Huge FPS drops On A High End Computer

[BellsofGuilt]

The worst FPS drops I get are on Rishi, the lowest value being 23 FPS in the slums. Every planet that has expansive terrain, such as Balmorra or Alderaan, I also get large FPS drops. I play with every graphical variable maxed on a 2560 x 1440, 32'' monitor. My question is are the FPS drops the fault of the game or my computer? Every other game I play has a 50 - 60 FPS on maxed out settings (I use vertical Sync). If it's my computer, does anyone have a suggestion of how to increase the FPS in this game?

 

Here are my computer's specifications:

 

GPU: Geforce GTX Titan X

 

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.50 GHz

 

Memory: 16 GB Ram

 

And I use the Windows 7 Operating System.

Edited July 27, 2015 by BellsofGuilt

[LydMekk]

The only high end is your gpu...

I am using a 4790K and have no such problems, this game is a CPU hog, not so much a GPU strainer.

Upgrade the cpu.

[ALaggyGrunt]

The client needs to learn some things, which include:

 

0: Quit running the game as admin. If the game's inner workings are as buggy as the ops, this program is a gaping security hole, and should not be run on a computer with data you don't want to share with anyone. Anyone who finds a way to run nasty code on your computer through SWTOR doesn't have to also find an escalation-of-privilege technique to gain access to the rest of your computer. Running the game as admin also means running any voice chat program as admin if you want push-to-talk and other keyboard shortcuts in those programs to work without alt-tabbing out, which makes it that much easier for someone to cause mayhem on your computer through those.

1: How to sort through what not to draw and mix sounds for. I was on the grass turret in a WZ getting 20 FPS. All the lightning and explosions were happening in that bunker in the middle, with exactly nothing happening in my line of sight. Looking away from that lagfest didn't help, either. BSP trees might work well enough in the mostly 2D ground game.

2: Good use of threads. Most of us have 4 cores (2 hyperthreading physical cores) or more. Proper threading would mean a serious improvement to performance on just about anything.

3: XP support is discontinued, so we need to quit supporting it with the two threads and any other slow legacy code. Passing data between the two processes to get around the 2GB limit costs operating system overhead.

[BellsofGuilt]

The only high end is your gpu...

I am using a 4790K and have no such problems, this game is a CPU hog, not so much a GPU strainer.

Upgrade the cpu.

 

Huh. I had no idea the CPU would have so much relevance. I've always thought that the GPU was the most important factor in increasing game performance. So, upgrading just the CPU would fix this FPS problem I have, you think?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Huh. I had no idea the CPU would have so much relevance. I've always thought that the GPU was the most important factor in increasing game performance. So, upgrading just the CPU would fix this FPS problem I have, you think?

 

It would definitely help for that CPU yes. Tat is a pretty grunty GPU compared to that CPU and I would be surprised if you get the maximum perforamnce from the GPU in many games with that CPU.

 

Grab an i5 4690k and you'll be sweet ( overclock it to run 4.2 GHZ+ if you know what you're doing, almost all of them will hit that no worries on after market air cooling ).

You could look towards an i7 if money isn't a big factor but if you only play SWTOR don't buy an i7, waste of money ( unless you do other multi core intensive practices in applications ).

Again you would only want the i7 for future proofing in other games as not too many use them right now to their full capabilities.

[daftshadow]

I also believe with the limitations of the game's engine which i believe uses the HeroEngine, some of the optimizations aren't the best so even if you still have a high-end PC; GPU and CPU, you'll still encounter abnormal drops in FPS. i have a GTX 980 and i-7 4790K and although the game runs 100 fps 99% of the time, sometimes it'll drop abnormally at certain ares in the game. i think the game has fps capped at 100 because i dont have vsync enabled.

[Draqsko]

Huh. I had no idea the CPU would have so much relevance. I've always thought that the GPU was the most important factor in increasing game performance. So, upgrading just the CPU would fix this FPS problem I have, you think?

 

 

Component synchronicity is a huge part of computing performance. CPU, GPU, Ram and Motherboard all have to work together for your total system performance. One beefed up GPU isn't even going to be taxed if your CPU, ram and motherboard can't feed it fast enough, and won't give you a great performance increase without upgrading the stuff feeding it.

