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Why Is My FPS Choppy?


mclmrtn

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Not sure what my actual FPS is, but as I watch NB's vids I notice his game play is smooth and features appear to be all on higher settings, I actually have to lower mine to low, with high textures, and I turn shadows off completely as well as Anisotropic down to 2x. I'm running at 1920 X 1080 rseolution.

I have a Q9550 Core 2 Quad 2.833 GHz

2 GB Radeon 5970 GPU from XFX (dual processor on one card)

6 GB Ram

Running Win 7 64 bit

nVidia nForce 650i SLI SPP Motherboard

My performance index is 5.9 currently, due to my hard drive

Processor Benchmark : 7.3 on 7.9

Memory Global Benchmark : 7.3 on 7.9

Graphic Performance : 7.6 on 7.9

Gaming Performance : 7.6 on 7.9

Hard Disk Benchmark : 5.9 on 7.9

I've got the newest drivers from AMD for the GPU.

It seems like I should be able to run higher settings and get better fps. I dunno.

Edited by mclmrtn
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Break if you read carefully it says 'Core 2 Quad'. Core 2 is just the series of CPU, it is indeed a quad core, although, it's an outdated architecture by now. The video card shouldn't be the problem. mclmrtn, I would advise that you download FRAPS, run it while you play the game, and give us an idea of the average FPS you get. You might be surprised as to how low or high of an FPS you get. Sometimes the game play can be deceiving. But the bottom line is GTA IV plays like crap. It was a really terrible console port, and Rockstar Games should be absolutely ashamed for doing it the way they did. If I had to take a guess, I'd say CPU. 2.8 Quad isn't bad, but I'm running at 3.2ghz right now, and the newer Sandy Bridge Core i7's run a bit higher than that and have a better design, no longer have front side bus time delay and more overall cache memory. As far as graphical settings, if there's any FSAA of FSAF (anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering) settings, turn them off completely to test it, and set textures to middle-high, not necessarily the max. The developers of this port say that even medium settings are better than what the XBOX 360 or PS3 versions give you, and that the high settings were reserved for future hardware that didn't exist at the time of development. You can view how much of your graphical memory is being used in the graphical settings menu, give yourself some elbow room.

Last but not least, run the in-game benchmark test. It tells you what your average frame rate is, and you can adjust your settings further based on that. My system is newer than yours and I still don't have everything cranked. I'm running:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2ghz CPU

ASUS M4A79T Deluxe Motherboard

6GB DDR 3 OCZ Reaper Memory

nvidia GeForce GTX 570 Graphics

2TB ( 2x1 TB ) RAID 0 HDD.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

Also pay no attention to the Windows Experience Index. It's rated off of all available hardware in existence. So your hard drive is going to be a crappy rating due to solid state hard drives existing, and it does not take RAID setups into account, despite the fact that RAID increases transfer speed by striping data off of both drives at once making a technical combined 14400 RPM instead of the 7200 RPM of a single drive. CPUs and graphics cards are the same. My computer is far better than anything you can get at Best Buy, Sears or any sort of local computer shop you may have, but there are always people who have $6,000 USD to spend who get a few solid states and RAID them, get 2-4 580's or 590s and SLI them and get 12GB of memory and a Skulltrail CPU setup just because they can. I spent about $1200-1400 on mine and it does everything I need it to do very admirably.

Edited by unr3al

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  • Management Team

It's GTA IV, to be honest, what do you expect?

It's a bad port and you'll find it hard to get over 30fps, even on the best hardware.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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Thanks for the great response unr3al, exactly what I was looking for. I did the benchmark test, here are the results.

Statistics

Average FPS: 40.15

Duration: 37.78 sec

CPU Usage: 78%

System memory usage: 54%

Video memory usage: 34%

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (59 Hz)

Texture Quality: High

Shadow Quality: Off

Reflection Resolution: Low

Water Quality: Low

Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x2

Night Shadows: Off

View Distance: 35

Detail Distance: 35

Hardware

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series

Video Driver version: 8.17.10.1083

Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)

Intel® Core2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz

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  • Management Team

Thanks for the great response unr3al, exactly what I was looking for. I did the benchmark test, here are the results.

Statistics

Average FPS: 40.15

Duration: 37.78 sec

CPU Usage: 78%

System memory usage: 54%

Video memory usage: 34%

Graphics Settings

Video Mode: 1920 x 1080 (59 Hz)

Texture Quality: High

Shadow Quality: Off

Reflection Resolution: Low

Water Quality: Low

Texture Filter Quality: Anisotropic x2

Night Shadows: Off

View Distance: 35

Detail Distance: 35

Hardware

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series

Video Driver version: 8.17.10.1083

Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)

Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz

Not bad. What's wrong with 40fps?

I encountered problems where my frame rate would be high at points then would slow down for seemingly no reason.

Upon investigation I found that that my CPU was overheating, and it was being thermal throttled when it got to a certain temperature.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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Not bad. What's wrong with 40fps?

I encountered problems where my frame rate would be high at points then would slow down for seemingly no reason.

Upon investigation I found that that my CPU was overheating, and it was being thermal throttled when it got to a certain temperature.

I dunno, I guess maybe I'm just spoiled? I'm used to high FPS with settings maxed on almost every game I play. I guess GTA IV IS just a crappy port lol. I have CPU Throttling deactivated, it's running at a constant 2.83 ghz, and has never overheated.

I also own GTA IV on PS3, and to be honest the only reason I bought it for PC was for LCPDFR, which by the way is excellent. I guess I'll have to put up with Rockstar's laziness to appreciate G17's genius.

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That's more or less all you can do man. Pray they do a better job with the PC version of GTA V. They read all the angry letters so I think they get the hint. Rockstar is usually a really good studio. I'm trying to get more friends to get the game for LCPD:FR and I can possibly start an LCPD clan. I don't think I'd make it as hardcore RP, but I'd like to "call chases" by saying out street names "Going Northbound on Holland Ave." etc. and having a backup officer with you would be nice, and better than NPC's big time. I don't know if I want to make people stay on certain islands though or have really set guidelines.

Edited by unr3al

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Me overclocking my nVIDIA GeForce 9500GT got me 10 extra FPS. :)

Yes because a 9500GT is a scaled down version of the 9600GT. Graphics card companies start with their biggest, most elaborate card as a design. Then when they push that one out the door, they create lesser versions by basically stripping features. Less memory, fewer shader cores (due to 9600's that didn't pass spec or otherwise), lower the clock speed on purpose, etc.

For example, an AMD 6970 and a 6950 are physically the same card. They just have different firmware. You can flash a 6950 to be a 6970 if you have time and some tech knowledge.

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Sorry for a bit of a bump on this one, but despite what others have said in this thread, I am going to put the blame on the CPU. A C2Q running at under 3ghz is not fast enough to keep up with a 5970. Think of it as two men rowing a boat, one 8 feet tall and jacked and the other 88 years old (okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration :P.) Obviously, they aren't going anywhere fast. If you're desperate to improve your performance, ditch the CPU and mobo and grab a i7 or a Bulldozer chip (when they come out)

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Dear unr3al-

Do you work with computers as a living, or wish to in the future? You seem to know your stuff.

Sincerely,

Concerned citizen

;) Nice posts dude, very helpful.

Sorry for the late reply. Yes I build my own desktops and I sell electronics for a living (so far).

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Twitter: @unr3alofficial

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