Low fps on my PC.

[WariaatPL]

Hello all,

 

I've been looking for a solution for my fps drops for like few weeks, and i decided to post it here. I've got GTX 560 TI 1GB, Quad 2 Core Q6600 2,4Ghz, 6gb RAM DDR 2 800Mhz. I'm getting like 10 fps while playing Warzones/ 16 players OPS. I've tryied everything, unparking my cores, mem test, nvidia control panel settings, ingame setting, nothing helps at all, just disabling shadows. Perhaps, someone here could help me or something ? Oh, and by the way, other games are working correctly, i've never had problems with BF 4 for example.

 

Cheers.

[Malastare]

Your CPU plays some part in this. The 6600 was a great CPU, but it is fairly old and its performance simply isn't in the same league as a modern gaming CPU. Here's a comparison between your CPU and an i5 2500K (stock). The 2500K is more than three years old. Your Q6600 is more like six years old. There's only so long that you can expect a CPU to keep up with games.

 

Yeah, BF 4 is fine. BF 4 is a shooter, and they rely heavily on your GPU, but only use a small amount of CPU power. Most single-player games follow that pattern. Multiplayer games like Starcraft 2 use notably more CPU. MMOs use even more. SWTOR is one of the most visually intense MMOs, so it works the CPU even harder (to run calculations for position, animations, damage-detection, etc). Short story: The "But my single player games run fine" is not a usable argument.

 

Your RAM isn't helping. 6GB is enough to play the game, but you don't have much headroom for other applications, and you'll end up using almost all of your physical RAM, meaning that you'll have very little left for disk caching (meaning that file access will be slow). The fact that its DDR2 rather than the standard DDR3 is going to slow things down a bit more.

 

Based on the rest of the hardware, I'll guess that you're probably using a circa 2008 spindle hard drive (SATA II?) with a relatively low drive cache (8MB?). If its a 5400rpm, you'll be a little slower still.

 

The sad thing is that improving performance won't be easy. You can't really upgrade your CPU to anything worth while. Upgrading to an Ivy Bridge CPU would require a new motherboard, RAM, and likely a new PSU. Short of that, you could upgrade your RAM (assuming you're not using a laptop...). However, you can't use DDR3 and last I checked, DDR2 prices are discouragingly high. Your next option would be replacing your hard drive with an SSD, in hopes that better I/O performance would clear up some of the log jam in your CPU. It will certainly help, but it's unlikely to do all that much to improve your FPS. It might get you up to 20fps, if you're lucky.

[WariaatPL]

Well, you mean that DDR2 are not enough for this game ? That means i'll have to upgrade my PC soon then. Could you please tell which i5 CPU would be the best for SWTOR ? And how about RAMs, DDR3 1600 ?

[BuriDogshin]

Well, you mean that DDR2 are not enough for this game ? That means i'll have to upgrade my PC soon then. Could you please tell which i5 CPU would be the best for SWTOR ? And how about RAMs, DDR3 1600 ?

It's all about cost. You probably don't need an i5: an i3 or even the unlocked Pentium Anniversary Edition ($70 I think) would be fine. That said, you'd need a new motherboard, and DRAM, and you may not know it yet but you really want an SSD if you can afford the $130 to get a 250GB one from Micron or Samsung, and you might need a new PSU too depending on how old yours. Oh, and you may need to buy a new OS too. Since you are now already spending at least $300, you might want to spring for an i5 even if you don't really "need" it. You can reuse your current graphics card.

 

Anandtech just posted this Best PC under $500 article, you can use that as a starting point. However, do not get the AMD system, it has poor single-thread CPU performance, and SWTOR needs single-thread performance.

 

Me, starting with that Intel system, I'd ditch the HDD and get a bigger SSD, like a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO. I'd also use a Haswell-based core i3 processor, at least, instead of the Celeron. "You will be happy," as Gus Tuno likes to say.

[Malastare]

Well, you mean that DDR2 are not enough for this game ? That means i'll have to upgrade my PC soon then. Could you please tell which i5 CPU would be the best for SWTOR ? And how about RAMs, DDR3 1600 ?

 

Honestly, its not really the DDR2 which is holding you back. DDR3 does have noticeably better performance, but you'd get just as much performance gain with a modern CPU that has an integrated memory controller. I'd say the fact that you only have 6GB is just as important. Another 2-4GB would help. Prices on decent DIMMs (from Crucial) are more reasonable than I expect: you can get 4GB of DDR2-800 for $60. The sad part is that you can get 8GB of DDR3-1600 for $80.

 

...and again, your CPU/motherboard won't let you use DDR3.... and even if it did, you'd be missing out on a lot of the speed as it would be using a northbridge memory controller rather than the drastically-faster on-CPU memory controllers available now.

