Very low Frame Rate with PC, need help

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Hi guys, I really am confused as to why my PC is having a terrible time with frame rate on Natural Selection 2.

I built my own PC and I use to be really good with the information and stuff, but forgive me for being a bit out of touch... I am just getting back into PC Gaming for the first time since 2008! I know A LOT has changed of course... I have a pretty decent budget gaming PC but I really didn't think Natural Selection 2 would have such a hard time running it.

Processor AMD Athlon(tm) X4 750K Quad Core Processor
It's running 4 processors at 3.4 GHZ but can run up to 4.0 GHZ Overclocked safely. (Which I have tried and it did not improve it.)

Video Card AMD Radeon HD 6450 PCI Express, has 2 GB of Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121657&cm_re=amd_6450-_-14-121-657-_-Product

Memory 8 GB G-Skills Ripjaws DDR3, 2133 = This is excatly what I have in my PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231476&cm_re=g_skills_rip_jaws_2133-_-20-231-476-_-Product

Operating System Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional Edition (build 9200), 64-bit

Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-P33 (MS-7721) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130708&cm_re=MSI_FM2-A75MA-P33-_-13-130-708-_-Product

My PC on its native res on 1280x1024 it will only give me 12 FPS on the main menu. And yes this is with ALL THE SETTINGS AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE, if I put it to 1024x768, it will give me 20FPS, if I put it down to a terrible 800x600 I can get 30FPS, and at 640x480 it will give me 42FPS.

I have tried different drivers for my graphics card, but nothing seems to work. I also put my AMD settings on the lowest possible it will give me. I see a bunch of help on Nvidia, but not AMD/ATI Graphics cards.

Please help. Thank you.

I attached the Tech Support file as well.

EDIT: I looked at my Graphics card to see how old it was.. it's as old as Natural Selection 2. It came out in October of 2012. Could it really be the problem though despite that? Or could it be my Motherboard? $:\$

Ill update my graphics card with the latest drivers again.. ill do a clean install on that... and ill see if I can find up to date drivers on my mother board... IDK if you need to do that on your Processor though...

Nordic · February 2015

You do have a very low specced computer for ns2 so you would be getting low fps. Your cpu is not ideal for ns2, but it isn't that bad. You are gpu bound by quite a lot. When I had a 4770k I played ns2 on the onboard intel 4600 graphics for a little while. My cpu was better than yours by a lot, but I was getting about 30-40fps. An intel 4600 is better than your amd 6450.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7_4770K_Haswell_GPU/20.html

Dropping down to 12fps does seem kind of low. Maybe @ironhorse can provide more insight.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

So my Graphics card is crap or is it my CPU that is? Because I am baffled that either one of them would be... at least for Natural Selection 2. $:\$

Nordic · February 2015

AllanCaesar wrote: »

So my Graphics card is crap or is it my CPU that is? Because I am baffled that either one of them would be... at least for Natural Selection 2. $:\$

I was saying your graphics card is very weak for natural selection 2. Your cpu is ok, but not ideal. Ns2 favors strong single threaded performance of which intel is king. Your cpu is just fine though. It is your gpu that is what is holding you back though, not your cpu. You can test this yourself. In game type "r_stats" in the console without quotes. You will see waiting for gpu having the highest number, meaning you are gpu bound. The higher the number the more bound.

Sad to say ns2 is not low specced computer friendly. Most people agree that the recommended specs are too low.

Rereading my post, I did not elaborate that I think 12fps is too low even for those specs. Ironhorse is the man you could provide better insight on that though. I am merely trying to tell you what realistic expectations from your hardware should be.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Well I can get a good 30FPS at 800x600, which isn't bad. But the resolution is meh you know? Not sure how it will hold up in game though.. but its still not bad... it could be worse.

But I do agree with you on the FPS being too low even for what I have, I do feel I should still be able to squeeze more FPS than that.

d4rkAlf · February 2015

Your GPU is extremely weak. I recommend upgrading it.

I don't know how much you're willing to spend. But the Nvidia Geforce GTX 750Ti is an extremely good GPU for its price and power consumption.

GhoulofGSG9 · February 2015

Well the HD 6450 was even when it came out a low budget card meant for multimedia and certainly not gaming. Even the old HD 5670 is twice as powerful as the 6450 (also the Vram is ddr3!)

Personally when it comes to ns2 i see the recommended system requirements more as minimum requirements because those minimum ones are ridiculous and everyone knows that (unless you play at 800x600). So to enjoy ns2 in 60 FPS at FullHD you need at least a HD 5770.

