FPS has dropped to half and don't know why....PLEASE HELP!!

[scruffyotter]

can someone help me with this??

I'm really bothered that I'm not getting my benchmark score of 8301, compared to what I just got 5225

thanks!!!!!

[scruffyotter]

ok i can see what my mobo is:
Alienware model
chipset: Intel
Intel i5 750 @ 2.67 ghz
W7 service pack 1
6gb RAm
ATI 7870 2Gb

does this help to narrow down the problem??

thanks

[RaineMagus]

is it possible some software is bottlenecking the GPU and causing me to NOT get my full 2gb as I was when I first installed the video card??

Programs running on the machine in the background indeed can use up video-memory, however the impact of anything other than a game is usually pretty trivial.

[Tools such as Sysinternals "Process Explorer" can display per process GPU usage and video memory usage]
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896653.aspx

-View > Select Columns
-Process GPU
-Check "GPU Dedicated Bytes" and "GPU Usage"

NOTE: dwm.exe is probably your biggest memory consumer other than the game. dwm is the Windows Desktop Window Manager / an OS component.


--1.5GB of video memory (aka, Geforce 580) is good enough for FFXIV:ARR in even 2560x1600 / 1600p, in all areas of the game. The highest that I've ever seen the game use is 1.2GB of vram with NVidia's drivers, so I think you're safe here unless you're trying to run multiple games at the same time or ludicrously high resolutions (such as a span across multiple 30" monitors).

I'd concern yourself more towards the speed of your bus or something power management related. If you want to check your used video memory though (for the sake of curiosity), GPU-Z can display this under the 'Sensors' tab ("Memory Used").

** Please note that alt-tabbing out of the game in "fullscreen mode" will cause incorrect results here [by forcing D3D device loss and resource unloading]. **


As long as your used memory is under the 2048MB limit of your Radeon, you're fine. A few hundred MB being used by desktop composition in Windows (before entering the game) is also perfectly normal. Unless video memory is saturated, there's almost no negative performance impact of using more.

ok I tried both CPUZ and GPUZ but I'm not technical enough to understand what I'm looking at.

-In GPU-Z, look under the "Graphics Card" tab (the default on opening the application).
-A bit less than half way down the page, next to ROPs/TMUs, there's a section that reads "Bus Interface" on the right side of the dialog.
-Click on the "?" icon next to Bus Interface, a second panel will pop open (docked to the right of the initial).. Click "Start Render Test" in this new dialog.
-An OpenGL rendering 'test' will start, causing high load on your videocard. The displayed bus interface "should" increase.

For example, my system reads here "PCI-E 3.0 x16 @ x16 3.0"

**As you have an older chipset, your system will likely display "PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x16 2.0" or "PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x8 2.0". If it's either of these, your bus is of suitable speed that it'd probably not cause you performance issues ingame.

If on the otherhand it reads.

"PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x2 1.1", "PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x2 2.0", "PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x3 2.0", "PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x4 2.0", etc.

>> Eg, anything under x8 2.0 and you have a MAJOR problem / your card would be severely bus choked in certain areas of the game.



EDIT: To be more specific rather than just telling you to look for the above numbers. With the age of your machine, its chipset should be PCI-E 2.0 capable. The 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, is the version of the PCI-E spec used. The x" number following is the number of lanes used.. The more lanes used, the greater the bandwidth available (more wires for the bus connection).

x8 is pretty much 1/2 the speed of x16, x4 a half the speed of x8, and so on. Internally in wiring, alot of motherboards divide up the physical slots into 'pairs', where use of an adjacent slot will cause sharing lanes between the two. Anyway, you should never get less than PCI-E "x8" for a videocard unless it's plugged into the wrong slot "or" your chipset drivers aren't functioning properly.

The top-most slots on your motherboard (physically towards the topmost of the case and closest to the CPU) are usually your fastest slots intended for videocards. Sometimes motherboards will have x4 slots that accept full cards, yet these are almost always the lower slots.


The performance difference between x8 and x16 in FFXIV is minimal, however by x4 and under, you'll hurt quite a bit.. (*Especially in the waking sands and the first boss in WP*)

scruffyotter

ok i can see what my mobo is:
Alienware model
chipset: Intel
Intel i5 750 @ 2.67 ghz
W7 service pack 1
6gb RAm
ATI 7870 2Gb

does this help to narrow down the problem??

You have an Intel Chipset board. That means the driver installer that I linked earlier in this thread is appropriate for your machine. Have you used that installer and the "-overall" cmdline argument?

the only thing that increased my benchmark score a bit was uninstalling and reinstalling the video driver. (which came out to 5200 something), but I want my 8301 score back!!

