SWTOR 60FPS 4k

[CaliKing]

Ok so I just upgraded and bought two 908ti sc graphics cards to run in sli. I paired them with a 3930k, RIVE Black, 16 gigs of Corsair Dom Plat at 2133. I also bought an Asus PB279Q IPS 4k monitor to get a great gaming experience. So far, I love it with most games. My issue is that if I run SWTOR in sli, maxed out, I can only get 30 fps or so max. If I run off one card, I get 60 and spikes of around 65. No higher. Now, I read that SWTOR is 32 bit and has no Direct X 11 support which I thought would mean that I would crush this with this setup.

 

I had two 780ti's sli just before I got the 980ti's and would get high fps of 100 or so. And that's with the rest of my specs the same as what I mentioned above. I didn't however try running the game at 4k, but I was running the game in Nvidia Surround at an even higher resolution. And still got 100 fps. Now that I made the switch not only do I get lower fps with better gpu's but when I run them in sli they go even lower. So now I just play the game on a single 980ti.

 

Is anyone else having a similar issue? I recently installed Win 10 just a few days ago. I did a fresh install and don't have any apps running in the background except for occasionally running a web browser to look for something or watch a video. There are no viruses or anything else that I can think of that are taking away resources. I went into my Nvidia Control Panel to see if there was anything there I could do. I set the performance settings to high, and made sure that Vertical Sync was off. I get very high fps with other games, just having problems with SWTOR. Any advice on how to change this is welcomed.

[DOHboy]

you will actually get less performance using SLI/Crossfire than from a single card. The game does not utilize dual card configuration.

 

This game is really more CPU intensive than GPU (single threaded) and graphics are really not all that intense to require much power.

[Malastare]

you will actually get less performance using SLI/Crossfire than from a single card. The game does not utilize dual card configuration.

 

Wrong. The game can use SLI/Crossfire, but the level of improvement you see is tied strongly to support from the GPU manufacturer providing appropriate driver/profile support.

 

When set up and tweaked properly, a SLI/Crossfire set up will have better performance, but you'll have more trouble with new cards and even at its best, you have to understand that its not going to have anywhere near the support you'll see for single-card setups, so prepare for instability and bugs.

 

This game is really more CPU intensive than GPU (single threaded) and graphics are really not all that intense to require much power.

 

This part is (mostly) true. The game uses both CPU and GPU, and the amounts that each gets used depends a lot on your hardware and settings. Even though you might have the GPU power to run 4K at 60fps, it doesn't mean that you've got the CPU power to handle all the texture loading/transformation and particle effects. At 4K, you're going to have a lot more work to do to support those, so unless you've got a great CPU, you should expect to see some drops in framerate.

[CaliKing]

I understand as well that this game is not optimized for sli setups. What I didn't expect was that after experiencing good scaling (for whatever reason) from my 780ti sli setup, I now get the opposite effect with my 980ti's. 4k looks amazing though, I love it. I just don't understand how I could have higher fps at even higher res with last gen gpu's, then with this gen the fps actually declines. Especially with getting better fps with one 980ti than with two.

[SuspectDown]

Ok so I just upgraded and bought two 908ti sc graphics cards to run in sli. I paired them with a 3930k, RIVE Black, 16 gigs of Corsair Dom Plat at 2133. I also bought an Asus PB279Q IPS 4k monitor to get a great gaming experience. So far, I love it with most games. My issue is that if I run SWTOR in sli, maxed out, I can only get 30 fps or so max. If I run off one card, I get 60 and spikes of around 65. No higher. Now, I read that SWTOR is 32 bit and has no Direct X 11 support which I thought would mean that I would crush this with this setup.

 

I had two 780ti's sli just before I got the 980ti's and would get high fps of 100 or so. And that's with the rest of my specs the same as what I mentioned above. I didn't however try running the game at 4k, but I was running the game in Nvidia Surround at an even higher resolution. And still got 100 fps. Now that I made the switch not only do I get lower fps with better gpu's but when I run them in sli they go even lower. So now I just play the game on a single 980ti.

