FPS drops with Low CPU and GPU usage

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

Hey guys so i got a RTX 3070 and i7-11700k with 16gb 3600Mhz RAM, i run the game at solid 60 90% of the time, barely any stutter except some areas.

The problem comes when fighting certain enemies and bosses, for example:

-Astel drops my fps with lots of his attacks to low 50s.

-mohg drops my fps during his big attack to 40s for the entire duration.

-any dragon drops my fps to 40s when doing flying breath attack.

-a lot of the frenzied enemies drop my fps when doing the eye beam attacks.

-some erdtree avatars drop my fps when doing the light bolt attack

etc.. etc...

The catch? ive monitored both my GPU and MY CPU ( all individual cores) and not a single time do they reach 100%, the closest has been my CPU wich has gotten to 91% on a single core, even on situations where i get drops ive seen my cpu not even reach 70% and my GPU not reach 50%.

Does your game drop fps without reaching 100% on either GPU and CPU aswell? or is it just me? Should also mention i have 0 programs running in the background except afterburner rivatunner and steam.

ive tried every single fix in the internet, from windows settings, to nvidia settings, to game settings, to limiting frametime, to disabling Anticheat, playing with and without OC, etc... still get the same drops on the same scenarios. i believe i should be able to run this game at 60fps 1080p with no drops.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

bump

[C1REX]

To be sure check if it works better at 1080p. If it does then it would suggest GPU as the cause (hardware or setting).
If it won’t help then the bottleneck is probably caused by something else.

[königplatzen]

I heard somewhere, that number of PCIe lanes could be a bottleneck. Do you have several m2 SSDs or other PCIe hardware?

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez königplatzen:

I heard somewhere, that number of PCIe lanes could be a bottleneck. Do you have several m2 SSDs or other PCIe hardware?

nope, have a single SSD m.2 nvme drive where i have both the game and OS installed

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez C1REX-PL:

To be sure check if it works better at 1080p. If it does then it would suggest GPU as the cause (hardware or setting).
If it won’t help then the bottleneck is probably caused by something else.

im already playing at 1080p as i state on the post, hardly think its the GPU, low usage, works perfecetly, performs well in every benchmark, hits 99% on benchmarks and other games, etc... It could be the CPU but i would be very surprised if a i7-11700k wasnt enough to play without drops at 60fps on the bosses. Hell even if i uncap the fps it doesnt go below 60 except in one scenario. But cant play with fps unlocked since it makes the game look super choppy.

[C1REX]

You can check all temps to see if nothing is working at reduced performance.
Does it work as bad at 720p?

Games with framecaps rarely use 100% of GPU unless you are constantly below that 60 fps.

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez C1REX-PL:

You can check all temps to see if nothing is working at reduced performance.
Does it work as bad at 720p?

Games with framecaps rarely use 100% of GPU unless you are constantly below that 60 fps.

temps are fine, GPU statys at 48-52ºC and rarely even hits 50% usage, CPU stays on the 50s aswell, at this points im just sure its bad optimization from the devs, this game runs on single core pretty much and even then doesnt make full use of it.

[C1REX]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ƇHIƬOBU ϟ:

Początkowo opublikowane przez C1REX-PL:

You can check all temps to see if nothing is working at reduced performance.
Does it work as bad at 720p?

Games with framecaps rarely use 100% of GPU unless you are constantly below that 60 fps.

temps are fine, GPU statys at 48-52ºC and rarely even hits 50% usage, CPU stays on the 50s aswell, at this points im just sure its bad optimization from the devs, this game runs on single core pretty much and even then doesnt make full use of it.

Doesn’t matter how badly optimised the game is - it should work fine at 1440p on your setup. Something is not right.
No game uses 100% of CPU. That is normal. Also no game with frame cap uses 100% of GPU. This is also normal.

[JellyPuff]

The situations you describe sound like a CPU limitation. As you've already guessed, it's single-thread bottlenecks, but this is usually due to the game's heavier particle effects. You can try lowering "Effects Quality". The 2 highest settings are especially demanding and even with that CPU, you'd see dips into the 40s at "Medium" with something, like a fully charged "Night Maiden's Mist" depending on where you cast it.

Edit: If that was the issue, you can bump the res up to 1440p. Puts that 3070 to work at least. Seeing both CPU and GPU not anywhere near fully utilized isn't all that surprising, because the game's locked at 60FPS.

[nfinite.recursion]

You state that you have 3600MHz RAM, but is it actually running at that speed?

3600MT/s is an XMP speed and requires it to be enabled in BIOS. If it was enabled before and BIOS was updated sometime later, it may have been reset to default which is disabled.

EDIT: What I'm getting at is this looks like a RAM bottleneck. Also, is your RAM running in dual channel?

