Improve performace?

Genghiz Cohen

I have a E6600 dual core processor that is getting reamed by BF3 on the lowest settings.
Get about 20FPS, playable, but just barely.

Are there any scripts or anything that would improve performance on (relatively!) low-end machines?

ShadowHearth

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

I have a E6600 dual core processor that is getting reamed by BF3 on the lowest settings.
Get about 20FPS, playable, but just barely.

Are there any scripts or anything that would improve performance on (relatively!) low-end machines?

emmmm whats your GPU?

It would really put alot of stress on gpu first.

i am playing with q6600 on highish settings and got very good and steady fps.

my gpu on the other hand is 6870

KilOit

Doubt it, that's a 4-5 year old processor. think you need to bite the bullet and buy a budget cpu and motherboard. €400 would get you a pc that would play on high settings with 40fps or more. €600 would get you a pc that would play on ultra with 60fps.

Live on bread and water for a month or give handjobs for a day or 2 and buy your pc

Sorry i couldn't help with your question though.

cherryghost

Overclock it to 3ghz if possible. You should notice a difference and should at least double your FPS to around 40.

Genghiz Cohen

The plan is to get an i5 in the near future, but BF3 is such a good game I was hoping there would be short term solutions to get me up into the 30FPS bracket.

I only have the stock, slim cooler at the moment. What's the prognosis with that?

cherryghost

Depending on the airflow in the case, you should be able to get it up to 2.8ghz at least without any problems. Should get you into playable FPS then.

Genghiz Cohen

ShadowHearth wrote: »

emmmm whats your GPU?

It would really put alot of stress on gpu first.

i am playing with q6600 on highish settings and got very good and steady fps.

my gpu on the other hand is 6870

My GPU is a HD4870.
Where my CPU is at a near constant 100% my GPU generally stays around the 55% mark spiking up to 70/80%.
RAM usage is about 75% also.

Jonny7

Get the latest ATI drivers 11.10 I think
If you have windows 7, get rid of the aero effects, etc (it does use a small portion of graphics power)
Try overclocking the chip AND graphics card as safely as is possible

Order the i5 asap - they are slowly going up in price.

dreamers75

Pretty much same PC im on atm, get around 40 on low. using gamebooster before i play and have nothing else running.

Playing in 1440*900 tho and use Chrome as it uses less ram.

I call it Battlefield 3 Xbox 360 Enhanced Version.

ShadowHearth

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

My GPU is a HD4870.
Where my CPU is at a near constant 100% my GPU generally stays around the 55% mark spiking up to 70/80%.
RAM usage is about 75% also.

Hmmm I would still call it prety decent pc, but looks like bf3 still rapes it. I am surprised my pc is doing so well now...

What resolution you play on? Put everything low, but don't forget to turn off all those motion blurs etc. They eat up perfoamce!

Though most of the lads are right: biuld mew pc. I wouldn't go upgrading your current One. If it was custom built you might salvage case drives etc.

Shy_Dave!

Shadow, what speed are you running your Q6600 at?
What res? and are is it still smooth in multiplayer on highish settings?

Genghiz Cohen

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Hmmm I would still call it prety decent pc, but looks like bf3 still rapes it. I am surprised my pc is doing so well now...

What resolution you play on? Put everything low, but don't forget to turn off all those motion blurs etc. They eat up perfoamce!

Though most of the lads are right: biuld mew pc. I wouldn't go upgrading your current One. If it was custom built you might salvage case drives etc.

Playing on my monitors 1280x1024.
Everything off in game.

I'll try the Aero thing too.

Ill be getting a new Mobo Cpu and RAM.
Keeping the PSU and DVD drives and such.
The graphics card will be ok for the time being.

Having a look at gamebooster too.

dreamers75

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Playing on my monitors 1280x1024.
Everything off in game.

I'll try the Aero thing too.

Ill be getting a new Mobo Cpu and RAM.
Keeping the PSU and DVD drives and such.
The graphics card will be ok for the time being.

Having a look at gamebooster too.

I played the Beta on an I5 2500K 8gb ram and 6870, that pc passed away recently...... sad time in the dreamers household

Beta was capped at high and i was on 1920*1080 everything maxed as high as it could go and it ran perfectly 60-70fps. We need to upgrade, its a different game at that level

tuxy

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

My GPU is a HD4870.
Where my CPU is at a near constant 100% my GPU generally stays around the 55% mark spiking up to 70/80%.
RAM usage is about 75% also.