 

Is anyone else having a similar issue? I recently installed Win 10 just a few days ago. I did a fresh install and don't have any apps running in the background except for occasionally running a web browser to look for something or watch a video. There are no viruses or anything else that I can think of that are taking away resources. I went into my Nvidia Control Panel to see if there was anything there I could do. I set the performance settings to high, and made sure that Vertical Sync was off. I get very high fps with other games, just having problems with SWTOR. Any advice on how to change this is welcomed.

 

Turn shadow options to the lowest setting, turn V-sync off, disable SLI, overclock your CPU to (hopefully) 4.5 GHz+.

 

This game is by far CPU limited. The best thing you can do is overclock your CPU, otherwise you'll never even fully utilize one 980 Ti.

[ivanhedgehog]

I understand as well that this game is not optimized for sli setups. What I didn't expect was that after experiencing good scaling (for whatever reason) from my 780ti sli setup, I now get the opposite effect with my 980ti's. 4k looks amazing though, I love it. I just don't understand how I could have higher fps at even higher res with last gen gpu's, then with this gen the fps actually declines. Especially with getting better fps with one 980ti than with two.

 

look at the bandwith requirements for 4k. now go look at the 1080p requirements..go set your display to not 4k and watch what it does for your fps. there is a cost for 4k.

[SuspectDown]

look at the bandwith requirements for 4k. now go look at the 1080p requirements..go set your display to not 4k and watch what it does for your fps. there is a cost for 4k.

 

By bandwidth I assume you mean VRAM usage, of which SWTOR uses very little.

[Phlem]

you will actually get less performance using SLI/Crossfire than from a single card. The game does not utilize dual card configuration.

 

This game is really more CPU intensive than GPU (single threaded) and graphics are really not all that intense to require much power.

 

Then why do I notice a significant improvement in performance when I enable SLI?

[SuspectDown]

Then why do I notice a significant improvement in performance when I enable SLI?

 

What cards? There is no SWTOR SLI profile... In fact, not that SLI matters, since SWTOR is CPU bound, not GPU bound. The game doesn't even fully utilize one of my 970's until 5K.

[ivanhedgehog]

By bandwidth I assume you mean VRAM usage, of which SWTOR uses very little.

 

look at the amount of data that is a 4k signal. all of which goes through your vid card. compare that with a much smaller data packet for lower resolutions.what do you think will happen? 4k has a much larger video signal budget than 1080p. it is going to slow things down. the beefy video cards will help but only so much. it doesnt matter what swtor uses, a 4k signal is much larger than 1080p

[SuspectDown]

look at the amount of data that is a 4k signal. all of which goes through your vid card. compare that with a much smaller data packet for lower resolutions.what do you think will happen? 4k has a much larger video signal budget than 1080p. it is going to slow things down. the beefy video cards will help but only so much. it doesnt matter what swtor uses, a 4k signal is much larger than 1080p

 

Yes, 4K uses more VRAM... but it's not VRAM intensive anyways... At 2560x1440, SWTOR doesn't even utilize one 970, it's still CPU bound with a 4.5 GHz Ivy Bridge CPU. So, up the resolution all he wants, it won't be significantly detrimental until his GPU is maxed out.

[ivanhedgehog]

Yes, 4K uses more VRAM... but it's not VRAM intensive anyways... At 2560x1440, SWTOR doesn't even utilize one 970, it's still CPU bound with a 4.5 GHz Ivy Bridge CPU. So, up the resolution all he wants, it won't be significantly detrimental until his GPU is maxed out.

 

A full HD 1080p image is 1080 rows high and 1920 columns wide. A 4K image approximately doubles both those numbers. that will require 4x the number of pixels. this will load the video card somewhat. it will require more resources even if it is just sending a bar code much less swtor. this will affect your performance. It will most likely be a great trade off. It does not matter what swtor loads. the video card has to drive the monitor. try setting your setup to 1080p and it will most likely fly like a beast. you will probably see drivers coming out in the near future that improves things even more.

