Swtor...from 60 fps....to 20-30 fps after 6mos. Why?

[Mineria]

What has me concerned is that its running that hot sitting on ilum. I do a lot of PvP and am concerned as to how hot it runs in warzones, which ill test tonight.

 

At the very least I'm going to make sure the next laptop I buy doesn't vent all its heat out the left side, since I can keep coffee hot just be setting it to the left of my laptop while playing swtor.

I have good experience with this kind of laptop:

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G750JH/

GTX780M is about a GTX770, CPU is slower than it's desktop counterparts, but it's always like that.

 

The laptop is pretty large because of it's cooling system, I would not settle for anything less thou.

[NineFuries]

Hey thanks for all the responses. As for the thermal paste I used it is Antec formula 6 nano diamond. I watched a youtube video on applying the paste to see how much I should use. I may have put too much though as I put several tiny dots in like a cross formation across the cpu.

 

At this point I'm just shaking my head in disappointment at myself. I probably caused damage to my cpu as someone stated. The fan is a stock fan which I had some trouble mounting and I may have not secured one of the pins correctly when I put it on.

 

Good news is I just bought a Cooler Master 212 EVO with rush shipping. Should I just keep my PC off until I can get this new fan and stable temps? I could try to reapply the thermal paste I have but maybe I should just wait until I get the new fan?

 

Can't believe I possibly damaged my friggin cpu...arghhh.

Edited February 26, 2015 by NineFuries

[NogueiraA]

What I find amusing is some people here claiming that SWTOR's engine is not the problem...

[Zoom_VI]

What I find amusing is some people here claiming that SWTOR's engine is not the problem...

 

Do you even know what a engine is? Cuz I see people blaming the engine for pretty much everything, and by everything I mean stuff that isn't even remotely related to the engine.

 

I mean really, I can toggle my graphics settings on my laptop and get 80 FPS in a crowded area.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Zoom_VI

[Heat-Wave]

So I started watch my CPU temp on my i7 and its peaking in the 80c range while sitting on ilum. I brought up swtor's FPS counter which changes color based on whats limiting it, it was green which indicates GPU is limiting, so I set all graphics to minimum. I jumped from 33 fps to 81 fps before the FPS counter switched to red indicating limitation by CPU. The CPU core temp doesn't vary much at any time during my experimenting.

 

Unfortunately a lot of the typical heat fixes are out because I'm running on a latitude E6430 laptop so there isn't exactly much space for adding fans or opening up more air intake. And before anyone asks yes I keep it sitting on a laptop cooling pad.

 

At rest with no programs up it sits at ~45c

 

Now you have me curious, I haven't run that on my notebook yet...

 

Just did... I have this notebook:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314681

 

Acer Aspire V17 Nitro Black Edition

Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz)

16 GB DDR3L Memory 1TB HDD 256GB SSD

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 2GB

1920 x 1080

Windows 8.1 64-Bit

 

Right now, sitting at the desktop, doing nothing special, it is indeed idling at 45c, which strikes me as high compared to my desktop which idles at 30c. I suppose it does help that my desktop is watercooled, but at idle I wouldn't expect a huge difference. My desktop struggles to hit 45c even at full load.

 

It indeed hits the thermal limits at 70c while playing SWTOR, I loaded up Ilum and ran around killing robots, CPU-Z reported that the CPU was turbo boosting to 3.3ghz, staying there for a bit, then coming back down to 2.5ghz as RealTemp was reporting the temp passing 70c. You could also hear the fans inside the notebook spinning up to keep it cool.

 

I honestly didn't know the notebook was running the CPU at such a high temp, thankfully it doesn't do it often.

[Heat-Wave]

Hey thanks for all the responses. As for the thermal paste I used it is Antec formula 6 nano diamond. I watched a youtube video on applying the paste to see how much I should use. I may have put too much though as I put several tiny dots in like a cross formation across the cpu.

 

At this point I'm just shaking my head in disappointment at myself. I probably caused damage to my cpu as someone stated. The fan is a stock fan which I had some trouble mounting and I may have not secured one of the pins correctly when I put it on.

 

Good news is I just bought a Cooler Master 212 EVO with rush shipping. Should I just keep my PC off until I can get this new fan and stable temps? I could try to reapply the thermal paste I have but maybe I should just wait until I get the new fan?

 

Can't believe I possibly damaged my friggin cpu...arghhh.

 

Most of us have done that at one point or another, don't feel bad... I know I fried a motherboard once by being stupid, that day kinda sucked since I didn't have much money at the time and it was a lot to me.