 

 

It would definitely help for that CPU yes. Tat is a pretty grunty GPU compared to that CPU and I would be surprised if you get the maximum perforamnce from the GPU in many games with that CPU.

 

Grab an i5 4690k and you'll be sweet ( overclock it to run 4.2 GHZ+ if you know what you're doing, almost all of them will hit that no worries on after market air cooling ).

You could look towards an i7 if money isn't a big factor but if you only play SWTOR don't buy an i7, waste of money ( unless you do other multi core intensive practices in applications ).

Again you would only want the i7 for future proofing in other games as not too many use them right now to their full capabilities.

 

If you are going to overclock for SWTOR, please don't just increase the multiplier. Leave the multiplier and increase the front side bus, aka system clock or whatever your BIOS calls it. Single thread performance is largely affected by FSB speed and is improved with a FSB overclock. Multi thread performance is much greater impacted by multiplier overclocks.

 

That's why my AMD FX-8350 runs SWTOR just as good as an Intel i7 does, because my 8350 has a FSB that is screaming fast so much so I had to install additional VRM cooling. However it completely negates Intel's hyperthreading advantage on single threaded operations. Sure you could overclock the FSB on an Intel chip as well, but I don't think the architecture would like 200 W screaming through it to get that kind of overclock.

[Draqsko]

I also believe with the limitations of the game's engine which i believe uses the HeroEngine, some of the optimizations aren't the best so even if you still have a high-end PC; GPU and CPU, you'll still encounter abnormal drops in FPS. i have a GTX 980 and i-7 4790K and although the game runs 100 fps 99% of the time, sometimes it'll drop abnormally at certain ares in the game. i think the game has fps capped at 100 because i dont have vsync enabled.

 

Vsync would cap it at your monitor's refresh rate, which would be lower than 100 fps more than likely. The game is max render at 100 fps, maybe a little more in certain low simulation environments, ie loading screens or cutscenes.

[MuzluPasta]

Game is capped at 110 FPS.

[Toweleeeie]

Yeah it's your CPU. This game doesn't utilize GPUs. Just by a new i7, you will need it for that Titan anyway.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

If you are going to overclock for SWTOR, please don't just increase the multiplier. Leave the multiplier and increase the front side bus, aka system clock or whatever your BIOS calls it. Single thread performance is largely affected by FSB speed and is improved with a FSB overclock. Multi thread performance is much greater impacted by multiplier overclocks.

 

That's why my AMD FX-8350 runs SWTOR just as good as an Intel i7 does, because my 8350 has a FSB that is screaming fast so much so I had to install additional VRM cooling. However it completely negates Intel's hyperthreading advantage on single threaded operations. Sure you could overclock the FSB on an Intel chip as well, but I don't think the architecture would like 200 W screaming through it to get that kind of overclock.

 

Have you got any decent real world data to show that an FSB overclock would give you significantly better performance in SWToR over a pure multiplier increase? Excluding the added difficulty in getting a stable FSB overclock ( much less noob friendly ) from what I know you'd be lucky to see a few frames difference in clock vs clock type speeds comparing multi vs fsb and I've not seen too much too the contrary.

 

Sure you can get greater test scores but meh, gaming is what we're talking about.

 

Which i7 are you comparing your cpu too also and under what circumstances? Did you get a profile for your userbench?

I run mine a couple of days back and got a fairly modest score for my modest overclock I feel: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/311216

 

I would love to push it further than 4.2 but I didn't get as lucky on the silicone lottery this time and it just doesn't like going higher regardless of how I approach it. I can't be bothered of course trying an entirely new motherboard for a few extra frames if I could get to say 4.5 stable.

[BellsofGuilt]

Thank you everyone for your advice and useful bits of knowledge regarding computers. Admittedly, I do not know very much about this beyond the bare minimum. I'm going to upgrade my CPU, but I'm not sure which one I should get.

 

I looked on Amazon and the most expensive one I could find is a Intel Xeon E5-2650 v2 Eight-Core Processor 2.6GHz 8.0GT/s 20MB LGA 2011 CPU BX80635E52650V2 - It's too expensive and I have a feeling it is overkill for the purpose of gaming. Another one I found that has a good price is Intel Core BX80646I74790K i7-4790K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz). An even less expensive one is Intel Core i5-4690K Processor 3.5 GHz LGA 1150 BX80646I54690K.

