Low FPS No matter what I do.

[PissOffCupcake]

Well,
I've tried everything I can find on YouTube to help with the FPS on Far Cry 4.
Tried the Throttlestop yesterday, suggested from another thread here, followed the instructions to a tee, tried different settings, no change.
Turned off all the background stuff I can see, removed desktop photo, yadda yadda...

I've tried all levels of graphics Low to Ultra.
I do play Full Screen mode in highest resolution available on my Acer 27" screen.
(not 4K)

I get well under 30 FPS no matter what playing FC4.
It gets up to and over 200 FPS if it's changing scenes, etc, but when I play, it's crapola.

Didn't seem to have this issue so badly with FC5 and Yeti.
Maybe some one can tell me if my lil Acer Laptop is lacking...

Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition Gaming Laptop
6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz)
8 GB Memory
1 TB HDD
SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 250GB SATA III Internal SSD
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
4 GB GDDR5 15.6"
Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Acer K272HUL Black 27" WQHD 1ms HDMI DisplayPort Widescreen LED Backlight LCD

[Jin]

You could try optimizing it with geforce experience.

[-=SOF=-WID99]

960 M is not equal to a desktop GTX 960 vid card\ its in fact alot weaker , is clocked lower and has less shaders to conserve on power an HEAT the chip generates


steps to try

do not go with one in game preset

set your advanced vid settings to custom

far cry 4 can be vary demanding on your GPU due to the Nvidia game works features
do not use PCSS soft shadows they will kill your FPS as they are very taxing especially after the final patch 1.10.0

for AA try SMAA it has the least impact

same with your AO setting try SSBC

buy and invest in a decent laptop cooling pad to run under your laptop to keep every thing cool so no chance of themal throttle


for your laptop i'd try

resolution 1920 X 1080
vsync - off
Quality settings
motion blur off - .
Textures - Ultra
Shadows - High <--- (Nvidia PCSS Soft Shadows will kill your FPS )
Post FX -HIGH
Geometry - Very High
Vegetation- Ultra
Environment - High
Water - Ultra
Ambient Occusion setting is SSBC
Antialising settings is SMAA
God rays - off
Fur - off
Trees relief -on
in Advanced settings
Triple buffering - off
Vsync mode - Normal

in Nvidia control panel, i suggest these changes
Anisotropic Filtering = 16 X
Max Pre Rendered Frames = 1
Set Power Management Mode = Prefer maximum performance

also try installing razor cortex as it does seem to help with FarCry 4
try to install Razer Cortex game booster version 7.0 as it does seem to help with this game
http://www.filehorse.com/download-game-booster/old-versions/
*(note newer versions of cortex do not seen to work as well , at least for me so i stick with 7.0 )

and no your not gonna get a solid 60 FPS out of that vid chip ..a GTX 1060 is what ya need for that ...\ or a GTX 970 \980 desktop card

see http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/03/23/asus_strix_gtx_960_directcu_ii_oc_video_card_review/4#.VpPpwBUrIdU

and

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/07/far_cry_4_video_card_performance_review/1#.Vi_utfmrQdU

[-=SOF=-WID99]

oh and check that HDMI cable your running to your external screen make sure its a good quality HDMI 2.0 or better cable with a decent transfer rate

https://www.gamesradar.com/best-hdmi-cables-for-gaming/

and remember your laptop screen is on too .. so thats also taxing your laptop GPU by having to run 2 displays ..i kinda think your expecting too much from a 960 M laptop vid chip honestly

as yea FC 4 can be a very very demanding game

its acually more demanding then Far Cry 5

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/07/25/nvidia_gpu_generational_performance_part_1/6

[Gerhard]

Gtx 960m is not a good gpu for demanding games and you should try play the game in 1366x768p or maybe 1024x768p (to get over 60 frames (med/low settings)). 960m is to weak to play in 1080p and is a outdated gpu for any new or demanding games.

[Gerhard]

its acually more demanding then Far Cry 5 (From SOF).

No

[Jin]

Originally posted by -=SOF=-WID99:

its acually more demanding then Far Cry 5

Far cry 4 is not more demanding then far cry 5.