 

The cooling mounting solution that Intel uses these days is not my favorite, I think they could do better, but I imagine it is cheap so they go with it since such a small percentage of their customers will ever see it much less care.

[Papazmurf]

There really needs to be a guide on how to properly spec out and build computers on this forum. A lot of people, me included, when first building or even looking at specs for a PC/Laptop and what we're going to do with them have no clue what it all means. Yeah we might have an idea of what RAM does, or the CPU does, but it takes a lot of time and research to really know how all the components are interrelated.

 

People are playing SWTOR and just barely meeting the minimum requirements to play the game and wondering why they can't get great performance. That mentality needs to be changed.

[Malastare]

At this point I'm just shaking my head in disappointment at myself. I probably caused damage to my cpu as someone stated.

 

Don't worry too much about this. The damage you caused isn't catastrophic. Electronics may not have moving parts but they do take some wear, and they wear faster at higher temperatures. You haven't destroyed your CPU, nor should you need to worry about immediate failures. All you've really done is taken some life off it. It may only last 4 years instead of 5. So long as you don't continue the wear, it's not something that you're likely to have significant issues with.

 

The most important thing is just to make sure you get the temperature down.

 

Good news is I just bought a Cooler Master 212 EVO with rush shipping.

 

An excellent choice.

 

Should I just keep my PC off until I can get this new fan and stable temps?

 

You're probably fine to use it for non-gaming stuff. Browse the internet. Watch videos. Make pointless powerpoint presentations.

 

I could try to reapply the thermal paste I have but maybe I should just wait until I get the new fan?

 

Yeah, no real point in that if you've got a new heatsink on the way.

 

The next thing to make sure you've got is some isopropyl alcohol and lint-free cloths. A good quality paper towel and a microfiber cloth work, too. You'll want to use the isopropyl to clean off all of the existing thermal paste. And since it seems like its diamond-based, you should expect it to look like you've oxidized and/or scored the top of your CPU. That's fine. Its normal with that sort of paste. You haven't damaged it. Apply the new paste (the stuff that comes with the 212 should be fine), clamp the puppy down, and you should be good to go.

[Malastare]

Right now, sitting at the desktop, doing nothing special, it is indeed idling at 45c, which strikes me as high compared to my desktop which idles at 30c. I suppose it does help that my desktop is watercooled, but at idle I wouldn't expect a huge difference. My desktop struggles to hit 45c even at full load.

 

Nah... that's actually pretty normal. Laptops run hotter, simply because they have less air to exchange the heat into. They also have more heat-producing components in a smaller area, meaning that most of the components are cooled with the exact same flow of air, unlike most desktops that usually have 3 or 4 cooling "zones".

 

And your desktop temps are largely due to the watercooling. Watercooling is overkill in most situations, but when it is used, it is excellent for keeping temperatures down thanks to the thermal capacity and conductivity of water.

 

It indeed hits the thermal limits at 70c while playing SWTOR, I loaded up Ilum and ran around killing robots, CPU-Z reported that the CPU was turbo boosting to 3.3ghz, staying there for a bit, then coming back down to 2.5ghz as RealTemp was reporting the temp passing 70c. You could also hear the fans inside the notebook spinning up to keep it cool.

 

And again, that's actually pretty normal. Most laptops aren't designed for the heat generated by games, and SWTOR (and other MMOs) are even worse, because they load the CPU and the GPU at the same time. That means only one of them gets cooled by ambient temperatures, and the other has to deal with pre-warmed air.

 

However... there's nothing bad about running the CPU at 70C... unless you're cooking your lap. The CPU disables TurboBoost to keep its temperatures in line and you lose performance because of it, but its not like its bad for the CPU. Only once the temperatures break 90C do you start getting into the warning zone. At 100C (or so, depending on the model) the CPU will simply turn off to protect itself. If you want to actively damage your CPU in the short term, you need to get the temperature into the 105-115C range.

[NineFuries]

So I found out why I am overheating. My stock cpu fan has gone kaput and isn't working at all!

 

Several weeks ago there must have been a power outage. I came home and my pc was off so I booted it up and I remember it making a rather abnormal noise. It booted up fine though so I didn't think much of it until my performance was dropping weeks later. Just checked the fan and yep...not moving!

 

I really hope I didnt seriously hurt the cpu because I would have to buy a new one and a new mobo as well.