That said the good news is your cpu should be powerful enough

Currently the best cards in the mid-low budget sector are indeed the GTX 750TI or the R7 260X (relabeled 7790) or the a bit more expensive R9 270X ( basically a relabeled 7870 OC)

Kouji_San · February 2015

And as a FYI, the general rule of thumb for ATI/AMD Radeon HD Series is...

from <- slowest to fastest ->

desktop general purpose
x4xx. x5xx, x6xx

gaming cards
x7xx, x8xx, x9xx

IronHorse · February 2015

Like others have stated, it is definitely your GPU.. it's not meant for gaming at all.
As you can see, integrated graphics (meaning not a video card but the ones that are soldered on motherboards and come with laptops etc) are better than your dedicated graphics card.
That says a lot

http://videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Well i get on average 30FPS playing 800x600 right now. So its not bad, but would love to have it so I could play it smooth with everything up and high someday. So meh its my Graphics card. I believe I paid 60 dollars for it on Newegg. And here I thought I had something nice. =\ Oh well, thanks.... Ill go get a new one down the road.

Racer1 · February 2015

I'd spend at least US$130, and recommend $160, as that appears the bottom edge of "good value" gaming cards. This is kind of a sliding scale, as cards improve. But IMO it really isn't worth paying a little less (under $100), to get a graphics card that is an order of magnitude slower.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Well, if you guys know some nice graphics cards out there that are worth it, please post some for me. I do have the money. I might consider buying.. it's just that I also know how fast technology changes... because in 6 months from now what I will have will then be considered "old" and probably much cheaper.

I have the money.. I don't want to say how much.. but I can buy a nice one... I just dont want it to be so powerful that my CPU ends up bottle necking it.

Or if you see any sales on some great graphics cards, that would be nice too.

EDIT: Incase anyone wanted to know excatly what my Graphics Card was, this is what I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121657&cm_re=amd_6450-_-14-121-657-_-Product

I still think I will just get one later down the road. I don't want to blow the money right now really... unless it's a must have on sale special then i might bite.

Racer1 · February 2015

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

Nordic · February 2015

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Well, if you guys know some nice graphics cards out there that are worth it, please post some for me. I do have the money. I might consider buying.. it's just that I also know how fast technology changes... because in 6 months from now what I will have will then be considered "old" and probably much cheaper.

I have the money.. I don't want to say how much.. but I can buy a nice one... I just dont want it to be so powerful that my CPU ends up bottle necking it.

Or if you see any sales on some great graphics cards, that would be nice too.

EDIT: Incase anyone wanted to know excatly what my Graphics Card was, this is what I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121657&cm_re=amd_6450-_-14-121-657-_-Product

I still think I will just get one later down the road. I don't want to blow the money right now really... unless it's a must have on sale special then i might bite.

Ns2 will be so much more enjoyable if you upgrade. Ns2 at 800x600 is very annoying on top of low fps is even worse.

It is worth it. Low end gpu's hold their value surprisingly well in my opinion. It depends on how much you want to spend. Anything from about $130 to $200 gpu would be good for you.

As a teaser, this is what ns2 looks like at its best.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Racer1 wrote: »

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

LOLOLOL I am not going to waste 130 dollars on a graphics card that wuld only give me 40 FPS at 1280x1024!!!!! If it gave me 60 FPS OKAY yeah AWESOME with all the settings on high! but at 40 FPS? Hell no.

EDIT: Crap, didn't read the last part. Ugh but only 40 FPS because of my CPU? With everything on high or low though? $:\$ IDK what to do.

EDIT AGAIN: Yeah there's no way in hell im dishing out 150 to 200 dollars on a graphics card. Ill just put up with it... it's not that bad honestly at 800x600 and I don't play it hardcore like you guys do. Ill get one later down the road because I know how fast technology changes.. eventually that kind of graphics card will be on sale for 100 dollars or even cheaper. But thanks anyways, id rather pay 200 dollars and get a PS3 for that price.

So in other words, I just lost all hope playing this game in better quality. -_-

Nordic · February 2015

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Racer1 wrote: »

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

LOLOLOL I am not going to waste 130 dollars on a graphics card that wuld only give me 40 FPS at 1280x1024!!!!! If it gave me 60 FPS OKAY yeah AWESOME with all the settings on high! but at 40 FPS? Hell no.

EDIT: Crap, didn't read the last part. Ugh but only 40 FPS because of my CPU? With everything on high or low though? $:\$ IDK what to do.

The gpu he mentioned should provide you more than 40fps. With and intel celeron and a nvidia 750ti I got about 60- 90fps at 1080p at low settings. The 270 is slightly faster than the 750ti.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Nordic wrote: »

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Racer1 wrote: »

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

LOLOLOL I am not going to waste 130 dollars on a graphics card that wuld only give me 40 FPS at 1280x1024!!!!! If it gave me 60 FPS OKAY yeah AWESOME with all the settings on high! but at 40 FPS? Hell no.