Bf3 seems to be optimised for quad core cpus. Even bad company 2 was a bit low on fps when I was still using a e6600

Genghiz Cohen

Tried the Gamebooster there.
Works. Got up to 30 FPS except when rendering water.

Kiith

I've pretty much the same pc (e6600, 8gb ram, 1gb 4890 card), and i can't play it at all. Game totally locks up on me after about 20-30 minutes. Total freeze, which requires a hard reboot. Pretty sure it's overheating, but it's not even overclocked.

Bloody annoying i tell ya!

Genghiz Cohen

I have 2 monitors and have the Task Manager, Catalyst CC and some CPU temp gauge open.
If you don't have a second monitor maybe run in windowed mode and flick back and forth every so often.

ShadowHearth

Shy_Dave! wrote: »

Shadow, what speed are you running your Q6600 at?
What res? and are is it still smooth in multiplayer on highish settings?

All settings high. AA is on x2 or x8. Motion blur off. I cant remember the name of that last setting, but it's not that max hd something, but middle one. Ssomething.

1650x1080. CPU is stock 2.4ghz 3gb ram and 6870. I play any map very very smoothly. Only that big open map 64 player slows down a bit, but nothing that would make me lower my settiings. Any other map plays perfectly.

I am really surprised it runs it so well, as I was expecting to play on low ress until I get my **** together for new biuld.

Brw sp is going even better. I could put up settings for it with no problems.

Dublin_Gunner

Enderman wrote: »

Overclock it to 3ghz if possible. You should notice a difference and should at least double your FPS to around 40.

That's complete tripe. OCing his CPU is not going to double his performance, he's GPU bottlenecked.

CPU really matters feck all in BF3, its all about the GPU.

(of course, if you have a crap GPU, an OC will help a little but you won't get double your performance lol)

copeyhagen

can sumone post the best video settings for pc for a smoother game.

what to turn on / off etc.

what AA ratio etc.

cheers

Dublin_Gunner

copeyhagen wrote: »

can sumone post the best video settings for pc for a smoother game.

what to turn on / off etc.

what AA ratio etc.

cheers

Completely depends on your hardware mate.

Genghiz Cohen

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

That's complete tripe. OCing his CPU is not going to double his performance, he's GPU bottlenecked.

CPU really matters feck all in BF3, its all about the GPU.

(of course, if you have a crap GPU, an OC will help a little but you won't get double your performance lol)

As I said, my CPU is at 100%, my GPU is between 50% and 80%.
My memory is at 75%.
Using Gamebooster, freeing up processor time, my FPS went from 15-20, up to 30.

CPU is still 100% and GPU is still 50-80%

I am looking into a cooler that is Socket 775 and Socket 1155/1156 compatible so I can overclock now, then bring it over to my new build.

Dublin_Gunner

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

As I said, my CPU is at 100%, my GPU is between 50% and 80%.
My memory is at 75%.
Using Gamebooster, freeing up processor time, my FPS went from 15-20, up to 30.

CPU is still 100% and GPU is still 50-80%

I am looking into a cooler that is Socket 775 and Socket 1155/1156 compatible so I can overclock now, then bring it over to my new build.

What gfx card have you got?

I really don't believe you got 50% extra performance using a gamebooster app.

Pretty much any modern CPU cooler will be 775 & 1155 compatible. Maybe one of the self contained water cooling units like the Corsair H50/60/70/80 would suffice.

cherryghost

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

That's complete tripe. OCing his CPU is not going to double his performance, he's GPU bottlenecked.

CPU really matters feck all in BF3, its all about the GPU.

(of course, if you have a crap GPU, an OC will help a little but you won't get double your performance lol)

It's not complete tripe at all. I have three different PCs to test BF3 on. One is my i7 rig with a gtx 570, the other is a sub par e5300 with a 9800GT and the third is my laptop i5 480 with a GT540. Both the 2nd rig and the laptop are completely CPU bottlenecked.

The e5300 on stock gets about 30FPS at the best of times and overclocked at 3.2ghz it gets 45ish. GPU is under about 90% load all the time.

My laptop is completely bottlenecked by the CPU, without turboboost I get about 35-40FPS, and with it I get about 40-45FPS, with the GPU under about 90% also.

Also interestingly enough my i7 rig @3.8ghz never goes over about 50% usage, and the GPU also runs at about 90% load.