 

Are any of these less expensive ones good enough for gaming?

[BellsofGuilt]

It would definitely help for that CPU yes. Tat is a pretty grunty GPU compared to that CPU and I would be surprised if you get the maximum perforamnce from the GPU in many games with that CPU.

 

Grab an i5 4690k and you'll be sweet ( overclock it to run 4.2 GHZ+ if you know what you're doing, almost all of them will hit that no worries on after market air cooling ).

You could look towards an i7 if money isn't a big factor but if you only play SWTOR don't buy an i7, waste of money ( unless you do other multi core intensive practices in applications ).

Again you would only want the i7 for future proofing in other games as not too many use them right now to their full capabilities.

 

I don't only play SW: TOR. I am looking for something that will last for several years and be able to keep up with my GPU for gaming. Think I should get an i7 in that case?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I don't only play SW: TOR. I am looking for something that will last for several years and be able to keep up with my GPU for gaming. Think I should get an i7 in that case?

 

I think so yes, the 4790k will overclock well also if you feel like looking into researching this and getting the relatively cheap extra cooling required. It still runs at an easy 4.0 Ghz on the stock cooling and that's nothing to be sneezed at and turbo's through to 4.4 on the same stock though temps can get up a bit so an aftermarker cooler wouldn't go amiss anyway really.

 

If you were highly worried about money I would recommend the i5 as it will run most games just as well as the i7 until hyper threading becomes more common place in game usage which I suspect we'll see more of with DirectX 12 in Windows 10.

 

The i7 is the more future proof of the cpu's, don't get the xeon, it would be crap for gaming comparatively and it's really not what they are designed for.

 

Of course also ensure the motherboard you are currently running supports the CPU you want to buy, I would probably recommend upgrading this at the same time ( if you didn't when you got the Titan which I doubt? ) to suit your current and future needs ( in terms of the bells and whistles different motherboards come with ).

With that CPU you'll be looking for any of the Z97 chipset boards, the difference in prices is often dictated by features ( on board audio, SLI - you may want to add another Titan later on lol ).

 

Some people might recommend waiting to upgrade to the new skylake cpu's coming out soon but honestly from the early leaked benchmarks I've read they won't really offer much of a gaming increase per se ( maybe a few FPS ) and possibly even more room for overclocking.

 

This was to be expected though really, CPU's are getting smaller and using less power but they aren't really pushing out more raw processing power to previous generations before them ( just check some of the halswell benchmarks vs previous generations equivalent CPU in gaming and the FPS difference is rather miniscule ideally ).).

[Tallwyn]

My rig is quite old (3.5 years) even though most of the components were second to best at the time i purchased them, according to all metrics. I recently had the unfortunate case of my HDD dieing, so i finally had the opportunity to buy SSD.

 

You will not belive the difference that SSD's have on this game, and they are quite affordable nowadays. Its the best improvement/cost you can get for this game, IMHO. Load times are cut by what feels to be more then half. Where there was an awkward 2-4 sec wait when starting any quest cutscene, now the transition is almost instant.

 

As im no FPS buff, i did not check if it has improved, but the game does play alot better then i recall.

 

Gotta love them unsubstantiated testimonys, eh?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

My rig is quite old (3.5 years) even though most of the components were second to best at the time i purchased them, according to all metrics. I recently had the unfortunate case of my HDD dieing, so i finally had the opportunity to buy SSD.

 

You will not belive the difference that SSD's have on this game, and they are quite affordable nowadays. Its the best improvement/cost you can get for this game, IMHO. Load times are cut by what feels to be more then half. Where there was an awkward 2-4 sec wait when starting any quest cutscene, now the transition is almost instant.

 

As im no FPS buff, i did not check if it has improved, but the game does play alot better then i recall.

 

Gotta love them unsubstantiated testimonys, eh?

 

QFT the above, definitely get an SSD if you want some serious QOL improvements.

 

They generally won't give you any noticeable performance increases like FPS however but they will make the load times sooo much shorter as the above poster mentioned they are really worth getting if you don't already have one.

 

That is for all games and for windows boot. My advice is buy at least 2, 1 for your o/s and 1 for your games installs. I would say 1 for page file but ideally with enough raw you really don't need a pagefile though that's still a rather contentious point.

[BellsofGuilt]

QFT the above, definitely get an SSD if you want some serious QOL improvements.