It could also be a software settings issue. Set your Windows Power Plan to "High Performance". Set your GPU's Elden Ring profile to "Max Performance" and Shader Cache to "Unlimited". Disable all overlays.

Lastly, certain spell effects kill performance in this game. Poor optimization and at that:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900711700

The above screenshot is easily the worst case scenario in the game.

[C1REX]

No XMP is a common problem.

If you go to
CTRL + ALT + DEL -> Task Manager -> performance -> memory
What is your current RAM speed and slots used?

Without knowing this info we can assume that RAM may cause problems for you.

[DamZe]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ƇHIƬOBU ϟ:

Hey guys so i got a RTX 3070 and i7-11700k with 16gb 3600Mhz RAM, i run the game at solid 60 90% of the time, barely any stutter except some areas.

The problem comes when fighting certain enemies and bosses, for example:

-Astel drops my fps with lots of his attacks to low 50s.

-mohg drops my fps during his big attack to 40s for the entire duration.

-any dragon drops my fps to 40s when doing flying breath attack.

-a lot of the frenzied enemies drop my fps when doing the eye beam attacks.

-some erdtree avatars drop my fps when doing the light bolt attack

etc.. etc....

Those are all CPU-bottlenecked particle effects that drop FPS no matter the specs you have.

I have almost the same config as you, except an i5-12600K and see FPS drops when fighting dragons, certain enemies and bosses that use particle heavy effects.

Those particle effects are just badly optimized and FROM doesn't seem to know how to fix them.

[C1REX]

Początkowo opublikowane przez DamZe:

Those are all CPU-bottlenecked particle effects that drop FPS no matter the specs you have.

I have almost the same config as you, except an i5-12600K and see FPS drops when fighting dragons, certain enemies and bosses that use particle heavy effects.

Those particle effects are just badly optimized and FROM doesn't seem to know how to fix them.

Interesting. I have just 3950x what is a weaker gaming CPU. With all settings at high (not max) I don’t have any drops during boss fights. Boss fights seem to perform the best. It’s the open word where my GPU can struggle a bit occasionally.

[JellyPuff]

Początkowo opublikowane przez C1REX-PL:

Początkowo opublikowane przez DamZe:

Those are all CPU-bottlenecked particle effects that drop FPS no matter the specs you have.

I have almost the same config as you, except an i5-12600K and see FPS drops when fighting dragons, certain enemies and bosses that use particle heavy effects.

Those particle effects are just badly optimized and FROM doesn't seem to know how to fix them.

Interesting. I have just 3950x what is a weaker gaming CPU. With all settings at high (not max) I don’t have any drops during boss fights. Boss fights seem to perform the best. It’s the open word where my GPU can struggle a bit occasionally.

It's not bossfights in general, just many of the game's heavy particle effects. This will be more or less noticeable, depending if the bossfight even makes use of heavy particles, like most dragons, where in the world you fight those bosses (which has varying amounts of CPU load, especially in an open world game) and your "Effects Quality"-setting.
Personally, i ended up settling for medium effects quality, which i find to be the best compromise for my specs, only dipping in more busy scenes, like fighting multiple perfumers at ones (R5 5600, RTX 2070, 2x8GB 3200MT/s CL16 memory). Things like Miranda Flowers and dragons are mostly not an issue anymore.

Again, the most consistent way, to test for this CPU limit, is casting a fully charged Night Maiden's Mist, which should bring down even the beefiest CPU's at higher effects-quality settings. Give it a try.

[ƇHIƬOBU ϟ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez nfinite.recursion:

You state that you have 3600MHz RAM, but is it actually running at that speed?

3600MT/s is an XMP speed and requires it to be enabled in BIOS. If it was enabled before and BIOS was updated sometime later, it may have been reset to default which is disabled.

EDIT: What I'm getting at is this looks like a RAM bottleneck. Also, is your RAM running in dual channel?

It could also be a software settings issue. Set your Windows Power Plan to "High Performance". Set your GPU's Elden Ring profile to "Max Performance" and Shader Cache to "Unlimited". Disable all overlays.

Lastly, certain spell effects kill performance in this game. Poor optimization and at that:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2900711700

The above screenshot is easily the worst case scenario in the game.

Hey, sorry for the late reply, i had class, my ram is working as intended, both cpu-Z and task manager report 16gb and 1800Mhz DRAM wich x2 is 3600mhz , im using dual slot, also tried every fix on the internet, wich helped quite a bit, i prettt much never even get microstutters on the open world except some very specific areas that will always cause a microstuter.

I have come to the conclusion that heavy particle effects are simply very badly optimized wich combined with the fact that the game runs on single core since its multicore optimization is also trash causes bottleneck even with an i7-11700k.

Nevertheless thank you for your advice, cheers