 

This is a lot of technical talk, and I'm not trying to bury you in information. I'm just trying to make sure you're informed. The end result here is that your system is simply a bit too old to give you good performance in the game. Yes, it technically meets the minimum requirements, however, the minimum requirements don't say anything about how good the game looks while matching them.

[Malastare]

Anandtech just posted this Best PC under $500 article, you can use that as a starting point. However, do not get the AMD system, it has poor single-thread CPU performance, and SWTOR needs single-thread performance.

 

AT's $500 PC is a good place to start. And yes, the Intel version is superior in this case (for gaming). However, I'd absolutely upgrade the CPU to an i5 or at least a high-end i3. And it will also need a dedicated video card, but the OP's 560 Ti would be a good place to start. The SSD is nice, but it's main effect is speeding up planet load times, not providing smooth framerates while playing. The game would run just fine on the HDD.

 

I would also pick a different case, because I find the SPEC-01 to have a mild case of hideous, but everyone has their own tastes.

[WariaatPL]

Well, i was considering buying a new pc few months ago already, thanks for informing me .

[Malastare]

Well, i was considering buying a new pc few months ago already, thanks for informing me .

 

As much as it annoys me to say it, that is unfortunately your best course of action to get the dramatic improvements you want.

 

Just know that you don't have to spend a ton of money to get that performance. You want a decent video card, but you don't need a top-of-the-line card. There are plenty of $200 card which will max out the game quality. You'll want a good CPU, but there's no need to get the fastest one on the market. a modern i5-3xxx will give you everything you need. You should be able to find a pre-built system that fits your needs for under $1000. If you build your own, you can get it as low as $800. If you're not shooting for the lowest budget, now is a decent time to get quite a bit of value in a PC. Up to about $1600, you'll be getting your money's worth. Beyond that, and you're starting to pay for cosmetics and bragging rights.

[WariaatPL]

What do you think about Intel Core i5 4670K ?

[Trevalon]

What do you think about Intel Core i5 4670K ?

 

4th Gen I5 is good (Which is what you asked about) - That is what I would recommend for people who want to game well but are not concerned with being cutting edge.

 

The only way your gonna get much better is upping to an I7 which really isn't needed for gaming right now and especially not for SWTOR.

 

Just, whatever you do, don't skimp on the graphics card. So many people build new pc's with I7's and everything then buy a budget 200 dollar graphics card...

 

If you are not prepared to spend at least 300 dollars on a graphics card then my suggestion is to just save a little more till you can.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Trevalon

[Malastare]

Just, whatever you do, don't skimp on the graphics card. So many people build new pc's with I7's and everything then buy a budget 200 dollar graphics card...

 

No. SWTOR doesn't require a bleeding edge gaming video card. For $200, you can get a AMD 270X, and that is more than enough to give really good performance in SWTOR for single-display gaming.

 

There is no reason to require a $300 video card.

[WariaatPL]

Well, how about my GTX 560 TI ? I'd like to change Motherboard, rams and CPU at first place, then change graphic card later ?

[Trevalon]

No. SWTOR doesn't require a bleeding edge gaming video card. For $200, you can get a AMD 270X, and that is more than enough to give really good performance in SWTOR for single-display gaming.

 

There is no reason to require a $300 video card.

 

The guy is complaining about low FPS - if he wants to maintain a High FPS with good graphics settings (Which if he is willing to buy a new computer to obtain that then I can only assume he is) then getting a good video card is very important.

 

My 780 TI cannot run this game and maintain 60fps constantly at max settings and it is just about the best gaming video card that money can buy - When there are 10+ people on the screen it can easily drop into the 30's.

 

For OP:

 

If you can save for a 770 go for that, if not the 760 is not a horrible card for its price, but the X60 series is Nvidia's budget line.

 

The 760 is on par with the 670 of previous gen and only about 3 steps up from your 560 - not a terrible card and you will see some increase over your previous card, but you won't see as much as you might expect to.

 

The thing is no matter what graphics card you get (Unless you go crazy and get a 290X2 or something) you are not actually going to see "HUGE" gains in FPS. A 600 series to a 700 series Nvidia sees large gains, but the 500 series of Nvidia cards were the last video cards to have an on board processor meaning that they performed at a much better rate than new video cards do. Upgrading from a 580 GTX to a 780 TI was a gain for me but in most games it wasnt more than 20-30fps - while that is significant in many ways it also isn't insanely huge either.

 

If you wanted, you could upgrade your processor, MB, and RAM (This is something you need to do - all 3 of your systems are very very outdated - I had a similar computer to yours but it was so many years ago I dont even remember 5+ I would imagine).

