Low gpu usage - low FPS - Please help

[JuLeZ']

Hello everyone, 

I have a problem concerning my FPS in the game. I hope someone knows what might be the cause.

 

Operating System: Windows 7
CPU: i7 3770K
RAM: 8GB DDR3
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V
Hard drive (IDE, PATA, SATA, etc): ET is installed on SSD
Graphics card: Nvidia GTX 680
Graphics card driver version: 300.83

 

Basically my problem is that for some time now the FPS aren't stable any more, in addition to that

there is a lot of aliasing when I install newly Nvidia updates...

 

I use the Nvidia Control Panel to apply effects like FXAA and others to make the game look a bit better,

and everything was fine. I was able to play constantly at 120FPS and more (with 120FPS monitor, so it

matters if they drop to 80 FPS or lower).

 

---

 

I think this whole thing has to do something with a windows update for the graphics cards GTX 680, which

has been installed before it all began. Since then I installed a new version of windows, it helped a bit, but

it still isn't the same as before. 

Here are the usages of the gpu and cpu. As you see the gpu usage isn't 100%. 

 

 

 

Your help is very appreciated 

[JuLeZ']

Edit: here are 3 lag-o-meter-screenshots

[SunLight]

I think this game uses cpu more than gpu (at least for me it is so) and everyone always said it (but that doesn't count much )

 

Did you check your gpu usage before and now (so you know that it has decreased) or it's just a guess, that now it's not used much?

 

Were you running only the game when you took that screenshot of cpu usage? Maybe if you play with the affinity for et you could get something.

[Chuckun]

Make sure threded optimisation is off..

[JuLeZ']

I think this game uses cpu more than gpu (at least for me it is so) and everyone always said it (but that doesn't count much )

 

Did you check your gpu usage before and now (so you know that it has decreased) or it's just a guess, that now it's not used much?

 

Were you running only the game when you took that screenshot of cpu usage? Maybe if you play with the affinity for et you could get something.

I didn't check the gpu usage before, and maybe it was like that before. I'm just saying that I get much less FPS than before,

and there is much more potential, because only about 66% of the gpu are used.

 

Yes, I was running ET when I took both screenshots, for CPU and GPU. 

 

 

Is there maybe a way to completely restore the graphics card? I already deinstalled the nvidia driver and reinstalled the newest,

but it doesn't help. I think this has to do with this windows driver for the graphics card I talked about, it was something like this:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=369701

 

Maybe the reinstallation of Windows 7 didn't remove this driver. Is there a way to check this?

 

 

Thank you 

 

 

Edit: Chuckun, I disabled threded optimisation, but it didn't change the fps.. Nevertheless thanks for your suggestion!

Edited March 25, 2013 by JuLeZ'

[S3ti]

That's actually quite much gpu utilization for W:ET with that hardware. GTX275 here uses barely 20% and has way less power than your GTX680...strange, maybe you're playing with uberhigh resolution or smth...nonetheless here are some tipps to try:

 

1. W:ET mainly utilizes cpu time, that's correct and should be just fine with that i7 monster Though it still needs some opengl stuff rendered by the gfxcard. Modern gfxcards just yawn at W:ET and that can cause some side effects with more recent driver versions and powerful hardware. Check the power management mode setting in the nvidia panel and set it to 'prefer maximum performance' for W:ET so the card's 3D-clocks are applied permanently when the game is running.

If set to 'adaptive' and the load is minimal it's likely that the card switches every few seconds between idle- 2D- and 3D-clocks or what ever performance levels the GTX680 has implemented and that causes nifty fps drops and stutters.

 

edit: Same goes for your cpu if you have speedstep or similar energy saving functions enabled for your cpu.

Monitor it and check if it downclocks when W:ET is running. Should not happen when playing games.

 

2. Also like chuckun said turn off threaded optimization, that's anyway a must. Even this alone sometimes solves the clocking problems too and the 3D clocks stay constant when playing.

 

3. To optimize (and/or troubleshoot) further and you want it as smooth it can get, set the cpu-core affinity of the ET.exe process to 1 core only in the taskmanager (ctrl+alt+del). W:ET is a single threaded application and there is absolutely zero performance gain when distributed over more than one core...can even backfire and cause mini lags, fps drops and feel overall a bit jerky. With more than 2 cores you can even try to free up one of them completely and dedicate it to the ET.exe

You can use that 'prio' program from the link below to have the core affinities and process priorities saved.

Else you would have to set them manually again in the taskmanager each time you start ET.

http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html

 

4. If you are playing on punkbuster enabled servers, distribute the punkbuster processes (PnkbstrA & PnkbstrB) over different cores than the ET.exe.

If punkbuster is not required for the server, just end PnkbstrA & PnkbstrB completely...fps increase is quite huge when pb is off.

 

-> And ofc make sure that the nvidia driver is properly installed in the first place, which is sometimes not the case when it's done via windows update. To avoid those windows update issues by bugged, incomplete or generally unwanted driver installations never allow windows update to download and install device drivers like the nvidia wddm drivers. It can cause exactly issues that you are describing, like not properly applying filter settings to application profiles, failing fancontrols and such. If you know you need a more recent driver or just want to try another version always geht it directly from the nvidia website.
If there are issues present like yours like not applying AA settings and such (and you are sure you're doing it right). First uninstall the driver and do a cleanup in safe mode, there are many tutorials on the web. At last when reinstalling the nvidia driver via the nvidia setup tick the box "perform clean install". This way all affected files, profiles and registry settings are overwritten even if there are partially left overs.

Edited April 6, 2013 by S3ti

[JuLeZ']

thank you very much, I'll try this as soon as possible