CPU Bottleneck?

[william_burkan]

Windows 10
RTX 4060 8gb
i5 6600k OC to 4.2ghz
nvme 4tb m.2 ssd
Rebirth graphics - Low

I don't often game on PC but I picked this up and am having a few issues. When I first started the game I got a black screen and assumed it was crashing, but after about 15 minutes, it loaded no problem. It happened again later, and I realized that it was loading the whole time.

It happened again when I started from a save file and happens each time I fast-travel. When this happens, according to the task manager, my nvme ssd is running between 10%-40%, my gpu is around 50% (with 6ish out of 8gb of vram used) and my CPU is cranked to 100% the entire time. I OC'd my cpu from 3.5 to 4.2 and that didn't seems to make any (noticeable) difference in loading times.

I get it, I have an older, slower PC that is running a ten year old CPU, but I find it hard to believe that I can run the game fine on low settings and it is completely playable but it takes 15 minutes plus to load an area. Am I doing something wrong?

[RubyCante]

your CPU cannot read/process fast enough so your fast SSD is basically useless

[Admiral Bubbles]

You're doing nothing wrong, your CPU is just showing its age. It lacks a lot of newer CPU features that improve speed and access times, as well as being a non-hyperthreaded quad core. Performance wise it loses even to the Steam Deck's CPU in multi core testing.

On the bright side, go ahead and crank up those graphics settings because you won't see much FPS drop until you max out your GPU which is far newer.

[william_burkan]

The best CPU I could get without upgrading my motherboard is a 7700k. PassMark tells me that is a 30% better CPU (by whatever metrics they deem valuable). Would it be worth it to get a 7700k (eBay has 'em for 90ish) or will the loading times be basically the same?

[Admiral Bubbles]

You're probably better saving for an overhaul. A 7700k is an ageing powerhouse quadcore with hyperthreading to bring it up to 8 threads, but will suffer from the same problems, and given you're coming from a 6600k (And didn't list your system RAM) possibly have DDR3 RAM holding your system back.

[william_burkan]

I have 32 gigs of DDR4. I mostly play HorizonXI and aside from this specific game, I have no real need for a new computer so, if a 7700k will not decrease the load times much or at all, then I will just suffer through them for the one play-through. Eventually, I will of course rebuild something better, but I don't want to do that in a rush and especially not for one game.

[Pie Eater]

May be a combo of no Hyperthreading, low sped, IPC and Nvidia overhead culminating in a gut punch.

You can probably nab a cheap 13600K an Z790 Mobo, on bundle deal and still use your DDR4....although slow Memory can exacerbate stutters in newer games.

But look at it this way, getting a used 7700K and then havign to upgrade again...just spend a good cost to performant ratio and rock it for another couple generations.

[Shout Out To Ground Pound]

Originally posted by william_burkan:

The best CPU I could get without upgrading my motherboard is a 7700k. PassMark tells me that is a 30% better CPU (by whatever metrics they deem valuable). Would it be worth it to get a 7700k (eBay has 'em for 90ish) or will the loading times be basically the same?

no even a intel 9000 series is showint its age already, i think you have to upgrade your CPU soon or less, but if you want it cheap then there is a good upgrade path the Ryzen 7600 or the 5700x3d but this version does not have any upgrade paths anymore.

Get your hands ona Ryzen 7700x and you wont be disapointed, of course this will cost you money but at the end you will have a GPU that will last for 5 - 8 years easy for your needs.

[Pie Eater]

Originally posted by Shout Out To Ground Pound:

Originally posted by william_burkan:

The best CPU I could get without upgrading my motherboard is a 7700k. PassMark tells me that is a 30% better CPU (by whatever metrics they deem valuable). Would it be worth it to get a 7700k (eBay has 'em for 90ish) or will the loading times be basically the same?

no even a intel 9000 series is showint its age already, i think you have to upgrade your CPU soon or less, but if you want it cheap then there is a good upgrade path the Ryzen 7600 or the 5700x3d but this version does not have any upgrade paths anymore.

Get your hands ona Ryzen 7700x and you wont be disapointed, of course this will cost you money but at the end you will have a GPU that will last for 5 - 8 years easy for your needs.

He would have to get new memory to go Zen 4+...and Ryzen is limited to dogwater speeds and latency on DDR5. 5700X3D pricing can be pretty steep, and when X3D cache is not useful, the chip is slow. OP clearly wants to min max his dollar.

[Shout Out To Ground Pound]

Originally posted by Pie Eater:

Originally posted by Shout Out To Ground Pound:

no even a intel 9000 series is showint its age already, i think you have to upgrade your CPU soon or less, but if you want it cheap then there is a good upgrade path the Ryzen 7600 or the 5700x3d but this version does not have any upgrade paths anymore.

Get your hands ona Ryzen 7700x and you wont be disapointed, of course this will cost you money but at the end you will have a GPU that will last for 5 - 8 years easy for your needs.

