Low FPS no matter the settings in all the bigger games

[Mianora]

Hi there.

I have tried to find help via web search and trying out by myself. But i just don't know what my problem is and to be honest, i am technically limited at some point. I have one thing in mind, but more on that later.

So my problem is, that (mostly) no matter how i set up my games i always end up having low frame rates and by low i mean lower than stable 60+ fps. I'm not talking about indie games or not very demanding games, such as Dota 2, Ori and the blind forest or Overwatch.

But pretty much every big game i have played in recent times, i had to tinker around, lower a bunch of settings to the extend of me ending up accepting the problem and still trying to play the game somehow. But i have to say i lose the joy if i am constantly annoyed but stutter and low fps.

The games include (but are not limited to):

• AC Origins
  
• Watch Dogs 2
  
• Destiny 2
  
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
  
• Fallout 4
  
• Final Fantasy 15
  
• GTA V
  
• Ghost Recon Wildlands
  
• World of Warcraft (at times)
  
• Hearthstone stutters like crap

I played Middle earth: Shadow of war before. That ran wonderful. Of course these was fluctuation but at constantly above 100 fps, i did not notice much. So of course things can also be cause of optimization.

I could pretty much set everything down to low and would basically have the same results as higher settings, which obviously is very strange. One of the biggest contenders was Final Fantasy 15. I literally stopped playing cause even with the lowest settings i can not get above 60 fps.

Keep in mind i am talking about 1080p resolution here, cause higher frame rates are more important to me than more pixels. But i am very disappointed, when i read, that other people play the same game at 1440p or eve 4k and get get 60 fps and i can not even run that with 1080p. Just bizarre.

Here my specs for context:

• Windows 10
  
• GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1080
  
• CPU: i7 4770k (Overclocked to 4 GHz)
  
• Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming
  
• RAM: 24 GB (2x8 GB and 2x4 GB) of DDR3 Vengeance LP 8GB 1600-999
  
• PSU: Corsair CS750M 750W ATX24
  
• Case: Fractal D. Define R4 Black ATX with 2 frontal Noctua fans & 1 exhaust fan in the back
  
• Monitor: An old Acer P223w (but i don't think a monitor can be at fault here?)
  
• My Launchers and Programs are on an Samsung SSD EVO 840 250 GB and my games are on 2 different WD black 1 and 4 TB each

I don' think i ever had very high temperatures.Right now as i write this i have AC Origins open and have 60°C on CPU and GPU. My GPU is used at 67% and i am standing in a cave where basically nothing is happening and i still only have 56-62 fps. That's just not right.

I am running the latest BIOS and am running the GPU Driver 391.01 (but the drivers never did seem to change much either)

So at the beginning i wrote that i have one suspicion. That would be the CPU. Can my CPU have a problem? Technically it should be more then enough for games. But i felt that at times the CPU showed some fatigue(?)

For example when i start Chrome, my CPU loads up 100% before going down again. The same thing happens when the Blizzard launcher is downloading updates. Also a lot of games that seem to have these problems are open world games. It's just something i have noticed, but i don't know if it's relevant.

I am helpful for any advice.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Do you use VGA cable or DVI to connect the monitor? Some sort of adapters between monitor cables, since you mentioned old monitor?

[FluffyPinkDecoyBunny]

From my experience, don't rely on any Assassin's Creed game to be a marking point of how well your system runs because they're usually frame limit capped or are not the best ported games.

I'd just start with the basics. If you haven't done this already, do a clean install of your GPU drivers. Use DDU to uninstall the drivers and then install the latest ones from the nvidia website for your OS/GPU.

Windows 10 has the ability to muck up things when they push out the big version updates.

For example, the Fall Creators update - completely obliterated my Windows 10 plex server. The update broke Windows 10 so bad that I couldn't even boot into Safe Mode or run a repair. I had to do a clean install.

The lastest update (1803) that was recently pushed out caused issues on my mom's laptop. I had to re-install the video driver and audio driver to get it working properly again.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

You should really get a modern monitor, 1680x1050 is a terrible waste of GTX 1080.

Could also try to take out your two 4 GB RAM sticks and try with only 2x8 GB, could be some RAM conflict there.