 

They generally won't give you any noticeable performance increases like FPS however but they will make the load times sooo much shorter as the above poster mentioned they are really worth getting if you don't already have one.

 

That is for all games and for windows boot. My advice is buy at least 2, 1 for your o/s and 1 for your games installs. I would say 1 for page file but ideally with enough raw you really don't need a pagefile though that's still a rather contentious point.

 

I do have SSDs already, but I agree that they make games so much more enjoyable since they load information at a fraction of the time HDDs do.

[SuspectDown]

The worst FPS drops I get are on Rishi, the lowest value being 23 FPS in the slums. Every planet that has expansive terrain, such as Balmorra or Alderaan, I also get large FPS drops. I play with every graphical variable maxed on a 2560 x 1440, 32'' monitor. My question is are the FPS drops the fault of the game or my computer? Every other game I play has a 50 - 60 FPS on maxed out settings (I use vertical Sync). If it's my computer, does anyone have a suggestion of how to increase the FPS in this game?

 

Here are my computer's specifications:

 

GPU: Geforce GTX Titan X

 

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.50 GHz

 

Memory: 16 GB Ram

 

And I use the Windows 7 Operating System.

 

Turn off V-SYNC, and set all shadow options to the lowest settings. That should help tremendously.

 

Past that, SWTOR is a CPU limited game because of the engine. Overclocking your CPU from 4.0-4.5 GHz would do wonders and eliminate your issues.

[SuspectDown]

If you are going to overclock for SWTOR, please don't just increase the multiplier. Leave the multiplier and increase the front side bus, aka system clock or whatever your BIOS calls it. .

 

That doesn't apply to modern Intel CPU's.

Edited July 28, 2015 by SuspectDown

[Wheerlpool]

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.50 GHz

 

pff are u **** joking. I belive this game use 4 core. NO HYPER THREADING so core i5 on 3.7-4.2 must be nice . GPU too very important yes CPU using to count models on pvp but then More Higter UR resolution of Screen Then ur CPU not have much matter 2k resolution Titan is good but you know About Swtor Optimisation. i have on Medium settings 70-80 fps on planets :3 with 50$ CPU and 100$ gpu Pentium Haswell 3.0 + Radeon 7770 but on wz it drop to 2-3 freezing all time i restart pc 5-6 times my HHD load on 100% :c Now i bough old Phenom x4 3.5 ggz + i bought 7850 and 8ggb ram i run game on maximal iwth 35 FPS :DDD rishi down to 10-15 but i dont love rishi so i dont care xD

 

 

 

 

And i dont think UR core i7 is bad Still TOP cpu and maybe you need overlock it :/ it but fck 2011 year game 4 core + 4 thread and TITAN **** BIOWARE ARE U FEEL GOOD

 

 

PC Very nice. And Maybe something aabout UR TITAN coz I know This game work better with GPU what using ONLY DIRECT x9. MY friend still playing on gtx 9800 40 fps wz 70 fps planets on core 2 quard q9550 hahaha 7 years old PC

Edited July 28, 2015 by Wheerlpool

[SuspectDown]

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.50 GHz

 

pff are u **** joking. I belive this game use 4 core. NO HYPER THREADING so core i5 on 3.7-4.2 must be nice . GPU too very important yes CPU using to count models on pvp but then More Higter UR resolution of Screen Then ur CPU not have much matter 2k resolution Titan is good but you know About Swtor Optimisation. i have on Medium settings 70-80 fps on planets :3 with 50$ CPU and 100$ gpu Pentium Haswell 3.0 + Radeon 7770 but on wz it drop to 2-3 freezing all time i restart pc 5-6 times my HHD load on 100% :c Now i bough old Phenom x4 3.5 ggz + i bought 7850 and 8ggb ram i run game on maximal iwth 35 FPS :DDD rishi down to 10-15 but i dont love rishi so i dont care xD

 

 

 

 

And i dont think UR core i7 is bad Still TOP cpu and maybe you need overlock it :/ it but fck 2011 year game 4 core + 4 thread and TITAN *** BIOWARE ARE U FEEL GOOD

 

The game doesn't use four cores. Sandy Bridge (his CPU) overclocked is more than enough for this game. While it is true the higher the resolution you go, the more the GPU is utilized, SWTOR doesn't act like traditional games. For example, even @ 2560x1440 the game doesn't fully utilize even one 970. In fact, I could run the game at 5K (using Nvidia's DSR) with more than playable FPS if the game let me scale the UI larger.