EDIT: Crap, didn't read the last part. Ugh but only 40 FPS because of my CPU? With everything on high or low though? $:\$ IDK what to do.

The gpu he mentioned should provide you more than 40fps. With and intel celeron and a nvidia 750ti I got about 60- 90fps at 1080p at low settings. The 270 is slightly faster than the 750ti.

Which 750TI do you own? J/W, because those were a bit cheaper than what he has.

Nordic · February 2015

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Nordic wrote: »

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Racer1 wrote: »

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

LOLOLOL I am not going to waste 130 dollars on a graphics card that wuld only give me 40 FPS at 1280x1024!!!!! If it gave me 60 FPS OKAY yeah AWESOME with all the settings on high! but at 40 FPS? Hell no.

EDIT: Crap, didn't read the last part. Ugh but only 40 FPS because of my CPU? With everything on high or low though? $:\$ IDK what to do.

The gpu he mentioned should provide you more than 40fps. With and intel celeron and a nvidia 750ti I got about 60- 90fps at 1080p at low settings. The 270 is slightly faster than the 750ti.

Which 750TI do you own? J/W, because those were a bit cheaper than what he has.

I am not surprised they are cheaper because it doesn't perform as well. I just have some basic evga 750ti. They should all perform roughly the same.

I will post this for reference.

You could go as low as a 7750 and get massively better fps than you have now. I would recommend not going lower than a 750ti on that graph. I wouldn't go any higher than a AMD 280x on that graph either with your cpu.

AllanCaesar · February 2015

Nordic wrote: »

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Nordic wrote: »

AllanCaesar wrote: »

Racer1 wrote: »

Assuming you are sticking with AMD, if you can find an R9 270 2GB for $130 that would be a good deal. You should be able to run 40+ FPS at 1280x1024 in most NS2 situations. Any GPU beyond that will be limited too much by your CPU to be worth the money.

LOLOLOL I am not going to waste 130 dollars on a graphics card that wuld only give me 40 FPS at 1280x1024!!!!! If it gave me 60 FPS OKAY yeah AWESOME with all the settings on high! but at 40 FPS? Hell no.

EDIT: Crap, didn't read the last part. Ugh but only 40 FPS because of my CPU? With everything on high or low though? $:\$ IDK what to do.

The gpu he mentioned should provide you more than 40fps. With and intel celeron and a nvidia 750ti I got about 60- 90fps at 1080p at low settings. The 270 is slightly faster than the 750ti.

Which 750TI do you own? J/W, because those were a bit cheaper than what he has.

I am not surprised they are cheaper because it doesn't perform as well. I just have some basic evga 750ti. They should all perform roughly the same.

I will post this for reference.

You could go as low as a 7750 and get massively better fps than you have now. I would recommend not going lower than a 750ti on that graph. I wouldn't go any higher than a AMD 280x on that graph either with your cpu.

Okay thanks! Ill keep this stuff in mind when I do get a new graphics card in the future. But for all the other stuff i play on it, it works just fine for me. But if my graphics card ever dies.. ill know what to get next time. :P

Racer1 · February 2015

The reason I said it would give you 40 FPS is due to your CPU limiting your computer at that point. And note I said "40+", meaning a low rate of 40 FPS. I had no intention to oversell you on a GPU and you come back expecting some awesome NS2 performance on a medicore rig.

IronHorse · February 2015

Again, i'll post this as another good source to reference :
http://videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

And this in case you decide to go the full monty :
http://videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Yojimbo · February 2015

GTX 760 will give you a good run for a couple of years or if you're going to upgrade your other components then consider a 970, 760 for short term / cash strapped or 970 for long term / you can't go wrong.

Price / performance ratio of them two are pretty decent.

Kouji_San · February 2015

That's a good suggestion for when he wants to upgrade the rest of his rig after some time... But ALWAYS keep in mind that a PC is a combined effort and not just "oh i'll just slap in a good GPU and be done with it". A cute analogy would be:

Place a huge monster of an engine (super fast GPU) in a small and lightweight car, that huge engine is just going to spin the tires mostly and only be able to flex about 30% of it's muscles because the rest of the car is simply not able to keep up in terms of handling/weight/downforce (DDR memory bandwidth/raw CPU power per cycle and such)

So if you indeed upgrade your GPU, the rest of your rig is going to constrain that GPU. As I said, combined effort

Yojimbo · February 2015

Kouji_San wrote: »

That's a good suggestion for when he wants to upgrade the rest of his rig after some time... But ALWAYS keep in mind that a PC is a combined effort and not just "oh i'll just slap in a good GPU and be done with it". A cute analogy would be:

Place a huge monster of an engine (super fast GPU) in a small and lightweight car, that huge engine is just going to spin the tires mostly and only be able to flex about 30% of it's muscles because the rest of the car is simply not able to keep up in terms of handling/weight/downforce (DDR memory bandwidth/raw CPU power per cycle and such)

So if you indeed upgrade your GPU, the rest of your rig is going to constrain that GPU. As I said, combined effort

Tru dat, but if he was going to upgrade his CPU, hopefully he'd be smart enough to get something alittle more long lasting and spending alittle extra on longevity, otherwise if he gets another bargain CPU hes just gonna get bottleneck to bottleneck everytime he upgrades, if it was me personally, I'd save for the long run, get an i5 and bite the bullet, the performance between the old sandybridges to haswell is minimal except better TDP, temps and smaller die which makes this idea viable as Intel haven't made any significant progress since sandy.