Edited March 4, 2015 by NineFuries

[NineFuries]

Update: Just installed new cooler master 212 EVO and now swtor and my other games run great. I am averaging 50 fps and I did a bunch of warzones. No change in performance.

 

When I ran the benchmark for batman arkham city before I was getting 29 fps avg. Now I am at 56. Everything runs much smoother now.

[CKNORTH]

I have a generic store bought PC works great! My advice don't use a frame meter to play.... If you ain't lagging then who cares? Also pro tip! In the options in graphics is keep raid frame rate.. Why have I not seen anyone mention this option yet??

 

Edit: find it in, preferences - user interface - use operation frames as group frames...

Edited March 4, 2015 by CKNORTH

[Heat-Wave]

There really needs to be a guide on how to properly spec out and build computers on this forum. A lot of people, me included, when first building or even looking at specs for a PC/Laptop and what we're going to do with them have no clue what it all means. Yeah we might have an idea of what RAM does, or the CPU does, but it takes a lot of time and research to really know how all the components are interrelated.

 

People are playing SWTOR and just barely meeting the minimum requirements to play the game and wondering why they can't get great performance. That mentality needs to be changed.

 

I hear you... I'm tempted to do just that...

 

Web sites like AnandTech are wonderful if you want to know everything front to back about parts, but they do a lousy job overall of telling you "buy this, play this game, don't sweat the details".

 

I posted this in another thread:

 

Intel Core i3-4160 - $120

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117447

 

ASUS H97M - $92

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813132120

 

AMD r9 285 - $185 after MIR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131595

 

In my opinion, that setup is balanced and should play SWTOR at 1080p or lower resolution well enough to make most people happy. Shadows might need to be turned off (they are a hog anyway), and you might not get anti-aliasing, but it should run nicely.

 

That CPU is a dual core chip, but it is hyperthreaded, so it appears to be a 4 core to Windows. It isn't really, but it does help when SWTOR wants 2 cores and background stuff wants to run, it is better than a straight dual core in that respect.

 

The video card is a nice balance of power, heat, and performance and will run most modern games at medium or high at 1080p.

 

If you have more to spend, by all means, get a Core i5 and a Z97 motherboard and a AMD 290X and go to town. You should do that if you're running 3x monitors at 1080p or running at 1440p/1600p.

 

---

 

However, as always, people view performance differently. "Smooth" to one person is "choppy" to another. Running around Tython, a computer half that power might be smooth, put it into Ravagers 16m and it would be a laggy mess.

 

Some people are happy with a bit of chop from time to time, so long as it is "mostly smooth", while other people want "butter smooth 100% of the time".

 

So when someone says "my computer is great" or "my computer sucks", keep in mind the above.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Heat-Wave

[DarthVengeant]

3.0 was not designed with "server hitching" and the games engine limits in mind. Those two things were obviously ignored. That much is blatantly obvious to anyone who has played it the past 3 months. Underlurker is a prime example of that. Flat out. Edited March 4, 2015 by DarthVengeant

[Papazmurf]

My advice don't use a frame meter to play.... If you ain't lagging then who cares?

 

This is very true. People are so focused on hitting a number. If the game plays well for you and you're not screwing up in raids or wz, who cares about the framerate.

[Orizuru]

I hear you... I'm tempted to do just that...

 

Web sites like AnandTech are wonderful if you want to know everything front to back about parts, but they do a lousy job overall of telling you "buy this, play this game, don't sweat the details".

 

I posted this in another thread:

 

Intel Core i3-4160 - $120

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117447

 

ASUS H97M - $92

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813132120

 

AMD r9 285 - $185 after MIR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131595

 

In my opinion, that setup is balanced and should play SWTOR at 1080p or lower resolution well enough to make most people happy. Shadows might need to be turned off (they are a hog anyway), and you might not get anti-aliasing, but it should run nicely.

 

That CPU is a dual core chip, but it is hyperthreaded, so it appears to be a 4 core to Windows. It isn't really, but it does help when SWTOR wants 2 cores and background stuff wants to run, it is better than a straight dual core in that respect.

 

The video card is a nice balance of power, heat, and performance and will run most modern games at medium or high at 1080p.

 

If you have more to spend, by all means, get a Core i5 and a Z97 motherboard and a AMD 290X and go to town. You should do that if you're running 3x monitors at 1080p or running at 1440p/1600p.

 

---

 

However, as always, people view performance differently. "Smooth" to one person is "choppy" to another. Running around Tython, a computer half that power might be smooth, put it into Ravagers 16m and it would be a laggy mess.