[SuspectDown]

A full HD 1080p image is 1080 rows high and 1920 columns wide. A 4K image approximately doubles both those numbers. that will require 4x the number of pixels. this will load the video card somewhat. it will require more resources even if it is just sending a bar code much less swtor. this will affect your performance. It will most likely be a great trade off. It does not matter what swtor loads. the video card has to drive the monitor. try setting your setup to 1080p and it will most likely fly like a beast. you will probably see drivers coming out in the near future that improves things even more.

 

You're missing the point... With top GPU's today, SWTOR is NOT GPU limited at 4K, it's still CPU limited... I don't know how to explain that any different for you. This game will NOT fully utilize even a 970 at 2560x1440...

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I understand as well that this game is not optimized for sli setups. What I didn't expect was that after experiencing good scaling (for whatever reason) from my 780ti sli setup, I now get the opposite effect with my 980ti's. 4k looks amazing though, I love it. I just don't understand how I could have higher fps at even higher res with last gen gpu's, then with this gen the fps actually declines. Especially with getting better fps with one 980ti than with two.

 

Though I don't run SLI or Crossfire because of scaling vs cost I would assume your answer lies in what Malastare put above about driver support and even mentioned you're possibly more likely to see more issues with newer cards.

 

Older cards = more time out and thus more time spent on tweaking drivers ( and to a degree possibly even game devs tweaking their game to work better with older hardware ) to work better, newer cards hardly any time for this sort of development so more likely chance of issues and poor performance.

 

What are you running your CPU at? That imo is where the performance for you will lie, upgrading GPUs will really give you limited to no performance gains if the bottleneck is the CPU.

[CaliKing]

Turn shadow options to the lowest setting, turn V-sync off, disable SLI, overclock your CPU to (hopefully) 4.5 GHz+.

 

This game is by far CPU limited. The best thing you can do is overclock your CPU, otherwise you'll never even fully utilize one 980 Ti.

My cpu is running at 4.5 already. V-sync is already off. SLI is disabled otherwise I'd be getting 30 fps instead of 60 as I mentioned in my op. Turing shadow options to lowest or highest made no difference at all. I already tried all these options.

[CaliKing]

look at the bandwith requirements for 4k. now go look at the 1080p requirements..go set your display to not 4k and watch what it does for your fps. there is a cost for 4k.

I already understand how vram is affected by resolution settings. However, as I stated in my original post, I have other, more demanding games, that use less vram and give me much higher fps. It isn't a vram capacity issue as the 9880ti has 6 gigs and SWTOR only uses a very small portion of this. I realize there is a "cost". Please either contribute something worthwhile to the discussion, and assume that I am NOT an idiot, or comment elsewhere. Making obvious statements helps nobody.

[CaliKing]

You're missing the point... With top GPU's today, SWTOR is NOT GPU limited at 4K, it's still CPU limited... I don't know how to explain that any different for you. This game will NOT fully utilize even a 970 at 2560x1440...

You are absolutely correct. SWTOR at 5k didn't come anywhere near maxing out my 780ti's vram bandwidth. If he would have read my OP, he would have seen the irony in that with my 780ti's, I had high fps in this game even though the 780ti's had 2 gigs less vram. But some people like to argue moot points on any thread instead of contributing any real or useful info in solving a problem.

[CaliKing]

Though I don't run SLI or Crossfire because of scaling vs cost I would assume your answer lies in what Malastare put above about driver support and even mentioned you're possibly more likely to see more issues with newer cards.

 

Older cards = more time out and thus more time spent on tweaking drivers ( and to a degree possibly even game devs tweaking their game to work better with older hardware ) to work better, newer cards hardly any time for this sort of development so more likely chance of issues and poor performance.

 

What are you running your CPU at? That imo is where the performance for you will lie, upgrading GPUs will really give you limited to no performance gains if the bottleneck is the CPU.

My cpu is at 4.5ghz, gpu's are at 1500+, I have a 120w Corsair psu, and 16 gigs Corsair Dom Plat 2133.

[MuzluPasta]

There isn't an issue with your computer.

 

This game engine is a trainwreck.