Can you explain how someone with an identical CPU and a more powerful GPU has the same issue? Because I certainly can.

TheFairy

I wouldnt mind Enderman, when you posted that the OP hadnt even posted what GFX card etc he had in his machine. So based on your experiences your post was a very valid answer. OF course DG knows so much more than you

tuxy

The frostbite 2 engine is a lot more cpu heavy than many people realise the frostbite 1 engine was the same. It just seems to struggle with anything that has less than 4 cores.

If you have a GPU that's anyway ok and set everything to low and are still getting poor fps then you are cpu limited.

However Enderman I don't see how a 25% overclock(2.4 to 3.0 ghz) will yield a 100% increase in fps.

Blazer

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

That's complete tripe. OCing his CPU is not going to double his performance, he's GPU bottlenecked.

No he's not..his CPU is running at 100% while his GPU is only running at 80%.

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

CPU really matters feck all in BF3, its all about the GPU.

Again incorrect...high end GPUs require quad-core high end CPUs to get the max out of them. Even the 4870 will be bottlenecked by a CPU.
BC2/BF3 are highly optimised and a quad-core should be the minimum CPU you should aim for if you can afford it.

For instance my Core i7 rig with 2x 5870s is running approx 80% across all 4 cores (with HT enabled) and GPUs are maxed out at 99%. GPU temp are also extremely high and I needed to created afterburner profiles to keep temps in the mid 70's. Still getting 150fps approx @1920x1200 with X1 AA/AF and motion blur/HBAO disabled.
In my case I'm GPU limited but not in his case.


All those gamebooster apps do is turn off non-vital services to reduced CPU activity so in theory he would see a boot in fps when he is cpu bottlenecked.

Dublin_Gunner

TheFairy wrote: »

I wouldnt mind Enderman, when you posted that the OP hadnt even posted what GFX card etc he had in his machine. So based on your experiences your post was a very valid answer. OF course DG knows so much more than you

Obviously, I do actually. But I'm not a mod, so I must know less, yeah?? lol

There is no way a CPU overclock will bring him from 20 to 40fps with 600Mhz. Its actually laughable.

But considering you seem to know so much on the subject, care to explain your reasoning?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/battlefield-3-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmark-test/3

You might want to read that BTW. People confuse having a slow CPU, with an engine being CPU heavy. FB1 and FB2 are NOT CPU heavy. They will ALWAYS benefit far more from a faster graphics card, regardless of your CPU.

Tuxy - what you are doing there is creating a CPU limited scenario. Completely different. What people should really do is start at high, and change their settings down until performance stops increasing.

This will give the best of settings / performance.

If the game engine was cpu limited, the first graph on this page
http://www.guru3d.com/article/battlefield-3-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmark-test/5

Would show little or no difference in performance between gfx cards. It shows MASSIVE differences (even at a typically 'CPU limited' resolution) because the game engine is shader heavy, and GPU limited.

You can't state that because a 5 year old CPU performs crap in a new game, that the engine is CPU limited lol

And if you want more proof:

http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

Before we discuss the individual CPU performance tests, let’s just take a quick look at how the AMD FX-4100 processor scales when testing between 2GHz and 4GHz. When paired with the single-GPU GeForce GTX 580 the average frame rate goes almost untouched. This suggests to us that Battlefield 3 is not very CPU demanding, at least not enough to max out a quad-core processor, which is precisely what the CPU utilization data above suggested.

The minimum frame rate does improve as clock speeds are steadily ramped up. At 2GHz we saw 63fps which was eventually increased to 68fps at 4GHz, a relatively small 8% increase for a 100% increase in operating frequency.

In that review, an Athlon x2 265 up to an i7 2600k display almost identical performance.

Yeah, really CPU heavy....

the_syco

Gonna hijack this thread :P

Have a Q9550 @ stock 2.63GHz, with a TRUE120 cooler on it. Never overclocked, but wondering would it improve loading times? Have 4GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 1GB "factory overclocked" () 4870.

Loading times can be fairly long, and I'm looking to improve it. Early new year I'll be getting new mobo that will take my Q9550 and allow me to put DDR3 RAM into it, and will put 8GB (or more if the mobo can take it) into it. Currently more fast DDR2 RAM is too costly.

Someone told me that a SSD drive would speed up loading times, but dunno if this is true?

tuxy

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

Tuxy - what you are doing there is creating a CPU limited scenario. Completely different. What people should really do is start at high, and change their settings down until performance stops increasing.