In a nutshell, get a decent processor, bite the bullet, get a half decent GPU after, I'm still running a 1st gen i7 870 that ran originally with a BFG 8800GTX thats since been replaced with MSI GTX770 and it still keeps up with modern day pc games with relative ease. CPU longevity ->> GPU longevity.

Yojimbo · February 2015

Kouji_San wrote: »

That's a good suggestion for when he wants to upgrade the rest of his rig after some time... But ALWAYS keep in mind that a PC is a combined effort and not just "oh i'll just slap in a good GPU and be done with it". A cute analogy would be:

Place a huge monster of an engine (super fast GPU) in a small and lightweight car, that huge engine is just going to spin the tires mostly and only be able to flex about 30% of it's muscles because the rest of the car is simply not able to keep up in terms of handling/weight/downforce (DDR memory bandwidth/raw CPU power per cycle and such)

So if you indeed upgrade your GPU, the rest of your rig is going to constrain that GPU. As I said, combined effort

Also regarding cars..... have you not heard of the ATOM

Kouji_San · February 2015

that's not a car, it sounds like a blender

) <-- off-topic

Nordic · February 2015

I was just thinking, we don't know what his psu is. What if it isn't enough watts to support a 760? What if it doesn't have 2x 6pin connectors? In that case a 750ti would be his best bet.

Hamlet · February 2015

Two days ago my go-to site for GPU bang/buck comparisons (3dcenter) did their latest market roundup.
You pick a price point, they got a recommendation.

Also very nice, a direct bang/buck index:

To give you a perspective, the HD6450 with shitty DDR3 VRAM rates ~70% performance on the 3Dcenter scale.

As usual, the best cards hover around the 150€ mark.
The R9 280 is very nice with 3GB of VRAM.

I'm currently using a 270X (although on a 1920x1200 display) in tandem with a A10-7850K APU running at 4.2GHz.
I can play at 60fps with everything high (IPS panel FTW!), except Ambient Occlusion which I don't like, because it makes everything too dark.

tallhotblonde · February 2015

I have a 680 and amd 8350 @ 4.8 hgz (rubbish @ single threading)
My fps starts at 150 quickly drops to 100 and late game sits at around 60-70, often dropping below 55. Everything on low, full resolution and on 12 player competitive servers.

Welcome to ns2 :]

dePARA · February 2015

Just a small tip how you always have enough power for games in general without spending too much money.
A PC is a modular system, so instead of buying a complete PC every 4-5 years upgrade the single components if needed.
I spend around 400€ every year for new PC parts. (sometimes a bit more, sometimes less)
And if you sale your replaced components on ebay or to friends you get some money back, so you spend only 250€-300€ per year.

So my PC is growing with the time.
If i would buy my PC as complete system right now it would cost over 1000€ but due the slow growing it doesnt feel that expensive.

My base system was:
I5 2500k@default, 4gb ram, gtx260, 1tb hdd 4 years ago.
Now its:
Same CPU@4.6 ghz, 8 gb ram, gtx 670(AMD 5870 2 years ago), 256gb SSD (64gb SSD 2 years ago)

When "The Division" is going to relased, i will upgrade GPU again.

So based on an 4 year old CPU i have up to 170 fps in NS2 wich drops to 90 in heavy endgames on an 18 slot server.

Ironsoul · February 2015

Phwoar it's been a while since I've been on these forums. Just like to add my voice to this thread.

Upgrade your graphics card. It's unfortunate you have a gpu without integrated graphics becaues if that 750K had been the APU version I would have said "pull that 6450 out and just use integrated, that's how bad the 6450 is".

It's also unfortunate you spent $60 on it because now that $130 graphics card is going to be a $190 graphics card.

The current best value card you can get is the 750 ti as far as I'm aware, it doesn't require any extra power input and will provide excellent performance at 1080p in most games.

In NS2 specifically the 750 ti should easily handle 1080p high settings above 60fps. Your cpu may hold you below that but that depends on the game. Overall adding a 750 ti to your computer will improve your day to day enjoyment of using the computer and you should upgrade within the month.

Very low Frame Rate with PC, need help

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