He would have to get new memory to go Zen 4+...and Ryzen is limited to dogwater speeds and latency on DDR5. 5700X3D pricing can be pretty steep, and when X3D cache is not useful, the chip is slow. OP clearly wants to min max his dollar.

the problem is he maybe will need new DDR4 ram if he get a 5700x3d,
But if he can get a Ryzen 5600x with a Motherboard plus ram then he get a good upgrade for sure. for around 300 - 400$ he can get a 5600x / 32gb DDR5 and a B550 motherboard upgrade kit. this will give him the option to put later on a Ryzen 5800x3d on it and even without he will have a very good upgrade even with the Rx6600 he will be able to play new games again.

[william_burkan]

Thank you all for the advice. Like anyone, I do want to minimize money spent but also, in this situation, I just don't want to upgrade my entire PC to play one game. If there is a path to even slightly reduced load times via the 7700k, I am willing to spend the $80ish dollars on eBay, especially considering that swapping a CPU is much less time and effort then an entire rebuild.

It is important to restate, the game runs fine and is completely playable, it just has annoying loading times. If the only way to make this game run better is to replace more than two core components of the computer, I will just suffer through it.

The primary goal of this post was to make sure that it was in fact the CPU being a bottleneck and not a random setting that was causing such long loading times. It seems that this is, in fact, the case and I am just kind of stuck for the time being.

[Krako13]

Same here with a i5 7600 (3080 / 32 gb ram / ssd)... maybe a patch to solve this ?

[william_burkan]

Update: I am seeing now that when the game is loading a save, cut-scene, or new area, it still takes 10-15 minutes, but while the cpu is maxed at 100% the entire time, the C drive is doing nothing. Like 0-2% average write speeds. If I move a 22gb file onto that drive, it takes all of four seconds, so it seems like the cpu can handle the throughput. Not sure what is going on here but the more I observe, the more it seems like a game issue and not a "my pc is old" issue.

[시구레 우이]

Originally posted by william_burkan:

Update: I am seeing now that when the game is loading a save, cut-scene, or new area, it still takes 10-15 minutes, but while the cpu is maxed at 100% the entire time, the C drive is doing nothing. Like 0-2% average write speeds. If I move a 22gb file onto that drive, it takes all of four seconds, so it seems like the cpu can handle the throughput. Not sure what is going on here but the more I observe, the more it seems like a game issue and not a "my pc is old" issue.

@william_burkan

Hi. I'm having exactly the same issue and my system configuration is similar to yours. It takes about 4 minutes for me from "continue game" to the actual game loading. This is when I have an SSD (500mb/s spec pci2.0 x1), and when I moved it to an HDD and tested it, it takes about 8 to 9 minutes (200m/s). One thing I'm curious about is that my computer system is worse than yours, but you take much longer than me (15 minutes??). Q1. Did you install the game on an SSD? Q2. What is the actual operating speed of an SSD? My PC specifications are as follows.


i5 6600 No O.C
ddr4 16gb ram
ssd 1tb(low speed pci 2.0 x1 480mb/s)
rtx 2060 6gb vram

loading time 4m30s
gpu use 70~80%
cpu 100% all time(until loading end)

[시구레 우이]

I found a partial solution! It is to update the OS to Windows 11 Pro to use Direct Storage. The system requires an i5 6600 pci 3.0 or higher mvne ssd and a graphics card that supports Windows 11 Direct 12 Ultimate or higher (in my case, 2060). Windows only supports Direct 12 in the Pro version, so prepare the Pro version. Since the i5 6600 is not officially supported in Windows 11, a workaround is required. Search for this and run it. In my case, there were no critical problems even after installing the workaround. Even after taking all these measures, the loading time still does not decrease to less than 5 seconds due to the low performance of the i5 6600. However, the loading time can be reduced to about 10 to 30 seconds. (About 30 seconds to 1 minute when loading the first large save file, and about 10 seconds for loading the same location, moving to a short map, or returning to the battle right before.) This is a good way to reduce the loading time to a playable level without having to get a new system.

Summary: Update to Windows 11 Pro and make sure DirectStorage is enabled.

[MEHMET]

Originally posted by 이렇게귀여운우이를:

I found a partial solution! It is to update the OS to Windows 11 Pro to use Direct Storage. The system requires an i5 6600 pci 3.0 or higher mvne ssd and a graphics card that supports Windows 11 Direct 12 Ultimate or higher (in my case, 2060). Windows only supports Direct 12 in the Pro version, so prepare the Pro version. Since the i5 6600 is not officially supported in Windows 11, a workaround is required. Search for this and run it. In my case, there were no critical problems even after installing the workaround. Even after taking all these measures, the loading time still does not decrease to less than 5 seconds due to the low performance of the i5 6600. However, the loading time can be reduced to about 10 to 30 seconds. (About 30 seconds to 1 minute when loading the first large save file, and about 10 seconds for loading the same location, moving to a short map, or returning to the battle right before.) This is a good way to reduce the loading time to a playable level without having to get a new system.

Summary: Update to Windows 11 Pro and make sure DirectStorage is enabled.

Ah yes windows only supports DirectX12 and Direct I/O in the pro version. Are you daft? That is not the case.