[Wheerlpool]

The game doesn't use four cores. Sandy Bridge (his CPU) overclocked is more than enough for this game. While it is true the higher the resolution you go, the more the GPU is utilized, SWTOR doesn't act like traditional games. For example, even @ 2560x1440 the game doesn't fully utilize even one 970. In fact, I could run the game at 5K (using Nvidia's DSR) with more than playable FPS if the game let me scale the UI larger.

 

Ok. I want build my PC with Core i3 3.7 ggz 4170 model + 8 ggb Kingston 1600 and Maybe Geforce GTX 750 ti or Geforce gtx 660 + ssd 128 intel/samsung but after i see lags on core i 7 i fear a bit lol... I think Core i3 Perfect CPU for this game butknow much peoples who upgrade from AMD FX 6300 to core i5 4460 or some 4670k have +20 FPS on wz with same video card don't sure why. Maybe core i5 have more l3 core i3 have L3 -3 mb Core i5 -6mb .

anyway i seen 1 guy playing on core i3 and on MSI afterburn it show game using 4 threads maybe not so good but still it work*? here vid -----

Sorry for Engrish ^^

[SuspectDown]

Ok. I want build my PC with Core i3 3.7 ggz 4170 model + 8 ggb Kingston 1600 and Maybe Geforce GTX 750 ti or Geforce gtx 660 + ssd 128 intel/samsung but after i see lags on core i 7 i fear a bit lol... I think Core i3 Perfect CPU for this game butknow much peoples who upgrade from AMD FX 6300 to core i5 4460 or some 4670k have +20 FPS on wz with same video card don't sure why. Maybe core i5 have more l3 core i3 have L3 -3 mb Core i5 -6mb .

anyway i seen 1 guy playing on core i3 and on MSI afterburn it show game using 4 threads maybe not so good but still it work*? here vid -----

Sorry for Engrish ^^

 

Two of those threads are hyper-threading threads, not actual CPU cores. The load is shown split across multiple cores, but if you notice on a true 4 core CPU like an i5, the game will never use all four cores 100%.

 

Ideally on a budget for a game like this, a G3258 would work. It does not have hyperthreading, but it is the only modern Intel CPU with 2 cores to have an unlocked multiplier (so you can overclock it). Past that, if you can afford it an unlocked i5 would be a better choice for gaming in general.

 

The people who upgrade from AMD FX CPU's to modern Intel CPU's see gains because Intel clock for clock is substantially more powerful and more importantly in SWTOR's case AMD's architecture is meant to excel in a perfectly multi-threaded environment (which SWTOR most certainly is not).

[Atalantia]

The worst FPS drops I get are on Rishi, the lowest value being 23 FPS in the slums. Every planet that has expansive terrain, such as Balmorra or Alderaan, I also get large FPS drops. I play with every graphical variable maxed on a 2560 x 1440, 32'' monitor. My question is are the FPS drops the fault of the game or my computer? Every other game I play has a 50 - 60 FPS on maxed out settings (I use vertical Sync). If it's my computer, does anyone have a suggestion of how to increase the FPS in this game?

 

Here are my computer's specifications:

 

GPU: Geforce GTX Titan X

 

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2700k CPU @ 3.50 GHz

 

Memory: 16 GB Ram

 

And I use the Windows 7 Operating System.

 

Setting the shadows to off will give you anywhere from, 20-40 FPS

[MeNaCe-NZ]

The game doesn't use four cores. Sandy Bridge (his CPU) overclocked is more than enough for this game. While it is true the higher the resolution you go, the more the GPU is utilized, SWTOR doesn't act like traditional games. For example, even @ 2560x1440 the game doesn't fully utilize even one 970. In fact, I could run the game at 5K (using Nvidia's DSR) with more than playable FPS if the game let me scale the UI larger.

 

I tried this the other day with VSR and whilst it worked nicely and helped remove the jaggies I just found fonts etc. too small from the native 1440p I'm used to. Interesting though as forcing AA through CC gave me more of a performance hit than VSR did ( and really didn't help that much with the jaggies, super sampling 8x did but the performance hit was a bit annoying ).