[upcoast]

Originally posted by Average fortnite player:

Originally posted by -=SOF=-WID99:

its acually more demanding then Far Cry 5

Far cry 4 is not more demanding then far cry 5.

Agree ^.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1600-far-cry-5-benchmarks/

FC5 GTX980 60min 70avg ^.

https://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page3.html

FC4 GTX980 84avg

And FC3 was maxed out on an R9 280x/HD7970GHZ.

So, yup FC5 is more demanding than FC4.

Ps, the real problem again is the laptop not being the best choice for gaming, lastly, OP I really hope you're not trying to play FC4 off that 960m on 1440p res talk about a disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2icVm14P0No

Skip to 9:37 pretty much clears up why the 960m is trash ^.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiNkDVVM1U

More FYI ^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXSZ0JZ8VM

FC4 2:10 ^, again too optimistic about the GTX960M.

[-=SOF=-WID99]

Originally posted by upcoast:

Originally posted by Average fortnite player:

Far cry 4 is not more demanding then far cry 5.

Agree ^.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1600-far-cry-5-benchmarks/

FC5 GTX980 60min 70avg ^.

https://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page3.html

FC4 GTX980 84avg

And FC3 was maxed out on an R9 280x/HD7970GHZ.

So, yup FC5 is more demanding than FC4.

Ps, the real problem again is the laptop not being the best choice for gaming, lastly, OP I really hope you're not trying to play FC4 off that 960m on 1440p res talk about a disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2icVm14P0No

Skip to 9:37 pretty much clears up why the 960m is trash ^.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiNkDVVM1U

More FYI ^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXSZ0JZ8VM

FC4 2:10 ^, again too optimistic about the GTX960M.

exept you forgot this lil tid bit

on techspot they used

i quote the page


The graphic settings were set to the 'ultra' preset with no changes made, which set ambient occlusion to SSBC (same as very high and high), anti-aliasing to SMAA (same as very high and high) while godrays were set to volumetric fog.

and so PCSS soft shadows .. yes FAR cry 4 can be more demanding due to the added Nvidia game works features

they also did not use Nvidia HBAO+ or MSAA

or Nvidia godrays it looks like

far cry 5 lacks these extra features that yea FAR CRY 4 HAS ..and will drag a GPU to lower FPS
and be a more demanding game when you have these enabled

oh and yea GEFORCE EXP if installed \ with your drivers may turn on all that stuff on
even if your VID CARD CHOKES WITH ALL THAT ON

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by upcoast:

OP I really hope you're not trying to play FC4 off that 960m on 1440p res talk about a disaster.

Just to add the 960m is not powerful enough to play almost any modern game at 1440p. Hell even the gtx970 which is nearly 4x faster is becoming close to not handing all games maxed at 1080p nevermind 1440.

(I say almost, there will be the odd game that plays at 1440, but honestly you are aiming far too high with that laptop).

Drop your resolution. 1440 is just too high.

[PissOffCupcake]

Really appreciate the knowledgeable input folks.

Two things (regardless of the YouTube reviews) I did do are these two things:
https://youtu.be/0T_IHdOnc3w
https://youtu.be/fd6oYUVrcvk
I don;t know which as I did them both before rebooting, but things appeared to be quicker, FPS better by a bit.

I do have Razer Cortex as well.

I''ll try the suggested settings. Though I know that an SSD hard drive doesn't affect FPS much I did swap out the 1TB mechanical for an SSD this weekend. It's much quicker at least to load the game.
I bought a cooling pad which seems to keep things about 15 degrees cooler per ThrottleStop.

That said, I have tried scads of different settings. Sometimes it actually holds to up to 30FPS during game play, but seems to get worse as the hours go by, I mean really bad, like 12FPS...

I have an average gold HDMI cable. I will definitely look into a new HDMI wire...