 

If you upgrade your CPU/RAM/MB your bottleneck will definitely become your GPU, but that 560 could hold you over till you had enough money to upgrade to a 770 or even 780. With that I5, 8gigs of 1600+ RAM, and a 770 you will probably get around 50FPS on max with it dipping into the 30's when alot of people are around.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Trevalon

[BuriDogshin]

I run SWTOR under Windows 7 64-bit at 2560x1440 and everything but bloom, on one of four monitors connected to my home built system that includes a GTX 760, a Core i5-3570K at 3.4GHz, 8GB of memory, and a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD. I have 150 Mbps down / 20 Mbps up cable internet and see ping times around 30ms. Generally, performance is fine, and any lag seems more attributable to the servers than my local system.

 

I do turn off the eye candy in some ops, but that is mainly to make it easier to see ground effects.

Edited August 3, 2014 by BuriDogshin

[Trevalon]

I run SWTOR under Windows 7 64-bit at 2560x1440 and everything but bloom, on one of four monitors connected to my home built system that includes a GTX 760, a Core i5-3570K at 3.4GHz, 8GB of memory, and a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD. I have 150 Mbps down / 20 Mbps up cable internet and see ping times around 30ms. Generally, performance is fine, and any lag seems more attributable to the servers than my local system.

 

I do turn off the eye candy in some ops, but that is mainly to make it easier to see ground effects.

 

Graphical Lag =/= as Server Lag

 

That's a pretty decent computer but I have a hard time believing you get anywhere close to 60fps at that resolution while in an ops or on fleet - That computer is about upper-mid range by today's standards.

 

I bet if you turn on you FPS you hover between 35-45 and dip as low as the 20's during heavy action - especially at that resolution - a 760 is not the most amazing card and especially at that high of a resolution

 

That's the problem with lag it is so subjective. Some people, like myself, that anything under a constant 60fps is considered lag but others can get 40 or even 30fps and think that is perfectly ok.

 

Truth be told anytime a computer drops below 60fps it lags, no matter how slight or how little the user perceives it, any drop below 60fps will create some lag to the human eye and depending on how sensitive you are some people can even see lag up to around 120fps (over that and its pretty dang hard to perceive any lag)

Edited August 3, 2014 by Trevalon

[BuriDogshin]

That's a pretty decent computer but I have a hard time believing you get anywhere close to 60fps at that resolution while in an ops or on fleet - ...

I bet if you turn on you FPS you hover between 35-45 and dip as low as the 20's during heavy action - especially at that resolution - a 760 is not the most amazing card and especially at that high of a resolution

 

That's the problem with lag it is so subjective. Some people, like myself, that anything under a constant 60fps is considered lag but others can get 40 or even 30fps and think that is perfectly ok.

Yep. I am seeing 30-50 FPS (in red numbers, so GPU-limited) on fleet in a large crowd and that's fine for me. YMMV.

[Jaden_Antilles]

Simple fix until you get your new pc. Turn off shadows.

[WariaatPL]

The guy is complaining about low FPS - if he wants to maintain a High FPS with good graphics settings (Which if he is willing to buy a new computer to obtain that then I can only assume he is) then getting a good video card is very important.

 

My 780 TI cannot run this game and maintain 60fps constantly at max settings and it is just about the best gaming video card that money can buy - When there are 10+ people on the screen it can easily drop into the 30's.

 

For OP:

 

If you can save for a 770 go for that, if not the 760 is not a horrible card for its price, but the X60 series is Nvidia's budget line.

 

The 760 is on par with the 670 of previous gen and only about 3 steps up from your 560 - not a terrible card and you will see some increase over your previous card, but you won't see as much as you might expect to.

 

The thing is no matter what graphics card you get (Unless you go crazy and get a 290X2 or something) you are not actually going to see "HUGE" gains in FPS. A 600 series to a 700 series Nvidia sees large gains, but the 500 series of Nvidia cards were the last video cards to have an on board processor meaning that they performed at a much better rate than new video cards do. Upgrading from a 580 GTX to a 780 TI was a gain for me but in most games it wasnt more than 20-30fps - while that is significant in many ways it also isn't insanely huge either.

 

If you wanted, you could upgrade your processor, MB, and RAM (This is something you need to do - all 3 of your systems are very very outdated - I had a similar computer to yours but it was so many years ago I dont even remember 5+ I would imagine).

 

If you upgrade your CPU/RAM/MB your bottleneck will definitely become your GPU, but that 560 could hold you over till you had enough money to upgrade to a 770 or even 780. With that I5, 8gigs of 1600+ RAM, and a 770 you will probably get around 50FPS on max with it dipping into the 30's when alot of people are around.

 

 

Sorry for a late response, but i was away for a while How about PSU ? I am using XFX Pro 550W right now, i've heard this one is quite good, however, i'm not sure if it can stand this i5 and my GTX 560 Ti ?