 

Some people are happy with a bit of chop from time to time, so long as it is "mostly smooth", while other people want "butter smooth 100% of the time".

 

So when someone says "my computer is great" or "my computer sucks", keep in mind the above.

 

I prefer to help people in a more one-on-one environment when it comes to speccing out a new build. Every attempt to create a guide I've seen tends to get drowned out by fanboys arguing over Intel vs AMD and nVidia vs AMD mullarkey. Couple that with the elitists who just want to tell you to save money rather than build on a budget and the guys who just want to argue over minute details about hardware and you end up with a thread that is likely to be locked rather quickly.

 

I won't fault anyone for trying though.

[Papazmurf]

I prefer to help people in a more one-on-one environment when it comes to speccing out a new build. Every attempt to create a guide I've seen tends to get drowned out by fanboys arguing over Intel vs AMD and nVidia vs AMD mullarkey. Couple that with the elitists who just want to tell you to save money rather than build on a budget and the guys who just want to argue over minute details about hardware and you end up with a thread that is likely to be locked rather quickly.

 

I won't fault anyone for trying though.

 

I wholly agree with this. Most guide's I've seen on forums have a sticky and are locked to prevent the fanboyism. Again the best way to do it is work one-on-one. For those people that need help though, I figure it's hard for them to figure out who to ask.

 

Maybe the solution would be to have a specs and performance thread where everyone lists what they have and what performance they get. Users could PM people individually if they see a build that looks good, but is having bad performance.

 

At the end of the day I think most are trying to help.

[MillionsKNives]

The cooling mounting solution that Intel uses these days is not my favorite, I think they could do better, but I imagine it is cheap so they go with it since such a small percentage of their customers will ever see it much less care.

 

And those that do care and see it are likely not to use it very long, if at all.

 

Don't worry too much about this. The damage you caused isn't catastrophic. Electronics may not have moving parts but they do take some wear, and they wear faster at higher temperatures. You haven't destroyed your CPU, nor should you need to worry about immediate failures. All you've really done is taken some life off it. It may only last 4 years instead of 5. So long as you don't continue the wear, it's not something that you're likely to have significant issues with.

 

The most important thing is just to make sure you get the temperature down.

 

Agreed. From my understanding, if you actually did damage to the CPU it just wouldn't run at all. And CPUs are built with protection so that they will throttle or shut themselves down if it gets too hot, so it's hard to truly kill your CPU by overheating it.

 

The next thing to make sure you've got is some isopropyl alcohol and lint-free cloths. A good quality paper towel and a microfiber cloth work, too. You'll want to use the isopropyl to clean off all of the existing thermal paste. And since it seems like its diamond-based, you should expect it to look like you've oxidized and/or scored the top of your CPU. That's fine. Its normal with that sort of paste. You haven't damaged it. Apply the new paste (the stuff that comes with the 212 should be fine), clamp the puppy down, and you should be good to go.

 

Coffee filters work too if you don't have any lint free microfiber cloths.

 

So I found out why I am overheating. My stock cpu fan has gone kaput and isn't working at all!

 

Several weeks ago there must have been a power outage. I came home and my pc was off so I booted it up and I remember it making a rather abnormal noise. It booted up fine though so I didn't think much of it until my performance was dropping weeks later. Just checked the fan and yep...not moving!

 

I really hope I didnt seriously hurt the cpu because I would have to buy a new one and a new mobo as well.

 

At least it still had the heat sink to take away some of the heat if you weren't stressing it too much. Back in high school I had bought a really cheap crappy water cooling kit (for shiggles, routing the water blocks and tubing was fun). One day the pump stopped working and I didn't realize. I turned on the computer and it barely made it past the login screen before it emergency shut itself down from overheating. I put my hand near the CPU block and it was burning hot. The tubes right around it were really hot as well. I just threw the stock cooler back on it and it worked fine until I built my next computer.

 

I have a generic store bought PC works great! My advice don't use a frame meter to play.... If you ain't lagging then who cares? Also pro tip! In the options in graphics is keep raid frame rate.. Why have I not seen anyone mention this option yet??

 

Edit: find it in, preferences - user interface - use operation frames as group frames...

 

I do agree with the first part to an extent. There are times when my framerate dips to around 40 fps and I can barely tell with this game. Other games I play like Assassin's Creed or an FPS I can immediately tell if I'm losing framerate and below 60 fps. Just the way the game plays I don't really notice it as much in this game.