[ivanhedgehog]

removed Edited August 5, 2015 by ivanhedgehog
none

[MeNaCe-NZ]

My cpu is at 4.5ghz, gpu's are at 1500+, I have a 120w Corsair psu, and 16 gigs Corsair Dom Plat 2133.

 

I note you say you upgraded to Win10 - was that at the same time as the pc upgrade meaning you didn't have a chance to try the game on your older system? Reason I ask is because it could be compatibility issues still between SWToR ( people have reported issues ) and of course SLI and this game and drivers.

 

I think you've probably realised it's almost certainly an issue with the driver and sli and for some reason how it operates with this game ( proven by the FPs drop from SLI to single card ). Possibly something to do with poor directx 9 support? I've not done too much research into DX and Win10 yet as I won't run my gaming PC on it for some time yet but you could look into see if you need a more "pure" version of DX9 installed as opposed to any form of compatibility it might currently be using?

 

I assume that with running win10 you don't have a lot of choice in rolling back to older drivers etc. to see if it changes performance?

 

You say you get good performance in other games ( as a single 980Ti should ) but what is the SLI scaling like? Are you actually getting good performance gains from 980TI ( compare single to sli performance basically ).

 

Unfortunately it really sounds like it is likely a driver issue though possibly windows 10, hard to know without trying on a different O/S - could try a dual boot to win 7?

That's sort of why I was interested to know if it was a SLI scaling issues across the board meaning improvement to SLI drivers for the 980TI could help you down the track or if it's only SLI issues with this game it may never be resolved because it's unlikely get driver level fixes directed at such an older game ( that most people are CPU bound by so you wouldn't even see developers pushing it to the GPU manufacturers for improvements ).

 

Out of curiosity what was your older setup like? I see your on a single monitor now as opposed to mutli monitor before so it is quite a different setup in how the cards would perform to what it is now?

[CaliKing]

I note you say you upgraded to Win10 - was that at the same time as the pc upgrade meaning you didn't have a chance to try the game on your older system? Reason I ask is because it could be compatibility issues still between SWToR ( people have reported issues ) and of course SLI and this game and drivers.

 

I think you've probably realised it's almost certainly an issue with the driver and sli and for some reason how it operates with this game ( proven by the FPs drop from SLI to single card ). Possibly something to do with poor directx 9 support? I've not done too much research into DX and Win10 yet as I won't run my gaming PC on it for some time yet but you could look into see if you need a more "pure" version of DX9 installed as opposed to any form of compatibility it might currently be using?

 

I assume that with running win10 you don't have a lot of choice in rolling back to older drivers etc. to see if it changes performance?

 

You say you get good performance in other games ( as a single 980Ti should ) but what is the SLI scaling like? Are you actually getting good performance gains from 980TI ( compare single to sli performance basically ).

 

Unfortunately it really sounds like it is likely a driver issue though possibly windows 10, hard to know without trying on a different O/S - could try a dual boot to win 7?

That's sort of why I was interested to know if it was a SLI scaling issues across the board meaning improvement to SLI drivers for the 980TI could help you down the track or if it's only SLI issues with this game it may never be resolved because it's unlikely get driver level fixes directed at such an older game ( that most people are CPU bound by so you wouldn't even see developers pushing it to the GPU manufacturers for improvements ).

 

Out of curiosity what was your older setup like? I see your on a single monitor now as opposed to mutli monitor before so it is quite a different setup in how the cards would perform to what it is now?

My older setup is basically the same as the one Im running now except for me using triple monitors and dual 780ti's.

[CaliKing]

Ok so now, after a new set of drivers, the game is running fine. Sli is enabled with no issues as well. Also, my benchmark scores have drastically gone up. I got a 2350 point bump on 3d Mark just from switching to the new driver release.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Ok so now, after a new set of drivers, the game is running fine. Sli is enabled with no issues as well. Also, my benchmark scores have drastically gone up. I got a 2350 point bump on 3d Mark just from switching to the new driver release.

 

Good to hear, was this in conjunction with the recent patch perhaps that is supposed to boost performance? I'm yet to read through feedback on it.