But what if you are getting 15 fps on high settings then 20 fps on medium settings and then start lowering options as far as they go and are still getting 20 fps. Where is the bottleneck in that example?

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

You can't state that because a 5 year old CPU performs crap in a new game, that the engine is CPU limited lol

But people with 5 year old core 2 quad can run this game well. I really believe that the ops bottleneck is to do with the number of cores of his cpu and the way this game is optimised for quad core. This is a cpu bottleneck not a gpu one. And one that is unlikey to see big gains from overclocking

Dublin_Gunner

tuxy wrote: »

But what if you are getting 15 fps on high settings then 20 fps on medium settings and then start lowering options as far as they go and are still getting 20 fps. Where is the bottleneck in that example?

But people with 5 year old core 2 quad can run this game well. I really believe that the ops bottleneck is to do with the number of cores of his cpu and the way this game is optimised for quad core. This is a cpu bottleneck not a gpu one. And one that is unlikey to see big gains from overclocking

Read the review I posted, very little difference between an Athlon II x2, and a 2600k. If the game engine really as that CPU heavy, there'd be a HUGE difference - there isn't.

If he really was CPU bottlenecked at 20fps, he would see no gain in performance from a faster GPU. That's complete BS. He has a slow GPU, and that's the reason he's getting 20fps.

Of course, the faster the CPU the better, that's just obvious, but it doesn't mean CPU limitation (which so many people seem to like throwing around when they think they know what they're talking about).

Guaranteed his GFX card is causing 90% of his slow performance. New gfx card and his performance would shoot up. Thats shows clear GPU limitation.

I'd recommend a 3Ghz or thereabout quad core of ANY description as a minimum for this game (and pretty much ANY modern game). Once again, this does not mean the game is CPU heavy, just thatreally is the minimum people should consider for a gaming rig anno 2011. With 3Ghz quad core CPU's for less than €100 these days, there really is no excuse.


the_syco - a number of things will help speed up loading times, form a faster CPU, faster HDD, ATI's stupid map loading bug, and yes, an SSD would help immensely.

Saying that, I wouldn't go shelling out on an SSD without upgrading your vid card. Much better to have faster in game performance than 'suffer' an extra few seconds loading.

TheFairy

LOL @ YOU! Missed the did you?

cherryghost

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

In that review, an Athlon x2 265 up to an i7 2600k display almost identical performance.

Yeah, really CPU heavy....

You're missing 2 points though. Firstly architecture on the CPUs wield different results, and secondly... that X2 is running at 3.3ghz, almost 1ghz per core faster than OPs. It most definitely makes a difference.

Genghiz Cohen

Ok, last time.

Dual core running at 2.4GHz (e6600). 100% usage.
4870 1GB, running from 50% - 80%
4GB DDR2 RAM running about 75%.

Before Gaembooster, around 20FPS.
Enable Gamebooster, it claims and extra 40% processor time is freed up.
Get 30FPS.
CPU and GPU usages are the same as before.

Genghiz Cohen

the_syco wrote: »

Gonna hijack this thread :P


Loading times can be fairly long, and I'm looking to improve it.

See if your install is fragmented.

the_syco

Dublin_Gunner wrote: »

the_syco - a number of things will help speed up loading times, form a faster CPU, faster HDD, ATI's stupid map loading bug, and yes, an SSD would help immensely.

Saying that, I wouldn't go shelling out on an SSD without upgrading your vid card. Much better to have faster in game performance than 'suffer' an extra few seconds loading.

The game takes minutes to load. At least 3 minutes sometimes, I'd say. The game runs smoothly enough as it is, with medium/low settings. I'll be spending about €300 on a card after xmas, but looking for a cheap speed boost in the meantime.

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

See if your install is fragmented.

I just found out that my system runs a scheduled defrag every Wednesday, so all disks are at 0% fragmentation...

Shy_Dave!

Eh, don't know if it's been mentioned, but the game seems to become a different animal usage wise when going from single to multiplayer.
Hoping some multiplayer benchmarks (I know that they won't gave the same consistant situations) will come soon.

uberpixie

the_syco wrote: »

Have a Q9550 @ stock 2.63GHz, with a TRUE120 cooler on it. Never overclocked, but wondering would it improve loading times? Have 4GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 1GB "factory overclocked" () 4870.