When you uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, are you sure that the version reinstalled was the exact same version that was removed?

are there any other methods to try and figure out what's causing this??

I can think of a few more things to try, but honestly a fresh Windows install should be running fantastic with that hardware, and with just the latest drivers installed. (no need for tinkering)


I'd still suspect the cause isn't something that's been done to the machine / put on it, yet rather that something is 'missing' that was installed before. With most machines that I look at for friends with similar complaints, the usual cause is missing / improper chipset drivers (hence why I'm pushing this so much).

[scruffyotter]

thanks for all your help Rainemagus, but I still can't get my 8301 benchmark score back.
I tried unintsalling and reinstalling the video driver again and got a 5400 something score.

I think you might be right that there is something "missing" that was there before the pc crashed and had to reinstall W7.
I've double checked Windows Update and there's nothing there.
ALL drivers for everything are up to date.

I used that Intel chipset driver you linked.

the GPUZ thing reads: PCI-E 3.0x16@16x1.1.....is that a normal number? or does that show the problem (I did the render test and it moved to 16x2.0)

Also my PCI-E is 3.0, so does the second section of numbers mean anything?
I'm not about to reinstall W7 again....so I have to find some other solution..

let me know what you think of these numbers...

thanks

[scruffyotter]

also I had to run Dxdiag, and it says my memory is 4096 RAM...but I have 6gb ram...is there a mistake?
page file 2667mb used, 5505mb available.

Default system BIOS too.

does any of this information help?

thanks

[scruffyotter]

also there's one more thing I noticed:
I was playing Metro Last Light before the crash and had it at max and it ran smoothly.

NOW I had to reinstall it and I'm getting slower FPS and blinking shadows.

do you think this is related?
I'm guessing it's a possible software issue somewhere...I might be missing something..

I reallllly don't want to have to do another install of W7....

[scruffyotter]

holy crap...I just checked through Control panel my RAM..it says I have 4gb and not 6gb!!
I think that's the problem.

I'm going to uninstall the ram and reinstall it and see what happens/.//

[ReplicaX]

holy crap...I just checked through Control panel my RAM..it says I have 4gb and not 6gb!!
I think that's the problem.

I'm going to uninstall the ram and reinstall it and see what happens/.//

Don't bother if its Windows 7 32-bit. Max RAM for it is 4GB regardless of what you have installed.

8GB for Windows 7 64-bit Home Basic
16GB for Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium
192GB for Windows 7 64-bit Professional or Higher

[scruffyotter]

Don't bother if its Windows 7 32-bit. Max RAM for it is 4GB regardless of what you have installed.

8GB for Windows 7 64-bit Home Basic
16GB for Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium
192GB for Windows 7 64-bit Professional or Higher

well I reinstalled the RAM in the right place and got my 6gb back...but running the benchmark gave me 5423 instead of the 8301 I originally had.
Also i have W7 64, but how do I check if I am running in 64 or 32 bit mode? is there a way to change it?

SO..fixed my RAM problem but I'm not getting my high score again.


I just checked dxdiag and it says W7 64 bit Home Premiuim
and my display memory size says 4095....does that mean it's registering my 2gb card or not?

it says current display mode 1920x1080 (32 bit)


?????
help!

[ReplicaX]

well I reinstalled the RAM in the right place and got my 6gb back...but running the benchmark gave me 5423 instead of the 8301 I originally had.
Also i have W7 64, but how do I check if I am running in 64 or 32 bit mode? is there a way to change it?

SO..fixed my RAM problem but I'm not getting my high score again.


I just checked dxdiag and it says W7 64 bit Home Premiuim
and my display memory size says 4095....does that mean it's registering my 2gb card or not?

it says current display mode 1920x1080 (32 bit)

If you have Win7 64 bit then it was a RAM issue you fixed by reseating them. There is no switching modes. Win7 64bit will run 32bit programs (x86 architecture) and 64bit.

4096 dxdiag memory is a common dxdiag error and not your card. Use GPU-Z to check your VRAM it will be accurate.

1920x1080 (32 bit) = Resolution X by Y (32-bit = the color depth) 32-bit in simple terms means 24-bit (true color) supporting 16,777,216 colors with 8-bits for the alpha channel (Transparency). 24+8 = 32

Example, the Nintendo Entertainment System was only 8-bit, so it only supported a 256 color palette.

As far as why you are not getting your original score, RaineMagus gave a good general guide. If you feel you lack the experience. I suggest asking a local more tech oriented friend to help guide you first hand.