[Entropy]

Changing to a modern monitor whilst suffering from stuttering and poor frame rates is a fantastic idea.... OP the first thing I'd do is turn off or turn down any kind of demanding anti-aliasing settings and see where you are with that.

[FluffyPinkDecoyBunny]

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

You should really get a modern monitor, 1680x1050 is a terrible waste of GTX 1080.

Could also try to take out your two 4 GB RAM sticks and try with only 2x8 GB, could be some RAM conflict there.

I didn't check the monitor model to see what the resolution was (figured it was 1080p), but if the OP really is playing on 1680x1050, the GPU is not taking the workload like it should be. The GTX 1080 is more ideal for someone gaming on a 1440p resolution. Sure, you can have it for 1080p, but if you're not using a high refresh rate monitor (144Hz) then it's kind of wasted on a standard 60Hz screen.

Most of the gaming load is currently being shifted to the CPU due to the low resolution, which is why the GPU usage is low. The GPU is being under utilized.

[Monk]

Have you checked that you didn't accidentally plugged the. Onitor into the motherboard and not the GPU, as it sounds like you are using g onboard and not dedicated graphics.

[SenMithrarin85]

most of those games have cpu optimisation issues. ac origins especially. watch dogs 2 is very poorly optimised (yes, ubi again). rottr's engine has huge cpu bottlenecks in places. ff15 is rediculously demanding and poorly ported (though still good by ♥♥♥ standards)

[upcoast]

Originally posted by FluffyPinkDecoyBunny:

Originally posted by Rumpelcrutchskin:

You should really get a modern monitor, 1680x1050 is a terrible waste of GTX 1080.

Could also try to take out your two 4 GB RAM sticks and try with only 2x8 GB, could be some RAM conflict there.

I didn't check the monitor model to see what the resolution was (figured it was 1080p), but if the OP really is playing on 1680x1050, the GPU is not taking the workload like it should be. The GTX 1080 is more ideal for someone gaming on a 1440p resolution. Sure, you can have it for 1080p, but if you're not using a high refresh rate monitor (144Hz) then it's kind of wasted on a standard 60Hz screen.

Most of the gaming load is currently being shifted to the CPU due to the low resolution, which is why the GPU usage is low. The GPU is being under utilized.

It shouldn't be stuttering though.

Ghost Recon Wildlands, GTA V and Fallout 4 all run smooth on my meager FX8350 GTX1070.


Try swapping the monitor to a 1920x1080 but it's not a huge diff from a 1680x1050 I wouldn't get your hopes up on that one.


If you're desperate and you've exhausted all avenues including running everything at stock clocks you might think about a RESET.

[Mianora]

First of all, let me thank you all for responding. It's very nice of people like you who hang out in forums and help others in need. =)

I am going to answer in chronological order:

• It's connected via DVI
  
  
• Yes optimization is always a question mark. But since i had this in general and not in limited cases, i was wondering about a overarching problem. Like some of you wrote. I always buy GPUs that seem "overkill" for the use i am having. But that's because i like to run my games at the highest possible settings at high framerates instead of pushing resolution but making a compromise there.
  
  
• My Windows only gets updated when some time has passed and i see that the versions are more stable then. So i don't update right away. But Windows updates have not really an impact till now.
  
  
• I Had clean installed my GPU Drivers before. But just this second i did it again with DDU as you proposed.
  
  
• I don't know about removing the 2 smaller RAM slots. But i can try.
  
  
• It's interesting to hear, that you guys say the monitor could be a factor. Everything i had ever heard about outputs was, that the GPU does not care where the signal goes to and that a monitor has no impact in performance (not the perceived smoothness of course).
  
  
• As a generel comment to the monitor: Up untill now i was waiting for a good (not overpriced) G-Sync monitor with 120-144 Hz or at least 1440p/100Hz to upgrade. But the prices on those things were so far very very high. And therefore the monitor was low on the priority list.
  
  
• And yes i am plugged to the GPU and not to the motherboard by mistake ;)
  
  
• I mean yes i can always do a reset. But that would be my last resort. Cause i had done that a year ago with not much change and of course every reset is coupled with work to get everything running to your taste again ;)