Loading times can be fairly long, and I'm looking to improve it. Early new year I'll be getting new mobo that will take my Q9550 and allow me to put DDR3 RAM into it, and will put 8GB

extra ram won't do much: game won't use up much more than 2.5 gig when I checked last.

Clock your quad up to 3 ghz and buy a new gfx card tbh. Save up for the new intel stuff that will be released in March/April.

Wouldn't get less than radeon 6950/5850/5870 or nvidia 470/560/570 to make a worth while jump over your current card.

the_syco

uberpixie wrote: »

extra ram won't do much: game won't use up much more than 2.5 gig when I checked last.

Need more ram anyhoos, for non-gaming purposes.

uberpixie wrote: »

Clock your quad up to 3 ghz and buy a new gfx card tbh. Save up for the new intel stuff that will be released in March/April.

Will do. Hope it doesn't go badly :pac:

Wouldn't get less than radeon 6950/5850/5870 or nvidia 470/560/570 to make a worth while jump over your current card.[/QUOTE]
Probably the 2GB 6970 or 570. Usually get a good card that will last me. Think I got the 4870 and the rest of the rig December 2008, so it has lasted me 3 years :eek: Have a car service/timing belt change also coming up in January, so may do with what I have now, and do a an upgrade of the entire rig (mobo/RAM/CPU) in March/April of next year.

Marcin B

This game is definitely CPU heavy. I'm running:

E6600 Dual Core @ stock 2.4 GHz
6 GB RAM @800 MHz (dual)
GTX 560

When playing at medium settings on large conquest maps I'm getting 25-30 fps. Even though the graphic card has plenty of stuff to calculate the average GPU load is less than 60%. There's also plenty of RAM free both on graphic cards and motherboard. The CPU is a different story, it's a constant 100% load on both cores.

By the way. The game used to crash after around 15-20 minutes. It took me a while but I found a solution. I downclocked my GPU by about 5% and now the game runs stable for hours. It's very wierd. I was monitoring my GPU's temperature and it never reached 40 degrees so there was no way it was overheating.

Jonny7

Marcin B wrote: »

This game is definitely CPU heavy. I'm running:

E6600 Dual Core @ stock 2.4 GHz
6 GB RAM @800 MHz (dual)
GTX 560

When playing at medium settings on large conquest maps I'm getting 25-30 fps. Even though the graphic card has plenty of stuff to calculate the average GPU load is less than 60%. There's also plenty of RAM free both on graphic cards and motherboard. The CPU is a different story, it's a constant 100% load on both cores.

By the way. The game used to crash after around 15-20 minutes. It took me a while but I found a solution. I downclocked my GPU by about 5% and now the game runs stable for hours. It's very wierd. I was monitoring my GPU's temperature and it never reached 40 degrees so there was no way it was overheating.

The game is CPU limited up to a point.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-13.html

However, whilst desirable, a quad core is not absolutely essential for this game. Fast dual cores (3+ ghz) in conjunction with decent graphics cards are giving decent framerates.

Dublin_Gunner

Marcin B wrote: »

This game is definitely CPU heavy. I'm running:

E6600 Dual Core @ stock 2.4 GHz
6 GB RAM @800 MHz (dual)
GTX 560

When playing at medium settings on large conquest maps I'm getting 25-30 fps. Even though the graphic card has plenty of stuff to calculate the average GPU load is less than 60%. There's also plenty of RAM free both on graphic cards and motherboard. The CPU is a different story, it's a constant 100% load on both cores.

By the way. The game used to crash after around 15-20 minutes. It took me a while but I found a solution. I downclocked my GPU by about 5% and now the game runs stable for hours. It's very wierd. I was monitoring my GPU's temperature and it never reached 40 degrees so there was no way it was overheating.

Its not CPU heavy, your CPU is just very slow (its just hitting the game minimum requirements) - it is a 5 year old dual core after all. Your GPU was obviously just unstable at the speeds you had it. BF2 used to be the very same, made your whole system very sensitive to slightly unstable overclocks. Even in other games it would be fine, but BF2 would make the PC have a crap haemorrhage.

Marcin B

I am well aware that my CPU is old but it served me well so far and I never had to overclock it. Actually, in all games (with advanced graphics) that I played in recent times the graphic card was running at 100% capacity while the CPU was rarely used at more than 80%. So I was very surprised when I noticed that Battlefield tries to squeeze as much as possible from my CPU while my graphic card was basically on holidays.

Well I guess it's time to overclock.