[PissOffCupcake]

Just talking to a co-worker. He asked about what monitor I have and the Hz.
According to the specs mines a 60Hz...
Evidently I need a 144Hz. Might be the issue?
Here's my monitor:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009849
Brand
Acer

Model
K272HUL

Cabinet Color
Black

Display

Screen Size
27"

LED Backlight
Yes

Widescreen
Yes

Recommended Resolution
2560 x 1440 (2K)

Refresh Rate
60 Hz

Viewing Angle
170° (H) / 160° (V)

Pixel Pitch
0.233mm

Display Colors
16.7 Million

Brightness
350 cd/m2

Contrast Ratio
ACM 100,000,000:1 (1000:1)

Response Time
4ms

Panel
TN

[Gerhard]

Originally posted by PissOffCupcake:

Really appreciate the knowledgeable input folks.

Two things (regardless of the YouTube reviews) I did do are these two things:
https://youtu.be/0T_IHdOnc3w
https://youtu.be/fd6oYUVrcvk
I don;t know which as I did them both before rebooting, but things appeared to be quicker, FPS better by a bit.

I do have Razer Cortex as well.

I''ll try the suggested settings. Though I know that an SSD hard drive doesn't affect FPS much I did swap out the 1TB mechanical for an SSD this weekend. It's much quicker at least to load the game.
I bought a cooling pad which seems to keep things about 15 degrees cooler per ThrottleStop.

That said, I have tried scads of different settings. Sometimes it actually holds to up to 30FPS during game play, but seems to get worse as the hours go by, I mean really bad, like 12FPS...

I have an average gold HDMI cable. I will definitely look into a new HDMI wire...

You can't play the the game in 1080p, 1440p or higher. Your 960m is to weak (like me and others have said in your thread), Razer Cortex and a cooling pad won't help you get higher fps/frames unless you reduce the resolution in your game and your pc settings.If you want fps//frames higher than 30 you need to play in 768p. You can find the performance/benchmark of your 960m on this site: https://www.notebookcheck.net/. You can maybe also find a test/benchmark of your pc here as they test most (gaming) laptops released.

[PissOffCupcake]

So, reduce the resolution to under 1080p....I suspected such.
Can I still play in Windowless fullscreen mode?

[Gerhard]

Originally posted by -=SOF=-WID99:

Originally posted by upcoast:

Agree ^.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1600-far-cry-5-benchmarks/

FC5 GTX980 60min 70avg ^.

https://www.techspot.com/review/917-far-cry-4-benchmarks/page3.html

FC4 GTX980 84avg

And FC3 was maxed out on an R9 280x/HD7970GHZ.

So, yup FC5 is more demanding than FC4.

Ps, the real problem again is the laptop not being the best choice for gaming, lastly, OP I really hope you're not trying to play FC4 off that 960m on 1440p res talk about a disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2icVm14P0No

Skip to 9:37 pretty much clears up why the 960m is trash ^.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiNkDVVM1U

More FYI ^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXSZ0JZ8VM

FC4 2:10 ^, again too optimistic about the GTX960M.

exept you forgot this lil tid bit

on techspot they used

i quote the page


The graphic settings were set to the 'ultra' preset with no changes made, which set ambient occlusion to SSBC (same as very high and high), anti-aliasing to SMAA (same as very high and high) while godrays were set to volumetric fog.

and so PCSS soft shadows .. yes FAR cry 4 can be more demanding due to the added Nvidia game works features

they also did not use Nvidia HBAO+ or MSAA

or Nvidia godrays it looks like

far cry 5 lacks these extra features that yea FAR CRY 4 HAS ..and will drag a GPU to lower FPS
and be a more demanding game when you have these enabled

oh and yea GEFORCE EXP if installed \ with your drivers may turn on all that stuff on
even if your VID CARD CHOKES WITH ALL THAT ON

It's not more demanding but you could make it more demanding, but what's the point?? These game work features are broken anyway and a benchmark of a game is based on game preset settings and the requirements Ubisoft have for the game. And you get more fps/frames (with gpu like Gtx 1080/1080ti) in FC4 compared to FC5 and you have higher requirements to play FC5.

[Gerhard]

Originally posted by PissOffCupcake:

So, reduce the resolution to under 1080p....I suspected such.
Can I still play in Windowless fullscreen mode?

I have always played the game in fullscreen mode (gaming laptop/desktop) and it works great.