4.4GHZ - amazing :), I've changed from Intel dual core E5200 (OC to 2x3,5GHZ) to i3 3220 (2x3,3GHz) and it helped ~2x, so not only GHz boost the game.

rockypockyteriyaki · January 2013

yeah I miss my old e5200 I was so happy with it until quad core mandatory games came up..but im glad I switched i3 - i5 architecture is amazing really. I remember super pi score of that e5200 4,4ghz of mine and now my i5 beats it at 3,3ghz speed.

e8400 that this thread owner have is a nice cpu with 6mb l2 cache. when its oc'ed it can get close to i3 dual cores.

Let me tell you another thing. Now I got i5 2500k and I never overclocked it until ns2. I had to bump it to 4.5ghz to get steady 60fps in late game (which wasn't steady before overclock I used to see avg 45fps sometimes in 24player servers).. ns2 just wants moar and moar!

FunkyMike · January 2013

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rockypockyteriyaki @ Jan 19 2013, 04:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063124"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>games like ns2 with old dx9 engine then bumped up with lots of stuff which makes engine cant handle itself. theres a benchmark called super-pi for cpus which depends on cpu cycles (mhz). this is exactly whats going on with ns2. engine needs optimizations but then you need to overclock that cpu to play the game. I had e5200 c2duo oc'ed to 4.4ghz so you should be sitting at least 4.5ghz or more with that e8400.
you see buying an i5 computer won't solve fps drops with ns2. you need to overclock - thats the key.</div>

It does make you wonder if this game should have been done in dx 10 to begin with seeing as they had time to see that old machines won't be able to run this in the first place. We might have even gotten a performance bump :)

jp777cmoe · January 2013

My average is around 30 fps, 40fps in small rooms.

It can drops to 20-15 in big fights. I'm screwed because I can't overclock this PC :s

thanks for your help guys

jp777cmoe · January 2013

After reading some of the posts in this thread: should I just RMA my video card then?

Piro Fyre · January 2013

Believe me when I say this. It's your CPU. I just had a Q6600 @ 3GHz, 8GB ram and a 660 Ti 3GB and got the same performance issues as you. Exact same. It is not the video card AT ALL. Even setting everything on low settings didn't help it. Decided to build myself an entirely new PC.

Now, I have a Core i5 3570K @ 4.4GHz, 8GB ram (soon to be 16GB), and the same 660 Ti. I'm playing everything maxed out at a constant 60 fps with vsync on.
Sorry to say but you would need to upgrade.

If anything, I know those EP45-UD3R have turbo mode and extreme mode for auto overclocking. I just had my P35-DS3L a week ago that has this feature. Under load, it would overclock up to 2.8GHz in extreme mode. Even my current Z77X-UD3H has those 2 modes too so I know you have these modes. Just set it to extreme and try it out. If you feel the need to upgrade something, another 4GB ram wouldn't hurt.

jp777cmoe · February 2013

alright thanks

deathmonger · February 2013

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130653
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

$309.98 and all of your performance worries solved.

Sharp-Shooter · February 2013

deathmonger87 wrote: »

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130653
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

$309.98 and all of your performance worries solved.

hes going to have to switch to ddr3 ram, just make sure its atleast 6-8gb 1600mhz ddr3 ram, add another ~30+ dollars

deathmonger · February 2013

Boom, done!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

$49.99

fat cat · February 2013

your c2d is bottlenecking your gtx 660.

blzd · February 2013

Does any of this really matter when his system exceeds the recommended system requirements?

Bottlenecking isn't the issue, as anyone's GTX660 isn't being used to it's fullest in this game anyways.

Pretty sick and tired of people making it seem like it's obvious that they need an i7 overclocked to 4Ghz to play this game smoothly. That shouldn't be a requirement, but since it is it should be listed for everyone to see before making a purchase decision.

Farren · February 2013

blzd the CPU is the definite bottleneck. I know because I'm using an equivalent C2D E6600 but with a much slower GPU: GTX 460, and I'm getting about the same fps. The problem is not that he needs an overclocked i7, but that he needs a CPU that's not 7 years old.

The problem with his current CPU is a lack of L3 cache and that it is missing several efficiency improvements seen in the Intel i-series processors. His best bang-for-buck to get all he can out of the system is to upgrade to an i5 processor (I say i5 over i3 because the 4 cores will allow background applications to run without hindering the game). If he doesn't have the budget for upgrading to the i5, he could look into an i3 or a quad or hex-core AMD FX processor.

On a more personal note, I'm thinking of buying a $225 router... and I have no idea why I'm not thinking of upgrading my processor/motherboard instead.........

blzd · February 2013

That's not a problem though, according to the UWE recommended specs is what I'm saying. According to UWE, his dual core should run the game acceptably, it's recommended even. Having a strong GPU that is being bottlenecked doesn't mean one can expect low performance when their system meets the game's stated requriements.

Even if he had a core i7 CPU overclocked, it would still be the limiting factor for this game and his GPU would still be considered to be bottlenecked.

Low FPS with c2d and 660 GTX TI

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